The Secret Heiress

by Luke Devenish

  Biddy saw what was coming and could have laughed at Jim’s playfulness.

  ‘They have asked we use Jim Skews and his cousin, Lewis Fitzwater.’

  If Biddy expected surprise from Sybil at this development, she didn’t get it. Instead Sybil fell into silence.

  Miss Garfield felt obliged to fill the hush. ‘A wise choice from your relatives, I am sure, Sybil,’ she said, hopefully. ‘Both Lewis and Jim are very fine young men, well regarded in the district.’

  Biddy gave a deliberately droll look in Mrs Marshall’s direction.

  The housekeeper was a picture of acute discomfort. ‘This aspect of the direction is very unorthodox.’

  Sybil stood up again, looking the housekeeper firmly in the eye. ‘We are in agreement that my relatives’ knowledge of Summersby is unsurpassed, are we not?’

  ‘Well, of course we are,’ said Mrs Marshall, taken aback.

  ‘And we also agree that their means of acquiring that knowledge do occasionally surprise us?’

  The housekeeper frowned. ‘I will remind you of the respect due to me as a faithful servant of this household, Sybil.’

  ‘And I will remind you that my relatives’ wishes are all,’ said Sybil. She held her hand out for the transcribed telegraph, and after a brief hesitation Mrs Marshall gave it to her. Sybil scanned what it said, before folding it neatly in two, satisfied with its contents. She turned to Biddy. ‘We are to journey to Melbourne then?’

  Biddy smiled, a picture of joyful innocence. ‘And what do you suppose we shall find there?’

  IDA

  FEBRUARY 1887

  7

  Ida squeezed herself tighter under the bed, fists at her ears to block out the sound. ‘Go away!’ Even with the late summer thunderstorm howling in the night outside, the noise of the ghost dog in her head was relentless, clawing at her door like a demon, hell-bent on getting to her, hell-bent on tearing her to shreds.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ she cried out, angry more than she was frightened. ‘Why don’t you just leave me alone?’

  The ghost dog began to whine.

  ‘Aggie!’ Ida called out. ‘Can’t you hear it, too, Aggie?’

  But Aggie, fast asleep in her own room further down the hallway, made no reply. No one would come to her aid. ‘It’s all a dream,’ she told herself. ‘It’s all a dream. This isn’t real . . .’

  Trying to squeeze herself tighter and smaller, she felt the prick of something sharp. Daring to look, she found a lost hatpin, forgotten under the bed. ‘This isn’t real, it’s only a bad dream.’

  As if to prove it to herself she scraped the hatpin along the skirting board. A short, shallow mark scored the paint. She took to the board with a fury, gouging with the pin.

  Ida, she scratched, then, Go away.

  Something crashed hard against the windowpane in the gale outside, and then crashed again. Ida shrieked and shot out from under the bed, clutching the hatpin. She hurled herself at her bedroom door, flinging it open. Whatever it was she imagined to be outside flew back in shock as Ida ran into the hallway, slashing and jabbing at the air. She ran headlong through the dark, making for the servants’ stairs, the ghost dog’s nails hard on the floorboards behind her.

  ‘You stay away!’ she screamed, too frightened to look and see what it really was. She hit the stairs and took them two at a time.

  By the final landing the ghost dog no longer followed her.

  Ida stopped and listened. She could hear nothing but the gale outside and her own breathing. Pressing her hand against her chest, she felt her heart. ‘It’s gone . . .’ she told herself. ‘It was all a dream, of course it was, and now you’ve woken up from it . . .’

  She looked back up the two flights of stairs to where her little room was and didn’t much feel like repeating the whole experience. From the kitchen beneath her a light glowed. ‘That’s where Aggie’s gone,’ she whispered to herself. ‘No wonder she didn’t come.’

  Ida descended the final flight. It was only when she peeped around the door, hoping to find her friend in the act of brewing a comforting pot of tea, that she realised Aggie was still asleep upstairs and someone else was in the kitchen.

  Samuel was barefoot, clad in his nightshirt with a waistcoat thrown over the top. He was hunched at the wood stove, engaged in something that wasn’t clear. Ida’s surprise was replaced by curiosity. She had so few opportunities to watch him unobserved; it was strange to see him as others rarely did. His appearance, while not exactly less impressive without his fine clothes, was at least different. Parts of him normally hidden from view, like his ankles and feet, were there to be gazed at. These parts seemed ordinary. Had she expected something more? Samuel seemed almost vulnerable now as she watched him, a lost little boy.

  The smell of charred paper reached her nostrils.

  Samuel sensed her and turned, just as she withdrew to the shadows. Ida froze, one foot upon the servants’ stair, one foot upon the floor, just outside his line of sight and scared to retreat further in case she gave herself away with creaks. She couldn’t see Samuel from this position, and he couldn’t see her, but she knew she wouldn’t hear him either if he crept up upon her in his bare feet upon the flagstones.

  She willed him to stay at the stove, and keep on doing whatever it was that he was doing, and not poke his head around the door and find her.

  ‘What are you doing there, Ida?’

  Samuel spotted her. She found her presence of mind. ‘What are you doing there, Mr Samuel?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ He came closer. ‘It’s unlike you to forget your manners, Ida.’

  She bobbed a curtsey. ‘I’m sorry, that was very rude.’

  He was not offended. ‘No harm done.’

  She waited for an explanation but nothing came. ‘You’ll be lucky to burn anything in that fire,’ she said at last, cheerily, ‘it hasn’t been lit since supper time and the flu’s choked up as it is.’ She realised now that she had exposed him in doing something he’d meant to keep secret.

  ‘I am to be married tomorrow,’ he said, as if this somehow explained himself.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ida. She put both feet upon the stair, and then stepped up another one, making herself almost level with his height. ‘You’ll make a lovely couple, too; everyone says so, especially me.’

  ‘Do you, really?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course I do.’ She found herself once again losing herself in his eyes.

  Samuel stared at her for what seemed like forever, before breaking into his lovely smile. ‘That’s a very nice thing to say.’

  ‘But I mean it,’ she said, even though she didn’t. More than anything in the world she wished it was her marrying Samuel in the morning.

  He held her look as if he knew what she was thinking. There was longing in his eyes, a need to speak of something vital. ‘Go back to your room now, Ida. I’m sorry if I woke you.’

  Nothing would make her leave. ‘I might as well stay up. It’s practically light anyway.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, off you go.’ He was sweetly insistent, yet the longing remained. He wanted her to stay.

  ‘Yes, Mr Hackett.’ She turned and slowly took the stairs, knowing he was watching her. She reached the first landing and stopped. She dared to look back. Samuel hadn’t shifted.

  She went to say something else but Samuel spoke first. ‘You imagine I don’t love her then, I suppose?’

  This disarmed her. She began to make an automatic reply, and then thought again. ‘I’m never going to let myself think that you don’t,’ she told him, sincerely, ‘even though others might think it.’ Her mind went to Aggie and what such opinions had cost her with their mistress.

  ‘I can understand that some might think such a thing,’ Samuel said. ‘I would think it, too, perhaps, if I was her maid and serving her as loyally as you do.’ His eyes met hers and held them again.

  ‘What is it, Mr Samuel? Is something wrong?’

  ‘Ida . . .’

  ‘
Are you ill? Has something happened?’

  He bit at his lip, and then seemed to arise at some decision. ‘Can I tell you something, something important? Tell you as my friend?’

  Her heart was in her throat. ‘You know you can.’

  ‘I do not love her at all.’

  Shocked, she put a hand to her lips.

  ‘I have tried and tried with everything I have – I have tried to force my heart, but it has done no good. I loved her sister, or I thought I did, but I was wrong there, too, I’m certain of it now. Whatever I knew back then was a copy of love, not real. Whatever I know now – with Matilda, at least – is just a copy again, not love.’

  The words echoed in her heart. “. . . with Matilda, at least . . .”

  There was no untruth in his eyes. She let this sit between them, saying absolutely nothing, and knew that she was poised upon the precipice again. Did she have the courage to take another leap of faith?

  She went down the stairs until she was almost level with his face once more. ‘Perhaps you should not be getting married, Mr Samuel?’

  He shook his head. ‘I must.’

  ‘But why? If you are not in love, how can you?’

  ‘Love is not needed in a marriage, not for people like us.’

  ‘But surely it is?’ Ida insisted. ‘How can it not?’

  ‘What matters is position, standing.’

  ‘But you are not in England now – you yourself said so. Australia is a different place. A person has opportunities here that would not found in the old country.’ She felt herself swimming in him, drowning, swept away by his beautiful eyes. ‘Here you can follow your heart.’

  On impulse she half held out her hand, her fingers.

  He took them in his without hesitating. ‘Oh, Ida . . .’

  She gasped at the longed-for touch of his skin.

  ‘What if she is not the one you think she is?’ she said, breathless.

  He blinked. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What if she is not Miss Matilda but Miss Margaret, and she has been all along?’

  He stared at her, trying to fathom her words. ‘What are you telling me?’

  ‘The second will,’ Ida said, ‘what if it was all just some deception? What if it was still the sister who died that wrote it, but she was not Miss Margaret as she had you believe in that will, but was actually Miss Matilda, and that’s why she wanted to use solicitors from Kyneton?’

  ‘Kyneton?’

  ‘Where the Gregorys are less known – where the truth wouldn’t be guessed. What if she was always Miss Matilda? What if it’s actually Miss Matilda who’s in the ground dead?’

  Samuel’s eyes flashed confusion. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying, Ida.’

  She came down the two stairs, her fingers still in his, looking up at him now. ‘I know I’m not all that bright, but I’m inquisitive, you see, and I’ve been starting to work it all out.’

  ‘Work what out?’

  ‘What I couldn’t understand was who Miss Matilda meant to deceive by it. Then I worked that out, too. What if it was you?’

  His eyes widened. ‘Deceive me?’

  She looked imploringly at him. ‘Please don’t be angry with me, Mr Samuel, I’m on your side, you know that I am. It’s dead Miss Matilda who’s the rotter here, I’ve said so all along. No one could blame you for what you did – you were in love, or you thought you were in love – everyone does things they really shouldn’t do when they’re led by their hearts—’

  He stopped her with a kiss.

  His soft lips against hers, Ida thought of what she was doing right now and knew she was no different. She was as in love with Samuel as it was possible to be in love with any person. Her heart was bursting with love for him.

  She never wanted the kiss to end, but it did. He released her gently. Samuel’s smile reappeared, bright and wide. ‘What is it you think I’ve done, Ida?’

  ‘You came to an agreement with her. You knew about Mr Gregory’s will and the clause that said Miss Margaret was to go to the Hall for her own protection when he died. Then Miss Matilda told you that she was Miss Margaret and you believed her and agreed to help her and let her sister go into the Hall in her place.’

  Samuel still smiled but his eyes took on a new emotion.

  ‘But what if she lied to you?’ Ida went on. ‘What if she was always Miss Matilda? And what if it was Miss Margaret who went to the Hall just like she was always meant to do?’

  Samuel let her fingers drop. ‘This is . . . dismaying.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she assured him, ‘I won’t tell anyone, you know I won’t, and really, when you think about it, what is there to tell? You haven’t done anything bad now, have you?’

  He blanched. ‘Bad?’

  ‘No one was put away who shouldn’t have been, and poor Miss Margaret’s been freed. What sort of dad wants his daughter locked up like that? You’re her saviour, Mr Samuel, and I’m your friend. I intend to keep on calling her Miss Matilda out loud just like I always have and no one need ever know.’ She made a button sign at her mouth. ‘My lips are sealed.’

  Samuel took a long minute to process all this. ‘I have just kissed those lips.’

  It was almost as if another girl had been kissed, Ida realised; a girl who was not inquisitive at all, a girl who simply longed to be held and loved. ‘I know you have,’ she whispered.

  ‘I have longed for it.’

  ‘So have I. It was lovely.’

  He leant forward to kiss her again.

  ‘And something else,’ she whispered, before he was able to, ‘why don’t you get rid of Barker now?’

  ‘What’s that?’ he said, startled.

  ‘Get rid of him. Mr Barker. He’s an awful man and he’s got something over you, I know he has. If it was this, and I bet that it was, then why not be rid of him? No hurt’s been done. He can’t touch you, Mr Hackett.’ She looked at him with loving, devoted eyes. ‘Sack him.’

  He claimed the second kiss from her.

  She gasped once more and put her hand to where his soft lips had touched her again.

  ‘I’m very lucky to have such a good friend,’ he whispered.

  ‘I’ll be there for you,’ she told him. ‘I’ll never doubt you. Just you see.’

  ‘And I’ll be there for you. Trust me, Ida. It will all come well. Just trust me.’

  Samuel made to return to the kitchen.

  ‘But what were you doing before?’ she asked him as an afterthought.

  Samuel stopped. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘When I came in, what were you burning at the stove?’

  His face was unchanged. ‘I was just getting rid of something.’

  • • •

  Ida returned to her room and shut the door, all thoughts of the ghostly dog forgotten. When she felt that enough time had passed, she opened her door again and retraced her steps down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  Samuel was gone.

  There was hardly any light to see by but Ida didn’t want to risk sparking a candle.

  She opened the door to the wood stove and peered inside. Smoke billowed out, the choked-up flu preventing it from blowing through the chimney. Ida found the poker and stuck it inside. Whatever Samuel had placed on the embers was reduced to ashes. Disappointed without quite knowing why, Ida went to close the stove again when something white emerged from the blackness. Her hand reached into the stove and withdrew the one scrap of unburnt paper that was left. It had the remains of something written on it.

  Matilda says drink it

  The hand was a fine, smooth copperplate, just like the hand that had written on the photograph. Margaret’s hand.

  Ida was proud of herself and her inquisitive mind for working out all that she had so far. Yet she had to agree that still there were several worrying loose ends. Was this why Samuel had seemed somewhat unconvinced by her theory?

  One. What was it that Samuel went to the Hall to get Margaret to write for him?


  Two. Why did Matilda kill herself, if the previously supposed reason, guilt at her sister’s false confinement, wasn’t actually false and therefore not cause for guilt at all?

  Three. How was it possible to be so hopelessly in love with a person who lied?

  • • •

  ‘Oh, it was a lovely occasion, it really was,’ said Ida the following afternoon, smoothing the covers on Aggie’s bed, ‘considering February’s such an unlucky month to get wed.’

  ‘That’s another old wife’s tale,’ Aggie sniffled. She was bedridden with a dose of summer flu.

  ‘Is it now?’ Ida wondered. ‘You mean you don’t believe in that rubbish? Could have fooled me.’

  Aggie tried to sit up higher against the pillows but the ache in her chest plainly got worse with the movement and she gave up the effort.

  ‘What are you squirming for, can’t you just lie still?’ Ida complained.

  Aggie did so, sinking back. ‘Tell me more,’ she said, pained. Ida knew that Aggie’s throat hurt to talk much above a whisper. ‘What happened in the church?’

  Ida considered. ‘Someone in the congregation fell down dead as a stone when Mr Samuel gave his “I do”. Straight after that our mistress’s bridal veil caught fire. No sooner had we got the flames out when Mr Barker became so sulky he said he was heading off early to hang himself.’ She looked at Aggie, po-faced, waiting for her reaction.

  ‘That all sounds very nice, then,’ Aggie said, frowning at her.

  ‘Our mistress looked very happy to be wed,’ said Ida, telling the truth now. Her heart felt the pangs of it.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Aggie pressed.

  ‘Of course I am. Shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Aggie said.

  ‘No, what you did say,’ Ida said, crossing her arms, ‘if not today then yesterday and also the day before that, was that you had been very wrong in interfering and worrying about our mistress, when she is perfectly able to look after herself and is not confused and possibly ill at all.’ Ida was a picture of condemnation. A difficult silence fell between them, by no means the first in recent weeks. ‘Well, you did say that, didn’t you?’ she harped.