The Secret Heiress

by Luke Devenish

  ‘Samuel,’ she whispered, her alarm subsiding. ‘You came to me at last.’ Her voice had returned to what it should be.

  Ida watched her, mesmerised. Her mistress was two sisters in one. She had given herself to Samuel as dead Matilda. Now she was living Margaret again.

  He stirred and shifted beneath the cover, not quite awake.

  Margaret went to him, kneeling upon the floor, and her face near his. ‘Why didn’t you wake me? I thought you had forgotten.’

  Unable to move, Ida tried to think of what else had happened while she and her mistress had waited for him. She half-recalled an exchange that had been unpleasant. But who it was with and what it had been about were now lost to her in the haze. She dismissed this shadow of a memory as irrelevant. The exchange had not been with Samuel, she knew.

  Hesitant, Margaret reached out to stroke Samuel’s hair, smoothing it away from his eyes. He awoke. ‘Matilda?’

  Margaret smiled at him. ‘I thought you had forgotten me,’ she said again.

  He smiled back, a knowing smile. ‘So soon?’

  She giggled. ‘I’m silly, aren’t I?’

  He slid through the sheets to the side where she had slept, and before she quite knew herself she was in the bed again, beside him. ‘Samuel,’ she breathed. ‘Husband.’

  ‘Shhh.’ He pressed a finger to her lips, his other hand slipping the silken robe from her shoulders.

  ‘I love you, Samuel,’ she whispered. ‘We will be happy together, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Samuel murmured, his lips against hers. Ida watched as Margaret gave herself to him for the first time then, a gift he received as naturally and thoughtlessly as any man might who guessed nothing of the moment’s significance.

  • • •

  Ida found herself in the dining room in the middle of a yawn, paused in tidying away the last of the wedding supper. She realised with a jolt that she had no idea how or when she had entered this room, and yet here she was in the middle of tidying it up. How long had she been here? What had she been doing before? She was still in her uniform, at least. It was now very late at night. Nothing was amiss and yet it felt as if so much should be. Her head felt like it was filled up with fur.

  She continued piling plates and glasses onto a wheeled trolley and regarded the mess of leftovers for a moment, before helping herself to the tastiest, scooping up bits and pieces with her hands. She was ravenous. Ida remembered then that the unreliable Mrs Jack had proven reliable for once, turning out an impressive meal for two. But that was all she remembered. Somewhere there a gap in the evening’s events. Yet it didn’t seem to matter much. The leftovers would stretch to filling her up nicely and there’d be some tasty morsels for Aggie, too, if she ever shook off her flu. But not a morsel would she save for Barker. Let him have dirt, she thought. And then she wondered why Samuel still hadn’t sacked him.

  Something rustled in the pocket of her apron: paper. She slipped her hand inside and retrieved a letter. She knew the handwriting at once: ugly, ink stained. She half-remembered something more, very recent; something she had seen and heard. Had she been inside the master suite? Thick, warm fur was stuffed inside her head, making a fug of her mind. The smell of rosemary lingered at the back of her nose. She read the letter.

  Dear Margaret,

  This is for your Remember Box.

  Our father duly died. His will was opened and read. You were sent to Constantine Hall. It was just as I expected, then, when Samuel finally showed me his true colours.

  As part of our arrangement, Samuel and I announced our betrothal. Samuel had insisted I become his bride in exchange for his aiding me. I had agreed, although I told myself that I had no intention of going through it. But in order for you to be freed from confinement without any loss of the inheritance, my engagement to Samuel was necessary. To further maintain my ruse I took Samuel to a Kyneton solicitor – I didn’t want to risk using a local man who might have known of me – and there we each signed a will. In the likelihood of death, all my property would go to my husband-to-be. This I signed as myself of course: Matilda.

  Then, I did a very cunning thing. I visited another solicitor alone, also in Kyneton. There I created a second will, one that cancelled the first, because here I confessed to being you. I willed that should I meet an untimely death the Summersby fortune must go to the ‘real Matilda wrongly confined at the Hall’. I well suspected that Samuel would guess that I might do such a thing. Indeed, I didn’t much hide my tracks so that he would guess. I banked that dishonest Samuel’s inclination to double-cross would lead him to fear just such a double-cross from me. He was right to fear it. I did double-cross him. Just not in the way he supposed.

  I had led Samuel to believe a number of lies, the utmost being: under the terms of my second will he would not inherit Summersby. In order to get his hands on the fortune, he would need to marry the sister he thought of as the real heiress – you. Everything was in place for you to be freed. All I had to do was wait, somewhat on guard, to see what Samuel would do. I did not have to wait very long.

  The first scrap of paper I encountered bearing your unmistakable copperplate was not intended to torment me, at least at first, merely unsettle me. In contained some seemingly harmless words: ‘Matilda says drink it’. It was not the words themselves that Samuel hoped would throw me, at least not at first, it was the fact that you had somehow written them and conveyed them all the way to Summersby without me knowing, and once here, hidden them in an unusual place, namely inside a glove in my dressing table drawer. He had planted it, of course. A second scrap followed not long after, found in a tree in the garden. Then a third; then many more.

  ‘Matilda says you suffer the torture of guilt.’

  ‘Matilda says love’s happiness is a lie. You must choose death’s release from your guilt.’

  ‘Matilda says believe nothing of your joy. Your conscience torments you.’

  ‘Matilda says only the grave brings redemption for all you have done.’

  ‘Matilda says the weight of your guilt is a torture.’

  ‘Matilda says drink it and we will know peace.’

  I never mentioned finding these scraps to Samuel. He never revealed that he knew of their existence. He didn’t need to. I guessed that he had paid a secret visit to you at the Hall, and there had arranged for you to write them all. He would not have encountered much resistance from you, for you were, I knew, attracted to Samuel, beguiled by his good looks and charm. For this I could hardly blame you, for I, too, was attracted to the man, despite everything. My physical desire for Samuel was a complication to my plans, but not an impossible one.

  In order for my plans to continue, I had to allow Samuel to believe that the scraps were having an impact upon me. The words dwelt heavily upon guilt, implying that I should feel tortured by it for what I had done to you. I duly played at suffering. Then the mysterious message gave way to a mysterious object: a blue glass vial. Curious, I opened it to find only Hungary water. Then the vial inexplicably disappeared from my possession only to reappear a little time later. I opened it again, and again it was rosemary. Rightly, I suspected that the vial would play a crucial part in what might be ahead for me. Samuel’s moves were approaching endgame – and so were my own.

  Samuel was acting under the mistaken belief that I was ill, of course, and could be made yet worse with games such as these. Believing I was you, whom our late father willed be confined for illness, Samuel was employing the scraps – and the vial – to drive me towards a state of complete unhinging. His goal was clear, and for my purposes, quite perfect: I would be driven to suicide. When I was dead my secret will would surface, the deception, as Samuel believed it to be, would be exposed, and you would be returned to Summersby as the real Matilda and Summersby’s true heiress. The path would then be open for Samuel to marry you in my wake.

  Your sister who loves you,

  Matilda

  The letter held echoes from a conversation that Ida was sure she had hel
d very recently, but she couldn’t quite recall just when. It all seemed very fresh, and yet not, as if she’d actually held it years ago. Yet she knew that she hadn’t. It was because of the fur in her head.

  Ida folded the letter up again and returned it to her apron pocket. She intended to re-read it later when her head felt clearer and things might make more sense.

  Loading as much of the crockery and leftovers as she dared onto the trolley, mindful of spills, Ida propelled her cargo through the dining room doors, glad she knew the route to the kitchen well enough to travel it in the dark. The gas lamps had been extinguished by Barker hours before; she remembered that, too. It had been an act of stinginess for which Ida had cursed him, given that responsibility for the clean-up was hers. It was no easy feat judging ‘clean’ in the dark. She trundled down the hall and negotiated the green baize door without mishap, backing into the kitchen. It was candlelit. Aggie must have come downstairs for a natter, Ida assumed. ‘Feeling better now?’ she called over her shoulder, as she pulled the trolley inside.

  ‘Like a fine young buck on his wedding night,’ Barker smirked at her.

  Ida span around. ‘Thought you were in bed?’

  ‘Why should I be?’ There was an open bottle of claret on the table. He poured himself another liberal glass, scraping a hand through his thick shock of hair.

  Ida shot a glance at the leftovers exposed on the trolley and cursed her bad luck again. Her head still felt so heavy. ‘Why shouldn’t you be, more like it,’ she said. ‘You’re as soused as a sauce bottle.’

  ‘A man feels like celebrating,’ he said, fixing his lips to the full glass. He misjudged the amount and spluttered it.

  ‘Watch it,’ Ida scolded. ‘I only just scrubbed that table.’ Barker slurped on the wine and Ida felt her gorge rise at the sight of him. ‘Go to bed for Gawd’s sake, look at the state of you.’

  ‘The state of me?’ Barker looked up with red ringed eyes. ‘What’s wrong with me then, you little sow?’

  Ida laughed, banging dirty plates in the washing-up tub. ‘Where do I start?’ she exclaimed. She bent to the trolley’s lower shelf to retrieve the soup terrine and nearly let it slip from her hands when she righted herself to find Barker out of his chair and right behind her. ‘How’d you move so fast?’

  ‘People make a habit of underestimating me,’ he told her. A long hand reached out for her bottom.

  Ida slapped him away and felt a bead of sweat run from her brow. ‘Get out of my way, will you, I’ve got to wash these.’

  Barker didn’t move, his breath foul in her nostrils. His hand pinched at her apron bow. ‘You look a bit peaky. Fancy a lie down?’

  Ida ducked to the side, terrine before her, and scooted around so that the trolley stood between them.

  ‘Hey, where you going now?’ said Barker, disconcerted.

  Ida clutched the terrine. ‘I’m going to bed, if you’re not. You’re drunk, you dirty bugger.’ She rubbed at her temple. ‘And I don’t feel well . . .’

  Barker kicked the trolley aside with a shocking crash. Cups and saucers smashed to pieces. Ida stared at the wreckage in horror. ‘Some blokes get their second wind with a skinful,’ he told her. ‘Sheilas, too.’

  The look Ida saw in his eyes was one that her mother had warned her about. She’d never understood what intentions might lay behind such a look, but now she understood them exactly. The valet advanced upon her, leering. ‘Mr Barker,’ Ida warned, ‘you keep away from me now.’

  ‘Cheeky little piece,’ he smirked, ‘giving a respectable man the come on, eh?’

  Ida started shaking, backing towards the servants’ stairs. ‘I never did that, I never would, Mr Barker . . . I’m a good girl.’

  ‘A good little tart,’ he mumbled. ‘I know your sort. Why d’you think I put up with you?’

  ‘Because I’m a good girl!’ She reached behind with her free hand, feeling for the banister. ‘I’m from a good Methodist family, now let me go up to my bed.’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he told her.

  Ida brought the terrine down on his head with a dull thud. The dish stayed in one piece. Barker stood blinking at her for a second, stunned. Ida raised it to hit him again. Barker’s eyes flashed with rage and he caught her wrist before she could strike him. ‘You’ll break it!’ Ida cried. Barker shook the terrine loose and it clattered to the floor, the handle snapping off. Ida spun on her heel and dashed for the first stair but Barker’s lust empowered him and he caught her by the skirt hem. ‘Stop it, let me go!’

  Barker yanked her off balance, causing her to sprawl. He continued pulling at her skirt, tearing at it, pulling it up to her waist. ‘No!’ A hard hand smacked her in the mouth and then clawed at her hair, pulling it until the tears came.

  ‘You little harlot, laugh at me, will you?’ His black-clad form was on top of her now, thrusting himself into her belly, crushing her back against the sharp edges of the stairs.

  ‘I’ve never laughed! I’m a good girl . . .’

  ‘Let’s see how bloody good,’ the valet said.

  IDA

  APRIL 1887

  8

  Ida couldn’t remember the person she had been before it had happened, before he had forced himself onto her and made her what she was now. She could barely remember what her life had been like before he’d shattered her spirit on the stairs. The life he had left her with was one she lived now as a shadow life, a replica of how her life had once been; a fake. Ida went through the motions of living; nothing touched her now, nothing intrigued her, nothing got through.

  Especially Samuel.

  Ida’s inquisitiveness, her questioning of things, belonged to the other Ida, the girl from before. She couldn’t be that girl again, Barker had seen to that. She could no longer play the Ida who had cared.

  Ida watched in silence as Margaret pressed her fingers to her belly, turning to see herself reflected in profile in the looking glass. Margaret turned to stand at another angle; pressing again, clearly fascinated by the changes to her naked self. The bump had formed and grown without her scarcely made aware of it at first, until, quite suddenly it seemed, she became very aware, the change to her figure small but undeniable. Her bleeding had already ceased. She had told Ida that she expected the bump as a consequence, hoped for it, but until she had been able to actually feel it beneath her fingertips, just as she did now, she could not be sure. There was no longer any doubt. She was with child. Samuel would be thrilled when she told him the news, Margaret said. Ida wondered if he’d already guessed. If he had, Ida would not let herself know of it.

  Ida went to every length she could to avoid him now. She hid in doorways when she heard him approach. She kept her eyes to the floor if he was unavoidable and then would not answer if he spoke. It was all she could do, trapped as she was in the same house as the man who had let Barker hurt her. She lived as if Samuel wasn’t there. The memory of his soft lips upon hers she erased.

  Ida didn’t know why Samuel hadn’t sacked Barker, and likely would never sack him, but she thought she could guess. Barker did the things that Samuel had no stomach for.

  For all his lovely words, Samuel had stomach for Ida least of all. This was why she would never tell him what Barker had done to her. If he knew the truth he still wouldn’t do anything. Samuel needed Barker more than he needed her.

  Ida selected underthings but Margaret rejected them. They would no longer do. Some women adhered to their corsets until well into pregnancy, she said, but she did not intend being one of them. She would eschew such restrictive things for her growing child’s sake. She tossed the expensive underwear aside, stepping into her slip and petticoats only.

  Margaret preferred to get dressed in this, her old room, the one with the Chinoiserie screen; it was comforting, she told Ida. She slipped inside her dress unaided, but struggled with the buttons at the back until Ida fastened them for her. This done, Margaret gathered the things she would need for the morning: the Remember Box with the collect
ion of her sister’s letters in their ugly hand; her pen and ink with paper to write on; the snatches of overheard talk she had recorded on paper already, even though she little knew to what they referred to. The act of recording things had become instinctual to her, she told Ida.

  Ida no longer cared what some piece of paper might have written on it. She would never read such things again.

  • • •

  Ida hunched over the sink, weeping again like she found herself weeping so often now. She could no longer control it. Her own morning illness had persisted for weeks, and then had come the swelling. Her own bleeding had stopped, just like her mistress’s had stopped. She knew what it all meant. Her mother had told her that much, at least. She was carrying Barker’s bastard, conceived in violence, and no doubt malformed in her belly, twisted and foul in its soul. And yet it was nothing like him, Ida knew in her heart, it was a blameless child, an innocent thing, knowing nothing of how it was made. She would never tell it. She would love it with all the love she could give and would keep it safe from him. It was possible her baby would be born with something of its father’s vileness and if so she would love it all the more, love it fiercely; love it in the face of all those who would despise it for its nature. But just perhaps, Ida hoped deep inside, the baby would be born pure of heart, with not a skerrick of the father to be seen. It was wrong to wish for that, Ida knew, a sin to wish for it, really, but she found it hard not to. It would be a blessing to give birth to a beautiful, healthy child. In Ida’s heart she longed for a girl.

  She sensed someone behind her and span around in fear. But it was only her mistress, clutching at the Remember Box.