Under a Sky Full of Stars

One afternoon in June, I was helping Oliver with his maths in the study when Isabella walked in, holding a pearl necklace, her face pale.

“My mother’s necklace is missing,” she said. “I left it in my dressing table drawer this morning, and now it’s gone.”

Just then Richard, back from the barracks, stood at the door and heard everything.

“Who went into your room this morning?” he asked.

“Only Eleanor,” Isabella answered. “She said she came in for bed linens.”

“I did go in for bed linens,” I said. “But I never touched your dressing table.”

“Then why did the necklace disappear right when you were in the room?” Isabella shot back, her voice cracking.

Richard stepped forward, placing himself between Isabella and me.

“Give it back to her,” he said.

“I didn’t take it,” I answered.

“Eleanor,” he said sharply, “don’t make me search your room.”

“Then search it,” I said.

He raised his hand, and I didn’t react in time.

The slap landed across my cheek, sharp and stinging, and the whole room fell silent.

Oliver sat at his desk, eyes wide, too afraid to speak.

Isabella stood frozen, a hand over her mouth, but for a moment something close to satisfaction flickered in her eyes.

I touched my cheek, but I didn’t cry.

“In three days,” I said, my voice cold as ice, “you’ll find that necklace behind the wardrobe, because I never touched it.”

With that, I turned and walked out of the room.

The old housekeeper found me in the hallway and quietly pressed a cold cloth to my cheek.

“Don’t take it to heart,” she said. “Master Richard isn’t a bad man — he’s simply never learned to see who’s actually being honest with him.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But I don’t need him to see anything at all.”

Three days later, exactly as I’d said, a maid found the necklace caught in the folds of the window curtain.

But no one apologized to me.

Richard only stayed silent, avoiding my eyes for the rest of the week.

A few days later, I happened to catch sight of Lady Sterling standing at the top of the second-floor stairs, from where she could look straight down into the study.

She said nothing to me, only nodded slightly, her gaze lingering a moment on the faint red mark still on my cheek, before quietly turning away.

I didn’t know how long she’d been standing there, or how much she’d seen, but from that day on I sometimes caught her watching me from a distance — at dinner, in the garden — always silent, never saying a word.

That night, I made a decision: I would stop waiting for fairness from anyone in this house, and start building something of my own instead.

I started taking work every afternoon at a small mechanical repair shop near Victoria station, run by an old man named Wallace.

“Looking for cleaning work, are you?” he asked, when I first came in to ask for a job.

“No,” I answered, “I want to repair machines.”

He handed me a badly broken radio that three previous mechanics had already turned down.

Fifteen minutes later, I’d found the short, resoldered the joint, and the radio crackled to life with music.

“Where did you learn this?” he asked.

“Taught myself,” I answered.

From then on, Wallace began giving me harder work.

Once, an engineer brought in a broken control board that he himself couldn’t diagnose.

“Can this girl really fix it?” the customer asked, doubt plain in his voice.

“Let me try,” I said.

Half an hour later, I pinpointed the exact faulty chip, turning his doubt into respect.

No one at the estate knew I had a job.

At university, I wasn’t welcomed any more easily.

Professor Aldridge once stopped mid-lecture to ask the whole class, his gaze sweeping over me with open skepticism.

“How many young women in this class have ever wired an amplifier circuit themselves? I fear this field still isn’t for the fairer sex.”

A few of the men chuckled, but I raised my hand.

“I’ve wired more than thirty amplifier circuits, Professor. At a repair shop near Victoria station, where I work every afternoon.”

The class went quiet, and from the next lecture on, Aldridge began calling on me to solve the hardest problems at the board.

I never once let him down.

By the end of term, my name topped the practical exam results.

“You should enter this,” he said, handing me a flyer for a national engineering competition.

So, that October, I entered the National Electronics Engineering Competition, telling no one.

The brief called for designing an automatic control circuit for a safety alarm system.

I finished the entry over three straight nights, and three months later, I stood on a stage receiving a gold medal engraved with my name.

Wallace sat in the back row, clapping louder than anyone.

No one from the Sterling family came, because I hadn’t invited them.

I didn’t need their recognition.

For the first time in either life, I was standing here on my own merit.