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that she and Jenny used whenever one of them preferred to be undisturbed: their humble servant, the Sick Headache.
    â€œLady
Susan
?” Cassandra looked up from her work. “Is her name not Lady
Catherine
?”
    â€œNo, that was another story, a long time ago. This is a new one, about a wealthy woman with her own house in a fashionable part of London, and several suitors.”
    Henry and Eliza had left that morning in Eliza’s carriage for Winchester, where Eliza had business at the bank. The carriage was to take Henry back to his regiment before bringing Eliza home to the Rectory in the evening.
    The sisters were content to have no reason to go downstairs. Jenny took her place at the writing desk, while Cass sat on her own side of the window seat, sewing a velvet cap for Tom to wear while he wrote his sermons in his draughty rooms.
    â€œI am persuaded that Eliza has some hand in the creation of Lady Susan,” said Cass, holding her needle up to the light and re-threading it. “Do not deny it.”
    Jenny was sharpening a pen. “I cannot help it,” she admitted. “Eliza’s life has always been more like that of a fictional heroine than a real person. Few real people have the Governor General of India for their godfather, do they?”
    â€œTrue,” agreed Cassandra.
    â€œAnd few Governors General, real or otherwise, have settled quite so much on their goddaughter,” continued Jenny. “Henry says she has five thousand pounds a year. Do you think that is true?”
    â€œIt is not my habit to believe anything our brother says until it can be proved,” said Cassandra, smiling. “And you should not repeat gossip, you know.”
    â€œEven to you?”
    â€œWell…”
    â€œTo be serious, Cass,” said Jenny. “As if Eliza’s situation in life were not unusual enough, are you not also struck by her conduct? She remains calm, and kind, and as delightful company as ever.”
    â€œShe bears her misfortunes nobly,” said Cassandra, taking up her work again.
    â€œShe is truly inspirational. But I am not thinking of writing her biography, you know. Lady Susan is a fictional character whose experiences may have
something
of Eliza’s in them.”
    â€œOf course,” said Cass reasonably.
    â€œI beg you, Cass, do not speak of this to her, or anyone.”
    â€œSpeak of what, dearest?”
    Jenny dipped the pen in the ink and returned to her writing. She could make Lady Susan do whatever she chose. She was not going to look like Eliza; she would make her fair-haired, with flashing sapphire eyes. And she was going to be wicked, which Eliza most decidedly was not. What was the point of a heroine who was good? Heroines, in Jenny’s estimation, had to be beautiful, unscrupulous, rich and unencumbered by parents. Heroes, meanwhile, were handsome,
very
rich and almost, but not quite, a match for their lady’s quick wit.
    Jenny chewed the end of the pen, a habit condemned by Mama as unacceptable even in the least hygienic of schoolboys. She thought hard. Of course, women like Lady Susan were not to be emulated: women must remain truly, not merely
apparently
good, or the world would end in chaos. Everyone knew that. But without writing an actually
immoral
story – imagine what Papa would say if she did! – Jenny longed to produce something which examined the
world
. Each day that passed convinced her that if a woman was rich enough, she could appear to be ruled by modesty and inferiority on the outside, while privately doing exactly as she pleased.
    Late that evening Jenny left Cassandra by the drawing-room fire reading Fordyce’s Sermons with Papa, and retired to bed. Her exertions in the adventurous society of Lady Susan had exhausted her. But soon after she had snuffed out her reading candle she heard carriage wheels, and footsteps on the stairs. Then someone gently opened her bedroom door. “Are you