Loving Lily (Fair Cyprians of London 6)

“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.