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
