The Asylum

Georgina Ferrars’ Journal

Gresham's Yard

27 September 1882

For weeks now I have weeks now I have been too low-spirited to begin a new journal. There is absolutely nothing to record, but I feel I must make the attempt, before all volition slips away from me. I spent this morning as usual making up parcels for my uncle, and the afternoon minding the shop—without a single customer—whilst he attended a sale. How the hours drag! The days are rapidly shortening, and the shop seems more dismal than ever.

I never imagined that books could be so oppressive. I loved our little library at Niton, the comforting smell of the boards, the warm colours of the spines with their faded gold lettering; but here they poison the air with mould and damp. For all my uncle’s attempts at airing the place, there are livid splotches like toadstools amongst the pages; the spores rise up and clutch at my throat. And in all this time, I have not found a single volume I would care to read.

I have tried to be content with my lot, and I know that I should be grateful to my uncle for taking me in, but to him I am simply a useful pair of hands, cheaper and more painstaking than the boy who used to do the parcels for him. If I were to say, “Uncle, I am dying of loneliness and boredom,” he would not know what to reply; I doubt that he would even comprehend.

No—another winter of wrapping books for elderly clergymen I shall never see is more than I can bear. But what else can I do? I cannot afford to live independently unless I find an occupation. I keep telling myself that I should learn typewriting; even spending my days copying other people’s words onto a machine would be better than this. But I have done nothing about it, just as I have not written to Mr. Wetherell to ask about Aunt Vida’s will, which must surely have been proven by now—it is nearly a year since she died.

Later: I have just woken from a trance in which I was staring at my reflection in the window and trying to will it to move and speak to me, as I used to do with the mirror at Niton. If only I had a sister! If I could summon Rosina now, what would she say? She would scorn me for moping, and tell me to be bold, and take my courage in both hands, and do something, anything, to lift myself out of the slough of despond—but what?

Well, what about the two hundred pounds Mama left me? Everyone says it is wrong to spend your capital, but at least I could see something of the world—Rosina would surely want me to, and I hope Mama as well—and perhaps find a friend at last. I shall write to Mr. Wetherell—in fact I shall do so now, before my resolve weakens.

Gresham’s Yard

Monday, 2 October 1882

An extraordinary thing has happened. This morning I received a letter from a Mr. Lovell in Plymouth, explaining that Mr. Wetherell has been in poor health for some months (hence the delay in settling my aunt’s affairs), telling me that I have £212 11s 8d to my name—and enclosing a sealed packet labelled “Papers deposited by Mrs. Emily Ferrars for safekeeping, 22 November 1867; retained upon instruction of Miss Vida Radford, 7 June 1871, in re Ferrars bequest.” Inside was a bundle of letters, tied with a faded blue ribbon, addressed to my mother at West Hill Cottage, Nettleford.

I have read Rosina Wentworth’s letters over and over, as my mother must have done before me: some of the folds have worn completely through. This is why I called my imaginary sister Rosina—I must have overheard Mama and Aunt Vida talking about her before I was old enough to understand what they were saying. But why did they never mention her in front of me? Did Rosina escape with Felix Mordaunt, or did her father catch her and lock her away—or even murder her, as I fear he murdered her sister? And if Mama wanted me to have the letters when I grew up, wouldn’t she have left a note explaining why?

Perhaps she meant to, but her heart gave out too soon—she sent the packet to Mr. Wetherell only weeks before she died. Did she send it to him because she knew she was dying? Anything she left with Aunt Vida would have been lost with the house.

Uncle Josiah, of course, says he has never heard of Rosina Wentworth or Felix Mordaunt, “but it was all a long time ago, my dear, and I may well have forgotten . . . unless you mean Dr. Mordaunt of Aylesbury—the Jacobean divine, you know—I have an incomplete set of him in the back room . . .” He did not even ask to see the letters.

This afternoon I walked round to Portland Place and wandered up and down, looking at the grand houses and wondering where she might have lived. There is one in particular, with a dark, unfriendly look to it that strikes a chord, but I have no way of telling.

Eleven o’clock has struck, and the house is completely silent. I feel as if I have been sleepwalking through my days, and Rosina’s letters have awakened me. I must find out what became of her. But how?

Tuesday, 3 October

This morning I wrote to ask Mr. Lovell if he could tell me anything of Rosina Wentworth or Felix Mordaunt. I had scarcely returned from the post when a most peculiar letter arrived from him. He says: “If you have not already opened the packet I enclosed with yesterday’s commⁿ, I most urgently request you to return it to me unopened at your earliest convenience. Even if you have examined the contents, I should be most grateful for their return.” It seems that Rosina’s letters should have been kept with another sealed packet that Mama had subsequently sent for safekeeping, and that “according to your late mother’s instruction, this packet is to be made available to you if and only if a certain condition is fulfilled”—but he does not say what condition.

Mr. Lovell—Henry Lovell is his name—sounds quite young, despite all the circumlocutions. He sends his “most abject apologies,” which does not sound like a grizzled old lawyer. Reading between the lines, I should say that Mr. Wetherell came into the office unexpectedly, discovered what Mr. Lovell had done, and berated him soundly. But what can it mean? I wrote back at once, saying that I should like to keep the letters unless the law positively forbids it, and asking him to explain exactly what I need to do to see the rest of the papers. I have copied all of Rosina’s letters into the back of this journal, just in case.

Thursday, 5 October

Mr. Lovell’s reply is even stranger. “I regret that your late mother’s instructions explicitly prohibit us from disclosing the terms upon which the packet in question may be forwarded to you. We are likewise prohibited from answering any enquiry relating to the contents of the package, and I am therefore unable to respond to the questions in your previous letter of the 2^ndinst.” He says that since I have read the letters, I may keep them if I wish, and sincerely regrets that he is unable to enter into any further correspondence upon the subject.

It makes no sense—unless the condition is that I may not see the papers until I am twenty-five, say, in which case why not tell me so? Did Mama not want me to have them until (or unless) I was married?—because of something improper, or shocking? But what sort of thing, and why would she want me to know it at all? And how will Mr. Lovell know, if I am not supposed to write to him, whether I have fulfilled the condition or not?

Rosina’s fate is at the heart of the mystery: of that, at least, I feel sure. Mama plainly loved her; I know I would have loved her, too, if only we could have met . . . but supposing she is not dead?

Well, since the lawyers will not help me, I must find some other way. But how? Looking through my uncle’s directories in the shop this afternoon, I found dozens of Wentworths in London alone, but not a single Mordaunt. What if I were to advertise in the personal column of The Times? Mama and Rosina were cousins, so I am Rosina’s cousin once removed; and Rosina must have been born in 1839 . . . I could say, “Relative anxious to trace Rosina Wentworth (b. 1839), last known address Portland Place (1859–60); please communicate with Miss G. Ferrars at Mr. Radford’s bookshop, Gresham’s Yard, Bloomsbury.” I need not tell Uncle Josiah unless he happens to notice the advertisement.

But what if Rosina’s father is still alive? Might I be putting her—or for that matter myself—in danger? Surely not: he would be an old man now, and the worst he could do would be to come into the shop and make a scene (though that would be quite bad enough). And if Rosina has managed to evade him all this time . . . it is my best chance of finding her. I shall walk down to Fleet Street in the morning and place my advertisement.

Monday, 9 October

No replies. I suppose it was foolish to hope for any. I found a tattered London directory for 1862 in the back room this afternoon, and looked up the residents of Portland Place. But no Wentworth is listed there. And no Mordaunts in The Upper Ten Thousand. What am I to do?

Wednesday, 11 October

My prayers have been answered! I was alone in the shop yesterday afternoon—my uncle had been gone only about a quarter of an hour—when a young woman appeared in the doorway. She was beautifully dressed, in a gown of peacock blue, trimmed in cream, and a bonnet to match, the colours wonderfully rich and vibrant in the gloom. I was seated behind the desk, and must have gazed at her for several seconds before she caught sight of me. She looked strangely familiar—about my own height and figure, her hair a similar shade of brown—and yet I knew I had never seen her before. Our eyes met with—or so I felt—a flash of recognition on her side, fading to a tentative smile.

“Pray excuse me,” she said. “I hope I am not intruding, but are you Miss Ferrars?” Her voice was low and vibrant, with a slight foreign intonation.

“Yes, I am Miss Ferrars. Won’t you come in?”

I rose to greet her, my pulse accelerating. Something in the shape and set of her eyes—a luminous hazel—heightened the sense of familiarity. Her gloved hand trembled faintly in mine, a subtle, quivering vibration, like a current passing between us.

“My name is Lucia Ardent”—she pronounced “Ardent” in what I took to be the French fashion—“and I am here because of your advertisement . . . except that I have come in the hope that you can help me. You see, I know the name Rosina Wentworth—I heard it when I was a little child—but I do not know who she was; or why my heart insisted, when I saw that name in the newspaper, that I must not lose the chance.”

“That is so strange—won’t you sit down? I am sorry it is so gloomy in here, but I must stay until my uncle returns—because it is exactly my own case. But before I say more, will you tell me, Miss Ardent, how you came to hear of Rosina Wentworth, and why you think she may be important to you?”

“Of course. You should know, Miss Ferrars, that I am an only child. I have lived all my life on the Continent; this is my first visit to England. My father, Jules Ardent, was French, and much older than my mother—he died before I can remember—but my mother grew up in England. I lost her only a year ago.”

“I am very sorry to hear it.”

“Strange to tell,” she continued, “I know absolutely nothing of my family on either side. My mother always refused to speak of her past; you would have thought her life had begun on the same day as mine. All she would ever say was that her life in England had been so unhappy that she would never return, and that she wished only to forget. No matter how I coaxed and pleaded, she would not be drawn. She was cultivated, and read a great deal—mostly English books; Mama and I always spoke English when we were alone. I think her family must have had money—perhaps a great deal of it—but we had only a small income from my father. Here it would be worth no more than two hundred a year, but you can live much more cheaply on the Continent. We had no settled home, and we were always moving from place to place—I have lived in Rome, Florence, Paris, Madrid—”

“How wonderful!”

“You would not say so if you had spent your life in pensions and furnished rooms, always packing and unpacking, saying farewell to people just as you begin to like them. When you have seen as many great monuments as I have, you begin to think that one is very like another. If I had had a sister, we would have been company for each other—but you were asking me about Rosina Wentworth.

“All I can tell you is that when I was about seven years old—I am not even sure where we were staying, but I think it might have been Rouen—my mother had a visitor. We were living in a house; I remember that—there was a garden, which was always a great treat for me, with a lake at the foot of it. I was playing at hide-and-seek, pretending that an ogre was hunting me, and had crawled under a tree whose branches came right to the ground, when I heard voices. I peeped out and saw Mama and a tall, grey-faced man, very thin and stooped, approaching. As they came nearer, I realised they were speaking in English. I heard him say, ‘I have kept your secret,’ and then—it might have been ‘but she cannot stay there,’ or ‘but you cannot stay there.’ I could not catch Mama’s reply, but as they passed my hiding place, he said something about ‘Rosina Wentworth.’ I heard only the name, and a sharp exclamation from my mother, before their voices faded.

“By the time I came indoors, the visitor had gone, and Mama was standing at the window, staring absently at the trees; she spun round as I approached, and then tried to pretend I had not startled her. When I asked who the man with the grey face had been, she replied, ‘What man? You must have dreamt him.’ Even after I told her where I had been hiding, she tried to persuade me that I must have fallen asleep, until I said, ‘Mama, who is Rosina Wentworth?’ She turned white to the lips, and cried, ‘What else did you hear?’ She said it so fiercely that I was frightened. I repeated the words I had overheard and assured her that I had not meant to spy on her—Mama was always very stern about not listening at doors—and after a little she began to comfort me, and tried once more to persuade me that it must have been a dream. And the very next day we left that house.

“I never asked about Rosina Wentworth again, but the name is engraved upon my memory, and when I saw your advertisement, I knew I must come to you.”

“That is quite extraordinary,” I said, and launched at once upon the tale of the mirror, and my imaginary sister, Rosina. I had meant to go straight on to the letters, but Lucia—as she had already invited me to call her—was so fascinated by my childhood, and asked so many questions, that I ended by relating my entire history. I tried several times to turn the conversation back to her—my life seemed so commonplace and uneventful compared to hers—but she would not have it. “You cannot imagine,” she kept saying, “what a delight it is to find someone who has lived exactly the life I always yearned for, settled and tranquil, and bound by ties of deep affection.” Often as I talked I was aware of her gaze, drinking in every detail of my appearance; a little disconcerting at first, but very flattering. No one had paid me such attention since Mama died. When I came to the loss of the cottage, and my ordeal with Aunt Vida on the cliff-top, she turned ashen pale and slumped forward in her chair: I sprang forward and threw my arms around her, thinking she was going to faint.

I was shaken to realise how long it had been since I had embraced anyone, and how much I had missed that intimacy. I remained kneeling before Lucia’s chair, with her head resting upon my shoulder and her cheek against mine until she disengaged herself—reluctantly, I felt—and sat up again. We both began to apologise at once; she for being so affected and I for distressing her, each reassuring the other until she confessed that she had eaten nothing all day except a square of toast and a cup of tea at breakfast.

“But where are you living?” I asked.

“In a temperance hotel in Marylebone. I have only a hundred a year, apart from a little capital, but I am determined to stay in England. My clothes are an extravagance, I know, but I must be well turned out; as I have no friends, no family, and no one to recommend me. I think I must go on the stage, but I wanted to see something of London first.”

“I should very much like to be your friend,” I said. “And I shall certainly not let you starve; you must come upstairs with me and have something to eat, and then I will show you Rosina Wentworth’s letters.”

She looked up at me, startled.

“But how can you have her letters, when you lost everything with your house?”

“My mother left them—and some other papers I am not allowed to see—with our solicitor; I shall tell you all about it in a moment.”

I closed the shop without a second thought and drew her to her feet, relieved to see the colour stealing back into her face.

After she had eaten—she wanted only tea and bread and butter, and did not seem very hungry, in spite of her fast—we went on up to my own small sitting room, where I told her about my mother’s perplexing bequest, and sat beside her on the sofa whilst she read through the letters with rapt attention. Pale sunlight slanted through the dusty pane, heightening the rich colours of her gown and sending tiny sparks through her hair, which she wore pinned up in a fashion very like my own. After she had finished, she was silent for some time, turning the letters in her hands as if she could not quite believe she was holding them.

“It is strange,” she said at last, “but I feel as if I know her already. Mama loved the piano, too, and she would play, very beautifully, whenever there was an instrument . . .”

We looked at each other, and I saw my own presentiment mirrored in her face.

“Lucia—may I ask how old you are?”

“Twenty-one.”

“And when is your birthday?”

“The—the fourteenth of February.”

“Just a month before mine—and a little more than nine months after Rosina’s last letter. And your mother loved the piano, and would never talk about her past.”

The papers rattled in her grasp; she set them aside and turned to me slowly, like someone waking from a dream.

“It explains everything,” she said. “Why we could never stay . . . why Mama never told anyone where we were going next . . . why I was drawn to you, here, today. It is fate, as you said . . . That is what the grey-faced man meant, that day in the garden: he had kept her secret, but someone had found out that Rosina Wentworth was in Rouen . . . and so we fled the very next day.”

Her hands trembled in her lap; a hectic spot of colour appeared on her cheek.

“Of course it means that I am a . . . that Mama was not married when she . . .”

“We don’t know that,” I said, placing my hand on hers, which were icy cold. “Perhaps Felix Mordaunt did marry her, and then—something happened to him.”

“No, I am certain he seduced and abandoned her, just as the maid Lily feared he would. Mama always warned me: ‘When you are in love,’ she would say, ‘you must never trust your heart, only your head. A man will say anything, promise anything—and mean it quite sincerely—to seduce you, but once you have given yourself, the chase is over: he will cast you aside without a backward glance.’ I knew she spoke from bitter experience, though she would never admit it.”

“Even if you are right,” I said, “your father—Jules Ardent, I mean—took pity upon her. You are his child according to law,” I added, wishing I felt more confident than I sounded.

“Perhaps there never was a Jules Ardent. Would an elderly Frenchman really have married a penniless English girl, disowned by her father, who was bearing another man’s child? I think Mama invented him for the sake of respectability.”

“What did your mother call herself?” I asked. “I mean, her Christian name?”

“She called herself Madeleine.”

“And—when was her birthday?”

“The twenty-seventh of July—she never told me her age. When I was small, I often thought how young and beautiful she looked. But then the lines crept over her face, and year by year she grew thinner . . . Of course, it was fear that aged her . . .”

“And—what did she die of?”

“Her heart gave out—just like your own mother’s. We were climbing the stairs in a pension—last December, it was, in Paris—she gave a little cough, and then a sigh, and her knees gave way. I caught her, thinking it was a faint, but she died in my arms.”

“I am so sorry,” I said, chafing her cold hands. “How strange, that our mothers should both . . . not so strange, perhaps, if they were cousins . . . though of course we cannot be sure.”

I had a momentary pang of doubt: was this no more than an extraordinary coincidence? If Rosina had become Madeleine Ardent, surely she would have gone on writing to my mother? But perhaps she had; perhaps those were the letters Mr. Wetherell was keeping from me.

“I am already sure,” said Lucia, regarding me with luminous eyes. Perched on the sofa beside me, she looked like some exotic bird of paradise come to earth. “It is blood that tells. You and I, we look alike, we think alike; already I feel I have always known you.”

“And I also,” I said, embracing her. “If only those letters had come to me while Rosina—your mother—was still alive; I should so love to have met her—and to have known you sooner.”

“I wish you had, too. But even if Mama had seen your advertisement, she would not have replied.”

“No, I suppose not—for fear of her father,” I said. Lucia shook her head in seeming bewilderment; she was studying Rosina’s letters again. A horrid realisation struck me.

“If he is still alive, he may have seen my advertisement, too. You may be in danger because of me.”

She looked up from the page and smiled, a little wanly.

“If you had not advertised, Georgina, we should never have met. As for Thomas Wentworth, he would be an old man by now, and surely—”

“Lucia . . . why did you call him Thomas Wentworth?”

She started, and glanced at me fearfully. “I must have read it here.”

“I am sure she never mentions his Christian name.”

We went through the letters again, line by line, without finding it.

“Lucia,” I said, “you see what this means. You must have overheard your mother—or someone—speaking of him. Just as Rosina’s name came to me.” Our shoulders were touching; I could feel a faint, continuous vibration thrilling through her body.

“Of course you must be right. The grey-faced man, perhaps . . .”

“Did you ever see him again?”

“No, never.”

“He, at least, was your friend. Did Rosina—your mother—not leave you any letters or papers?”

“Nothing. She received very few letters—few, at least, that I saw—and those she burned as soon as she had read them. All she had were her clothes, her articles de toilette—I have forgotten the English word—a few necessities—everything she owned would fit into one small trunk, and she brought me up to do the same. ‘Possessions are a snare and a burden,’ she used to say. ‘They only weigh us down. The fewer things we have to carry, the freer we are.’”

“And your income? You said you have a hundred a year; do you know where from?”

“Until today, I assumed it came from the estate of Jules Ardent. I suppose I could write to the advocates—the lawyers in Paris. But they are French lawyers; if you forgot your own name, they would find reasons for not telling it to you.”

“English lawyers are no better,” I said. “Somehow I must discover what it is I must do to see the rest of the papers my mother left me. These letters—did I explain?—only came to me by mistake. I wonder—might she—my mother, I mean—have been protecting Rosina? By not letting me see the letters until her father was safely dead? Which would mean—”

“That he is still alive,” said Lucia, and shivered. “And that monster was—is—my grandfather! It is horrible to think of.”

“Why didn’t Rosina go to Nettleford?” I exclaimed. “After Felix Mordaunt abandoned her, I mean. Mama could have kept her hidden until you were born. And after my father died, we could all have lived with Aunt Vida at Niton; you and I could have grown up together . . . Such a waste of happiness!”

“Yes,” said Lucia, looking through the letters again, “but do you really not see why?”

“She says, ‘I could not bring my father’s wrath upon you,’ or something like that, but I know Mama would have taken her in, without a second thought, and so would my aunt. You would have been far safer—and far happier—with us, than wandering the Continent alone, where nobody even knew who you were.”

“But the shame, Georgina, the shame! All of London must have known that she ran off with Felix Mordaunt. And then to bear a child out of wedlock . . . What a burden I must have been to her!”

“You must never think that, never!” I said, taking her in my arms. I tried to imagine what I would feel in Lucia’s place: anger at Felix Mordaunt, certainly; sorrow for my mother; but not shame, either on her behalf or mine. Was I somehow deficient in moral sense? Aunt Vida, certainly, had never cared about the world’s opinion. I heard, in what I had just said to Lucia, the echo of my aunt’s cry: “You were her joy, her happiness: hold to that, and ask no more!” I stroked Lucia’s hair and made soothing noises, half wishing I had never shown her the letters (but how could I have withheld them from her?), yet delighting, for all my unease, in the warmth of our embrace.

When she was calm again, I began to talk about that day by the lighthouse, when I had come to suspect that giving birth to me had strained my mother’s heart, and what a comfort my aunt’s words had been to me ever since.

“You and your mother loved each other dearly, did you not?” I said.

“Oh yes . . . I never doubted her love for me.”

“Then think how much lonelier she would have been without you. The doors of society closed against her the day she ran off with Felix Mordaunt. But her real friends—like my mother—would not have cared . . .”

“I wish I could believe that,” said Lucia.

“I am sure that when we see the rest of the letters, all your doubts will be set at rest. And Lucia—?”

“Yes?”

“This will be our secret; no one else need ever know. We shan’t even tell my uncle. Not that it would matter if we did; he cares for nothing but his shop and would forget it all five minutes later. To the world you will be simply my friend Miss Ardent.”

As I spoke those words, I was seized by a dizzying sense of unreality, as if I was looking down upon the two of us from somewhere near the ceiling. Surely this must be a dream? So powerful was the sensation that I dug my nails into the flesh of my wrist.

“You are so kind,” I heard Lucia saying. “And yes, I cannot quite believe it, either.”

I looked up and saw that she was smiling.

“I am sorry,” I said. “I did not mean . . . It is only that . . . I have been so lonely here and have longed and prayed for a friend. And for you this must be a hundred times stranger—your whole life changing before your eyes.”

“Yes, it is—and yet I think I always expected something like this. Mama is still my mother, after all; it does not mean she loved me any less than I believed. More, indeed; much more . . . when I think of what she faced each day.”

I knew already that I could not bear to lose her. Uncle Josiah would be utterly nonplussed, but if I paid for her keep . . .

“Lucia,” I said, “instead of staying in that hotel, why don’t you come and live here with me? You could have the bedroom below this: we shall have to air it and find you some furniture, but that is easily done.”

Her lips brushed my cheek; the warmth of her breath lingered against my skin.

“I should love to, but I could not impose myself, and besides, your uncle . . .”

“Uncle Josiah will need persuading, but I shall see to that. And if you don’t mind helping in the shop sometimes, it will be all the easier to persuade him. Why don’t you stay to supper—it is Tuesday, so curried mutton, I’m afraid—and meet him? And then we can come up here again and talk for as long as we like.”

She made a polite show of reluctance, but her delight, and her relief, were plain as I rang for Charlotte and told her to warn Mrs. Eddowes that there would be three for supper.

“One thing I am sure of,” I said when we were alone again, “is that our mothers kept on writing to each other. They loved each other; you can see from the letters that Rosina trusted Emily implicitly. We must persuade Mr. Lovell to let us see the rest of the papers. Suppose . . . would you be willing, Lucia, to trust him with your secret, if we tell him in the strictest confidence? He is my solicitor, after all; I am sure he would not betray you.”

“I suppose not,” she said doubtfully, “but in truth, Georgina, I would much rather tell no one else, for the time being at least. There is so much to comprehend—to take in. Could you not simply say that something has happened which makes it vital for you to see those papers? Or if he will not do that, insist that he reveal what you must do to satisfy this mysterious condition?”

“Yes, of course I will. I wonder . . . Mama would have known about you; perhaps that was her condition—that you and I should have met?”

“Perhaps,” said Lucia, her face still shadowed, “but I should still like to keep my secret for now.”

“Of course; we shall not tell a soul. Oh, if only we could have met sooner! I still don’t understand why you couldn’t have come to Niton. Once your mother had established herself as a widow—perhaps she really did marry a Jules Ardent; who else would have paid her an income?—she would have been perfectly safe with us. Even Thomas Wentworth wouldn’t have dared to hire murderers and send them to Niton. We knew all the farming people; they would have kept an eye out for us. And my aunt was quite fearless; she kept an old blunderbuss in the scullery, in case of burglars, and I am sure she would have used it. ‘Any ruffian shows his face around here, I’ll have him locked up before you can say Jack Robinson.’ That’s what Aunt Vida would have said. So how could Rosina have felt safer abroad, especially after what happened to poor Clarissa?”

Lucia shook her head in bewilderment. “I can only think that she was more afraid of meeting people from her past—like that awful Mrs. Traill and her daughter—than of her father.”

“But if everybody knew her as Mme Ardent—why should she have cared what the Traills thought? Compared to the risk of being murdered in some lawless place? You believed your father was Jules Ardent, until today. It makes no sense.”

I felt another horrid pang of doubt: how could I be certain that all this was not simply a bizarre coincidence?

“I am not sure I ever did believe in him,” said Lucia, “not wholly. Mama was always so vague; I could never picture him.”

“It was the same with my father,” I said. The thought was somehow reassuring, but my doubts persisted, until I remembered where she was staying.

“Lucia,” I said, “where exactly in Marylebone is your hotel?”

“In Great Portland Street.”

“Which is next but one to Portland Place.”

Her eyes widened.

“Even when I saw the letters, I did not realise—it just seemed natural that I should have chosen that place. I must have been drawn there.”

“Just as you knew—without realising that you knew—Thomas Wentworth’s name.”

“And what else is lurking in the dark corners of my mind, waiting for me to stumble over? I don’t like it. Still”—she set her chin, and made a banishing gesture—“no matter what we find, we have each other now.”

My uncle was quite bewildered by the prospect of anyone—let alone a young woman I had scarcely met—dining with us, but Lucia was so charming, and asked so many questions about the bookshop, that I feared we would never escape. Uncle Josiah, to my relief, showed no more interest in her history than he had ever shown in mine. I had always striven to please him, but now I found myself resolved that in the matter of Lucia’s staying, I would not give way, no matter how many objections he raised; indeed I promised her, as soon as we were alone again, that I would secure my uncle’s permission the following morning.

It was after eight o’clock before we left the table; I expected her to say that she must return to her hotel, but Charlotte had lit the fire in my sitting room, and Lucia showed no inclination to leave. The firelight glowed upon her cheek and in her hair, sparking red and copper and burnt gold when she turned her head. The French intonation seemed to have faded from her voice, or perhaps I had simply grown accustomed to it. I longed to hear more about her life with Rosina, which I could not picture with any distinctness, but I did not like to press her, imagining how I would feel if my own history had just unravelled before my eyes. For her part, she wanted to know everything, no matter how trivial or mundane, about my childhood in Niton; when I showed her my dragonfly brooch, she gazed at it like a holy relic, turning it slowly in her fingers so that its jewelled eyes burned crimson in the firelight.

We gave no thought to the time until the distant sound of the hall clock striking ten brought her hand to her mouth.

“Georgina—I had quite forgotten. The hotel locks its doors at ten; what am I to do?”

“You must stay here,” I said. “We can make up the sofa as a bed—or, if you do not mind, you are welcome to share mine.”

She accepted gratefully; I fetched her a nightgown and left her to change in front of the fire while I undressed in my bedroom, by the light of the two candles above my dressing table. As soon as I had put on my own nightgown, I opened the door again to let her know that she might enter, and began brushing my hair in front of the mirror.

“Let me do that,” said a soft voice in my ear, as the twin of my reflection appeared above my own. I turned with a start, relieved to see that Lucia was actually there; in the wavering depths of the mirror, the likeness was positively uncanny.

“I am so sorry; I must have tapped too softly. I didn’t mean to startle you.” She took the brush from my hand and continued while I gazed, half hypnotised, at her reflected self, who smiled when our eyes met, exactly as if my imaginary sister had come to life.

When she had finished, we changed places, but the change in the mirror was scarcely perceptible, which made the sensation all the more dreamlike. I had not done this since my mother died, and I had forgotten the intimacy of it: the soft tug and crackle of the brush, the warm scent rising from her hair. After a little, her eyelids drooped, and then closed, but small responsive movements of her head, and the smile that played about her lips, told me that she was not asleep.

At last I set the brush aside. Lucia rose to her feet and embraced me, murmuring, “I did not realise how lonely I have been.” She went over to the bed and settled herself in it like a child, her faced turned toward the light. I left one candle burning and slipped in beside her so that we were face to face, each with an arm around the other. Her eyes closed again; within five minutes she was fast asleep, but I kept myself awake for a long time, feeling the soft rise and fall of her breast against mine, her breath stirring my hair. This, I thought, is what people must mean by wedded bliss. But would it be the same with a man? I remembered the bull-calf in the field, and my aunt saying, “Same with humans—never cared for the idea myself.” Most novels ended in wedded bliss, but novelists never mentioned the bull-calf. I had always imagined something rough and clumsy and painful; now, bathed in the warmth of Lucia’s body, I knew that this was everything I had hungered for, safe within the circle of my arms.

I would happily have stayed awake all night, but sleep at last overcame me, until I woke in darkness to feel Lucia, now lying with her back to me, struggling in the grip of a nightmare. Her voice rose to a shriek; for a moment she fought to push my arm away, then turned, shivering, into my embrace. “Hush, Lucia, hush,” I murmured. “You are safe now.” I stroked her hair and drew her close, and felt the answering pressure of her lips before her breathing slowed and settled again. Again I strove to keep awake, breathing the scent of her hair and picturing our life together, in a cottage by the sea . . . Uncle Josiah had managed perfectly well before I came here and could surely do so again . . . perhaps at Nettleford?—we must visit, at least, and see the house where I was born . . . or on the Isle of Wight, though not so close to the cliff this time . . .

I woke to grey twilight and the smell of guttered candlewax, alone with the fear that Lucia had been nothing but a dream. Springing out of bed, with my heart pounding wildly, I ran to my sitting room. There was no trace of Lucia; except for my nightgown, neatly folded on the end of the sofa. And I had not even asked her the name of her hotel . . . I sank down upon the sofa, pressing the gown to my face. Out of it fluttered a slip of paper, on which was written in faint pencil, in a hand not unlike my own: “A thousand thanks—I did not want to wake you. I shall come to the shop this afternoon. L.”

Persuading Uncle Josiah proved even harder than I anticipated. I cornered him at breakfast, as I had promised, even though I was more than half afraid that Lucia would change her mind about staying—assuming she had not vanished like a fairy. But, I told myself, if she does still want to stay and I have not spoken to him, she may think that I do not really want her to. And so I steeled myself to interrupt—he was intent on a catalogue that had just arrived in the post—by asking if he had liked Miss Ardent.

“Yes, my dear,” he said without looking up, “a charming young lady.”

“I am delighted you think so, Uncle, because she is coming to stay with us.”

He set down his magnifying glass and peered at me in absolute bewilderment.

“I don’t understand.”

“Miss Ardent is coming to stay with us,” I repeated. “In the spare bedroom, upstairs.”

“But, Georgina, you cannot be serious. It is out of the question; we cannot have people staying here.”

“Why not, Uncle?”

“Why not? The expense, the inconvenience, the . . .” He threw up his hands in a helpless gesture. I had thought, watching him at dinner with Lucia the night before, how much frailer he had grown in the year I had lived with him. His skull was now entirely bare; even his drooping white moustache seemed thinner. My heart smote me, but I would not be put off.

“There will be no expense, Uncle; Lucia will contribute fifteen shillings a week, just as I do, which is more than enough to pay for her keep.”

The last part, at least, was true; I had resolved to pay him myself, without telling her. It would leave me less than ten shillings a week, but I did not care.

“And there will be no inconvenience, either; Lucia will help in the shop, when she can, and we will take our meals upstairs in my sitting room, so that you can read at table in peace, without being disturbed by our chatter.”

“Well—I shall think about it,” he said, folding his catalogue.

“No, Uncle, we must decide now. She is staying in a hotel, and she needs a home.”

“Mrs. Eddowes will not like it—she will complain.”

“I will deal with Mrs. Eddowes,” I said, realising to my surprise that I meant it.

“But, but—we know nothing about Miss Ardent.”

“I know already that she is my dearest friend,” I said firmly. “She and I have a great deal in common.”

“No, no, no; I really cannot allow it. The inconvenience has already begun; I was very surprised, Georgina, to find the shop closed when I returned from yesterday’s sale. If you are going to be gadding about with Miss Ardent when you should be minding the shop . . . and now I must get on.”

“Uncle,” I said breathlessly, “if you will not allow Lucia to stay, then I must leave your house. I shall always be grateful to you for taking me in, but I have been very unhappy, and desperately lonely here, and without Lucia’s company, I can bear it no longer.”

He sank back into his chair, with one hand pressed against his heart.

“But, Georgina, what has possessed you? I had no idea you were unhappy. If you wished to take an afternoon off, you had only to say so. How will I manage without you? The orders . . . the parcels! How will I ever get out to a sale?”

He looked and sounded so feeble that I feared he might collapse on the spot. If he does, I thought, I will be wholly to blame: I encouraged him to dismiss the boy, and I insisted upon helping in the shop; of course he has grown to depend upon me. But the thought of Lucia spurred me onward.

“You managed perfectly well before, Uncle. We can easily find you someone else to do the parcels and mind the shop.”

“But he would want to be paid! I cannot afford the expense!”

“In that case, Uncle, you have only to agree that Lucia may live with us.”

“Oh very well, very well, if you insist. But it is really most . . . most inconvenient.”

“You will not be inconvenienced in the slightest, Uncle. Everything will be exactly the same.”

“I do not see how, but I suppose I must put up with it.”

He rose unsteadily to his feet and shuffled out of the room, leaving me shaken by my own boldness and wondering if I had grown callous and hard-hearted.

Thursday, 12 October

It is after midnight. Lucia is (or so I imagine) asleep in her room, which is already quite transformed; it is such a delight to have her here, and I know that she shares my feeling. Such a contrast to yesterday: Uncle was wounded and huffish all morning; then, as the afternoon dragged on and still Lucia did not return, I paced about the empty shop like a caged animal, imagining all sorts of catastrophes.

When at last she appeared in the doorway, I confess I shed tears of joy, and then felt very ashamed of myself: she had woken very early and did not want to disturb me. She had been walking and thinking all day, she said, reliving her life as if it were someone else’s. Charlotte and I had aired her room and made up the bed, but she chose to spend one more night in the hotel, “to prove to myself that I am not afraid to be alone,” she said, “now that I know I don’t have to be.” I spent the evening composing a letter to Mr. Lovell, and tossed and turned most of the night . . . but she is here now, and safe, and that is all that matters.

Wednesday, 18 October

It is only a week since Lucia appeared in the shop, and already I cannot imagine life without her. The likeness astonishes me more every day. Uncle cannot tell us apart, and nor, I think, can Mrs. Eddowes; not that she would care. Lucia wears my clothes, having so few of her own apart from the gorgeous peacock gown; she is having two new dresses made in the same pattern as my own. When I teased her about it, she smiled and said, “Yes, I am a chameleon; I take on the colour of my surroundings.” We often wonder whether our mothers resembled each other as closely as we do, but without so much as a miniature between us, we can only speculate. Lucia is always constrained when she talks of “Mama”—the mother she remembers—whereas she will speculate freely about “Rosina,” as if they were quite separate beings. She finds my childhood inexhaustibly fascinating, and steers the conversation back to me at every opportunity. Mr. Lovell has not yet replied, so we have nothing more to go upon.

Uncle is still being huffish and put upon with me (or with Lucia, when he confuses us—she takes it in very good part). I should never have promised him that everything would stay the same. He sighs ostentatiously at the smallest change to his routine, and reminds me at least twice a day that he is far too old to manage without me. I had selfishly imagined that Lucia and I would look after the shop together, but she prefers to walk alone in the afternoons. She is very tactful about it, but I can tell that she craves solitude in which to reflect. “It is like remembering two different lives at once,” she said yesterday, “and wondering which of them is mine,” but she will not be drawn beyond generalities.

I worry about her wandering the city alone, with very little idea of where her feet are carrying her; she insists that she is not afraid of Thomas Wentworth—or anybody—but is she simply putting on a brave show for my sake? I cannot tell. I suspect she broods, as I would surely do in her place, over the dark strain in the Mordaunt blood, and whether it runs in her veins, but of course I dare not speak of that in case I am mistaken. Sometimes, when her face is shadowed, a chill comes over me, and I fear she would have been happier if we had never met.

I understand completely why she needs this time alone; yet I long to be of more comfort to her: I would happily spend every waking—and sleeping—minute beside her. Every smile, every caress, every kiss, is precious to me: friends and cousins in novels are always kissing and embracing, but every evening—the time I most look forward to—when we embrace and say good night, I long to say, Come to bed with me, and let me hold you as I did that first night.

On Sunday I summoned the courage to say, “Lucia, I know you suffer from nightmares; why don’t you stay with me, and then I can comfort you?” She smiled and caressed me, and seemed to hesitate before she replied, “Thank you, dearest cousin, but I’m sure I shall sleep soundly tonight.” I am afraid to ask her again, in case she should think—I am not even sure what. Is it wrong of me to feel as I do? Am I like Narcissus, falling in love with my own reflection?

Thursday, 19 October

Today, for once, Uncle Josiah did not go out; he was expecting one of his oldest clients, and said I might take the afternoon off. Lucia, to my delight, insisted that I accompany her. We walked up to Regent’s Park, arm in arm, and wandered around until we came upon a little grotto with a seat inside, just out of sight of the path. This, surely, was where Rosina and Felix Mordaunt had sat and talked. There was even a coffee stall nearby, kept by a wizened old man who said he had been there twenty-seven years, perhaps the very same one; it was like being served by a ghost.

We took our tea back to the grotto and sat down on the bench, which was only just wide enough for two. Our shoulders were touching; I took my cup in my left hand so as not to jostle Lucia, and edged a little closer to her, until it came to me that this was how Rosina must have felt, sitting in this exact spot, with Felix Mordaunt beside her.

“Have you ever been in love, Georgina?” said Lucia, as if she had read my thought.

I started, almost spilling my tea, and blushed.

“Not before—I mean, no, no, I haven’t.”

“But do you think about marriage—do you long to be married, to have children?”

“I don’t think I do, no. I—I don’t think I have a very high opinion of men. Our little household at Niton seemed very complete, even after Mama died. I knew when I was older that there was something I yearned for, and I vaguely assumed it must be marriage, but I have never met—never even seen a man I could imagine marrying. As for children, I know that I am supposed to long for them, but I don’t think I actually do; I can’t even imagine what it would feel like. I feel—I feel entirely content, sitting here with you.”

I felt myself blushing even more.

“And you, Lucia?”

“Oh, I have fancied myself in love with various young men, but like you, I could never imagine marrying any of them. And I am accustomed to freedom, to making my own way in the world; I will not surrender that lightly. I wish I could live many lives, and be many different people; I should like to know what it feels like to be rich, to go to wonderful balls and banquets, and wear extravagant clothes, and be admired by everybody; but only for the experience: to walk on stage, so to speak, with the cream of society, play my part to perfection, and slip away again. Perhaps we shall do such things together, one day; it is what fascinates me about being an actress. But the theatre is so artificial, so mannered; I should love to be an actress in real life. The secret of acting, I feel sure, is to become the person you mean to play; not simply pretend to be them, but to cast off your usual self as completely as you shed one costume and put on another.”

“It sounds fascinating, but I have no talent for acting.”

“I am sure you have. Your uncle is always saying he could not manage without you; let us prove him wrong by changing places for a day. I will be you, and do the parcels and mind the shop; you shall wear my peacock blue, and I shall make up your face a little—in the most delicate fashion—and I will wager that even Charlotte will not realise what we have done.”

“Yes, let us try it,” I said, feeling my heartbeat quicken at the prospect. “What will you wager?”

“What would you most like to win?”

I longed to say, “Your heart,” but could only blush, and try to hide my face in my cup.

“Perhaps you have won it already,” she said, touching my wrist with the tip of her gloved finger. “We shall change places tomorrow. And if we succeed, we shall not tell anyone, just yet; it will be another of our secrets.”

Saturday, 21 October

Lucia was right; Charlotte addressed me as “Miss Ardent” from the moment we came downstairs. Aunt Vida used to say that only vain, foolish women use powder and paint, but when Lucia allowed me to look in the glass, I confess I was very much taken with the result: she had made my eyes darker and more luminous, my eyebrows finer; my cheekbones more prominent, but so subtly that I could scarcely tell how it was done. And the peacock blue gown suited me to perfection. She had only watched me do the parcels once, but she carried it off flawlessly, sweetly turning aside my uncle’s peevishness. She even insisted that I should go out for the afternoon while she kept the shop; I would far rather have stayed, but she said firmly, “No, Lucia; it is very kind of you to offer, but you must have some time to yourself.”

We continued to play each other even when we were alone; I found it extraordinarily exciting, and (in a brief lapse of concentration) told her so. “You see?” she replied. “It is just as I promised; that is the delight of acting. Of course, you and I are so alike that it is easy for us to change places. And now, Lucia . . .” I never contradict her when she says we are alike, because it pleases me, but—despite the extraordinary resemblance—I am not at all sure that we are alike. And yet I could not say how we differ. Lucia is still a mystery to me—I feel that she is opaque where I am transparent, and it is the mystery that fascinates me.

When it came time for bed, we rose and embraced as usual, standing by the sitting-room fire—only not as usual, for she held me closer than ever before, and murmured, with her lips almost brushing my ear, “Lucia, why don’t you sleep with me tonight? Then I can comfort you if you have nightmares.”

I was about to say, “Oh, Lucia, I should love to,” when I remembered that I was supposed to answer for her, not myself. My heart sank; the words died on my lips. Was she hoping I would say yes? Or subtly rebuking me for being too forward? I drew back, her hands still warm upon my shoulders. A faint, teasing smile flickered about her mouth; she regarded me as a teacher might regard a prize pupil faltering over a recitation.

“Thank you, dearest cousin, but I’m sure I shall sleep soundly tonight.” Her smile broadened; I had won the prize, but lost what I most desired.

“Good night, dearest cousin,” she said, drawing me close again, and adding, in a low, throaty whisper, “We shall make an actress of you yet.” Her lips brushed mine as she turned toward the door. But instead of crossing to the stairs, she turned right, and disappeared in the direction of my own room. A moment later I heard my door open and close.

I was halfway down the stairs when I remembered my writing case. The key was around my neck—the chain is entirely hidden when I am dressed, so Lucia had not asked for it—but had I locked my journal away in the case, and put the case back in the drawer as usual, or was it lying on my writing table? Should I go up and make sure? But if I knocked, Lucia would think . . . She would think, at the very least, that I had something to hide. You always lock your journal away, I told myself. The reason you cannot remember is that you do it automatically. But I could not actually picture myself turning the key, and I hovered on the stairs for a long time before I went miserably on down to her room, where I lay awake most of the night, alternately tormenting myself by imagining what I had forfeited—perhaps she had wanted me to say yes, and was now lying awake in my bed, thinking that I did not want her—and enduring agonies of humiliation at the thought of her reading my journal. In the end I overslept, to find my bedroom empty, my writing case safely locked away, and Lucia already downstairs, back in her own character and behaving as if we had never so much as thought of impersonating each other.

Monday, 23 October

Mr. Lovell has replied at last, apologising for the delay: it seems that Mr. Wetherell has suffered another stroke, and retired from the practice, leaving Mr. Lovell in sole charge of his clients. Lucia and I were at breakfast when the letter arrived; she watched eagerly as I opened it, but her face fell as I began to read aloud:

I deeply regret that your late mother’s instructions expressly prohibit me from forwarding the packet as you request. You say that your circumstances have changed in a way that makes it vital that you see the remaining papers; I wonder whether you could be more explicit about the nature of that change? I should add that the remainder of the bequest consists of a single sealed packet. Beyond the impression that it contains papers or documents, I know nothing of its contents. I think I may indicate, without exceeding my instructions, that in the event of your death—or certain other events, which I am forbidden to disclose—the packet is to be destroyed unopened. If you wish to instruct me on any other matter, I shall, of course, be honoured to act for you . . .

“I suppose it was foolish of me to hope,” she said, with a look of desolation that pierced my heart.

“You musn’t despair, Lucia. You shall see what is in that packet, if I have to engage a burglar to steal it from Mr. Lovell’s office. But we shan’t need a burglar; he is weakening, you can see. Inviting me to be more explicit: that is surely a hint. Lucia, we must tell him that we have met; I am certain that is what my mother intended.”

“Perhaps you are right,” she said, “but I would feel happier if we had met him—so that I could feel sure of his discretion.”

“Then let us go down to Plymouth and see him,” I said.

“But your uncle—he will be most put out.”

“Uncle Josiah will have to manage without us soon enough.”

“But not like this; you must break it to him gently, for your own sake. And what does Mr. Lovell mean by ‘certain other events’? Your mother might have ordered him to destroy the packet if anyone else enquired about it . . . and there is another way. What is the point of your having a solicitor in Plymouth? Why don’t we find one here in London and ask Mr. Lovell to send the packet to him? A new man would be so much easier to persuade.”

I had not thought of this. Her suggestion made obvious sense; yet all my instincts were against it.

“But changing solicitors might be another of those ‘events,’” I said, trying to justify my reluctance. “Mr. Lovell wants to help us, I am sure of it. If I write to him and say—in the strictest confidence—that you and I have met, and that you are the daughter of Rosina Wentworth, who married Jules Ardent—what harm can come of that?”

“I—I don’t know what it is I fear,” she said uneasily. “If only I could meet him, then I would know whether to trust him with my secret . . .”

“But Lucia, we needn’t tell him. He doesn’t know what’s in the packet; as far as he is concerned, you are the legitimate daughter of Jules Ardent, who married Rosina Wentworth in France. Mama wouldn’t have told him any more than that.”

“But what if we are wrong, and this is not the condition she laid down?”

“Then I will go down to Plymouth and tell Mr. Lovell that I shan’t leave his office until he hands over the packet.”

“You are right,” she said, taking a deep breath and lifting her chin. “I know I am being foolish—it is only that . . . Suppose I were to go to Plymouth in your place? Mr. Lovell has never met you, after all.”

“But Lucia, he might want you to sign something—”

“I am sure I could imitate your signature, if I practised a little.”

“No, dearest, no, I won’t have it. If Mr. Lovell so much as suspected, he might destroy the papers; you could even be sent to prison. No, I will go down to see him—I need only be away one night—and, if you are sure you don’t mind, you can pretend to be me again, and then Uncle Josiah will have nothing to complain of. You are right: I must give him time to get used to the idea and find someone to help in the shop, but I mean to tell him as soon as I return from Plymouth. And I promise you, Lucia, if I have the slightest reservation about Mr. Lovell, he will never know of your existence.”

“But then how will you persuade him to hand over the packet?”

“You mustn’t fret, Lucia. Mr. Lovell wants to help us; I feel it in my bones. I promise I shan’t return empty-handed.”

Her face was still troubled, but I had confidence enough for two, and my letter to Mr. Lovell was in the post an hour later.

Wednesday, 25 October

Mr. Lovell has replied by return; a good omen. My appointment is for two o’clock on Monday. He even advises about trains, and recommends Dawlish’s Private Hotel, which is only fifty yards from his office. I had hoped to return that night, but the London express leaves Plymouth at four forty-two, and I cannot be sure of catching it; it may take more than one visit to persuade him.

Lucia was very subdued all day; I tried several times to persuade her to come with me, but she assured me that she was happy to stay with Uncle Josiah. “It is nothing; just low spirits; it will pass,” she kept saying, until at last, as we were about to retire, I took her in my arms and implored her to tell me what was wrong.

“It is nothing, only . . . I have no right to ask, but I should have loved to be there when you opened the packet.”

“You have every right,” I said, reproaching myself for being so obtuse. “Come with me, and we shall open it together.”

“No, one of us must stay with your uncle.”

“Then I shan’t open the packet until we are together again.”

Her face lit up at this, and she kissed me very warmly.

“Thank you, Georgina. Shall we tell your uncle in the morning that I will be going away for a little while? In fact, why don’t you travel under my name?—not with the lawyer, of course, but at the hotel? You shall wear my things, and take my travelling-case; then the illusion will be complete, and even Charlotte will not suspect.”

Dawlish’s Private Hotel,

George Street,

Plymouth

Monday, 30 October

There is so much to record, but I must begin with my interview with Mr. Lovell, while it is fresh in my mind. His rooms are in a high, narrow building of dark brown stone; an elderly clerk led me up several flights of stairs to a landing, where I was warmly greeted by Mr. Lovell himself. My intuition was right: he is tall and gangly and fresh-faced, and looks no more than twenty-five, though I think he must be at least thirty. His office was lined on three sides with bookshelves, filled with an extraordinary array of objects: stones, shells, birds’ eggs, paperweights by the dozen, fishhooks, brass instruments, lumps of coloured glass, ornaments of every size and shape—as well as the books, which are crammed in higgledy-piggledy. His desk was heaped with bundles of papers, interspersed with yet more books, many of them lying open and face-down. An armchair stood in a patch of sunlight by the window.

“I am afraid we are all at sixes and sevens, Miss Ferrars,” he said, ushering me to the armchair. Henry Lovell, I could not help noticing, is really quite handsome. He has thick fair hair, rather dishevelled, and a long, clean-shaven face, slightly reddened around the jaw as if the razor irritates his skin. His suit—a coarse brown tweed, patched with leather at the elbows—looked like something a farmer might wear. He dragged an upright chair across the carpet and settled, or rather draped, himself upon it, and for the next few minutes we talked about my journey, and about Mr. Wetherell’s illness: despite his remark about sixes and sevens, it soon became clear that Mr. Lovell had been doing most of the work of the practice for several years now—my mother’s estate was one of the few that Mr. Wetherell had kept to himself—and that his room is in permanent chaos.

By the end of our small-talk, I had resolved to trust him with everything except the secret of Lucia’s birth, which I had promised not to reveal unless there was no other way of securing the papers. He listened closely, and without interjecting, to the account I had rehearsed on the journey down, in which Rosina had fled from a cruel and violent father, married Jules Ardent in France—I made no mention of Felix Mordaunt—and refused ever afterward to speak of her childhood.

“So you see, Mr. Lovell,” I concluded, “why I am sure that my mother would want me to have that packet, now that my cousin and I have met.”

He had listened intently, without once interrupting, and remained silent for a little, regarding me with troubled eyes.

“I am very sorry, Miss Ferrars,” he said at last, “but your mother’s instructions were quite explicit, and the condition she specified has nothing to do with your cousin, Miss Ardent. I don’t for a moment doubt that your mother would have wanted you to have the packet in the circumstances you describe, but the law, alas, compels me to abide by the letter, rather than the spirit, of her wishes in the matter.”

“Then surely, Mr. Lovell, you can at least tell me what the condition is.”

“I am afraid not. Your mother was, as I say, absolutely explicit. Unless your circumstances should change in a very particular way, I may not give you the packet, or reveal to you anything whatsoever about the bequest. If I had not made the unpardonable error of sending you those letters, you would never have known of its existence.”

“Unless my circumstances should change in a very particular way,” I repeated thoughtfully.

“Yes; that is correct.”

“But how would you know, Mr. Lovell, if that change were to occur? Wouldn’t my mother have wanted to be sure that you did know?”

“Well, yes,” he said uneasily. “But really, Miss Ferrars, I should not be discussing this at all—”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Lovell, but I am your client, too.”

“Yes, and it puts me in something of a quandary.” He gave me a wry smile, in which I detected a hint of encouragement. Unless your circumstances should change . . . Of course! How could I have been so obtuse? I had a sudden vivid recollection of Aunt Vida on her deathbed, saying, “You’re a handsome gel, not like me—you’ll have offers . . . Write to Mr. Wetherell—tell him who you’re marrying. Papers to draw up . . .”

“I have guessed the condition, Mr. Lovell. I am to have the packet if I marry—or become engaged to marry.”

Now he looked deeply uncomfortable.

“Well, yes, but—”

“But?”

“I take it, Miss Ferrars,” he said, glancing at my left hand, “that you are not engaged—or contemplating an engagement?”

“Certainly not,” I said.

“Then I fear it is absolutely impossible for me to hand over the packet.”

“But if I were to become engaged . . .” To an obliging young man, I thought, willing to play the part . . . or why not simply invent one?

“Then you should write and tell me, yes. But that in itself would be exceedingly unlikely—astonishingly unlikely—to fulfill the condition. And now, Miss Ferrars, I really cannot say any more . . .”

Astonishing unlikely . . . “Tell him who you’re marrying,” Aunt Vida had said . . .

“I am to have the packet if I become engaged to someone in particular,” I said flatly. “Mr. Lovell, you have been so helpful; will you not take the last step and tell me who it is?”

“That, Miss Ferrars, I absolutely cannot do. I have trespassed thus far because I am to blame for your receiving those letters in the first place. But carelessness is one thing; knowingly breaching a client’s trust is quite another. I should deserve to be struck off if I did any such thing.”

A small silence followed. Our eyes met, and I smiled encouragingly.

“But, Mr. Lovell, you would not be breaching my mother’s trust. It is absolutely essential, for my own peace of mind and Lu—Miss Ardent’s—that I should see what is in that packet, and if my mother were here now, she would tell you so herself.”

“Are you quite certain of that, Miss Ferrars?”

“Of course I am, Mr. Lovell. Don’t you think I know what my own mother would have wanted?”

“I meant, are you sure that seeing those papers would bring you peace of mind?” he said.

“You said in your letter, Mr. Lovell, that you didn’t know what the packet contained.”

“Nor do I. But—no, I am sorry; it is quite impossible. Now really, Miss Ferrars, there is nothing more I can tell you. Would you care for some tea?”

“Yes, I should, thank you.”

“Then pray excuse me one moment.” He rose with evident relief and left the room.

All I need do, I thought, is ask the right question. A man Mama did not want me to marry—or did not want me to grow up and marry without reading the rest of the papers—which must have to do with Rosina and Lucia, Thomas Wentworth, and Felix Mordaunt . . . Could Thomas Wentworth have remarried and had a son? Then why all the secrecy? Why had Mama, or Aunt Vida, not simply warned me against him? And why on earth would Mama have feared that, of all the eligible men in the kingdom, I would choose this particular one? She had sealed the packet at least ten years ago: he might easily have married someone else by now. Or died.

And there was something else . . . something Mr. Lovell had said in his last letter, which I had brought with me. “In the event of your death—or certain other events, which I am forbidden to disclose—the packet is to be destroyed unopened.” “Certain other events” . . . Surely the man’s death. So he must still be alive!

But Mr. Lovell had written “events.” I had just realised what it must mean when he returned to his chair.

“Tea won’t be long,” he said, glancing uneasily at the paper on my knee.

“I am sorry to plague you,” I said, “but I have divined so much that you may as well tell me the rest. You are to give me the packet only if I become engaged to marry a certain man”—his expression changed at this, in a way I could not interpret. “If he dies—or if I marry anyone but this man—you are to destroy it unopened. I am right so far, am I not?”

He groaned and ran his hands through his hair.

“This is my own fault, Miss Ferrars; I have dug myself a pit, and fallen into it; but I cannot answer you.”

“Then I am sorry for you, Mr. Lovell, for I have vowed not to leave Plymouth without that packet.”

“You are a very determined young woman, Miss Ferrars,” he said with a rueful smile.

“You may think it unbecoming—”

“I did not say that, Miss Ferrars, nor did I mean it. On the contrary,” he said warmly, “you have every right to press me. But the fact remains: I am bound by my oath of office not to surrender that packet unless your mother’s terms are met.”

“But surely, Mr. Lovell, if her intention was to save me from marrying this man, she would want you to tell me his name—now that you have revealed so much?”

“You would make a formidable barrister,” he said, ruffling his hair again. “But all I can do—speaking from the heart, and not simply as a lawyer—is advise you to trust in your mother’s judgement. At least some good has come of my carelessness; it has brought you and your cousin together, and I can see that you are deeply attached to her. Indeed—am I right in feeling that you are here for her sake rather than your own?”

“For both our sakes,” I said, avoiding his eye as I felt my colour rising.

“All the same, Miss Ferrars, given what you have told me, I don’t see how your cousin’s happiness can possibly depend upon the contents of that packet. I do earnestly advise you to trust in your mother and leave things as they are—ah, thank you, Mr. Pritchard,” he said, springing from his chair as the elderly clerk appeared with a tray.

I was glad of the interval, for I could not decide what to do next. Instinct warned me that revealing Lucia’s secret would not be enough to sway him; I would have to divine the forbidden suitor’s name or coax Mr. Lovell into revealing it . . . and then I saw how it might be done.

“Tell me, Mr. Lovell,” I said when he was seated again, “have you always lived in Plymouth?” The look of relief on his face was almost comical, and for the next few minutes I encouraged him to talk about himself. He had indeed grown up in Plymouth, and until quite recently had lived at home with his parents—his father had also been a solicitor—and his two youngest sisters; there were two married sisters and a brother, all living within twenty miles of the town. His parents had lately retired to the village of Noss Mayo, leaving Mr. Lovell in bachelor quarters near the Hoe. He spoke of them all with great affection, and sounded entirely content with his lot.

“But, Miss Ferrars,” he said suddenly, “I am forgetting my duty; you did not come all this way to listen to my ramblings.”

“It is a pleasure to hear about your family. But yes, there is something else: a separate matter.”

“You have only to name it,” he said eagerly.

“There are two men about whom I should like some information; I should like to know if either of them is still alive, and if so, where they are living. But I don’t want either of them to know of my enquiry.”

His face, which had cleared at the words “a separate matter,” fell again.

“And their names?”

“The first,” I said, studying him closely, “is Thomas Wentworth—Rosina Wentworth’s father.”

“That,” he said uneasily, “I may be able to help you with. What else can you tell me about him?”

“Only that he was wealthy—a businessman or financier of some sort—and lived in Portland Place, at least from 1859 until 1860. And he had an elder daughter, Clarissa, who eloped in the summer of 1859; she and her lover, a man called George Harrington, were—they died together in an accident in Rome, in October of that year; there was something about it in The Times.”

“I see.” He fetched a piece of paper from his desk and scribbled a few lines on it, looking troubled, but not unduly alarmed. “And the other?”

“Felix Mordaunt, of Tregannon House, in Cornwall.”

This time the shock was palpable; he bent over his paper, writing studiously, but the rash along his jaw was suddenly livid.

I had guessed the riddle, but it made no sense. Felix Mordaunt might have been a notorious libertine, but how could Mama possibly have imagined that of all the men in the kingdom, I would meet and marry him? And again, even if she had, why not simply warn me herself?

“May I ask why?” he said, without raising his eyes from the page.

I was about to say, Because he is the man my mother named, but realised I did not actually know that for certain.

“Oh—a family connection,” I replied as coolly as I could manage. “My aunt mentioned the name once or twice; is it familiar to you, Mr. Lovell?”

His head flew up, his face reddening with anger.

“If you knew, Miss Ferrars, then why?—” His mouth snapped shut as realisation dawned.

“I assure you, Mr. Lovell, that when I arrived here this afternoon, I had not the faintest suspicion. If you had not led me to the answer, I should never have guessed. But now that you have told me—”

Once again he groaned and ran his hands through his hair, rumpling it so wildly that I feared it would come out in tufts.

“Will you tell me,” he said at last, “how you arrived at that name?”

“I cannot do that, Mr. Lovell, without betraying a confidence. But I know exactly why my mother did not want me to marry this man”—again that indecipherable flicker of reaction—“and I can assure you that my happiness, and that of my cousin, depends upon your handing over that packet, as my mother would instruct you to do, if only she were here. And I promise you—I will swear on the Bible, if you wish—that no one except Lucia and I will ever know you gave it to me.”

He leant back in his chair, swirling the dregs in the bottom of his teacup.

“I confess, Miss Ferrars, that I simply don’t know what to do. Sometimes I think I am not cut out for the law . . . But the fact remains: the terms of your mother’s bequest have not been met, and again I urge you to trust in her judgement. You say that your happiness depends upon it, but you don’t know what that packet contains, any more than I do, and you may be mistaken.”

“I am sorry, Mr. Lovell, but my mind is made up.”

“I feared as much. Will you allow me twenty-four hours to think it over?”

“Might I be able to see you in the morning? I should like to be home tomorrow night.”

“I am afraid that every minute of the morning is spoken for,” he said. “But I shall be free by half past two at the latest.”

He rose and offered his hand, which was reassuringly warm and dry, to help me up, and for a moment we stood smiling at each other, our hands still clasped.

“You have been very kind,” I said as he accompanied me to the landing, “and exceedingly forbearing; far more than I deserve.”

“On the contrary, Miss Ferrars, I have nothing but admiration for you. Until tomorrow, then, at half past two.”

I had gone halfway down the stairs before I realised that I was quite unsteady on my feet, and trembling with emotion.

It is only nine o’clock, but the hotel is completely silent; not surprisingly, as there is only one other guest. My room is quite large, and perfectly comfortable; Mrs. Gifford, the proprietor—she has the most extraordinarily elaborate coiffure of snow-white hair—is most obliging. From my window I can see a line of gaslamps stretching away in both directions along the empty street.

After I had written down everything I could recall of the interview, I put on my cloak (or rather, Lucia’s cloak) and set out again, meaning to walk down to the Hoe and look at the sea. But the light was fading, and the evening chill had settled, so I went only as far as the telegraph office on Royal Parade—it felt very strange, addressing a telegram to myself—to let Lucia know that I hoped to be home tomorrow night. Mrs. Gifford, who was hovering in the foyer when I returned, invited me to take tea by the sitting-room fire; I was about to decline when it occurred to me that she might know something of the Mordaunt family.

The sitting room is as dismal as most of its kind; I remember half a dozen like it from my travels with my aunt: crammed with chairs and sofas in faded Regency plush, along with their attendant footstools and side tables. There are the usual heavy maroon curtains shrouding a bow-fronted window; the wallpaper, also faded and Regency, is on the verge of peeling. But the fire was crackling cheerfully, and to forestall any more questions about myself (I must learn to answer to “Miss Ardent” without the slightest hesitation) I asked her at once about the Mordaunts of Tregannon House.

“Mordaunt, Mordaunt . . . No, I can’t say that I do,” she replied, taking the chair beside me. “But Tregannon—now, that rings a bell. There’s an asylum at Liskeard of that name.”

So Edmund Mordaunt must have prevailed, I thought.

“I think that might be it,” I said. “Can you tell me where Liskeard is?”

“About twenty miles to the west, Miss Ardent, just this side of Bodmin Moor.”

“I think the Mordaunt family may own Tregannon Asylum,” I said, realising as I spoke that someone had entered the room.

“Ah, Mrs. Fairfax,” said my hostess, bouncing to her feet. “Would you care to join us for tea? Miss Ardent; Mrs. Fairfax.”

I had passed her on the stairs that afternoon, on my way to Mr. Lovell’s office. She had the figure of a young woman, and her hair, a few shades darker than my own, showed no trace of grey. But her face was gaunt, with deep lines scored downward from the corners of her mouth, and bruised pouches like crumpled snakeskin beneath her eyes, which were very dark and lustrous.

As we exchanged greetings, a maid came in and murmured something to Mrs. Gifford.

“I am afraid I must leave you,” she said, “but do make yourselves comfortable; Martha will bring an extra cup.”

I did not want to make conversation with Mrs. Fairfax, but there was no escaping short of rudeness, and so I resumed my seat.

“A very comfortable hotel, is it not, Miss Ardent?”

“Yes, very.”

“And a fine view of the town; I am in number seven, on the floor above you, I think. Will you be staying long in Plymouth?”

“No—that is to say, I am not sure. And you, Mrs. Fairfax?”

“I think I shall stay a few more days . . . Forgive me, Miss Ardent,” she said in a lower tone. “I hope you will not think me impertinent, but I could not help overhearing: you were speaking of Tregannon Asylum.” Her voice had a throaty, musical quality which seemed vaguely familiar; she must, I thought, have been talking to Mrs. Gifford just before I met her on the stairs.

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Forgive me; I don’t mean to pry. It is only that—I have just been visiting a dear friend there.”

I gave her what I hoped was an encouraging look, wondering if I should offer my condolences.

“Oh, it is not a painful duty,” she said, smiling. “My friend is a voluntary patient; she can come and go as she pleases. She is prone to nervous exhaustion, and says that a month at Tregannon Asylum is as good as a visit to Baden-Baden.”

“So it is not a lunatic asylum, then?”

“Oh yes, there are lunatics confined there—quite separately from the voluntary patients—but they are treated very kindly. Dr. Straker, the man in charge, prides himself upon running the most humane and enlightened asylum in the country.”

“I believe it is owned by the Mordaunt family,” I ventured.

“Yes, Miss Ardent; do you know them?”

“No,” I said, rather too hastily. “I—er—I have a friend who is distantly related. And you, Mrs. Fairfax, are you acquainted with the family?”

“Not personally, no. But my friend has met Mr. Edmund Mordaunt, the present owner—though that was some years ago now; I believe his health is failing, and he seldom leaves his quarters.”

“Does he live at the asylum, then?”

“Oh yes; the estate has been in the family for centuries—but perhaps you know that,” she added, regarding me curiously. Trust me; confide in me, her gaze seemed to say. The pupils of her eyes glowed like polished jet; I could see the pinpoint reflections of the flames burning in their depths.

“My friend has told me a little,” I said, as casually as I could manage. “She mentioned a Felix Mordaunt, I think; have you heard of him?”

“No, I don’t think I have—unless you mean Frederic Mordaunt, Edmund Mordaunt’s nephew, a charming young man: my friend is always singing his praises. He acts as Dr. Straker’s personal assistant and will presumably inherit the entire estate.”

“Edmund Mordaunt has no children of his own, then?”

“No, he never married.”

“And Frederic Mordaunt?”

“He, too, is a bachelor, Miss Ardent—and a very eligible one, I am sure,” she added, glancing at my left hand.

“I am sure he is,” I said mechanically, remembering Mr. Lovell, and how his expression had changed at the words “my mother did not want me to marry this man” . . . this man, this man . . . and suddenly I saw that Mrs. Fairfax had handed me the key to Mr. Lovell’s strongbox.

“Miss Ardent?”

I realised that I was staring vacantly into the fire.

“I do beg your pardon,” I said. “I am a little preoccupied . . . a family matter.”

“You mustn’t apologise,” she said, in a tone that invited confidences. I could not think how to respond to this, and an awkward silence fell, until Mrs. Gifford returned with the maid and the tea tray.

It was a bad mistake to call myself Miss Ardent, as I realised from the moment I set foot in the hotel. I could not borrow Lucia’s actual history, as it would have made her too anxious: I am supposed to have lost my parents before I could remember, and to have lived with my great-aunt, in various parts of the country, ever since. But Lucia’s faith in me is misplaced; I have contradicted myself several times already, and I fear that Mrs. Fairfax, at least, suspects me of dissembling. There was another awkward moment in the sitting room, when Mrs. Gifford suggested that since Mrs. Fairfax and I were the only guests, we might like to share a table at dinner. Travelling as myself, I would have seized the opportunity to press her about the Mordaunts. As it was, I hesitated, and was spared embarrassment only because she happened to be dining with friends. I met her coming upstairs, presumably to change, as I was going down to dinner.

A half-moon is rising above the rooftops opposite; I have scarcely seen a moon since I left Niton, let alone one so clear. Tomorrow I mean to visit Nettleford. There is a ferry across the harbour to Turnchapel, and then a walk of about three miles along the coast; if I leave straight after breakfast, I shall be back well before half past two. I hope Lucia will not mind—mind my not waiting until we can see Nettleford together, that is. It is the perfect way to fill what would otherwise be several long and anxious hours; and of course she would want me to go, just as I would want her to go in my place.

If only she were here with me, my happiness would be complete. But I shall be home tomorrow night, with the packet—I am certain I have guessed the riddle—and we shall open it together. And then we shall leave Gresham’s Yard, and never have to be apart again. She said to me last night, as we lay in bed: “You must not be anxious for me, dearest: no matter what we discover, it will be a relief to know.”

Strange that a quarrel—well, only a spat, really, and only on her side, but horribly distressing all the same—should bring such joy. It was shortly before bedtime; we were in her room, packing her valise, and were about to close it when I thought of my writing case and brooch, and said I would run upstairs to fetch them.

“But that will spoil the illusion,” she said sharply. “If Charlotte notices, she may realise what we’ve done.”

“I am sorry, Lucia,” I said, “but I would never travel anywhere without them. They are all I have left from the wreck of our house”—as you know perfectly well, I almost added—“and Charlotte won’t know, because I always keep them in the drawer of my writing desk.”

She looked, for a moment, quite mutinous; her eyes flashed, and she opened her mouth to protest, then turned on her heel and left the room. I heard her running upstairs, and then my own bedroom door slamming. My heart seemed to shrivel in an instant; I dared not run after her, and sank down on her bed, engulfed in misery.

An eternity later—as it seemed—I felt her arm steal around my shoulders. Looking up blearily, I saw that she had brought my writing case and brooch.

“Forgive me, Georgina,” she murmured, drawing me closer. “I am such a stickler for perfection, when it comes to acting a part, that I forgot myself. Of course you must take them.”

I allowed myself to be kissed but could not surrender to her embrace. She took me by the shoulders and turned me gently to face her. My happiness, I thought, is utterly in your keeping; but is the same true for you?

“I am so sorry, dearest,” she said. “It was not just . . . I know it is foolish, but I am anxious about your going; I could not bear it if anything happened to you.”

“Then come with me,” I said. “It is not too late.”

“No, that would only make it harder for you—when you come to tell your uncle that we are going to live together, I mean—and I won’t have that. And I am being foolish; I know it. Only . . . may I sleep with you tonight?”

“Of course you may,” I said, all misery forgotten. “But what about Charlotte?”

“I do not care about Charlotte; I want to stay with you, here, tonight, in my bed.”

As I was brushing her hair and gazing at her reflection in the mirror, it struck me that something about her appearance had changed since our first night together; something that for a moment eluded me. Her dressing table was the same size and shape as mine; the candles were in much the same places; we were wearing the same nightgowns; yet . . . And then it came to me: the first time, I had been overwhelmed by the resemblance; now, I was conscious only of the differences between us: the shape and set of her eyes, the exact curve of her cheekbones, the play of her expressions; and I was overjoyed at the realisation. I am not like Narcissus, I thought. We are different; and that is what draws us together. Our eyes met in the glass, and she made a small kissing gesture with her lips, as if she had divined my thought.

“Lucia,” I said, “where would you most like us to live?”

“Where would you, dearest?”

“Somewhere by the sea; but I will be happiest wherever you are happiest.”

“And I feel the same. I used to think—I remember saying to you, when we first found each other—that all I craved was to be settled in one place, to put down roots, and never have to move again. But what I really craved was this”—she took my hand and pressed it to her breast—“and wherever we are together, that will be our settled place.”

Her breast swelled beneath my hand; my heart was suddenly pounding. She rose to her feet and into my arms; our bodies melded together; our lips met and parted, and I was filled with a sweetness beyond imagining. My hands moved of their own accord over her body, discovering, dwelling, delighting; her arms tightened around me; I felt the soft pressure of her tongue against mine; but then she drew back, keeping her hands on my waist and regarding me with huge, troubled eyes. We were both trembling violently.

“I am so sorry,” she gasped. “You must not think . . . that I do not want to; I do, but . . .”

“But . . .?”

“I was cruel to you, cruel and hateful: I have Mordaunt blood in my veins.”

“Lucia, Lucia, my darling, I don’t care whose blood runs in your veins. All that matters is that I love and adore you, and as long as you love me, too—”

“What if I should stop loving you?”

“Then I should die,” I said, more seriously than I intended. “But I would never regret loving you. And it wasn’t the Mordaunt blood; it was only because you are anxious about that packet. Remember what you said: we can face anything, so long as we are together.”

“You are so good to me,” she said. “Once I know . . . I still want to stay with you tonight, only . . .”

“Of course,” I said, kissing her gently. “Can we leave the candle burning for a little, so that I can look at you?”

“Yes, my dearest; I should like that too.”

I would have been perfectly content to stay side by side, but she took me in her arms and drew me close again, so that we were lying face to face.

“This is our settled place,” she murmured, “and when you are home again . . .” Her eyelids drooped; a small smile played about her lips, and a few minutes later she was fast asleep. But I lay awake until the candle guttered, softly caressing my beloved, remembering that first night when I had thought no greater joy was possible, dreaming of paradise to come.

Dawlish’s Private Hotel

Tuesday, 31 October 1882

I shall be resolute and start at the beginning—perhaps it will help me to decide what I must do.

I slept badly last night—the moon was shining full on my face, but I did not want to draw the curtains—and woke with a headache and no appetite for breakfast. I felt distinctly queasy aboard the ferry, but my spirits lifted on the road to Nettleford, which took me along the coast, through open pasture like the country beyond Chale, only lower and gentler. I had always imagined Nettleford as a smaller version of Niton, with paved streets, and a post office, and an inn like the White Lion, but it proved to be a mere scattering of cottages around a disused church. Several of the cottages were plainly untenanted; smoke was rising from the chimney of another, but as I approached the gate, a dog began barking hysterically. The front door opened a little; a harsh voice commanded the dog to be silent, and a sour-faced, grey-haired woman peered out, regarding me suspiciously.

“And what might you want?”

“I am looking for the house where Dr. Ferrars lived—about twenty years ago, but perhaps you might—”

“No one of that name here,” she said, and closed the door firmly. I saw a curtain twitch as I retreated.

I went on as far as the church without seeing any other sign of life, and stopped by the lych-gate, contemplating the wilderness within. The graves were overgrown, the headstones flaking and pitted with lichen. As I stood gazing at this dismal scene, my eye was drawn by a name that looked like “Ferrars.”

I lifted the latch and pushed at the wooden gate. The hinges groaned; shards of rotting wood fell about my feet; it opened just far enough for me to squeeze through into the churchyard.

The name, I saw as I came closer, was not Ferrars but Fenner—Martha Fenner. “Departed This Life” . . . The rest had crumbled away. Many of the inscriptions were quite illegible, but beneath the opposite wall, about twenty paces away, was a much newer stone, the original pink of the marble still gleaming faintly through the lichen. Trampling down weeds, I made my way over to it.

In Loving Memory Of

Rosina May Wentworth

b. 23 November 1839

d. 6 March 1861

Dearly Beloved Cousin

Of Emily Ferrars

REST IN PEACE

Useless to dwell upon the hours of fearful speculation that followed. I arrived at Mr. Lovell’s office half an hour early, certain of only one thing: I could not return to London until I had secured that packet and found out what was in it. I paced about the waiting room, anxiously observed by his clerk, whose name I could not recall, until I heard footsteps bounding up the stairs.

Henry Lovell’s face brightened when he caught sight of me, but his smile changed to a look of concern as he showed me into his room.

“Miss Ferrars, is something wrong? You are as white as—as if you had seen a ghost.”

All too true, I thought.

“Yes, I have had a shock—something which makes it all the more imperative that I find out what is in that packet.”

“I see. But first you must take some refreshment: a glass of wine, perhaps? Tea? Some cake?”

“Thank you, I want nothing; only my mother’s bequest.”

“Then—can you not tell me what has happened?”

“No, Mr. Lovell, I cannot.”

Still he seemed to hesitate.

“Mr. Lovell,” I said, launching upon the speech I had rehearsed many times, “I am afraid I was not entirely frank with you yesterday afternoon.”

“I suspected as much. Please be assured, Miss Ferrars, that nothing you say here will ever pass beyond these four walls.”

He leant forward encouragingly.

“You asked me if I was engaged to be married, and I said I was not. The truth is, I am secretly engaged to Mr. Frederic Mordaunt, of Tregannon House—Tregannon Asylum, as it now is—at Liskeard, in Cornwall.”

He recoiled as if I had struck him.

“Miss Ferrars, you cannot be—I am afraid I don’t believe you.”

“Sir, that is most discourteous!” I replied, with all the indignation I could muster.

“I am very sorry for it, but truly, Miss Ferrars, there is no need for this—this charade. I had already decided to give you the packet.”

If he truly meant it, why had he had not said so at the beginning? Was he trying to trap me? I could not take the risk.

“My engagement, sir, is no charade. I did not tell you yesterday because I needed time to reflect. Even Frederic’s uncle, Mr. Edmund Mordaunt, does not yet know of our engagement. And so, Mr. Lovell, my mother’s condition is fulfilled. Will you now hand over the packet?”

He rose slowly from his chair, his face a welter of conflicting emotions: doubt, confusion, concern; even, I thought, disappointment.

“Yes, Miss Ferrars, I will. I only wish I knew . . .” I thought he was going to add, “whether to believe you,” but he said no more. From the top of an unstable heap of papers on his desk, he picked up a large grey envelope and handed it to me.

It struck me, as I declined another offer of refreshment, that I need not have lied to him.

“If there is anything more I can do, Miss Ferrars,” he said as we parted, “anything at all, I hope you will not hesitate to call upon me. Here is my card. I have written my parents’ address on the back, and if you should ever find yourself at Noss Mayo, you will always find a welcome there.

“Oh, and there is one thing more. You asked me to find out if Thomas Wentworth was still alive: he died bankrupt, in November of 1879, by his own hand.”

So intent was I upon the envelope in my hand that the words scarcely registered. When I reached the landing below, I looked back and saw him still standing at the top, regarding me with troubled eyes.