The Secret Heiress

by Luke Devenish

  Matilda laughed and clapped her hands. ‘So clever, Samuel, so acrobatic!’ She turned to her sister. ‘Did you like it, dearest? Did you like what our husband did?’

  She didn’t see Billy until it was too late and the animal was beneath her foot. Billy yelped and Matilda twisted so as not to hurt him, but in doing so lost her balance. The mouth of the stairwell opened before her, just as it had for her husband. Matilda cried out, realising what was happening, unable to stop herself.

  She tumbled into the void.

  • • •

  The white poodle shot down the spiral staircase ahead of them, the sound of his hard little claws on the boards magnified by the space. Ida followed, cautious, her ears tuning in to the sound of a whispered conversation in the gloomy room below. She held Margaret’s hand in descent. The young woman was in shock, trembling, with all she had seen.

  When they reached the lower floor they saw that Matilda was there, laid upon the floor where she had fallen and Samuel with her, her head somehow in his lap as he stroked her chestnut hair, whispering as he drifted into unconsciousness.

  ‘Miss Matilda?’ Ida said softly.

  Matilda’s eyes opened and for a moment she seemed to beam at them, pleased, never having known what it was to be confused about her own name, because it was her own name, the one she was christened with, and never for one moment the name of her memory-robbed sister.

  ‘Are you all right, miss?’ Ida saw that Matilda was not all right. Her back was twisted; her legs, her arms were unmoving. Samuel’s eyes were unfocused, seeing but not seeing. His lips murmured sounds but not words.

  ‘Samuel is . . . altered, I think,’ Margaret whispered. ‘Perhaps it is the poison?’

  Ida shook her head. ‘That new stuff in the blue vial, whatever it was this time – and I know that it was something different this time, and not the stuff from before – you wanted me to give it to them, didn’t you, miss? Give it to Samuel and Barker. Everything that happened was leading to that. Those letters you wrote that you meant for me to read.’

  Matilda smiled. ‘You fell for Samuel, didn’t you, Ida, just like I knew that you would? A simple girl like you, straight from the farm, how could you not fall for him?’

  Samuel was oblivious.

  Ida nodded. She had fallen for him. Fallen the first moment she saw him.

  ‘I needed you to love him,’ Matilda whispered, ‘love him with all of your heart, until the moment when I needed you to see him for what he really is, so that you would feel betrayal, and love him no more.’ Her eyes upon Ida were hard, cruel. ‘And Barker – he, I needed you to hate.’

  Ida said nothing.

  ‘And you do hate him now, don’t you, Ida,’ Matilda went on, ‘hate him for the terrible thing that he did?’ Her eyes fell to Ida’s belly. ‘Oh, poor Ida.’

  ‘You needed to be rid of them, didn’t you, miss?’ said Ida, unbowed, meeting her look. ‘Samuel and Barker? You used both of them to get what you wanted, your sister made free, and then you needed them gone.’

  Margaret was shaking her head. ‘Oh, sister . . .’

  ‘And for that I don’t blame you,’ Ida went on. ‘Neither of them could ever be trusted, even Barker who loved you. But you wouldn’t do it yourself, you wouldn’t risk being exposed as their murderer, so that’s why you needed me.’

  ‘An inquisitive girl,’ Matilda murmured. ‘So simple and naïve.’

  ‘Inquisitive enough to uncover things, things you meant for me to find. Young and silly enough not to listen to warning bells.’

  ‘Not a very bright girl.’

  Ida’s expression was cold. ‘Everyone always tells me I’m not bright,’ she said, ‘but I’m starting to wonder if perhaps I am bright, miss, at least just a bit, for working it all out.’

  Matilda’s grin was triumphant. ‘Yet you worked it out too late.’

  ‘Not that late,’ said Ida. She leant closer. I didn’t put that stuff from the vial in their meals, miss,’ she replied. ‘I put in sedative powders.’

  Matilda blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘You were wrong to think you could make me kill them for you. You were wrong to think you could turn me into someone like you.’

  ‘No!’ Matilda tried to lift her head but could not. She could not move at all. Her smile fell away and Ida glimpsed the horror behind it. Matilda had done something very wicked that had once pleased her greatly, but had now made its consequences apparent. ‘Help me.’

  But there was nothing to help.

  ‘It is her punishment due,’ Margaret whispered from where she had listened to every word. ‘She has caused this, caused all of it. I see everything now. She is the mad one . . . My only flaw is my memory.’

  Ida nodded. ‘I’m sorry for it, miss,’ she whispered to her.

  Matilda’s dress had torn in her fall, rent at her abdomen. The curve at her belly had been ripped wide open, revealing not a growing child but cushion stuffing.

  ‘She is not pregnant,’ Margaret said.

  Matilda looked shocked that her sister should say this. Then the horror reappeared.

  ‘You’re not, are you, miss?’ Ida echoed. ‘Did you pretend that you were with child to maintain the deception?’

  ‘My sister . . .’

  Samuel slumped at last in unconsciousness. Matilda’s head slipped from his lap.

  ‘Miss Margaret’s pregnancy is real, though, isn’t it?’ Ida said, patting Margaret’s hand by her side. ‘That was why you had to pretend . . .’

  ‘My sister . . .’ Matilda’s voice fell away to little more than air. ‘For my sister . . .’ She was looking away from Ida now, looking only at Margaret. Yet Margaret’s eyes were straining to look at something that sat on the floor in the gloom.

  Ida turned and saw what it was. The Remember Box.

  ‘You must never forget this,’ Margaret told Ida.

  The light went from the sister’s eyes.

  • • •

  Ida and Margaret left the room without a backward glance. There was a final letter inside the Remember Box.

  Dear Margaret,

  This is for your Remember Box.

  When our father died and you were sent to the Hall, my true arrangement with Barker began. He was my first accomplice. Ever the opportunist, Barker had already returned to Summersby in a new guise, no longer the hateful stable boy, but as valet to unwitting Samuel Hackett. He had told Samuel so much about our family, and more importantly still, so much about our fortune. It was Barker who had suggested to Samuel that he try his luck with us; that he exploit his fine looks and gentleman’s charm for profit – a great deal of profit. Samuel needed no persuading. But what he did not know was that Barker was never his man. He was always mine. Samuel was Barker’s gift to me, and for that he was well rewarded.

  My second accomplice was a Mr Skews, apothecary to Dr Foal in Castlemaine. It was from this Mr Skews that Samuel obtained the original blue vial and its contents. Mr Skews was not a naturally bad man, just a weak-willed one. Both his wife and his wife’s sister had died, leaving him to care for two motherless boys – his own son, Jim, and his late wife’s nephew, Lewis. He was Barker’s brother-in-law.

  Mr Skews was addicted to the substances that only an apothecary can find, and thus was positioned to be open to offers of an amoral nature: blackmail. Samuel believed that Barker was acting on his behalf when the vial and its contents were obtained, but here he stepped into a rabbit trap. Barker had come to his own arrangement with Skews – my arrangement.

  The third accomplice was a woman called Haines, a servant who did nothing much wrong except hold her tongue when her conscience should have told her to do otherwise. Miss Haines was once lady’s maid to both you and I at Summersby, but when you were sent to the Hall, Miss Haines went with you. Miss Haines was still there when Samuel visited to make you write all the message scraps. He induced Miss Haines to resign, buying her silence. Later, Barker got to her, giving her further inducement again – her silence suited
everyone’s purpose. Miss Haines was found employment as housekeeper for old Dr Foal. This meant Barker could keep an eye on her. Miss Haines’ replacement was a decent and principled woman, Agatha Marshall, who knew nothing of the message scraps you had written, and indeed, you knew nothing of them either, because you quickly forgot ever writing them.

  Samuel’s intention was that with me made unhinged by the sinister messages from you – messages that were suggesting I should kill myself in guilt – I would attempt to do just that and drink from the convenient vial. A sly scheme on his part; his hands would have been stainless had I done so. Still, I took no chances. The content of the deadly vial was a wholly different substance to what Samuel imagined it to be: it was chloroform. The day that I decided would be the day of my demise, Skews himself attended me, apparently delivering medicines. In truth, he helped apply the chloroform in sufficient quantity to render me unconscious – I was fearful of doing it myself. The result was the appearance of death. When Samuel was shown my body by complicit Barker and Skews, he was allowed to view it just long enough to be convinced I was dead, and no longer. It fooled him.

  A little sidenote was my poodle, Billy. I adore that dog and couldn’t bear to be parted from him. Billy was given the chloroform, too, and rendered equally insensible. My still unconscious body had been shown only briefly to the undertakers upon their arrival and Barker insisted that my remains stay at Summersby. It had been no great matter to the men to leave a coffin and the rest of the work to Barker to arrange. The thing was filled with stones for burial. The inquest into my death was disgraceful in its laxness. No one even opened the lid to look in. What a blessing it is to be a Gregory.

  There now began the next phase of my plan. First, Billy and I took ourselves to Summersby’s tower; a little used part of the great house that Barker kept carefully locked. I had my own key. We hid away from the household. Next, Barker continued his apparent partnership with Samuel. With the blackmailer’s card only partially hidden, no doubt, behind Barker’s claims of friendship, the combination was enough to convince Samuel that the valet might be kept on side – and made useful – with regular incentives of gold. What it really enabled was Barker’s manipulation of Samuel on my behalf – for I had come to want more than your freedom. I wanted Samuel to be punished for thinking he could better me. I wanted him dead, and with him Barker, too. There was room for neither untrustworthy man now that I had you with me at Summersby.

  What I needed next was a servant of reduced intelligence – in short, a naïf – but not such a naïf that she would fail to notice things. This person was duly obtained, a local girl of small prospects but much inquisitiveness, one Ida Garfield. Her gaining employment at Summersby was timed with most of the other servants getting their notices. They were sacked for gossiping – gossip that was essential for both Samuel’s and (if only he’d known it) my own respective plans to succeed. From Samuel’s point of view it was important that the local people think I had killed myself. Better this scandal than the far greater one that he had as good as murdered me. The more servants sacked, the louder the gossip – the right gossip. He wanted someone like Ida because she would fan the flames further while lacking the brains to see through it.

  The first strange thing I made happen to Ida was the vial. She found it, she opened it – it smelled of rosemary. Every nasty substance smelled of rosemary at Summersby – Mr Skews used Hungary water to disguise what they were. The appearances and disappearances of the vial were arranged for Ida’s benefit. Barker moved it sometimes and I moved it others. Ida needed to know about the vial – and know that someone was doing very odd things with it.

  By this time you, the sister everyone wrongly thought of as the real Matilda Gregory, had been released from Constantine Hall and returned to Summersby. This not only brought a mistress into Ida’s life, it brought Agatha Marshall, too. It also reunited us, sister. I had succeeded in freeing you. Now all my attention was turned upon Samuel. Because you were so damaged in your mind, you only half knew what was going on. Certainly, you tried to tell the servants something of it, but because they had convinced themselves that you were really me, your claims that I wasn’t dead at all were dismissed.

  You did know something was wrong, sister, but your memory prevented you from acting on it. What Ida and Marshall – and Samuel, of course – did not realise was that they had two mistresses, each one answering to ‘Matilda’. Most of the time, they served you, the false Matilda, because I kept myself hidden in the tower. But on some occasions it was me they served and they were none the wiser for doing it.

  On the night of the return to Summersby Samuel found me in the hallway outside his room. I was teasing him from the start, testing him to see if he would fall for my ruse. He did. The girl Ida found me another day in the library. She fell for it then, too. Later Samuel took me, not you, to the ball, and Ida along with us, and I pushed deception to the limit. I let my true personality show that evening, yet still they believed I was you. The seed had been planted, however; they wondered at the state of my mind. On the day of Samuel’s proposal it was I who struck Marshall in the face with your Remember Box. You, of course, would never have done such a thing.

  It was at the ball that I truly began the campaign to manipulate Ida. I planted two letters to you that were really for her – one inside the old hut, another inside the Remember Box. With both she and Marshall suspicious that something was wrong at Summersby, I ensured that those flames of suspicion spread Samuel’s way. Marshall took the bait far easier, Ida was reluctant – she was so in love with Samuel. Yet Ida had by now discovered to her cost that the vial contained something dreadful – chloroform, the substance I used to feign death. Forgive me, but it was the same substance Barker was using to repeatedly render you unconscious. On such occasions as the ball when I wished to change places, Barker made you insensible and hid you away. The same thing happened on the night of the wedding. It was I that unwitting Samuel bedded first that evening, once Barker had spirited you from the room. It was you our husband bedded later when Barker had spirited you back again. Samuel was oblivious, the fool.

  My actions were intended to bring Ida to a false conclusion that Samuel had driven me to kill myself with the blue vial. When Marshall fell ill at Barker’s hands I wanted Ida to believe that Samuel or Barker, or both, were now using the contents on her. What mattered was that Ida’s love for Samuel be killed by his apparent betrayal. Ida would imagine that Samuel was using Barker to complete his own ill deeds.

  It was Samuel’s misfortune to believe you were play-acting. In this he was correct, only wrong in whose performance it was. Having by now discerned that the differences in your behaviour from one occasion to the next suggested some subterfuge, Samuel believed you were trying to fool him into thinking I was reborn inside you. He never guessed the truth. Neither did Ida.

  Samuel’s misbelief led to his undoing. Ida’s misbelief led to her undoing him. At the time that I write this the blue vial was emptied of chloroform, filled with a genuine poison, and placed by me in such a position that Ida would think Samuel was behind it. Ida emptied it in Samuel’s dinner – and in Barker’s, too. Ida will suffer for the crime.

  As I complete this entry for your Remember Box, sister, I wait in the tower. Will you come and find me? I know that you will. Will you be angry? Perhaps, at least initially so, but I know that you love me above everything, just as I do love you, and I know that we will transcend this unpleasantness, take stock of its cost, and together plan new lives here at Summersby, made whole in our hearts by this adventure.

  Your sister who loves you,

  Matilda

  Putting the letter down to let Margaret re-read it, Ida didn’t know what a ‘naïf’ was, but she guessed it was unflattering. Matilda had fatefully underestimated her, and of that she was proud. Ida had been fooled and manipulated, yes, but she had learned from the experiences, growing cannier as she went, so that in the end she had not been fooled at all. Matilda had assumed
she would remain a naïf.

  Matilda had assumed wrong.

  • • •

  It was only when Ida put her hands in the dishwater that she realised how badly they were shaking. She took to the baking tray with a cupful of sand and the action of scrubbing and scouring at the burnt fat was calming. She felt her heart begin to slow, her thoughts becoming quieter again.

  Ida felt no guilt at what she’d done. It was strange. No voices condemned her in her head, as they would have if she were some sensational novel’s heroine. No dead weight dragged her beneath the waters of hell. She was made only lighter by it.

  ‘When did you plan on telling me, cretin?’

  She span around so fast a spray of dishwater shot along the flagstones. Barker slouched at the open baize door, picking at his hard, white teeth. ‘Think I couldn’t work it out?’

  She’d been waiting for this, ready for it. She’d known he would come to, eventually, and then seek her out. She studied him to see if the powders were still affecting him, however slightly. If they were, then she knew she had a chance. ‘Mr Barker . . .’

  He made an unsteady step towards her. ‘How stupid do you think I am? More stupid than you? More stupid than the mistress? I’m insulted by that, cretin.’

  She let him think that she trembled in fear. ‘It . . . it was an accident.’

  Barker guffawed. ‘You skirts are all the same!’ He took another step towards her, grinning and wiping his eyes.

  She looked around for where she might run. One wet hand clenched a fistful of scouring sand. ‘I didn’t mean it to happen,’ she lied.

  Barker’s grin vanished. ‘My arse, you didn’t. You meant it from the start.’

  ‘No . . . it just happened . . . I swear it.’

  ‘You set your sights upon a man and don’t get a moment’s peace until it’s done.’

  Ida stared at him as he edged closer.

  ‘Conniving, scheming piece, bringing a man to ruin. That’s what you’re out for – to bring a man to his doom.’

  ‘Mr Barker, I’ll make amends, I swear it . . . I’ll go to the police.’