The Secret Heiress

by Luke Devenish

  Still watching intently from the side, Ida was left in some surprise by the strange exchange, and yet Matilda seemed untroubled by it. She and Samuel moved beyond Ida’s earshot. The music transported Matilda, consuming her as she dipped and swayed in Samuel’s strong, young arms. To Ida it seemed that the breath near left Samuel at the look she continued to return; a look that said without words that all other men were eclipsed by his presence. Desire must surely roar inside him to receive such a look, Ida supposed, even though she only half understood what desire was at all. To Ida it was an emotion closer to envy, for she felt very envious as she watched them, fantasising herself to be where Matilda was. Her own hair, her own eyes, her own smile would be just as enthralling to Samuel as the dead sister’s identical looks had ever been – just like Matilda’s features so clearly were to him. Ida wondered what it would be like to feel his soft lips press against her most sensitive skin.

  Samuel and Matilda made a rotation of the Hall and Ida found that she could follow their conversation again.

  ‘Why didn’t you say that you had called upon me before?’ Matilda was asking him.

  Ida strained to catch the words, unsure she’d heard properly.

  Samuel cocked his head, spinning Matilda around. ‘What was that?’ he asked, smiling.

  ‘At Constantine Hall,’ Matilda said, glowing from the exertion, ‘that day you came for me – why didn’t you say that you had already called upon me there once before?’

  It seemed to Ida that Samuel experienced a sudden stab of dread.

  ‘I am right, aren’t I, Samuel?’ Matilda beamed at him. ‘You did come to visit me before, and when you did you charged me with a task.’ The face she presented him was radiant with the triumph.

  Samuel frowned as if puzzled, while seemingly still delighted by her amusing turns of talk. ‘I’m afraid you have lost me.’

  Matilda stopped still. The whirling dancers around them lurched off their feet trying not to collide with her.

  ‘Then I must help you find yourself again,’ Matilda told him, loud and clear, and no longer smiling.

  • • •

  Annoyed with having been sent off to find refreshments at the very moment when her inquisitive mind most wanted to be at the heart of the startling conversation, Ida returned to find Matilda seated with Samuel on bales of hay against a long wall at almost exactly the point where the Town Hall ballroom was dissected by a thick chalk line. On one half danced the ‘scrub aristocracy’: the bank clerks, the solicitors and their lads, the doctors and their families, along with their various employees, and with them the post office clerks and the storekeepers. On the other side of the chalk energetically danced the servants of all these folk, along with other people of ample aspiration for someday crossing the line, but with little means, at present, to succeed. There was small discernible difference between the two groups to Ida’s mind; both were well turned out in their finery and greatly enjoying the dance.

  Ida had procured refreshments; for Samuel a tankard of brandy and ice, known to all as ‘smash’; for Matilda a cup of fruit punch.

  ‘Do you know Mr Skews, Ida?’

  Ida was startled to find herself the centre of introductions. Dr Foal’s nervous young apothecary sat on the hay bale next to Matilda, at the very edge of the chalk line. ‘Yes, miss, I have met Mr Skews.’ She carefully handed out the drinks.

  Skews nodded to Ida, scratching at his nostrils, before returning his attention to Samuel as the conversation was resumed. ‘I was offering Miss Gregory here my deepest condolences again at the passing of her sister,’ Skews said to him.

  Ida realised that like her, Samuel had been apart from Matilda for some minutes, during which time Mr Skews had somehow appeared on the scene. The apothecary looked as if he would rather be elsewhere, and not conversing with the people from Summersby. He nervously rubbed at his nostrils again and sniffed.

  ‘Your condolences were more than adequate at the graveyard,’ Samuel told him.

  ‘What graveyard?’ wondered Matilda.

  ‘We encountered Mr Skews there,’ said Samuel. ‘At the headstone. Do you remember?’

  ‘It’s of no matter if you don’t, Miss Gregory, my word,’ said Skews, sniffing again. His eyes were very watery and red, Ida noted. She put it down to the dust from the bales.

  Samuel was patently little enamoured of the skittish apothecary.

  ‘Oh yes, of course!’ said Matilda, nodding at Skews. ‘So kind of you come out all that way just to pay your respects to my father’s stone.’

  ‘Weren’t they visiting Mr Skews’ late wife?’ Ida asked aloud.

  Matilda blinked at her and turned to Samuel again. ‘The apothecary has been telling me that it was he who found my sister’s body. It must have been so distressing.’

  Ida almost gasped, thrown to hear this extraordinary new information. Yet the look on Skews’ face made her wonder whether he’d been saying anything of the kind at all. The man looked horrified. ‘It was a very distressing thing to happen,’ he managed to say, ‘for everyone there.’

  Samuel said absolutely nothing.

  ‘How did she die again, Mr Skews?’ Matilda asked.

  Ida tried to look as if she wasn’t listening as avidly as she was.

  ‘Matilda, is this really a conversation to be had at the ball?’ Samuel objected.

  Skews’ nervous red eyes met Samuel’s again, but he answered Matilda’s question. ‘It was a bad turn, I believe, Miss Gregory, hard to comprehend, my word.’

  ‘I wonder that I never thought to ask about it before,’ Matilda pondered.

  Ida saw Samuel glance sideways to see whether Matilda’s eyes were upon his. They were. ‘Or have I already asked it?’ Matilda said. She went on before Samuel might answer. ‘What does it mean,’ she turned back to Skews, ‘to have a “bad turn”?’

  Skews seemed to struggle with finding the right words. ‘Well, a person’s body just gives out sometimes, Miss Gregory, suffice to say,’ he replied. ‘I’ve seen it happen many a time working with old Dr Foal, my word, yes. So hard for those left behind to try to understand it.’

  Matilda nodded.

  ‘The human constitution is the greatest mystery,’ Skews went on. He pulled a handkerchief from his waistcoat and dragged it across his forehead before applying it to his nose. He was perspiring greatly in the heat of the ballroom. He scratched under his nostrils with a fingernail. It was raw from his doing it so much. His nervous eyes darted about the room, as if looking for the means of escape.

  Matilda nodded again, seemingly lapsing into thought. Samuel took her hand, making to lift her to her feet. ‘Shall we sample the air outside?’ he wondered.

  ‘Do you think she killed herself?’

  Samuel stiffened.

  ‘Do you?’ she asked.

  ‘Matilda, please . . .’ he began, looking about him. Ida realised with alarm that she wasn’t the only one whose attention was glued upon them. The residents of Summersby were of high interest to plenty of other ball goers.

  Matilda turned to the apothecary. ‘Was that really what happened, Mr Skews?’ she wondered, remaining exactly where she was on the hay. ‘From your experience of such sad things, do you think my sister took her own life and somehow it only looked like a turn?’

  Skews was ashen. He shifted on his bale. ‘Well, now, my word, Miss Gregory, I couldn’t possibly say a thing about that sort of business.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think it,’ said Matilda.

  Ida was holding her breath.

  ‘I don’t think it at all,’ she went on, ‘not one bit. My sister would never have killed herself, and I should know. She was simply too fond of living, you see. She was simply too fond of me.’

  The tankard slipped from Samuel’s hand, spilling brandy to the floor.

  Matilda only then seemed aware of herself. She placed a hand to her lips. ‘Oh, please forgive me,’ she stammered. She looked to the faces of those nearby. ‘Please forgive me. I barely know what I
say sometimes . . .’

  Some of the eavesdroppers, but not all, looked away in embarrassment. Others kept their eyes fixed hard upon squirming Samuel.

  ‘The apology is mine to make, Miss Gregory, my word it is.’ Skews rose now and bowed, relieved the conversation was over. ‘Tragedy leaves many questions in its wake, my word.’

  Matilda rose and walked away, smiling in acknowledgment of the many pairs of eyes. ‘How kind everyone is,’ she whispered.

  In the tiny window of time before Ida snapped to her senses and ran after her mistress, she witnessed Samuel grip Skews by his jacket sleeve and hiss something in his ear that Ida didn’t catch.

  ‘Mr Hackett . . . she came to me, I didn’t start it,’ said Skews, trying to explain.

  ‘Remember you have two motherless boys . . .’ Samuel pressed, pulling away from him now.

  Skews paled and glanced away in fear, only to meet Ida’s shocked stare.

  • • •

  Samuel caught up with Matilda just after Ida did. Ida dropped respectfully behind them as Matilda left on his arm, neither of them turning to look again at Skews. When they reached the coolness of the courtyard beyond the Town Hall doors, Samuel took a long, grateful gulp of summer night’s air, looking around him only to see that Matilda had become an object of attention for yet more people outside. It was clearly too much for him.

  ‘Let us stroll together,’ he suggested. ‘Ida can remain behind. You don’t mind, do you? Perhaps you might secure me a second tankard of smash?’

  His smile was as lovely as ever, as if nothing had occurred that was in any way strange. Ida bobbed, finding herself lost in him once more. Yet her mind was still racing. ‘Of course, Mr Hackett.’ She made to return inside to the refreshment trestle.

  ‘Do you remember the task you gave me now?’ Matilda asked him, sipping from her fruit punch.

  Ida stopped, half turned to leave, her eyes already upon the doors but her ears on edge for whatever Samuel might say in reply.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Samuel, carefully. ‘Do you remember it?’

  Ida glanced to see that Matilda seemed about to answer and was creasing her brow as if trying to grasp at something, until whatever it was or might have been slipped away. ‘No . . .’ Matilda’s face fell with the disappointment of it. ‘No, I cannot now. I thought there was something, but now it’s quite gone. Oh, what a shame, Samuel.’

  ‘It is nothing I recall either, I’m afraid,’ Samuel said, echoing her disappointment. ‘Perhaps you were mistaken?’

  He walked her from the chattering crowd and Ida’s eyes, which followed them all the way to the shadows.

  • • •

  The pleasing tenor of Samuel’s voice, the musical quality it possessed to Ida’s ear, kept the orchestra’s sounds alive during the long, moonlit journey home. Matilda and Samuel sat high upon a dray together, up front upon a candle box where Samuel steered the Clydesdale horses, this mode of transport being as unlikely for people of their class as it was also charming. Matilda had expressed delight at Samuel’s sense of fun when he’d revealed this humbler choice of transport to her at the Summersby farmyard. He had wanted the evening to be memorable, he had said. Ida sat in the tray at their rear, cushioned by a spread of sacking cloth. To her mind the night was proving more than memorable, but not in any way that made sense. She had passed the ball in confusion, as if witness to a play performed in some unknown language. She knew there had been meaning behind all she had been privy to, but as to what it was she was in bewilderment. Everyone had been engaged in conversations in which the words were irrelevant; whatever it was that had really been discussed had been conveyed by some other means.

  One. Why did Matilda believe that her sister had not taken her own life at all? If she didn’t think Margaret had killed herself in guilt, then how did she think she had died?

  Two. Did something bind Samuel and Mr Skews? Was it the same secret thing that bound Samuel and Barker? Had all three of them known of Margaret Gregory’s deception?

  Samuel was holding forth on a subject that seemed straightforward enough, but in light of the night’s events Ida couldn’t be sure. She strained to listen between the lines.

  ‘It is my belief that we have entered upon an era of science discoveries without precedence,’ he was saying to Matilda from the front of the dray. ‘The wildest predictions of the most imaginative writers in the world will fall far short of what will actually be realised in the next fifty years,’ he effused, ‘just think of it.’

  Matilda was giving the appearance of trying to do so, and Ida saw her hand slip inside his as his other hand held the reins.

  ‘Read any journal of science,’ Samuel went on, plainly enjoying her audience, ‘and you will see it said that steam will be superseded. Scientists say we will experience the journey from London to Sydney made in no more than a fortnight. Imagine such speed! The efforts of science will then be directed, the journals say, towards extending the spans of our lifetimes – people may live well into the hundreds, thanks to the removal of disease.’ He cast a beaming look to Matilda that she returned. ‘There is so much to be hopeful for in the future,’ he said as the dray made its way along the unlit track. ‘Our lives will become that much more beautiful and that much happier.’

  ‘Stop,’ Matilda said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Stop, if you please.’ Matilda pulled free her hand.

  Ida sat up straight in the back. ‘What is it, miss?’

  Matilda pointed into the dark. ‘See there. Do you see?’ She pulled at Samuel’s jacket sleeve. You must stop and let me visit it once more.’

  Ida strained to see what it was that Matilda meant. Vast eucalypts soared above, the moonlight dappled and diffused by branches. There was little to be seen but gloom.

  ‘See it? Do stop, Samuel!’ Matilda insisted.

  He reined the great horses. Matilda leapt from the candle box to the ground in her beautiful ball gown before the dray had slowed.

  ‘Miss!’ Ida cried out in alarm.

  ‘Matilda, do take care!’ Samuel called after her.

  Ida saw what was there deep in shadow from the trees, hidden from the glow of the moon. It was a bark and box hut, abandoned many years, but still upright, evidently well erected. Samuel gave the horses their heads and leapt to the ground after Matilda. She had vanished into the dark.

  ‘Mr Hackett!’ Ida cried after him, scared of being left alone. As quickly as she dared without risk of injuring herself, Ida shinned down the side of the dray and followed in Samuel’s wake. She could just make him out ahead in the shadow.

  He came to the hut’s battered tin door, which was hanging ajar. ‘Are you in here?’

  Ida saw him vanish inside. ‘Wait, Mr Hackett!’ she called after him. Cobwebs fell in her eyes as she reached the door.

  Matilda stood some way inside the hut, surveying the cramped and dirty room in the darkness. She turned to Samuel. ‘It was my father’s,’ she marvelled. ‘This is where he dwelled when prospecting for gold. It’s where he found it, what’s more. Long before he built Summersby, of course.’

  Ida looked around at the rudimentary furnishings, the stark lack of modern comforts.

  ‘It’s barely fit for a native,’ said Samuel.

  ‘It suited him well,’ smiled Matilda. ‘He made his fortune in it. Married our mother, too.’ She looked back to the dusty odds and ends scattered throughout the room. ‘My sister and I were conceived in here.’

  Ida’s uncomfortable look was lost in the dark.

  ‘I suspect only tiger snakes are conceived in here now,’ Samuel suggested. ‘Do let’s go.’ He held out his hand.

  Matilda suddenly seemed to glimpse something within her own mind. ‘I remember it now! Oh, Samuel, I remember it!’

  ‘Remember?’

  ‘My task,’ she said, ‘my task was writing messages – tiny little messages on scraps, never anything longer than a sentence, but so many of them.’ She beamed with del
ight. ‘Do you remember it now, too?’

  The gloom hid whatever reaction Samuel had from Ida.

  ‘Such a lot of little messages, such a lot of little scraps,’ said Matilda. ‘You said you admired my lovely hand. Surely you must remember it now, Samuel? You dictated every one of them I should write.’ She strained to remember. ‘Matilda says . . . Matilda says . . .’ She shook her head, as if the rest of the words wouldn’t come. ‘Just little things, fragments. Matilda says . . . I was so happy doing it.’ She smiled warmly at him. ‘Happy because I was pleasing you.’

  Samuel said nothing. Ida felt her throat tighten, she was getting the shivers. ‘Do let’s go home now, miss,’ she pleaded.

  ‘I really am becoming whole again,’ Matilda said, emotionally. ‘It is your goodwill towards me that does it, Samuel, your attentiveness and care.’

  ‘I am very glad of it.’

  Eucalypt branches swayed in the breeze and the moon’s glow brightened outside the hut’s window. Ida saw the light strike a folded piece of paper wedged in a gap in the pane.

  ‘Look,’ said Matilda, seeing it, too. She made no move to take it.

  Ida plucked the paper without thinking, just as Samuel’s hand shot out to do the same. She opened it. It was a long letter, covering one side of a full foolscap page, and written in a stolid, unattractive hand, its writer having taken no pleasure in the appearance of the thing. She saw the words Dear Margaret before her eyes fell somewhere on the second paragraph.

  . . . We played this little game in an unusual way. Rather than each of us swapping identities, only one of us would make the change. I, the sister whose mind was whole, would tell the Summersby household that I was really you. You, the twin whose mind was so cruelly damaged, never swapped at all . . .

  Matilda abruptly slapped the note from Ida’s fingers as if it was burning her. Shocked, Ida looked up as Matilda moved to the open tin door, rubbing her hand against the silk of her gown. ‘Let’s go,’ she said, ‘I have kept us too long.’

  She ran outside towards the waiting dray.

  Alarmed, Samuel looked after her and then to the dusty hut floor.