The Secret Heiress

by Luke Devenish

  ‘Rosemary . . .?’ Biddy wondered as she lifted the slice to her nose. She sniffed again. It was rosemary. ‘That’s unusual.’ Yet it was by no means unpleasant. Biddy began to devour the scented slice unbuttered.

  Her neck snapped back in a seizure before she’d swallowed half of it. Biddy felt as if her legs and spine were splintering. She hit the flagstone floor, the preserving jars taking the worst of her fall, her arms flinging and flailing as the fit consumed her and her consciousness slipped away.

  In the final seconds before she knew no more, Biddy’s thoughts flashed not to the pretty blue vial but the bottles next to it. They had all been dusty but the blue had not. It was clean.

  Yet the blue vial was at the very back of the shelf with the appearance of having sat there for years.

  IDA

  DECEMBER 1886

  3

  Ida retired to bed early, almost as soon as she’d cleaned up from supper, denying herself even her treasured half hour of reading time before she blew out her bedside candle. She was expected to be up before dawn now that she had a new mistress, and she didn’t want to do anything that risked putting herself in a bad light with Mr Hackett, or indeed with Miss Gregory, with whom Ida was very keen to make a continued good first impression. But without a book to send her nodding, Ida found it difficult to get to sleep. She was too excited about the day she’d had. At some point she must have drifted off, however, because the next she knew the hair on her arms was prickling and she was rubbing at them in her dream, telling herself not to wake up for it. But her skin went to goose pimples then and she felt a distinct shiver up her spine, before remembering the cold, dead hand that once had pressed at her there. The memory was more than enough to wake her and Ida lay blinking in her little bed, feeling oppressed by the dark.

  She was rewarded for waking, if she could possibly call it that. She heard the faint tap-tap-tapping of dog’s nails upon boards. Knowing that she had to be imagining the sound, given what Barker had told her, Ida tried to block it out with her pillow.

  It was only because she was all alone, she told herself, pillow to her ears, that she was hearing such noises at all. It was only because there was no one else for company. The noises had Ida at their mercy, their audience of one.

  Curled up in her sheets, trying to fool herself back to sleep, Ida didn’t want to think upon what the noise might really be, but couldn’t help herself. Was it the ghost of the poor little pup that had died with his mistress? Was the animal prowling the halls outside Ida’s little third floor room? Sometimes the sound seemed loud, as if very near the door itself, other times faint, as if the dog was sniffing in the rooms below. Yet always the hard little nails kept clipping on polished wooden floors. The poor dead thing was only looking for his mistress. God was horrible, Ida thought, to curse a poor little dog to this fate, so blameless in its soul.

  The taps grew louder and closer again. Ida held her breath and pulled the blanket up to her eyes. She begged herself to believe that it was all in her head, just like Barker had said it was. She kept holding her breath until she felt her face turning blue and couldn’t control her lungs any longer.

  The tapping stopped.

  In the total silence that followed, it took something of Ida’s willpower to force herself up from her bed and across to the door, where she pressed her ear against it to listen.

  The sound of scratching broke out from the other side, a desperate attempt to get to her.

  ‘I’m not your mistress!’

  The scratching stopped.

  Now stiff with fear, Ida told herself that she must open the door and prove to herself that the dog was real, and not a ghost at all, and not a figment of her imagination either, because this was the only possible explanation to convince herself she wasn’t going mad as a hatter.

  She curled her fingers around the handle, took a deep breath for courage and flung the door wide.

  The hallway was empty. There was nothing out there but the dark. She padded towards the great stairs and listened. There was nothing. She descended a flight until she reached the floor below. From somewhere above came a draught of late evening air, fresh and cool upon Ida’s face.

  She went to climb the stairs again to return to her bed, worried for what the whole silly experience might mean for her state of mind. Then she saw a figure looming towards her in the hallway and almost screamed the roof off.

  ‘Mr Hackett?’

  Wearing nothing but a nightshirt, he nearly cried out, too, upon seeing her appear at him from the dark. ‘Ida? Ida, what are doing there?’

  ‘I . . .’ She was lost for words in the shock. ‘I thought I heard something in the hall.’

  ‘You, too?’

  Her stomach tightened. ‘What is it, Mr Hackett?’

  ‘Something is wrong,’ he whispered. ‘I awoke feeling certain of it. I was soaked with sweat and panting, Ida, I felt need of a glass of water. My room was humid.’ A shiver gripped him. ‘I felt sure that something was waiting for me outside my door.’

  Ida’s heart beat faster. ‘Oh, Mr Hackett.’

  ‘I couldn’t hear anything but I was so certain of it, I know I wasn’t dreaming – something was there, waiting for me, just on the other side of the door.’

  The hallway was empty.

  His nightshirt glued to his chest, Samuel peered to his left, where the great stairs led to the ground floor below.

  There was nothing to be seen in the dark. He glanced to his right.

  ‘Are you ill, Samuel?’ asked Matilda from the shadows.

  The surprise was so great for both of them they sprang backwards, Ida striking her elbow against the wall with a flash of pain.

  Matilda was barefoot in her own night attire, ghostlike and pale in the pre-dawn light. How long had she been with them?

  ‘Did I frighten you?’

  It was as if Ida wasn’t there. Matilda could only see Samuel.

  ‘Forgive me.’ He found his wits again to recover himself. ‘I did not expect you there.’

  She was in no way ashamed of herself. ‘I did frighten you. That was terrible of me. I was unable to sleep.’

  Samuel gazed at her nightgown; soft and sheer, clinging to her lovely form. He glanced down at himself and was self-conscious. His nightshirt adhered to him like tar. Embarrassed at what she could see, Ida averted her eyes. He tried to cover himself. ‘Is your bed uncomfortable?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Matilda said, ‘that’s not it. It’s just, well . . . I am home again. I wanted to see everything – the things I forgot.’ Her eyes lingered on his before flicking to his body beneath the sweat-soaked shirt. Her gaze aroused something within him. Her eyes returned to his again and he was made almost breathless by the look he saw there.

  ‘Miss?’ Ida said, from behind them in the gloom.

  Samuel remembered her with a start.

  ‘Miss, are you feeling ill?’

  ‘Miss Gregory is having trouble getting to sleep,’ Samuel said. He seemed to be hoping that Ida would read the look on his face and leave.

  Ida didn’t. ‘I’ll take you to the kitchen, miss,’ she told Matilda, holding out her hand. ‘I reckon there’s some valerian tea in there, that’ll help you sleep.’

  Matilda pulled her eyes from Samuel’s and directed them at Ida. ‘No thank you,’ was all she said. She turned in the direction of the stairs, leaving Samuel staring after her in the dark.

  ‘Miss,’ Ida whispered. ‘Best take care in the shadows!’ She wanted to run after Matilda but was frightened of somehow upsetting her if she did. In stark distinction to how she had been at the Hall, there was now nothing fragile about her, nothing vulnerable at all.

  She turned to Samuel. ‘Did she seem . . . strange to you, Mr Hackett?’

  ‘I . . . I really don’t know,’ he said. He dabbed at his face with his sleeve. He collected himself. ‘Go back to your bed now, Ida, and thank you. I shall see you again in the morning.’

  • • •

  Matilda a
woke again at dawn when Ida followed Aggie into the Chinese Room where Matilda had slept. The young woman briefly believed herself back at Constantine Hall until Aggie threw the curtains aside and the room this action exposed bore no resemblance to the room Matilda had been kept in for so long.

  She sat upright, staring about her. ‘Where are we? What has happened?’

  ‘It’s all right, miss,’ said Aggie.

  Ida waited discreetly with a tray of breakfast things, having not yet mentioned what she had seen last night. Matilda took in the sight of her, moving about the room behind Aggie, and now bringing the tray to the bed.

  ‘We’re at Summersby,’ Aggie reminded. ‘Your home.’

  Ida gave Matilda a sideways, searching look as she settled the tray. Something of the previous day’s events seem to come back to Matilda. ‘The long carriage journey from the railway station . . .’ she said.

  ‘That’s right, miss,’ said Aggie.

  ‘We arrived at night . . . the great house emerged from the trees, only half seen until the trees cleared.’

  Aggie smiled. ‘You remember it now. You are not at the Hall and never will be again.’

  Matilda patted the pillows and Aggie rearranged them at her back. ‘This is a comfortable bed.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ said Aggie. She winked at her. ‘Mine was acceptable, too.’

  Observing all this avidly, Ida took it as reason to join in. ‘Pleased to hear it likewise!’ she said, revealing her brightest smile. ‘All my handiwork, you know. Nothing in your rooms I haven’t touched.’

  Matilda cast a look of some surprise at her, and then to Aggie, who was looking rather more aghast.

  ‘Mr Hackett would wish you to address your mistress as “Miss Gregory”, I think,’ Aggie said to Ida.

  ‘Oh, sure,’ said Ida. She stood there a moment before she remembered. ‘Miss Gregory.’

  Matilda smiled shyly and fell to eating her boiled egg.

  ‘Thank you, Ida,’ said Aggie, attempting to usher her from the room.

  Ida missed the hint and took this attention as praise for her actions. ‘My pleasure, miss, I’m at your beck and call. Don’t think to stop yourself from shouting for me.’

  Matilda was looking about her as she ate. The large Chinoiserie screen was the room’s most attractive feature and Matilda’s eyes remained upon it as she ate. ‘Do you think my sister slept here?’ she asked.

  Ida didn’t have an answer.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ said Aggie, beginning to take out clothing from an opened trunk. ‘She would have slept in the master bedroom, I imagine.’

  Matilda nodded. ‘So many nice things.’

  Ida was quietly ecstatic.

  With her back to her mistress Aggie opened the doors of a wardrobe, placing items upon the hangers she had been too tired to put away the night before. Matilda’s eye settled on the flat, round box decorated in a Moorish style that Ida had placed atop a little pile of books at the bedside.

  Ida watched on, pleased, as Matilda opened the box, but was surprised when Matilda withdrew a photographic image pasted on a card. Sure that the box had been empty when she herself had placed it there, Ida squinted to see what the photograph was from where she stood, but could only half make out a portrait of a young woman, beautifully dressed, with rich, dark hair cascading like a fall of coal down her back. Matilda stared at the portrait a moment and then turned the photograph over. A name and a date had been inked onto the back in smooth, flowing copperplate. Ida couldn’t quite read it from where she stood.

  Samuel stood smiling from the open door. Ida gave a start as she realised it and Matilda slipped the box and its contents beneath the bed cover. ‘I trust you slept better?’ he enquired.

  Matilda blushed and clearly didn’t know how to respond. She looked to Aggie and saw that she was blushing, too. Aggie curtsied to Samuel as an afterthought.

  ‘Better than?’ Aggie began.

  Samuel seemed to hesitate, searching Matilda’s face for something, but unable to find it. He caught eyes with Ida. ‘Last night.’ he prompted, addressing himself to Matilda. ‘You said you couldn’t sleep at all. When I found you.’

  It was Aggie’s turn to look bewildered. ‘But Miss Gregory slept very soundly indeed, Mr Hackett.’

  Ida shook her head to tell her otherwise but Aggie missed it.

  Samuel realised then that he had erred in some way. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘we have not had ladies at Summersby for quite a time. I am used to having the roam of this house. Forgive me for disturbing you.’ He gave a little bow and left.

  ‘Brother Samuel?’ Matilda called out after him.

  Aggie turned to look at her, but could say nothing before Samuel reappeared at the door, his smile wider still.

  Matilda seemed to find her words at risk of failing her once more. ‘This . . . this is a lovely room,’ she managed.

  ‘I’m pleased you like it,’ said Samuel. He seemed to be hoping for very much more.

  ‘Was it my sister’s?’ she wondered.

  A cloud passed across his face. ‘Why would you think that?’

  It looked to Ida as if Matilda was now about to show the photograph but then stopped. ‘So many nice things . . .’ she replied instead.

  Samuel’s cloud seemed to pass. ‘All of Summersby’s rooms have nice things in them,’ he said, smiling again, ‘as you will soon remember. Come down to me when you have dressed and eaten and I will show you them all.’

  He departed once more and Ida saw Matilda’s finger trace the photograph’s smooth, shiny surface beneath the sheet. ‘I do believe this was my sister’s room,’ Matilda said to Aggie, after a moment. ‘But I do not mind. Perhaps he fears I will find the fact unpleasant, but I really do not. She is my twin after all. I know that we are united again.’ She returned to her breakfast, taking a spoonful of egg. ‘Even if she is dead . . .’

  Ida badly wanted to tell Aggie that Matilda had not slept soundly at all. But the other servant was too preoccupied with tasks to be bothered now, and Ida was hesitant to raise it in front of Matilda herself. It seemed like Matilda had forgotten it.

  • • •

  By mid-morning Ida found herself at a loss for things to do. Not daring to be idle, she revisited rooms she’d cleaned in recent days to see if they needed another going over. She returned to the dining room again, and found herself staring at a spot on the carpet where she imagined the late Miss Gregory had breathed her last. She tried to blink all thoughts of this away and bent to check the room’s dust traps. She lifted the heavy curtains from where they gathered at the floor to make sure they were hiding nothing. The left-side drape revealed mice droppings. Curling her lip, Ida took her dustpan and broom to the pile, unsurprised that rodents had made their way inside the house, given how few people there were to scare them off. On her hands and knees to sweep up the last of it, Ida was surprised to see the glint of something she recognised beneath the settee against the far wall. Puzzled, Ida made her way across the room and reached underneath.

  Her hand emerged clutching the same blue perfume vial she’d previously placed in the Chinese room. It took Ida a moment to understand how this could possibly be. She tried to remember if she’d seen it earlier on Matilda’s dressing table, but couldn’t recall.

  ‘But why would someone move it?’ she wondered aloud.

  She held it to the window light to see the level of perfume inside. It seemed much the same.

  Sometimes this house was strange, Ida thought. Tucking the vial away inside her apron pocket, she thanked her stars that at least Barker hadn’t found the vial before she did. He’d think she never cleaned behind curtains. She turned to see the valet himself slouched at the door, smirking at her.

  Ida jumped in surprise.

  ‘She led us on a merry dance last night,’ he said.

  Ida blinked. ‘Who did?’

  ‘The mistress did, who else, you cretin?’

  Ida blinked again, lost. ‘But I kno
w she did. I saw her.’

  Barker looked at her like she was truly deficient. ‘She was there outside His Lordship’s rooms. God almighty knows what she was doing.’

  ‘I was there, Mr Barker. I don’t remember seeing you.’

  Barker’s smile was lewd. ‘And him wearing nothing but his nightshirt.’

  Ida felt herself growing hot. ‘I don’t know why you’re telling me this. If you were there, too, why didn’t you say something?’

  ‘Who gives a Buckley’s what you think?’ he said, dismissing this. ‘You’re needed elsewhere this morning, cretin. His Lordship wants to take her to the graveyard.’

  The blue glass vial felt heavy in Ida’s apron pocket. ‘What am I supposed to do there?’

  Barker shrugged and sniffed. ‘Keep an eye on ’em. He’s your fancy man, ain’t he?’

  Ida went red to the rim of her housemaid’s cap.

  Barker smirked at having scored himself a bullseye. ‘Thought as much.’

  • • •

  The granite memorial stone was extremely new, erected only a day or so before Matilda’s return, and so stood out among the other memorials atop the older graves for looking crisp, sharp and spotless. Matilda ran her gloved hand across the chiselled, gilded lettering as Ida watched on in attendance at the graveyard periphery – the very spot she had stood at the funeral.

  Margaret Louisa Gregory

  1867 – 1886

  At Peace with the Lamb of the Lord

  ‘I should have liked it to have said “Beloved sister”,’ Matilda remarked, looking up at Samuel from the inscription.

  His hand clasped his walking stick. ‘There is space upon the stone. I can ask the mason to letter it,’ he suggested. It seemed to Ida from where she observed Samuel that he searched Matilda’s eyes for any hint of something that he could not or would not put into words. Whatever this was, Matilda gave no recognition of it.