“It’s hardly a surprise.” Lucy paused at the door. “But do think about what I said.”
He frowned, blank. “What did you say?”
“About finding a wife.”
“Oh, I doubt that will happen very soon. I’m far too busy for that.”
“Or are you perhaps afraid of courting rejection? Maybe after what happened in France which you refuse to tell me about?”
He took a second to gather his wits before dismissing this. “Nothing to do with that! I just haven’t thought too much about marrying, to be perfectly honest.” He glanced at the piles of papers and photographs upon the table and felt a sudden surge of desperation. “Not when there is so much work to do.”
“And too much work makes Johnny a dull boy. Which is why I doubt you’ll find a wife, either, Hamish, and that is a concern to me.” She retraced her footsteps to put her hand on his shoulder and give it one last sisterly squeeze. “For you are a kind and endearing chap when one gets to know and understand you but, alas, I think I will be the only woman who ever will.”
Chapter 9
Lily cast a final eye over Mrs Moore’s drawing room while she bottled up her feelings about what lay before her. Unlike Mr Bennet’s well-appointed drawing room, Mrs Moore’s salon was draped with black velvet hangings, the lamps turned down, giving it a sombre, eerie feeling.
Lily had been left alone for just a minute, which was long enough to feel almost overcome by fear and dread, for Mrs Moore and Mr Montpelier had been like spectres of doom as they’d instructed her on the role she must play.
During the last year of her marriage, before Robert had incarcerated her, she’d become vaguely aware of some of the words the two of them now bandied about. Theosophism, spiritualism, supernatural phenomenon.
Rusticating in the country as she had all her life, these were terms that had been used with scorn by the horse and hunting crowd who were Robert’s cronies.
Lily didn’t like what she must do, but it was better than many of the alternatives she could think of. So, a bit of pretence to cheer a few of Mrs Moore’s bereaved clients was hardly going to do harm, she reasoned.
“They’re here. The first carriage has just stopped by the front steps!” Mrs Moore dashed into the room, clutching her string of black beads, her feathered headdress waving. Her painted face looked comical in its alarm, and Lily wondered how likely these guests were to take her seriously. Especially as they’d been described as respectable, ‘normal’ members of society. “Get out, Lily! Go into the next room and down the stairs. Go, go! Then wait until you hear the sign that your presence is required. You know what to do!”
Mr Montpelier, who had followed in her wake in his usual unhurried fashion, raised an eyebrow. “You look just the part, my girl. Nicely done.” This last, however, was directed at Mrs Moore, Lily noticed as she quit the room, hearing the medium reply, “Such a strong resemblance, Mr Montpelier. The girl could be her living embodiment. Indeed, it is truly remarkable.”
Clutching her train over her arm, Lily slipped into the next room and then down a shallow flight of steps and along a short corridor until she was beneath the parlour.
Her gown was, as she’d remarked, two seasons old, so she’d been surprised at how much deliberation had gone into its choosing. That is, until she’d seen the photograph which Mr Montpelier and Mrs Moore had been poring over earlier that afternoon.
Enlightenment had suddenly descended, for the girl, who was about eighteen, she supposed, could have been her sister. If she’d had one.
There was not enough time to dwell on the ramifications of her resemblance to a girl in a photograph, though, as she nervously waited below the trapdoor that would open, the sign at which she would step dramatically into the room. She wasn’t quite sure what would happen then. Or what her reception would be.
But these were her instructions. And if she wanted food and shelter, she had no choice but to obey.
As for hope in the longer term? Lily really didn’t think she had the courage she needed to think that far, right now.
“Oh…oh…ohhhhh!”
She heard Mrs Moore’s grating cry, growing louder and echoing about the room to the accompaniment of tinkling percussion. Steadying herself, Lily picked her way carefully up the steps, pushing open the trapdoor, closing it carefully and quickly behind her, before emerging amidst a cloud of smoke and clanging, into the middle of the drawing room. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she saw that a gauze curtain separated her from several rows of chairs, upon which were seated five people.
The most prominent of these was a whiskered gentleman with a head of thick, snowy-white hair, wearing a dark suit and waistcoat, his gold fob watch twinkling in the lights that lent the room the air of a mystical fairyland.
“At last! At last she has come to us…We have summoned the spirit. Cassandra’s spirit! She is here at last,” Mrs Moore intoned.
Lily stood very still, observing the shock and alarm her sudden presence seemed to generate. She kept her look blank and staring, eyes trained into the distance, as she’d been instructed; silent until the sign to speak.
Haltingly, she repeated what she’d been told, as she stretched out her arms, “Papa…Papa, it is so good to see you again.” It was strange to utter such things, having never spoken like this to her own father whom she’d not seen since her marriage. “Papa, I have missed you so very much.” Then, in a forlorn voice, as instructed, “I’m sorry I went away.”
Before she’d even finished speaking, another burst of smoke and mist enveloped the room, obscuring her from sight as cymbals clanged and bells tinkled. Suddenly the two ladies on either side of the man whom Lily had heard referred to as Lord Lambton began to wail, and then to cry out as they stretched forward their arms, “Cassandra! Cassandra! Stay and talk to us!”
“I must go! I must go now. But…but I will return!” Lily swayed where she stood for a few seconds until the mist became all-encompassing. It stung her throat and eyes, and she struggled not to cough.
Just as she was about to step back down the steps and pull the trapdoor over her head, Lord Lambton got to his feet and also threw out his arms.
“Don’t leave me again, Cassandra!” he begged in a broken voice. “Don’t go! What will it take to make you stay?”
Lily saw Mr Montpelier crossing the room to restrain the elderly and clearly much-affected gentleman, and nervously Lily retreated, thankful for the obscurity afforded her by the swirling mist.
The performance had been short, carefully choreographed, and, she guessed, effective.
With difficulty, she closed the trapdoor above her as she descended, but then it was too dark to see as she crouched on the steps. The silence that replaced the mystical chanting and odd music was daunting, but now she was terrified that she would trip over her train and tumble the last few steps, possibly breaking her neck.
The reflection that her death would cause no great lament in the hearts of anyone else, and that in fact it was likely to go completely unnoticed except to the pair who had found a use for her, and which she had no doubt gilded their pockets nicely, was painful, as she crawled down into the depths of the room.
A few moments later, the trapdoor above her opened again and a dim light penetrated. Mr Montpelier eased his way down, like a spider, until he stood before her, brandishing a lantern as he declared, “Magnificent! They were entranced! They loved you, Mrs Eustace! Well done!”
Lily blinked in the light. “Are they going? Can I go upstairs yet? It’s very cold down here.”
“Nearly, nearly. Mrs Moore excelled in building up to the great reveal.” His eyes glittered with satisfaction. “They were full of doubt when she sat them down. Said they were non-believers, but it was Mrs Bennet who persuaded them.”
Lily had never seen Mr Montpelier in such an expansive mood. While she leaned against the steps and shivered, he afforded her a running commentary on the method by which respectable Mrs Bennet had engaged Lord Lambton
’s sisters in conversation, persuading them that she knew someone who could summon their dead niece’s spirit, but encountering enormous scepticism along the way.
“They were the ladies?” she interrupted.
“That’s correct. Sir Lambton’s sister and his aunt. There were many tears as they spoke of their loss and their hope that they would be treated to a final glimpse of the child they loved so well.”
“I’m hardly a child,” Lily muttered.
“Cassandra was not yet eighteen when she died. And you look barely older than that with some mist and gauze to muddy the waters.” Mr Montpelier laughed. “Oh, but you were better than we could have expected. When I saw your photograph while I was in Brussels, and fortuitously so near the maison, I was struck by your resemblance to the beautiful, so-called mad Lady Bradden, but when I found myself saddled with you, I feared I’d taken upon myself a great burden and liability. Now my early hopes have paid off, and you are the better for it, my dear Madame Bradden. You are free from your incarceration and free from your husband. Tonight, you have been put through your paces, and you were a triumph.”
Lily rolled her shoulder away as he went to grip it, and he narrowed his gaze as his nostrils flared. “Have no fear that my interest in you goes beyond what you can do for Mrs Moore and myself.” She clearly had offended him for he pinched the tip of his long bony nose and raised his eyes heavenwards. “If next time goes as well, you will be rewarded. I am a fair man, and it has not escaped me that you have nowhere else to go. Except Madame Chambon’s.”
Lily was about to make some perhaps unwise rejoinder, but asked instead, “Lord Lambton was much moved? I retreated when I saw him rise from his chair. I was afraid—”
“You were in no danger. He would not have gone beyond the curtain.”
“I wasn’t afraid for myself. I felt sorry for him.” Lily lowered her voice. “Surely he only wanted to believe I was his daughter?”
“My dear, you underestimate how compelling Mrs Moore can be. She has quite the reputation. And you, Lady Eustace, were entirely believable. Don’t let your conscience smite you.” Mr Montpelier laughed softly. “We are selling him happiness.”
Lily didn’t ask at what cost.
Chapter 10
“I won’t take no for an answer, Hamish. It’s far too nice a day for you to spend all of it closeted inside your office.”
Hamish considered Lucy’s mulish expression, and the clear blue sky behind her, and weighed up the work he should be doing, and the amount of time he was likely to waste arguing with her.
“You always get your way in the end,” he muttered as he rose and offered her his arm. Together they descended the stairs to the pavement and headed for Regent’s Park, a short distance away.
“If I didn’t, you’d be even more deadly dull than you already are,” she said brightly. Lucy was like a child with a new toy each time she bent him to her will. “Now, as I was saying only yesterday, you just need a pretty, long-suffering, but necessarily cheerful wife to be a foil to your perpetual gloom.”
“Lord, Lucy, you make me out to be some nocturnal creature who scuttles about in a basement, shunning joy and fresh air when nothing could be further from the truth,” Hamish countered as they traversed the gravel path. “I walk to work every morning, breathing deep the pea-soup fogs of this time of year, and I smilingly compliment all the nannies on their bright and energetic charges. If I don’t smile, it’s not because I’m unhappy but rather—Oh, I beg your pardon!”
He stepped back quickly so as not to impede the path of a woman in a fashionable gown, a thick veil concealing her face.
“Why, Mr McTavish!” she said, raising the veil and revealing herself to be the beautiful blonde whose image haunted him and who seemed determined to bring him to account in the flesh.
“Mrs Eustace,” he acknowledged with a bow.
In her heavily adorned gown of red-and-white stripes with black fringing set off by a pert black velvet hat with curling plume, she looked extraordinarily fetching, and Hamish had to work hard to show how unmoved he really was.
Hamish introduced her to his sister with misgiving, heightened when Lucy put her hand to her lips, saying, “I knew you looked familiar!” She shook her head disbelievingly. “Why, I saw your photograph on Hamish’s desk only yesterday. I thought you so beautiful.”
Instead of moving on in embarrassment at the first opportunity, as Hamish had hoped, Mrs Eustace inclined her head and said with a twinkle in her eye, “You are kind. Might I, in turn, compliment you on your bonnet, Miss McTavish? The fruit looks so edible I’d worry some urchin might dash past and snatch it right off your head.”
“Heavens, but can you believe it! Some urchin already tried!” Lucy said with a surprised laugh. “Hamish went in pursuit and fetched it back, of course, though I think the creature got off lightly since he didn’t drag her before the police constable. Not too long ago she’d have been sent to the colonies for her crimes.”
“Indeed. Well, let us hope the urchin mended her ways having got off so lightly this time and has taken advantage of being given a second chance.” A smile tugged at her lips. “That’s if you are a champion of progress, Miss McTavish. I am a regular reader of your brother’s improving magazine, and I am still undecided as to his views on reform now that he has taken over the magazine’s editorship.”
Hamish could not respond. In the sunlight, standing so close, he could smell the violet scent she wore; she was mesmerising. Who was she?
“My late husband was a subscriber to Manners & Morals, and it was clear that retribution, not reform, was believed by the editor at the time to be the key to keeping the lower classes in check and thus revolution from our shores.” She spoke with the modulated voice of someone who really did hail from the upper classes and not the gutter, yet Hamish could not be taken in. She was an actress; he had to believe it. A guttersnipe who’d learned to ape her betters, to speak like them. She was parroting someone else’s words. Why else would she be friendless? What else could he believe?
“Goodness,” murmured Lucy. “My father founded the magazine, you know, and oversaw every editorial decision until he became unwell and my brother came back from France to take over.”
“Is that so, Miss McTavish?” Mrs Eustace smiled at Lucy and said in a tone that was clearly meant to convey more to Hamish than to his sister, “Your brother is doing a fine job of keeping his father’s loyal subscribers happy, yet there are occasions when he shows flashes of surprising tolerance towards those who transgress. For several years, I had no occasion to read the monthly edition of Manners & Morals to which my late husband was addicted, but very recently I resumed a very great interest in it. Such an improving magazine with so many tips on how I might better myself which I take quite to heart.” Her eyes flashed a smile that did not reach her lips as she transferred her look to Hamish.
“I am delighted that you find it such a useful resource, Mrs Eustace,” Hamish said drily.
“And you, Miss McTavish? It must be challenging, at times, to have to live up to the ideals of two such upstanding men. Your father and your brother.”
She said this with feigned cheer, but the blush that suffused Lucy’s face was instant as the girl stammered, “I…couldn’t. It’s why I live with my brother now.”
“Oh, my poor child, I had no intention of distressing you. I am so sorry.” She put her hand on Lucy’s shoulder and leaned into her, her expression genuinely remorseful.
And so utterly bewitching Hamish had to turn his head away.
“But I am sure it is the perfect arrangement,” declared Mrs Eustace. “And you are surely the perfect sister who has no fear of failing to live up to anyone’s ideals, least of all your brother’s. For who has not sinned, whether in deed or thought, Miss McTavish?”
Lucy made a quick recovery as she put her hand over Mrs Eustace’s, looking at the woman as if she were staring at a goddess. “Goodness, I don’t think I’ve pondered the matter as deeply as y
ou have, when I suppose I really should have. I just know that what is wrong is wrong…and what is right is right.”
Mrs Eustace considered this. “I once thought like you, Miss McTavish.” She smiled at Hamish, adding, “That is until I realised how open to opinion was the concept of right and wrong. Who is to judge, besides?”
Hamish wanted to end the conversation, but on the other hand, he wanted Lucy gone so he could have Mrs Eustace all to himself. He wanted to take her to task for speaking like that to his innocent young sister.
Though, really, he knew that was just an excuse as he felt his own fascination twine through his body, as thick and intense as the vines that grew up to surround the Sleeping Beauty. Only, in the space of seconds rather than a hundred years.
“The photograph I saw showed you with Mrs Bennet, the famous spiritualist,” Lucy went on in tones of breathless excitement. “She’s held in such high regard. Everyone talks about her. What is she like?”
“Really Lucy, this spiritualist business is humbug,” Hamish interrupted, sounding more irritated than he’d have liked, for now he sounded like the taciturn humbug, he realised.
“Calling forth the afterlife?” Mrs Eustace asked with a serene smile, “I don’t believe in it myself, it is true.”
“Yet you dabble in it,” Hamish challenged, and Lucy sent him a concerned look which caused him to flush hotly for he knew his accusatory tone was uncalled-for.
“I’m interested in it, that is true.”
“I’m told you took part last night. How can you say you don’t believe in it if you participated?”
“Many people act parts they don’t believe in,” she countered reasonably. “I’m sure there are plenty of vicars who have lost their faith but still need to feed their families. Or peddlers of beauty products who know nothing can hold back the hands of time.”
Loving Lily: Fair Cyprians of London: a Steamy Victorian Romantic Mystery Page 7