The Secret Heiress

by Luke Devenish

  The woman looked to be about forty and had pince-nez, which she adjusted upon her small, button nose. Ida thought they ill-fitted her. ‘But are you a patient, Miss –?’ The woman looked past Ida and seemed to address herself to busy Mostyn Street.

  ‘Garfield,’ Ida told her.

  The woman nodded. ‘Not a patient then.’ A dose of failure was implied by the words. ‘Perhaps I might direct you to the Benevolent Asylum, Miss Garfield?’

  ‘I have money,’ she told the woman. She could feel her umbrage threatening to show itself. ‘I’m not a charity case.’

  ‘No one said that you were.’

  ‘I work at Summersby,’ said Ida.

  The woman was pulled up short.

  ‘The big house,’ said Ida. ‘Do you know it?’

  The woman’s expression told her that she did. Ida hoped that the doctor’s doorkeeper was suitably impressed, or failing that, put back inside her box, being little more than a servant herself. The woman did seem at a loss for words.

  ‘The doctor?’ Ida reminded her.

  The woman pulled the front door open. ‘Please come in,’ she told her. ‘You may wait in the parlour.’ She indicated a dark front room off the hall.

  ‘I didn’t get your name?’ said Ida, hopefully.

  The woman looked at her worriedly for a second or two, before retreating to the rooms beyond a curtained hallway. She parted the drapes and closed them behind her again, avoiding Ida’s eye. Suspicious of this without quite knowing why, Ida took a position on the parlour’s horsehair sofa and prepared for the real reason for her visit, which had nothing to do with Dr Foal. A woman was dead, she reminded herself; a woman who valued Ida’s inquisitive mind.

  After a short time, Ida became aware that her presence had been noted by a skittish man of passable looks, who walked by the door to the room twice, seemingly on an errand and looking in at her each time. He now repeated the performance again. Ida knew exactly who it was: Mr Skews. She looked up from her lap for the first two inspections, smiling politely, and was doing the same again when Skews broke his pattern and addressed her.

  ‘Can I help you there, miss?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Ida, ‘unless you’re Dr Foal?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Mr Skews, ‘I am his apothecary. But aren’t you Ida from Summersby House?’

  Ida beamed and stood up. ‘I was hoping to speak to the doctor when he can see me. I was told by a lady to wait.’

  Skews nodded. ‘Miss Haines, yes, you’re a patient?’

  Ida shook her head.

  ‘Well, Dr Foal is very busy with those who are, I’m afraid, and won’t be able to see you.’

  Ida pinched at her hand behind her back until her eyes glistened. She looked up at him, cow-eyed. ‘If there’s no one here who can help me, I do understand. Maybe if I rest a bit I’ll soon come good.’

  She dropped onto the settee in an approximation of a swoon.

  ‘Ida?’ Mr Skews was at her side. ‘Are you all right? My word . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said, sounding far away.

  He brought her a glass of water from a jug on the side table.

  She sipped at it. ‘It comes and goes,’ she explained, taking a moment to recover. ‘It’s been happening for days now. Aggie begged me to get some medicine for it. She’s my only friend, you know.’

  ‘You’re dizzy, you say?’

  ‘In spells. Ever since I opened that pretty blue perfume glass.’

  He gave a perceptible flinch.

  ‘Such a pretty thing. I found it when doing my cleaning,’ she went on. ‘When I opened it, it smelled of rosemary. Then I woke up and I was on the floor.’

  ‘That must have been very distressing, my word, yes,’ said Mr Skews. He began to scratch at his inflamed nostrils.

  ‘More so for Aggie than me,’ Ida insisted. ‘She was very upset. I’m her only friend, too, you see. I brought it in with me.’

  ‘Brought what?’

  She retrieved the blue glass vial from the little bag she carried with her.

  He stared at it blankly for a moment. ‘But that is only Hungary water – rosemary oil,’ he told her, ‘prescribed by Dr Foal as a stimulant applied externally. The vial is from my apothecary’s rooms. It’s quite harmless, I promise you. It would never make you ill.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ida, blinking at it in her hand. ‘I am sure you’re right.’ She looked at him beseechingly. ‘Something else must have given me the dizzy spells. What do you think it could be?’

  ‘Vertigo,’ said Mr Skews, without hesitation. ‘Why don’t you let me give you some pills for it? There’s no need to see Dr Foal, the pills will put you right, my word, they will.’

  ‘Oh, that would be very nice.’ Ida beamed at him again.

  The parlour door was flung open. The face of a small boy peered around from the hall. ‘What time’s dinner, Pa?’

  ‘Jim! Outside at once,’ Skews ordered.

  Ida recognised the boy as the one who had spoken to Matilda at the graveyard.

  ‘But I’m starving,’ he complained.

  ‘Can’t you see I’m talking to the nice young lady?’

  The face of another boy joined the first and Ida recognised him as the second boy from the graveyard – the one who’d stayed quiet. She smiled at the sight of them both; peas in a pod, barefoot and baked brown by the sun, each as grubby as the other. She guessed that neither was old enough for school. Jim, the first boy, stuck a finger in his nose.

  ‘Out!’ said Skews. ‘We’ll find you some dinner when it’s the proper time to eat.’

  Skews ushered the boys outside and returned, a minute or so later, with a small bottle of tablets. ‘I’m sorry,’ he began, ‘that was my son Jim and his cousin. I’m a widower, you see. My wife’s sister passed, too, and left me with her own boy as well. I’m bringing up both.’

  Ida was touched. ‘Two nice-looking boys, Mr Skews.’

  ‘Jim has a bright future. The money I earn will go to sending him to a good school in Melbourne one day, when he’s ready, my word, yes.’

  Ida nodded approvingly.

  ‘My sister’s boy, Lewis . . .’ He looked awkward. ‘Well, it’s not possible to send two boys to Melbourne on an apothecary’s wage, you understand.’

  Ida wanted him to know that she did understand. ‘I’m sure he’ll get good schooling here in Castlemaine. Why, my own sister Evie—’

  He interrupted her. ‘I am . . . familiar with Summersby,’ he said.

  There was a moment’s pause as they assessed each other.

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Ida.

  Skews edged towards her, nodding and scratching at himself. ‘It was a great tragedy what happened, my word it was, a terrible thing . . .’

  Ida nodded back. ‘I only met the late Miss Gregory once. I serve her sister, you see.’

  ‘Ah,’ Skews said. ‘I filled prescriptions for the late Miss Gregory, you see, and her late father before that.’

  Ida saw that he was perspiring; his forehead damp. He rubbed under his nose again and sniffed. Something badly bothered him there. ‘Mr Skews—’

  He cut her off. ‘Is there something wrong at Summersby?’

  It felt to Ida that she was standing on the edge of a precipice. If she stepped into the void would she plummet to her death? She did not know – and could not know. She took the leap of faith. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ She cleared her throat in an effort to contain herself. ‘Should there be?’

  He looked quietly relieved. ‘No, no, my word, no, not at all . . . I was just wondering.’

  ‘Miss Matilda says you were at Summersby when her sister died,’ Ida revealed, as if it was of little importance.

  He shifted. It looked to Ida that he was thinking very carefully on what he would now say. ‘Not at the moment of her death,’ he began, ‘but I’m afraid I was there when her poor body was found, yes . . .’

  Ida said nothing, waiting.

  ‘I’d been as
ked to deliver medicines that day,’ he said, ‘that was nothing unusual. I come to Summersby from time to time with prescriptions from Dr Foal. But that morning when I arrived at the house, Mr Hackett was very concerned. He told me that Miss Gregory had been talking of harming herself, and indeed, it was an order of sedative powders that I had brought upon his request. He directed me towards the dining room – it was not long after Miss Gregory had eaten breakfast, you see – and Mr Hackett told me she was waiting for me there. I had the sedatives and was ready to prepare a draught, but when I went into the room, well, I couldn’t see Miss Gregory in there and presumed she had gone . . .’ He wiped his brow again. ‘I was about to leave and look elsewhere, when I saw the hem of Miss Gregory’s dress on the floor behind the table.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Skews,’ said Ida, bringing a hand to her mouth.

  He shook his head, plainly distressed at the memory. ‘She’d collapsed, you see. Oh, my word, I felt for her heartbeat. There was none.’

  ‘How terrible for you.’

  He looked at her with red and watery eyes. ‘She was quite dead. I called for Hackett. He was devastated, utterly distraught. I ministered the sedatives for him in the end. His man Barker took charge. I returned to town and sent the undertaker for him.’

  Ida trod with care. ‘Mr Skews, forgive me for asking such a thing, but it sounds as if you knew the late Miss Margaret better than I did.’

  Skews nodded. ‘A fine lady, very elegant, my word, yes.’

  ‘Was she . . . ill in her mind?’

  Skews looked thrown that she should ask such a thing. Then his expression became bitter. ‘I told Mr Hackett that it was my professional belief that his fiancée was not ill in any way,’ he said. ‘I told him this on the very day she died.’ He scratched at his nostrils again. Ida glanced at the nasty inflammation on the skin.

  ‘I was very wrong,’ said Skews. He looked imploringly at her. ‘Margaret Gregory was deeply disturbed, Ida. I know she was ill, very ill indeed.’

  • • •

  As Mr Skews escorted Ida down the steep flight of steps from Dr Foal’s front door to the hilly end of Mostyn Street, she made a mental note of the three interesting things that had struck her in the course of their conversation.

  One. Mr Skews had been adamant that the vial contained Hungary water, as he called it, and yet he didn’t open the thing to make sure. How could he be certain without checking?

  ‘You have done the right thing, Ida,’ he told her. They shook hands in farewell, standing on either side of the doctor’s wrought iron gate. ‘Dizzy spells can be worrying, but if you take one of those pills each time you feel faint you’ll be put good again, just you see.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Skews,’ said Ida, smiling. ‘I am so grateful for your time.’

  Two. When she told him that Matilda said he had been present at Margaret’s death he had been freely forthcoming with information. Yet he had not asked how or why Matilda should think such a thing. He accepted it at once.

  ‘Farewell, Ida,’ Mr Skews said, turning to go back up the steps.

  ‘Good day, sir.’

  Three. Mr Skews was utterly certain that Margaret Gregory had been ill in her mind, and Ida had no doubt he was telling the truth. He was adamant that Margaret had been extremely unwell.

  Thinking on the importance of all this, Ida slowly walked up and then down the rest of the hill to where the coach to Summersby waited for her at the railway station. The slate tiles on the station roof looked almost purple in the glow of the afternoon sun. As she was about to cross the street she recognised a woman coming out of one of the little houses to shake out a tablecloth.

  ‘Mrs Jack!’

  The sometimes cook looked up at her in surprise. ‘Hello there, Ida. Chucked it in at last, have we?’ she wondered, folding up the cloth.

  ‘Chucked what in?’

  ‘The big house. Summersby.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Ida, ‘I wouldn’t dream of doing that.’

  Mrs Jack wrinkled her powdered nose. ‘Just a matter of time, mark my words. You’re too good for ’em, my love. Come and look me up, when you do it,’ she winked. ‘This is where I live. I’ll help you find another position. Something suitable.’

  Ida suspected that something suitable was more likely something unrespectable. ‘Oh no, Mrs Jack, I’m very happy there,’ she said quickly, ready to depart.

  ‘Are you now? With all those goings on?’

  Ida stopped. ‘Goings on?’

  Mrs Jack just raised an eyebrow, knowing.

  On an impulse Ida took a gamble. ‘Do you mean Mr Barker?’

  ‘Ha!’ the older woman scoffed.

  Ida stepped closer to Mrs Jack’s front gate. ‘He’s a strange man, not often very nice.’

  ‘Oh, he’s nice enough when he wants to be.’

  ‘When? I’ve never seen it.’

  ‘He’s nice to those he wants to be nice to,’ Mrs Jack said, enigmatically.

  ‘Who? Not to Mr Samuel he’s not.’

  Mrs Jack dismissed that.

  ‘Who?’

  The sometime cook looked sceptically at her. ‘Well, I suppose it’s a bit before your time.’

  ‘What is?’

  A man’s voice called out from inside Mrs Jack’s cottage, incoherent. ‘Pour your own bloody glass!’ she yelled back over her shoulder. ‘I best be going, love,’ she said to Ida with another wink.

  ‘What’s before my time?’ Ida pressed. ‘Who is it Mr Barker was nice to?’

  ‘Miss Gregory, of course,’ the older woman whispered. ‘There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, besotted you might call it. In lust is what I’d call it.’

  Ida was startled. ‘Not Miss Matilda?’

  Mrs Jack tapped the side of her nose as if hinting at something saucy. Then she winked again and was gone inside her front door.

  Ida crossed the street, her head full of this conversation. She began traversing the little path that took her down an embankment to where the coaches waited in the forecourt when she saw who watched her from the tall tree shadows.

  Barker.

  She almost yelped. She stopped still. Barker stared back without shifting his pose, his black eyes glinting.

  ‘Keep going,’ Ida told herself. ‘It’s your afternoon off; you can be where you please. For all he knows you’ve been shopping . . .’

  She went on towards the coaches. Barker continued to watch as she waved to one of the drivers and conducted a brief discourse before being helped inside the coach. She saw him watching still as the horses were flicked with the driver’s whip and the transport began to clatter away.

  Only when the coach was pulling out from the forecourt did Ida see Barker move away from the shadows, pulling out his tobacco makings from a pouch as he went. He stood in sunlight, apparently considering things for a moment, while he rolled a cigarette. Gripping it in his lips, he struck a match against a fence post and only then, just as the scene vanished from Ida’s view, did she see the pair of boys playing marbles on the gravelled street: little Jim Skews and his orphaned cousin, Lewis.

  The last Ida saw was the shock-haired valet heading towards them in the dust.

  • • •

  When Ida returned to Summersby in the late afternoon, she found Matilda in the Chinese room seated at her dressing table and engaged in the act of copying poetry from a book. Ida peeped at the work over her shoulder. Matilda’s handwriting was beautiful, a fine, smooth copperplate, free of spots and smudges, and nothing like the ugly mess Ida had seen her produce before. ‘What a lovely hand you have, miss,’ said Ida. She watched her carefully, thinking on this, thinking on everything. ‘Do you always write so prettily?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Matilda, pleased for the compliment. ‘Always. I take pride in my penmanship.’

  Matilda tapped the Moorish-patterned box. It had been moved from her bedside to the dressing table. ‘Do you know what’s written inside the lid?’

  Ida did know, but pretended she didn’t.<
br />
  Matilda opened the box and showed her. ‘It says Remember Box.’

  Ida felt acutely conscious of the blue vial, taken from the box and still hidden inside her own little bag from when she had gone into Castlemaine. She had hoped to return it without Matilda guessing it had been taken. Yet, Matilda seemed none the wiser that it had ever been inside the box at all.

  ‘It gave me an idea,’ Matilda said. ‘Perhaps I should write things down to help me remember them – important things – and put them in this box?’ She showed the poem she was copying. ‘I am practising my hand. It has been some time. I would hate to make a mess of anything I meant to keep.’

  ‘Well, that is a very good idea, miss,’ said Ida. ‘We all forget things sometimes.’

  Matilda nodded, satisfied. ‘It’s what my sister does, write things down. It’s very useful indeed.’

  Ida shifted, uneasy. ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Summersby is full of such clever hiding places for letters,’ Matilda mused, continuing to pen in her elegant hand, ‘this I already knew, of course, but now that I know my sister’s intentions regarding those hiding places, well, many of them can be dismissed, I think.’

  Ida had no idea what she referred to, but she stayed attentive. ‘If you say so, miss.’

  ‘Their purpose is not to hide what might be placed inside them,’ Matilda told her, continuing to write, ‘but to expose. They are not true hiding places at all.’ She paused and looked up at Ida. ‘That lovely robinia tree, for instance, outside in the grounds. My sister has picked it as just such a place for reasons I do not exactly know but can guess at, I believe. Was it the same place Samuel asked her to wed him?’ She waited to hear what Ida thought of this idea.

  But Ida was staring at what she had failed to see when she had first come into the room. Matilda was wearing a jewelled ring, something that Ida had never seen on her hand before. ‘It that something new?’ she asked, pointing.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Matilda, remembering it.

  ‘It is a very pretty ring,’ Ida said.

  ‘The largest stone is a diamond,’ Matilda told her, showing it. ‘The stones that surround it are sapphires.’