Helen finally agreed to a meeting after a long-winded process of letter tennis between our solicitors. It was a manipulative attempt to see which of my resources would run out first: money or motivation. I kept at it. I had a better chance of extracting a settlement if the fear of shame was fresh. I would only have to poke a finger in the open wound and tease the pain to the surface.
My solicitor tried to explain to me, as old men who know better always do, that any grounds I felt I had for improving my financial position as Thomas’s widow would be best pursued via the proper legal process, through the courts. As Thomas had yet to inherit anything and we had been married for a mere five months, it was expected that the courts would say I was only entitled to inherit from his earned income, which everyone knew was a collection of debts. The Lancasters had gallantly settled all outstanding debts before the private inquest was held. I would have no real claim, Mr Radcliffe said, but perhaps the courts would feel sorry for me and encourage the Lancasters to help with a small pension. If I wasn’t careful, they would humiliate me and ruin me publicly. I didn’t listen.
I went to Abbingdale Hall alone. Helen would have her lawyers present. Mr Radcliffe, ever the concerned worrier for my nerves, wanted to accompany me should her team of vultures attempt to pick at my flesh.
‘I’m made of sterner stuff than that,’ I assured him, though I had my doubts. My newfound bravery was actually desperation. I now, quite literally, had nothing to lose.
Thomas had described his home as poetically grand, beautiful, but then he was given to embellishment. However, in this instance, I believe he underplayed it. The estate was vast. There were ornamental gardens, fountains in front of a dramatic Gothic mansion, and well-tended grounds surrounding it. The looming spire of the family church punctured the horizon. That one family could live in such splendid isolation, cut off from the misery and hopelessness, not to mention the stink, of Whitechapel, and be so arrogant as to think that a few months’ rent on a shabby house in London would be all that was needed to get rid of me gave me confidence. This was my only advantage. They thought me a gold-digger, I knew that, a guttersnipe come to demand crumbs from their table. It was not a conversation I looked forward to, but I had need of security. Wasn’t that how wealth worked? It was grabbed at, stolen, extorted, taken by force or any other means necessary, and protestations after the fact were dismissed and ignored. I would simply play by the same rules.
I was left waiting in a foyer so large, our voices and footsteps echoed around it. As I stood there, I spotted the vase, the one with three Greek girls carrying water. There was a tall girl at the back with a dour face; he had told the truth about that. I felt a pang of pity for the small boy that Thomas once was. It must have been a lonely existence for him, knowing himself to be the cuckoo, petrified he would be discovered at any moment.
I was led into a large, dark study with carved mahogany furniture and red walls. Helen was positioned like the matriarch behind a vast desk, which only exaggerated her diminutive frame. A chorus-line of white-haired and spectacled lawyers was ranged behind her, ready to bend and scrape and give outraged looks on command.
Thomas’s twin sister was nothing like I’d expected; she was squat and plump. How had anybody ever thought those two were twins? I understood what Mrs Wiggs had meant when she said the Lancasters were not strong. Helen was a piggish girl in a silk lilac dress; she had a weak chin, eyes set too close together and dark rings beneath them. She was used to conversing with intelligent people, but all in her employ.
‘You are not as I imagined,’ said Helen as I sat down.
‘Neither are you,’ I replied. ‘Did Thomas resemble your father?’
‘See for yourself – his portrait is up there.’ She gestured towards a large oil painting over the grand mantel. It was of a round, short-waisted man with the same pug face and small eyes, a set of bristling whiskers and a severe lack of hair.
‘I can see the resemblance,’ I said.
‘You can? You would be the first.’
‘I meant to you; you are certainly your father’s daughter.’
Her eyes narrowed and she waved one of her lawyers forward. He presented me with papers as Helen talked.
‘We understand you find yourself unexpectedly widowed. We assumed you might return to your family, but, as your solicitor has explained, you don’t have one. Therefore, as a gesture of goodwill and a token of our sympathy, we would like to offer you the sum of fifty pounds. This is in addition to the rent we have paid in advance on the property in Chelsea. I should imagine you are in need of some immediate funds—’
‘Not good enough,’ I said, and pushed the piece of paper away without looking at it.
Her gaggle of penguins coughed and balked.
Helen stared at me, her nostrils flared. She tried not to bite her bottom lip. ‘Let me be clear…’ She struggled to know what to call me. ‘There is nothing in this house that will ever belong to you. You may think you have some claim on my brother’s estate, but you do not. I’m sure you are bitterly disappointed that your marriage was, to all intents and purposes, a disaster, but perhaps if you’d known him a little better, you might have declined his impulsive offer to wed. However, I’m guessing the decision wasn’t entirely based on his charms. At your age, you should have known better, but then I suppose money brings out the worst in all of us.’
‘You haven’t addressed me directly once, Helen, not as “Susannah”, as a sister would, nor as “Mrs Lancaster”. Why is that?’
‘Because I cannot bring myself to. We are not sisters, and you have not earned the right to be called “Lancaster”, not as far as I am concerned.’
‘Tell me then, what did I do to earn this?’ I pulled down the neck of my dress to show my red scar.
All of them flinched, except Helen, who would doubtless have suffered a hot poker in a dark crevice rather than give me a reaction.
‘I would like to speak to you privately, Helen, just once, so that I may explain why you might prefer to work with me on a quiet resolution regarding our mutual issues.’
Her solicitors tried to interrupt, but Helen silenced them all with a raised hand. They stopped like a pack of well-trained gundogs. It reminded me of how Thomas would quiet Mrs Wiggs.
Once they had left, I gave her my proposal. I would accept a lump sum and they would purchase for me and make a gift to me of the house in Chelsea. On receipt of the deeds and the money, I would never bother them again.
Helen laughed, which was as expected. ‘What on earth makes you think I would agree to such… extortion?’ she asked.
‘If you don’t, I will be forced to sell my pitiful story, which will run along the following themes: your brother was a sadistic, perverted pig who abused his wife, sexually and physically. Of course, I will be obliged to reveal intimate details of the bedchamber, and I will also need to disclose that he was rather workshy and, quite frankly, not very good at his job. I will make public the embarrassing truth that he was an active and not at all clandestine homosexual who frequented mollies’ houses – a practice that has been illegal these past three years, as you will know – which will do nothing to enhance the reputation of the Lancaster family. And lastly, I will make it widely known that he was not in reality your brother at all.’
The blood visibly drained from Helen’s face. She tried to steady her rapid breathing. This woman had shared a nursery with Thomas and, deep down, as ridiculous as it seemed, there was something in her that knew this to be the truth. I was probably the first person in the world to articulate the instincts she’d kept contained since childhood.
I explained what Mrs Wiggs had told me about finding Helen’s real baby brother dead in his crib and swapping the real Lancaster boy with her own. Hadn’t she ever noticed that Mrs Wiggs was colour-blind, like her brother?
‘The thing I struggle with most, I think, even though I have no children of my own, is how your mother could fail to recognise her own child. But then Thomas said she only ever came downstairs for dinner or to go to parties. I imagine the newspapers will speculate along the same themes,’ I said.
I also told a lie. I claimed that Mrs Wiggs had revealed to me the exact spot where she’d buried the Lancaster baby. If Helen preferred to keep this scandal between us, she could agree to my terms and pay me promptly. Otherwise, in order to keep my fire burning and food in my belly, I would tell the first journalist who would listen.
‘Where is Mrs Wiggs?’ asked Helen. Her face was a picture, the smugness gone. Her mind was clearly desperate to fathom how she could dominate again. Testing her tongue on those in her employ had not been good exercise.
‘I honestly don’t know. She was seen leaving with a man and a trunk,’ I said. ‘Perhaps she is making up for lost time.’
‘You would be willing to shame yourself to extort a pension from a family who have done nothing to deserve it? You are not the only one who has endured my brother’s temper. He was a cruel child: spoiled, explosive. My mother was petrified of him, as was I.’
‘I don’t want a pension; I want a chance. What I’m asking for is nothing to you but will change my life for ever. If you think I’m going to go away quietly after putting up with your brother and being left with such a pretty necklace, you’re wrong. Give me what I want and you’ll never hear of me again.’
It was small change to the Lancasters and Helen was a sensible girl. It frustrated the hell out of her that she would never know if I was bluffing, but she had her lawyers draw up the settlement.
As I left the study, she remained seated.
‘I don’t want my mother to know about this, but tell me where my brother is, my real brother. I want to give him a proper burial – privately of course.’
‘Ask me again in ten years,’ I said. It was a trick, of course. That woman was no more interested in her brother than she was in me.
‘Funny, don’t you think?’ she said. ‘Look at us, both dressed up in mourning for a man we feel nothing but bitterness towards.’
By the end of the month, I was the legal owner of the house in Chelsea and had £2000 in the bank.