Lady Violet Crandall

"Lucy, L-Lady Downs, to see Lady Violet Crandall," Lucy told the maid. "She would know me as Lucy Longbottom."

The maid held out a silver tray for her visiting card. The tray's decorations featured two young women skipping hand in hand through a flower garden, their sundresses swinging about their knees.

Lucy had come prepared. Before she left the solicitor's office yesterday, Mr. Augustus Henshawe had directed his assistant Mr. Jenkins to arrange for calling cards to be printed. Crisp, bright, and sharp, with understated formal type, they had arrived in a silk-lined box that morning. She lay one down atop the entwined fingers of the girls on the tray. On the back she had written "Lady C's Lucy".

The maid left her at the door. Lucy stood there, unsure whether she would be received, or even acknowledged. But within a few minutes, Lucy heard rapid, soft-padded footfalls inside and the door was flung open by none other than Lady Violet Crandall herself. Her bright blue eyes looked into Lucy's from a pale, lined face, and her silver-streaked red hair was pulled back and knotted into a chignon circled with a black silk ribbon.

"Lucy, dear girl!" Violet exclaimed. "Do come in!"

Lucy found herself bustled through the door by Lady Violet, whose black silk wrapper rustled with her movements.

"Chloë, bring tea to the solarium!" Lady Violet called. She turned her face to Lucy's and took her hand. "Such a loss, Lady Catherine," she said. "My dearest, most intimate friend. But then you know our secrets, Lucy."

Lucy allowed to herself that her acquaintance with Violet Crandall's "female phallus" would count as a secret to most.

"I am delighted to renew our acquaintance, Lucy, though it must be a sad time for you as well." Lady Violet squeezed Lucy's hand. "Kitty told me so often how much she loved you. How good you were to her. Let me kiss your cheek, dear girl!"

Lady Violet's lips rested on Lucy's cheek a beat too long, long enough for Lucy to feel their warmth and softness. Lucy's face coloured.

Lady Violet led her back through the house to a room facing on an interior court, walled with windows whose watery grey light was softened further by sheer draperies. Lady Violet sat down on the cushion of a white wicker settee with a rustle of silk. She patted the seat beside her.

"Now what brings you here, Lucy?" she asked. "I hope you are looking forward to brighter days."

Lucy took a breath and steadied herself. "Lady Violet," she said. "Yesterday, at the will... at the reading of Lady Catherine's will, there was a sealed provision that Lord Netherwood had left regarding m-my person."

Lady Violet raised her eyebrows. Her bright blue eyes looked into Lucy's.

"He... Lord Jeremy recognized me as his daughter. His eldest daughter."

Lady Violet's eyes flashed. "Ah?" she interjected. Her eyes narrowed.

"And I am to be mistress of Downs Edge, in my own right," Lucy said. "As Lady Downs."

"Diana piss on him for a craven weasel!" Lady Violet ejaculated. "Your father let you spend your whole life as a servant, a servant's bastard, and let his son use you to dip his prick! And now, now he recognizes you, nay creates you Lady after he and Catherine are safely dead. What a prick!"

She and Lady Violet exchanged a long, silent look.

"Your pardon, Lucy," Lady Violet said. "I mustn't presume you see things the same way."

"Not...not exactly," Lucy said. "I hold no ill feeling for the Netherwood family. Even Edmund. He was never cruel to me. They're my whole life, my whole world. Except for Annie." Lucy smiled, thinking of her daughter. "But I think that Edmund and Clarissa would rather I didn't worry myself about being Lady Downs, you know, mistress of Downs Edge and the rest of it, but just had tea parties and amused myself while they arrange things so that it's like nothing has changed except where I sleep and what table I eat at."

Lady Violet smiled. "You want to truly come into your own," she said.

"I do," Lucy said. "For me, and for Annie. Straightaway Clarissa was talking about marrying Annie off to her son or her nephew. Bugger that!"

Lady Violet smiled broadly. "Bravo, Lucy!" she said.

Lucy felt mortified by her unguarded, unladylike outburst. Her face reddened, but she took a deep breath and continued.

"I don't care much for show, or even if Edmund and Clarissa want to keep living at Downs Edge. But I want to know how to be Lady Downs. And I know I can't turn to Edmund for that."

Lady Violet laughed. "My dear, I would love to help you grow into your birthright. It would be my pleasure."

"Ma'am, there was one more thing," Lucy began.

"Nonsense, dear, call me Violet, or Lady Violet if you must. Did you know you outrank me?"

"Lady Violet," she said, "Lady Catherine left me some of her intimate personal effects. Her ivory, erm..."

Lady Violet smiled. "Her olisbos, or dildo as she preferred to call it. But she preferred Italian and Latin as the languages of love, while I am partial to Greek. Continue, sweet Korë."

"Lady Violet?" Lucy asked, confused by the word.

"Sweet maiden," Lady Violet said.

"And the straps to hold it. And her electromotive massage glove," Lucy said. "I think you might be the best person to have them. Better than me." She opened her bag.

Lady Violet put her hand over Lucy's. "Lucy dear, how could I take them from you?" Lady Violet said. "Lady Catherine did give them to you, her most precious intimate things, that carried her body's pleasure, undoubtedly as a wish that you should use them yourself in the service of your own pleasure."

"B-but..."

"Lucy, Lady Downs, your first lesson is that charity begins at home. You must be strong and shameless and filled with pleasure, to give you the confidence to say no, and the clarity to say yes. And now I have a question for you."

"Lady Violet?"

"Let me be clear that my answer to your first request will be true regardless of how you answer. I will help you and stand by you in your efforts to truly claim and hold your birthright. Now here is my question. If you answer affirmative, I will be able to bring more resources to bear to help you. To mobilize more sisters' strengths. Otherwise I will do the best I can for you by myself for Catherine's sake and mine."

Lady Violet took a breath and looked Lucy in the eyes. "You have proven a discreet, diligent servant to Lady Catherine in her Sapphic life. You have brought Lady Catherine and myself to sexual catharsis with your own hands, Lucy. My own kisses on your gynephallos, your clitoris, have brought you to your own joyful release. Did Sapphic coupling bring you joy, Lucy? Would you join our sisterhood as your own free womanhood bids?"