The Secret Heiress

by Luke Devenish

  ‘Mind him?’

  ‘He’s your friend, isn’t he? He’s really no trouble. I think he’d be pleased to eat something other than eggs for his dinner.’

  ‘But where are you going?’ asked Sybil.

  ‘You were right when you said I don’t like the dark, I don’t like it at all, and if I don’t get going now I’ll find myself down the bottom of a forgotten mine shaft and all because it was too black to see my way around it. Thank you for the lovely food. It was very kind of you.’

  Sybil looked acutely disappointed that this meant their conversation was over. ‘Please take the little puppy with you, I can’t possibly mind him.’

  ‘Of course you can,’ said Biddy, ‘I’ll come and get him again tomorrow. How would that be?’

  Sybil beamed. ‘Would you? Well, that would be very nice. I shall have another basket of tea things ready.’

  ‘See you then,’ said Biddy, and she turned to go, hoping she’d made not even the slightest impression that she planned never returning again.

  ‘Wait!’

  Biddy stopped and made to turn a last time.

  ‘You do have another friend, you know.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Me,’ said Sybil, smiling, ‘I’m your friend, as of right now.’

  Biddy was very touched by this declaration. ‘You’re my friend, too, miss,’ she said, after a little moment. ‘And already I’m so glad of it.’

  Then Biddy turned and was gone for good, she intended.

  • • •

  Biddy found herself awake again, hours before the dawn would come, and this time without a Condamine bell to blame for it. She had already reached her conclusion as to what her next plan would be while on the long walk back from Summersby, but had told herself she would sleep on it. Yet she had little slept, the pros and cons playing in her mind. She couldn’t return to Summersby. Sybil had been both amusing and perplexing to converse with, but Biddy doubted whether anyone else she might encounter there would prove so diverting, particularly the housekeeper and the governess. Both women already knew Biddy as a fraud, and no amount of scrubbing would remove that stain from her character.

  She would return to Melbourne by whatever means she could, and when she got there she would place trust enough in her powers of imagination and cheerfulness to conceive of a wholly new story, her best one yet; a story that would see her good for the rest of her God-given days.

  Biddy packed her portmanteau, taking care to include only her own possessions and nothing more. The things from the hut were not hers to remove, Biddy resolved; perhaps some other down-on-their-luck soul would wander by and be glad of what he found there. As the first cracks of light began to show themselves in the eastern sky, Biddy tidied the hut’s one room, sweeping the floor, washing the tin plate and spoon, shaking the dusty old blanket and folding it carefully at the end of the stretcher bed.

  When dawn had broken fully Biddy felt confident that her way to the road, and from there into Castlemaine, would be as brightly lit as the summer sun would allow it. She emerged from the hut, pulling the battered tin door behind her, when she remembered the pup. Lewis might one day return for it and find no sign of where his pet might be. Biddy opened her portmanteau again and pulled out her final scrap of writing paper and the stub of her blunted pencil. With difficulty, given so little of the pencil lead was left to write with, Biddy composed a message.

  Mr Lewis Fitzwater. Your sweet little pup is safe and sound. Inquire of him with Miss Sybil Gregory at Summersby House. She has been taking fine care of him.

  Biddy folded the note in half and prepared to place it under a stone on the doorstep, before remembering how she had imagined Lewis’s soft lips upon hers and that it had been a heart-stirring thing. She unfolded the note and added an afterword.

  I was very grateful for your kindly given advice about the cook’s position. I spent some happy weeks engaged there and would remain there still, had not my treasured friend, the Reverend Flowers, taken gravely ill, compelling my return to Melbourne.

  It was a story, and a necessary one.

  Biddy pondered on what else she might write, and then added:

  I think about your kindness very often. It was very nice. With such high regard, Biddy MacBryde.

  Biddy placed the note beneath a stone on the old hut’s doorstep in the crisp morning air. Her hand stretched out unthinkingly to pat the woolly head of the pup, just as he came snuffling around her knees. Then Biddy realised with a start that the little dog shouldn’t have been anywhere near her at all, and Sybil couldn’t help but laugh from where she had been watching through the trees.

  ‘Pup!’ Biddy exclaimed, standing up. ‘But what are you doing here?’

  ‘Being an excellent tracker hound!’ cried Sybil in triumph, emerging from the foliage that hid the path that ran beyond. ‘He knew the way here exactly, Biddy.’

  Biddy went a little pale at having been tracked down and spied upon. ‘Miss Gregory . . .’

  ‘You must call me Sybil. Aren’t I your friend now?’

  ‘Well, yes, but . . .’

  The little pup was pleased to have led Sybil all the way back to the place that he thought of as home, and he jumped at Biddy’s legs until she picked him up and nuzzled his face and ears.

  ‘He had lamb’s fry for last night’s supper,’ said Sybil, happily. ‘Mrs Marshall was none the wiser. You should have seen how fast he ate it all, and then he looked up at me with those lovely big eyes for some more. Well, of course I gave him some. How could I not? But after that he was very restless. I smuggled him into my bedroom – no easy feat under Miss Garfield’s nose, I can tell you, yet she’s none the wiser as well – but I couldn’t get him to settle. He didn’t like my bed at all, and kept running to the door and sniffing at it.’

  ‘Didn’t he do his business?’

  ‘I’m afraid that he did,’ said Sybil. ‘Perhaps I should have seen to that before I took him up to my room, but I didn’t want anyone to catch us.’

  Biddy almost wanted to laugh. ‘Did you clean it up?’

  Sybil was shamefaced. ‘I didn’t really know how to . . . I just threw an old bathing towel on top of it and opened a window.’ She was plainly transported with happiness.

  Biddy cast an awkward glance at the note under the stone. ‘Miss . . . Sybil . . .’ she tried to say, ‘I really can’t . . . well . . .’

  ‘Is that your little bag packed?’ asked Sybil of the portmanteau by Biddy’s side.

  ‘Yes . . . yes it is,’ said Biddy, ‘and I must tell you why.’

  ‘No need,’ said Sybil, ‘You’ve put it all in the note for me, haven’t you?’

  ‘Note?’

  Sybil stooped and snatched the piece of paper.

  ‘Wait, miss!’

  But Sybil had it open and had practically finished reading it before she realised it wasn’t meant for her. She looked back to Biddy with some puzzlement.

  Biddy squirmed. ‘It’s intended for a friend – another friend.’

  Sybil placed the note beneath the stone again.

  ‘What I wrote about working as a cook, well, it’s a little story, you see, but not a malicious one. I swear it. I only wrote that for good reasons.’

  ‘Of course you did,’ said Sybil, beaming. She clapped her hands excitedly. ‘Oh, Biddy, you’ve had the very same thought as I have! Were you awake all night as well? I hardly slept at all, not that Pup much let me anyway. As soon as it was first light I came to my resolve. Yet now it seems I don’t even have to ask you it.’

  Biddy squinted with confusion. ‘Ask me what?’

  ‘Well, we’re friends, aren’t we? And this is what friendship must mean. We can read each other’s minds.’

  ‘Sybil,’ Biddy began again, looking more determined now. ‘I must tell you I am leaving here.’

  ‘Well, of course you are, Biddy,’ said Sybil. ‘How else can I bring you back to Summersby?’

  ‘Bring me back?’ Biddy filled with dread. ‘
That’s fair enough. What I did was wrong. If it’s the policemen you mean me for, then I’ll face them, I really will.’

  Sybil gave her an incredulous stare. ‘Biddy,’ she said carefully, ‘I mean to bring you back to Summersby so that you might commence your employment.’

  Biddy stared back. ‘You mean the Chinaman cook’s job is mine after all?’

  ‘The cook’s position?’ said Sybil in bewilderment. ‘Good heavens no, are you mad? The position I’ve secured for you is as my companion.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘Dear Biddy,’ said Sybil, affectionately, now stooping to pick up the portmanteau. ‘You are to join the Summersby household in employment as my first official Sister.’

  • • •

  The astounded look upon Miss Garfield’s face as she hurried down the stairs to where Biddy stood with Sybil in the Summersby entrance hall told Biddy that Sybil’s definition of ‘secured employment’ probably differed from the dictionary’s view. It was the first the governess had ever heard of Biddy’s apparent position.

  ‘This is impossible!’ Miss Garfield responded, clinging to the balustrade.

  ‘There’s nothing impossible about it at all,’ said Sybil, crossing her arms. ‘I desired a sister and now I have found one.’

  ‘But you don’t understand, Sybil. This is Biddy.’

  ‘Miss Biddy MacBryde, yes, a girl in need of companionship just as much as I am, Miss Garfield. You ought to be delighted that two such pressing needs have intersected.’

  ‘But this is an untruthful, untrustworthy girl!’

  ‘How can you condemn a person so cruelly upon appearances?’ Sybil protested.

  ‘Appearances?’

  ‘Biddy’s clothes are only ill-laundered for a lack of soap flakes, not intention,’ said Sybil. ‘She has scrubbed as best she could with nothing but her effort to attack the stains – and she has done so because she has standards to uphold; standards we applaud at Summersby.’

  Miss Garfield’s wits looked in danger of leaving her, forcing her to sink into a hall chair. Biddy stepped in, holding Pup in her arms. ‘I understand why you might be feeling uneasy,’ she began.

  ‘I suppose for that alone you expect me to give gratitude?’ said the governess, fanning her flushed cheeks with her hands.

  ‘Never gratitude, only a chance,’ said Biddy. ‘A chance to make amends for my mistakes.’

  This clearly struck Sybil as an unusual thing to say.

  ‘You’ll have as much success scrubbing away those stains as you had with scrubbing your wardrobe,’ Miss Garfield snapped at her.

  ‘You might at least show some gratitude for your own wardrobe then!’ Biddy snapped back before she could stop herself.

  Miss Garfield went white. ‘Please lower your voice, I will not have Mrs Marshall dragged from her duties,’ she said. Turning back to Sybil, she added, ‘And do you imagine the Secret Heiress would dare to act in such a way?’

  ‘Oh, the Secret Heiress!’ cried Sybil, rising in volume to match Biddy’s annoyance. ‘I’m no longer eight years old, Miss Garfield. The Secret Heiress, the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas no longer rule my behaviour. They are all figments of fiction once fed to a child.’

  Miss Garfield fanned her face with vigour. ‘You are quite determined to shock me.’

  ‘What Secret Heiress?’ Biddy asked, now looking confused.

  Sybil didn’t answer that, threatening tears. ‘Can’t you just see that I want a friend?’ she demanded of Miss Garfield.

  Biddy observed the governess attempt a careful extrication. ‘But you always have me.’

  ‘I do not in any way wish to hurt your feelings, Miss Garfield,’ said Sybil, ‘you who are so good and kind and loyal to me, you to whom I owe so very much, but you are not my friend. You are my governess.’

  ‘Your relatives expressly forbid it,’ said Miss Garfield. ‘You know that full well, Sybil. You have always known it. So how can you imagine that things might suddenly be different?’

  ‘We’re not going to tell my relatives,’ Sybil declared.

  The governess was aghast. ‘Sybil . . . For this whim you would risk everything?’

  Sybil wavered, before making a show of covering it. ‘For the sake of a friend – a sister – I would.’

  Biddy realised that there was much going on here to which she was not a part and could not understand. She cast a glance at Sybil and saw the determination behind her look to Miss Garfield, and saw her fear, too, her desperate uncertainty at all this.

  ‘I will go,’ said Biddy, abruptly. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Garfield. You must think this some wicked plot of my making but it isn’t, I swear. Miss Sybil found me and befriended me because she has a kind heart. I did not seek her out and did not give thought to all this.’

  Sybil was thrown. ‘Go where?’

  ‘Go away. Go back to Melbourne. It’s what I planned to do before you stopped me.’

  Miss Garfield was silent.

  ‘Biddy, you cannot!’ insisted Sybil.

  ‘Yes, I can,’ said Biddy. ‘You know nothing about me, so let me tell you I am not a good friend or sister or whatever you want to call me. Whatever story you think might see me safe in here will come at a cost, I can see it in your face. I can see it in your governess’s face. I’d be an even worse friend if I let myself be the cause of that cost, so I won’t allow it. I’m off.’

  Relief washed over Miss Garfield.

  ‘You agree, don’t you, Miss Garfield?’ Biddy asked her.

  ‘Perhaps you could be a fine friend to Sybil in time,’ Miss Garfield said, carefully, ‘but you cannot remain, for reasons that are far too complex for me to begin explaining to you.’

  Sybil was having none of it. ‘Biddy, please,’ she implored, ‘I want you to stay – I need you to stay. You say I know nothing about you – well, you know nothing about me. But that will all change and very quickly, as soon as we start living like good sisters should. If you are my friend then you’ll believe me. Nothing will be lost by having you here. I will not suffer because of it. My relatives don’t even live at Summersby!’

  ‘That’s enough, Sybil,’ Miss Garfield warned.

  ‘You act as if they’re hovering over me like some guardian angels, but they’re my guardian devils!’ Sybil cried, bitterly.

  Biddy felt dreadful, not knowing what was going on or why it was so upsetting to Sybil and her governess. She placed an arm around Sybil’s waist and put Pup between them. The little dog licked at Sybil’s face. ‘I don’t know what all this is about, but it sounds very strange.’

  Sybil fixed a hard look at her governess and Miss Garfield in turn looked beseechingly at Biddy.

  ‘Miss Garfield doesn’t want me here and I can see she’s not intending to be cruel by saying it,’ said Biddy, seeing the truth of this in the governess’s eyes. ‘It’s because she too is a friend, despite what you think, and she only wants what’s best for you. You must listen to her and let me leave.’

  Sybil could only cry in response.

  ‘Here,’ said Biddy, placing the little dog fully in Sybil’s arms, ‘take little Pup. He’s a friend you can keep. No one can possibly object to him, can they, Miss Garfield?’ Biddy looked up at the governess again.

  Miss Garfield was unhopeful. ‘Summersby has very little history of pets.’

  ‘They’re not allowed either!’ cried Sybil. ‘You’ll have to take him with you, too.’

  Biddy’s heart visibly sank. ‘But I really don’t think I can, you see—’

  ‘My relatives disallow everything that might bring me joy!’

  ‘What is all this high emotion?’ a voice called beyond the great stairs.

  Miss Garfield looked faint again and placed a hand at her throat. ‘Now see what you’ve done.’

  The harried housekeeper emerged from the door that led to the kitchen, wiping floury hands on her apron.

  Miss Garfield stood up from her chair, her face full of dread. ‘Mrs Marshall, you must believe
me, I know nothing of how this untruthful girl keeps turning up like this.’

  ‘Joey!’ cried the housekeeper, stopping dead in her tracks.

  The little pup whined and wiggled and then leapt from Sybil’s arms, whereupon he shot across the floor to Mrs Marshall, who scooped him up and kissed him in joy. ‘Oh you little mite,’ cried Mrs Marshall, ‘I thought you were gone from me, I thought I’d lost you for good . . .’

  Miss Garfield gaped in amazement. ‘Is that your dog?’

  The housekeeper flushed with guilt. ‘He’s just a little thing. I had him sent to us,’ she started to say, ‘I know it’s unorthodox, yet I couldn’t see the harm. And then I lost him.’ Her words trailed off as she realised who it was that stood between Miss Garfield and Sybil. ‘You!’

  Biddy squirmed.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Sybil had no idea how Biddy and the housekeeper might have ever been previously acquainted but she clearly knew a God-sent opportunity when she saw one. ‘This is Miss MacBryde,’ she said, her tears vanishing as she stepped forward and beamed at the housekeeper, ‘and you should feel very grateful for her, Mrs Marshall. It was Biddy who found your dog!’

  • • •

  ‘You must despise me,’ Mrs Marshall moaned into her floury hands. Joey, formerly known as Pup, whined and she reached for him and clutched him to her bosom. ‘I am a hypocrite, I know, but I’ve always loved dogs and an opportunity came.’

  ‘Mrs Marshall, you have always told us that dogs are forbidden here,’ Miss Garfield replied, stiffly. ‘What is Sybil to think with one rule for us and another rule for you?’

  Biddy and Sybil stood awkwardly together watching on from the green baize door while the two older women sat in discussion at the kitchen table.

  Never having married, despite the ‘Mrs’ in her title like all housekeepers, Mrs Marshall had been denied the opportunity to mother a child, Biddy suspected. She guessed then that the little pup had been given to her by someone she loved and Biddy wondered whom this might have been.

  ‘I had a dog once before, you see’ said Mrs Marshall, blowing her nose, ‘many years ago – a dog I was forced to give up when I came here. I have never forgotten that little dog, never forgiven myself for doing it.’ She hugged Joey again. ‘I thought I was making amends somehow. He looks so very like my poor Yip . . .’