Clarissa

"Lady Clarissa," came a voice from behind the door. It was Clarissa, sure enough, with that little hissing, snapping edge.

Lucy kindled the tiny electrolume that was the storage room's excuse for illumination and cautiously opened the door.

"Lucy," Clarissa began, "I have come to speak with you."

Blinking sleep from her eyes, Lucy indicated the cot that had been set up as her bed, there being no other furniture in the little chamber.

The airship's motors vibrated faintly through the partitions around Lucy's makeshift cabin. Otherwise the only noises were Clarissa and herself. Lucy smelt a note of liquor under the floral scent of Clarissa's perfume.

Lucy closed the door and sat down beside Clarissa on the bed. Sitting straight up, she looked slightly down at Clarissa, a slightly wilted blossom of a woman, a petite redhead with a certain vulpine look which had made her madly popular in her youth, being easily mistaken for wit and cunning.

"Lady Clarissa," Lucy said. "What brings you here?"

"Lucy, you must stay away from my husband," Clarissa insisted. "When you were a maid, any such folly was beneath notice. Now that you are gentry, it is adultery."

"Clarissa," Lucy began, "Now that we are of the same class, may I address you so? Or should be be 'Lady Clarissa' and 'Lady Downs' to one another?" Lucy's title, Lady Downs, underlined that she held the title to Clarissa and Edmund's residence in her own right, while Clarissa's was a courtesy title by marriage.

Clarissa nodded. "Lucy and Clarissa, then," she conceded. "You must have him no more, Lucy."

Lucy inclined her chin slightly down, then raised her eyes to Clarissa. "Clarissa, if you had told me that yesterday, I would have heard your directive as providential succour. You cannot know how many times Edmund peremptorily relieved his lusts with barely a thought for me." Lucy held Clarissa's eyes. "All that changed to-day."

Clarissa's face paled in the dim light. "You, you..." she sputtered at Lucy.

"Clarissa, as of to-day I am Edmund's lover. But to be Edmund's lover makes me your ally. The happiest course for me is the happiest course for you -- for Edmund to get a son upon you."

"Lucy?" Clarissa said, uncomprehending.

Lucy allowed that Clarissa was always a bit slow when things didn't go as she expected.

"Edmund must do his duty by you as a husband," Lucy said. "So to-day I have turned him away and sent him to you, when yesterday I would have accepted his demands on my body. I insisted to Edmund that he must look to your comfort and pleasure first."

"Lucy?" Clarissa said, frowning now.

"For if I am to have the joy of Edmund's regard," Lucy said. "I would have your satisfaction, and the satisfaction of your ambitions for Old Netherwood fulfilled."

"I cannot countenance it," Clarissa said.

"What would you do, Clarissa, that would not make all of us unhappy?" Lucy said. "You may count upon it that you would receive a bill of divorcement from Edmund without delay. Think of Sabrina, of her happiness, of her future."

"I cannot," Clarissa said.

"We both know, Clarissa, that Edmund has cause," Lucy said.

Clarissa swayed. "But I am, I am Edmund's lady wife. You, you, you are..."

"Jeremy's bastard," Lucy said. "But his firstborn, acknowledged and titled." She took a deep breath. "Clarissa, you cannot win if you fight me. If you love Edmund, if you love Sabrina, if you love comfort, riches, and the regard of Society, let me be your ally. I want your happiness."

Clarissa was crying. Wet sniffles came from her.

"Be the grand lady you mean to be," Lucy said. "Admired by Society. Adored by your husband and daughter. Rich, comfortable, and well-regarded. That is what you want. That is what I want for you. And let me help you."

Clarissa sobbed. She reached for a handkerchief, but she had none in her silken night wrapper.

Lucy took her handkerchief and blotted Clarissa's tears away. Clarissa kept sobbing. Lucy leaned forward and embraced her. Clarissa sobbed and held Lucy tight to herself. Lucy rocked Clarissa back and forth until Clarissa's breathing evened out.

Lucy eased the overwrought woman down upon her cot. If she lay down beside Clarissa on the little cot, they would be touching along their full lengths, there was no way round it.

Clarissa's breathing turned into a sniffly snore. She was asleep.

Lucy squeezed herself between Clarissa and the wall and let herself drift off, her face in Clarissa's perfumed red hair, the dim light no impediment once she closed her eyes.