The Virtuous Cyprian

‘In what manner may we serve you, madam?’

Her voice, though quiet, carried to all corners of the room. ‘In this manner, sir. My name is Susanna Kellaway of Portman Square, London, and I claim the house of Cookes by right of inheritance as the elder daughter of the late George Kellaway.’

Mr Josselyn might be a dry-as-dust old lawyer, buried in the country, but even he had heard of Susanna Kellaway. Who had not heard of the scandalous Susanna Kellaway, one of the most famous courtesans in London? The outrageous Susanna, who had been mistress to a whole parade of rich and famous men and whose career had reached new heights recently in a highly publicised and disreputable affair with the Duke of Penscombe? Josselyn found that he was almost gasping for breath. Could this bird of paradise really be the daughter of the scholarly recluse who had lived quietly in Dillingham for over thirty years?

Walter Mutch was on his feet, his chair clattering back. He had always had a hot temper and was several degrees below his late uncle’s station in country society. He saw no need to hold his tongue. ‘It’s a lie!’ he shouted hoarsely. ‘My uncle never had a child! I protest—’ He started forward, only to be restrained by his younger brother.

‘There must be some mistake…’ Josselyn began hopelessly, and looked up to meet the comprehension and wicked mischief in the lady’s eyes, which told him more eloquently than any words that his identification of her had been correct.

‘I assure you that there is no mistake, sir,’ Susanna Kellaway said, with cool confidence. ‘I have here my parents’ marriage lines and the record of my birth. As I said, sir, I am the rightful claimant to Cookes!’ She placed the papers in front of Josselyn, but they could have been written in Chinese for all the sense he could make of them in his current state of agitation.

The whole courtroom burst into uproar. Mutch was shouting, his brother pulling on his arm to try to quieten him. The clerk was banging his gavel and demanding order, but no one was taking any notice. All occupants of the room had turned to their neighbours and were avidly debating whether George Kellaway had ever had a daughter, and which members of the village could remember. And such a daughter! Josselyn looked hopelessly at the lady in question and saw that she was enjoying his discomfiture. She evidently appreciated both the effect she invariably had on men and also the drama she had caused. She leant across his table and he caught a tantalising hint of expensive perfume.

‘My lawyer will be in touch to negotiate the terms of the lease,’ she said with a charming smile. ‘I bid you good day, sir.’ And so saying, she turned on her heel and walked out, leaving Josselyn in the midst of the disarray, contemplating the ruin of his afternoon. He reached instinctively for paper and ink with a hand that shook. Normally he would not trouble Lord Seagrave with estate matters, but in this instance…He shook his head incredulously. He dared not risk leaving his lordship in ignorance of this astounding piece of news. Besides, the situation was too complex for him. He had no notion of how Seagrave would feel at a notorious Cyprian establishing herself on his country estate. Remembering the Cyprian and her melting smile, Josselyn came out in a hot sweat again. No, indeed—Lord Seagrave would have to be told.

‘Whatever can have brought you here, Susanna?’

A less thick-skinned woman than Susanna Kellaway might have noticed the lack of enthusiasm in her sister’s voice, but she had become inured to snubs over the years. Besides, she knew that Lucille’s cool welcome stemmed less from disapproval of her twin than recognition of the fact that Susanna only sought her out when she wanted something. She gave her sister the benefit of her feline smile and waved one white hand in a consciously elegant gesture.

‘Why, I came to commiserate with you on the death of our dear father! I assume that you had heard?’

A frown darkened Lucille Kellaway’s fine blue eyes. She was sitting in the prescribed manner for her pupils at Miss Pym’s School for Young Ladies, Oakham: upright with her hands neatly folded in her lap and her feet neatly aligned and peeping from beneath the hem of her old blue merino gown.

‘I collect that you refer to the death of George Kellaway? Yes, I heard the news from Mrs Markham.’ She sighed. ‘I fear that I always think of the Markhams as our true parents, for all that our father paid for our upkeep and education!’

Susanna made a pretty moue. In the school’s shabby parlour she looked both golden and exotic, too rich for her surroundings. ‘For my part, I have no filial regard for either Gilbert Markham or George Kellaway!’ she declared strongly. ‘The former left us penniless and the latter never did anything for us, either living or dead! First he gave us away as babies, then he refused to have anything to do with us whilst we were growing up. When Mr Markham died and we needed him, where was he?’ She answered her own question bitterly. ‘Travelling in China! And we were left to make shift for ourselves! In my opinion, it’s a most unnatural father who can treat his children such, dismissing them without a thought!’

Lucille Kellaway’s own opinion was that there was no point in feeling resentful about their treatment at the hands of a man neither of them had ever known and could not regard as a father. George Kellaway, widowed when his wife had died in childbirth, had obviously considered himself incapable of raising two daughters on his own. It was also incompatible with his lifestyle as an academic and explorer. He was therefore fortunate that he had a childless cousin, Gilbert Markham, who was only too pleased to take on the responsibility for the children’s upbringing. And they had been happy and well-cared for, Lucille reflected fairly. George Kellaway had provided the money to see his daughters educated at Miss Pym’s school, and they had spent the holidays at the Markhams’ vicarage near Ipswich.

Their father had never shown any desire to set eyes on his offspring again, but then he had been forever travelling in Europe and, when war broke out, further afield. It would perhaps have been useful to have had him to turn to on Mr Markham’s death, for their adoptive father had left his small competence solely to his wife and the young daughter the couple had unexpectedly produced in later life. There had not been sufficient fortune to keep four people, and Markham had clearly expected Kellaway to support his own daughters. Lucille shrugged. What point was there now in regretting the fact that George Kellaway had been abroad on his cousin’s death, and totally unable to help his children even if he had had the inclination? He had not even appeared to have a man of business to whom they could apply. Penniless, they had been obliged to make their own way in the world—and they had chosen very different courses.

‘Did he leave you anything in his will?’ Susanna asked suddenly, the carelessness of her tone belied by the sharp cupidity in her eyes.

Lucille raised her finely arched brows. ‘His will? I thought he died intestate—in Tibet, was it not? But since he had no property—’

Susanna relaxed again, the same little, catlike smile on her lips. ‘Now that is where you are wrong, dear sis! I have been living in our father’s house this week past! And a sad bore it has been too,’ she added, with a petulant frown.

The entry of the school’s housemaid with a pot of tea prevented Lucille from asking her sister to explain this extraordinary sentence. The maid cast Susanna one wary but fascinated look before pinning her gaze firmly on the floor as Miss Pym had undoubtedly instructed her to do. She put the tray before Lucille and backed out, but as she was leaving the room she could not resist another look at the wondrous creature draped over the parlour sofa. Miss Kellaway was so beautiful, she thought wistfully, with her silver gilt curls and warm blue eyes—and that dress of red silk…and the beautiful diamond necklace around her slim throat, a present, no doubt, from the besotted Duke of Penscombe. Fallen woman or not, Susanna Kellaway was much envied at that moment.

‘Thank you, Molly,’ Lucille said, a hint of amusement in her voice, and the maid was recalled to the present and could only wonder how so luscious a beauty as Miss Kellaway could have a twin sister as plain as Miss Lucille.

The door closed behind her, and Lucille considered her sister thoughtfully, seeing her through Molly’s eyes. Susanna had disposed herself artfully on the sofa to display her figure to advantage. Lucille imagined this to be a reflex action of her sister’s since there were no gentlemen present to impress, although she expected the drawing and music masters to appear on some spurious excuse at any moment. The dress of clinging red silk which Molly had so admired plunged indecently at the front and was almost as low at the back; completely inappropriate for the daytime, Lucille thought, particularly within the portals of a school full of impressionable young girls. That Susanna had even been allowed over the threshold of such an establishment had amazed Lucille, for Miss Pym had never made any secret of the fact that she deplored the fact that one of her former pupils had become ‘a woman of low repute’. Miss Pym clearly felt that Susanna’s fall from grace reflected directly on the moral failure of the school.

‘You were saying, sister?’ she prompted gently.

‘Oh, yes, my sojourn in Suffolk!’ Susanna stifled a delicate yawn. ‘A monstrous tedious place, the country!’ She stopped.

Lucille, used to her sister’s butterfly mind since childhood, did not display any impatience. ‘Did I understand you to be saying that you had been visiting our father’s house? I was not aware that he owned—’

‘But of course you were! We were born at Cookes! I understand that Mr Kellaway always lived there between his travels!’

Lucille frowned in an attempt to unravel this. ‘Of course I knew of Cookes, but I thought it to be leased. Yet you say you have inherited it?’

Susanna smiled patronisingly. ‘I have inherited the lease, of course! Old Barnes told me all about it—you remember Mr Markham’s lawyer? I kept him on to deal with my business—why, whatever is the matter?’

Lucille had clapped her hand to her mouth in horror. ‘Susanna, you do not employ Mr Barnes as your lawyer? Good God, the man’s business was composed solely of country doctors and parsons! Surely you shocked him to the core!’

Her sister threw back her head with a gurgle of laughter. ‘Which shows how little you know of business, Luce! Barnes was only too happy to take on the work I gave him! What was I saying—oh yes, it was Barnes who read of our father’s death and drew to my attention the fact that I had a claim on the copyhold of Cookes. He is nothing if not thorough! And I thought—why not? There might be some financial advantage in it! After all, mine is not a very secure profession!’

Lucille put down the china teapot and passed her sister a cup. ‘I see. So you have the right to claim the house and its effects as George Kellaway’s eldest child?’

‘So Barnes tells me. But there is no inheritance, for he spent all his money on his travels, and the house is full of nothing but books and bizarre artefacts from China!’ Susanna looked disgusted. ‘It’s all of a piece, I suppose! At any rate, you need not envy me my good fortune!’ She gave her sister her flashing smile.

Lucille raised her teacup and drank thoughtfully. ‘But what are the terms of the lease? I collect our father held the house from the Earl of Seagrave?’

‘Lud, who knows?’ Susanna shrugged pettishly. ‘I leave all that to Barnes, of course! Anyway, it is the dullest place on earth and if it were not for the fact that I may have something to gain, I would not stay there another moment, I assure you!’

She looked a little furtive. ‘Actually, Luce, it was that which brought me here. You see, I need to go away for a little and I want you to go to Cookes and pretend to be me.’

Lucille, who had just taken a mouthful of tea, almost choked. She swallowed hard, the tears coming to her eyes. Susanna was watching her with a calculating look which made those limpid blue eyes look suddenly hard. There was a silence, broken only by the distant voices of some of the girls as they played rounders outside. Lucille put her teacup down very carefully.

‘I think you must be either mad or in jest to make such a suggestion, Susanna.’ Her voice was level and quite definite. ‘To what purpose? Such childish tricks were all very well when we were in the schoolroom, but now? I would not even consider it!’

Susanna was now looking as offended as her indolence would allow. ‘Upon my word, you have grown most disagreeable since we last met! This is no childish ploy; I was never more in earnest! Do you think I would travel all the way from Suffolk to Oakham for a mere jest…’ she gave an exaggerated shudder ‘…and stay in the most appalling inns along the way just for the pleasure of it? Well, I declare! You are the one whose wits are going begging!’

There was some truth in this, Lucille reflected. Susanna could be relied upon never to do anything against her own comfort. She knew she should not give the suggestion a moment’s thought, not even discuss it…and yet…

‘Why on earth do you need me to consent to so foolish a masquerade?’ Her curiosity had got the better of her, for Susanna was looking both dogged and determined, expressions normally alien to her.

‘I need you to do it because I have to go away,’ Susanna said with emphasis. ‘Sir Edwin Bolt has invited me to go to Paris with him, and I cannot risk delay. I do not want to let him escape me!’ She pulled a dainty face. ‘The timing is most unfortunate!’

Something which might have been pity stirred in Lucille. ‘Is Sir Edwin so important, then, Susanna? Do you love him?’

Susanna laughed, a bitter sound which matched the scornful sparkle in her eyes. ‘Love! Lud, no! But he might be persuaded to marry me! And you know, Luce, we are neither of us young any more. Twenty-seven! I cannot bear to think of it!’ Her unsentimental blue gaze considered her sister. ‘I suppose you might continue teaching here until you died, but it’s different for me. I need to secure my future!’

Lucille swallowed her sister’s carelessly hurtful reference to her own prospects. ‘I see. But I thought that you had claimed Cookes for that purpose…’

‘Exactly!’ Susanna rewarded her with a flashing smile, as though she had said something particularly clever. ‘I cannot be in two places at once! My best chance lies with Sir Edwin—after all, he might make me a lady!’ She did not appear to see the humour in her own remark. ‘But at the same time I do not wish to relinquish my claim on Cookes in case there is some money in it for me! It really is so unfair! Why did our father have to die so inconveniently?’

Lucille’s lips twitched at this supreme piece of self-centredness. ‘I daresay he did not think of it,’ she said, with a sarcasm that completely passed her sister by. ‘Forgive me if I am being a slowtop, but I do not really understand why you feel you cannot leave Cookes now. Surely there could be no danger in you travelling abroad for a little now that you have secured the lease?’

Susanna pulled a face. ‘But I know they want me out of that house! They wish I had never claimed it!’ She saw her sister’s look of scepticism and hurried on a little defensively, ‘Oh you can look like that, Luce, but you didn’t see those lawyers! They have been pestering me all week, trying to disprove my claim! I know they don’t want me there! Why, they will break the lease if I give them half a chance, and then I may never be able to claim the inheritance I deserve! So I daren’t go away without knowing that there’s someone to look after my interests, and it’s easiest for you just to pretend to be me for a little while! That way it looks as though I’m really interested in living in the house. After all,’ she added, tactlessly, ‘no one even knows you exist, so they would not suspect!’

Lucille felt as though she was struggling in a quicksand. ‘But cannot your lawyer represent your interests? After all, he was the one who told you of your claim to Cookes in the first place. Would he not be the most appropriate person—’

Susanna was shaking her head stubbornly. ‘But my lawyer is in Holborn! I need someone in Suffolk! I need you, Lucille!’

‘But, Susanna,’ Lucille said helplessly, ‘the deception…It is fraud, after all! And if they were to realise—’