The Virtuous Cyprian

‘I’ll bid you good evening, sir.’ She hardly recognised her own voice, so shaken it sounded.

Seagrave caught up to her at the gate. ‘I saw you coming out of the church, Miss Kellaway,’ he said abruptly. ‘Can this be some remarkable conversion to moral rectitude?’

The mocking undertone in his voice banished the magical spell his presence had cast on Lucille. She had read about physical attraction, she reminded herself sharply, and knew that it had nothing to do with loving, liking or respecting another person. No doubt she should just be grateful that Seagrave was indeed no Sir Edwin Bolt, with his insultingly lewd comments and disgusting mauling of Susanna’s naked flesh. Only she, Lucille, in her inexperience, had for a moment confused that intense physical awareness with feelings of a deeper and more meaningful kind.

‘Did you imagine that I was there to steal the candlesticks?’ she snapped, angry with herself for her susceptibility and with him for his sarcasm. She gathered up her skirts in one hand to enable her to walk away from him more quickly. ‘Do you exercise the right to decree whether your tenants attend church or not, my lord? Take care that you do not assume too many of the Almighty’s own privileges!’

Seagrave’s eyes narrowed at this before he unexpectedly burst out laughing. ‘A well-judged reproof, Miss Kellaway! What a contradictory creature you are! Come, I shall escort you back to Cookes!’

Lucille preferred not to torment herself with his company. ‘Thank you, but there is not the least need! Good night, sir!’

Seagrave, who was used to having his companionship actively sought by women rather than abruptly refused, found this rather amusing. He wished he had kissed her when he had had the chance. He watched with a rueful smile as her small, upright figure crossed the green and disappeared in at the gates of Cookes. Susanna Kellaway…He frowned abruptly, recalling what he knew of her. His wits must be a-begging to find her remotely attractive.

He knew she was supposed to exercise a powerful sexual sway over her conquests, but the attraction he had felt had been far more complex than mere lust. God alone knew what had prompted him to tell her about Salamanca. If he had not forcibly stopped himself, he imagined he would have blurted out all about his alienation from normal life, the driven madness which had possessed him when he had returned from the wars…Damnation! This sojourn in the country must be making him soft in the head! He called Sal sharply to heel and set off across the moonlit fields back to Dillingham Court.

The good weather broke the following day, and Lucille spent the morning curled up in the drawing-room with an ancient map of Dillingham that she had found in her father’s study. Each lane and dwelling was carefully labelled; Cookes was there, though at that time it was still a row of individual timbered cottages, drawn with skill and precision by the cartographer’s pen. On the other side of Dragon Hill, the only high land in the area, lay a beautifully stylised house named on the map as Dillingham Court and surrounded by its pleasure gardens. Lucille’s curiosity was whetted, but she knew it was unlikely that she would ever see the Court in real life.

There had still been no word from Susanna, and two weeks had already passed. Lucille no longer really believed that her sister would return in the time she had promised, and she itched to be away from Cookes. Wearing Susanna’s character, even without an audience, suddenly grated on her. If only Seagrave had not come to Dillingham! Lucille shifted uncomfortably in her chair, her conscience pricking her again.

Immediately after luncheon the rain ceased, driven away by a brisk wind that hurried the ragged clouds across the sky. Lucille was tired of being cooped up all day. She put on a pair of stout boots to protect her from the puddles and called for the carriage to be brought round.

‘I wish to go to the seaside, John,’ she told the startled coachman.

It was six miles to the sea at the nearest point, which was Shingle Street, and the journey was a slow one over rutted tracks. Clearly John thought that she was mad to attempt such an expedition, but Lucille did not care. Once out of the village environs, the lush green fields soon gave way to thick forest and heathland, flat, dark and empty to the horizons. On such a grey day it was both forbidding and desolate, but Lucille found it a fascinating place. When they finally reached the sea, she descended from the carriage to be met by the full force of the wind and was almost blown over. The fresh salty tang of the air was exhilarating.

Feeling much better, Lucille told John that she would walk along the shore for a little way and asked him to meet her at the gates of the only house she had seen in the vicinity. Scratching his head, the coachman watched her walk off along the shingle beach, a slight, lonely figure in her outmoded coat and boots. How could two sisters be so different? he wondered. Miss Susanna Kellaway never walked anywhere if she could ride; more fundamentally, she had never said please or thank you in all the time he had worked for her.

The walking was hard along the shingle, and the power of the waves was awesome at close quarters. The sea was gunmetal grey, a heaving, bad-tempered maelstrom as it hurled itself on the shore. Seabirds screamed and wheeled overhead. Here and there, sea wrack was scattered across the beach; flotsam and jetsam from ships, bent and misshapen after their time in the water. Lucille stooped to consider a few pieces and picked up a piece of wood that had been worn smooth by the force of the waves.

She had reached a point where there was a set of ancient, worn steps cut into the shingle and she turned away from the sea to follow them up the small cliff. On the headland the turf was smooth and springy, the path skirting an ancient fence which marked the boundary of the house Lucille had seen earlier. She paused, wondering who could have chosen to live in so desolate a spot. The house itself was hidden from her view by a well-established shrubbery and cluster of gnarled trees, but it looked a substantial dwelling. And as she considered it, leaning on the fence, a voice from near at hand said:

‘Goddess! Excellently bright!’

Lucille jumped and spun around. The voice was of a rich, deep-velvet quality and would have carried from pit to gallery at a Drury Lane theatre. Emerging from the shrubbery was an extraordinary figure, a large woman of indeterminate age, wrapped in what seemed like endless scarves of blue chiffon and purple gauze in complete defiance of the climate. Over her arm was a basket full of roses and at her heels stalked a large fluffy white cat. The most worldly-wise, disillusioned pair of dark eyes that Lucille had ever seen were appraising her thoughtfully.

‘That, Miss Kellaway,’ the lady said impressively, ‘was in tribute to your beauty and was—’

‘Ben Jonson,’ Lucille said, spontaneously. ‘Yes, I know!’

The pessimistic dark eyes focussed on her more intently. ‘Would you care to take tea with me, Miss Kellaway? I have so few visitors here for I am not recognised in the county!’

For a moment, Lucille wondered what on earth she meant. It seemed impossible that such a character would remain unrecognised wherever she went.

‘I am Bessie Bellingham,’ the lady continued, grandly. ‘The Dowager Lady Bellingham! Bessie Bowles, as was!’

She paused, clearly expecting the recognition she deserved, and Lucille did not disappoint her.

‘Of course! I have read of you, ma’am—your performance as Viola in Twelfth Night was accounted one of the best ever seen at Drury Lane, and the papers were forever arguing over whether comedy or melodrama was your forté!’

‘Well, well, before your time, my child!’ But Lady Bellingham was smiling, well pleased, and the cat was rubbing around Lucille’s ankles and purring. ‘My own favourite was Priscilla Tomboy in The Romp, but it was a long time ago, before I met dear Bellingham and ended up in this mausoleum!’

She took Lucille’s arm and steered her through the shrubbery towards the house. ‘You have no idea how delighted I was when I saw you on the beach,’ she continued. ‘Of course, I had heard that you were staying in Dillingham—my maid, Conchita, knows everything! And I thought that, as we two are the black sheep of the neighbourhood, we could take tea and talk of the London this provincial crowd will never know!’

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