Miss Garfield was listening with impassion. ‘Who gave you this dog?’
Mrs Marshall evaded answering. ‘I was trying to hide him,’ she said, ‘he’d already escaped once. When he ran off the first time I only knew it when he was returned to the door by Lewis Fitzwater, who’d been out searching for lost bullocks and didn’t know any better. Luck made him think to take Joey back here. But the little mite only escaped again, didn’t you, Joey?’ She kissed the little dog’s head. ‘And don’t you need a good bath?’
The joining of dots revealed a picture that touched Biddy’s heart. Clearly, when Joey had somehow escaped the second time he had again been found by Lewis, who’d intended to return the little dog to its mistress once more when he’d stumbled upon Biddy wielding the axe handle. Lewis had given Biddy the news of the cook’s position and had also given her the little dog, so that Joey might win Biddy a favour. Although the path she had taken had proved somewhat winding, the destination had turned out to be the same, thanks to Lewis’s kindness. Biddy had officially ‘found’ Joey and for this Mrs Marshall would surely have to tolerate her presence.
Miss Garfield seemed to be weighing up an ethical dilemma in her mind, before arriving at a decision. ‘I will say nothing of the dog to our employers in my next correspondence,’ she told the housekeeper. ‘And I am sure you will continue to say nothing in yours.’
Mrs Marshall looked shamefaced but made no protest.
‘Who doesn’t have need of a friend?’ Miss Garfield went on. Biddy realised with surprise that a point had been made and that Miss Garfield had an expectation in return. She glanced at Sybil whose look confirmed it.
‘The girl Biddy is an outright liar,’ Mrs Marshall countered.
Biddy slumped.
‘The girl is likely a fantasist,’ said Miss Garfield, glancing in Biddy’s direction, ‘and burdened with unrestrained imagination, certainly, but my heart tells me she is not dishonest.’
Biddy was dying to respond but knew it would be wise to keep quiet for the moment.
‘She came here claiming to be a widow! We know nothing of her true situation.’
‘No doubt it doesn’t bear repeating,’ the governess agreed. ‘Sybil hasn’t asked and the girl hasn’t told her. Although I am sure we shall learn more in time.’
Sybil squeezed Biddy’s hand for reassurance.
‘When she’s run out of lies to tell us?’ Mrs Marshall suggested.
‘Quite possibly,’ was all Miss Garfield offered.
Mrs Marshall seemed at a loss. ‘How will we ever live with the knowledge of doing this?’
‘By thinking only of Sybil,’ said Miss Garfield. ‘Just as we only ever do. She has chosen Biddy. No doubt she could have chosen more wisely, but it is done.’
‘But the risk that this brings?’
‘A risk we can manage,’ said the governess. ‘Consider it, Mrs Marshall. If this experience is denied Sybil then she will only seek another experience in its place. It is to be expected in a young person.’
Finding the whole conversation excruciating, Biddy watched the housekeeper digest this.
‘Threats of the Secret Heiress no longer hold weight,’ Miss Garfield added, quieter. ‘More’s the pity of it, but there it is. It was always to be expected, I suppose, as she began to mature.’
Sybil frowned. They talked of her almost as if she wasn’t even there.
‘If Sybil is ever to succeed in the role that is rightfully hers,’ Miss Garfield said, ‘then it will be achieved by her choices; choices that neither you nor I can make. We can educate and nurture her, yes, but we cannot act in Sybil’s stead when the time comes. Therefore, let her discover the consequences of this choice, the first real choice she has ever made, in such a way that we can cushion her from the fall, safe still in Summersby. After all, it is from mistakes that we learn to perfect ourselves, isn’t that true, Mrs Marshall?’
Mrs Marshall looked at the governess a long time before she assented.
• • •
‘Biddy will be your companion now,’ Miss Garfield told Sybil a few minutes later as the two girls took their seats in the splendid Summersby drawing room. ‘Do you comprehend what I am saying to you?’
Sybil’s determination and optimism threatened to waver.
‘Do you?’ repeated the governess.
‘I believe I do,’ said Sybil, at last. But as Biddy looked at her it seemed that Sybil’s pleasure at having won what she had strived for was somehow missing.
‘Are you fearful of it?’ Miss Garfield asked.
Sybil seemed about to nod, but stopped herself. ‘No. I am not.’
‘It is natural to feel fear at momentous occasions,’ said Miss Garfield. ‘And this is a momentous occasion for us all.’
Sybil stuck her chin out, resolute. ‘Biddy is now my sister and I am glad of it.’
‘Very well,’ said Miss Garfield. She cast a look at Biddy, who had found this, along with every other exchange she had so far witnessed here, mystifying. Biddy saw little to illuminate her further in the governess’s well-composed face.
‘What does a companion actually do then?’ Biddy asked Sybil, once Miss Garfield had left them alone in the drawing room to make arrangements.
Sybil was vague. ‘Friendly things,’ she said.
‘Like what?’
Biddy had read novels where there had been graceful and charming companions in residence and the notion had seemed lovely then, but now that she thought about it, she could recall little of their actual tasks.
‘Keeping me company,’ Sybil suggested.
‘All day long?’
‘Oh no, I shouldn’t think so, Miss Garfield wouldn’t approve of anything distracting me from my lessons; no, only in my non-lesson hours, Biddy. You should keep me company before and during breakfast, I feel, also during luncheon, and then again at tea time and on until supper – unless I ask you not to, of course, which I will definitely do from time to time.’ She looked away from Biddy as she said this.
Biddy realised that this left her with much of the day unaccounted for. ‘Won’t I be accused of skiving?’ she asked.
Sybil had no idea what this was.
‘What should I do when keeping you company, then?’ Biddy asked.
‘Do what you did when we met in the kitchen garden,’ Sybil suggested. ‘We had such a lovely time then, didn’t we, Biddy?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, we’ll do more of that.’
‘You mean . . . make conversation?’
‘Of course,’ said Sybil, clapping her hands, ‘I really like that very much!’
‘You mean that’s all I do, then?’ said Biddy. She looked pitifully at sea.
‘Well, yes, and amuse me,’ Sybil went on, ‘create little entertainments. Games and tricks; dancing and singing; reading aloud from books. You’re so good at all that, Biddy, I just know.’
Biddy nodded and smiled with what she hoped was confidence that Sybil could not have found a more suitable companion had she searched the length and breadth of the continent. But inside she felt lost with the speed in which her situation had changed. She’d had no time to make plans for it; she hadn’t thought the role through. The reversal of fortune had been thrust at her so abruptly that Biddy couldn’t see where there was any map for it.
‘Come, Biddy,’ Sybil said, standing up and wrinkling her nose. ‘Let me find you a bedroom to call your own. And perhaps a little bathroom, too.’
• • •
Upon being shown to the third floor servants’ bathroom allotted to her, Biddy gave every appearance of being familiar with such an amenity, until the door was closed upon her and she was left alone. Biddy had never been inside a room dedicated solely to bodily cleansing in her life. The Manse had held no such room, washing being achieved via big porcelain bowls in the bedrooms for servant and master alike. Before she had lived with the Reverend, the sanitation Biddy had experienced at home in Carlton had been even more rudimentary. But Biddy wasn
’t one of those types who claimed that bathing more than once a week leached the body’s natural oils. She liked to feel clean, and knew the difference to what it felt like being dirty. Biddy tried the taps above the bath and found the temperature and flow to be adjustable.
Soaking in the bath – a delicious experience – Biddy had time to think over several interesting notions that had occurred to her in the course of the day so far. This was something her mother Ida often did when faced with things that intrigued her and Biddy found herself following her example.
One. This house had a curious attitude towards truth: it was something to be hidden away – a folly Biddy recognised. The truth was turned into secrets at Summersby and experience had given Biddy a low tolerance for those.
Two. Mrs Marshall had been given a pup, Joey, but when asked who the giver was had pretended the question hadn’t been asked. Why would something like that matter?
Three. A bogey haunted the household, called the Secret Heiress. This was a red rag to Biddy’s bull. What was she to imagine this personage was? A ghost?
Four. Sybil seemed remarkably unconcerned by Biddy’s plainly chequered past. Enough had emerged from Miss Garfield and Mrs Marshall’s discussion to put off any prospective new friend, but not Sybil, who had not followed up with a single question about where Biddy had come from or why. She had not even asked about Alston & Brown. Clearly, her need for a companion outweighed all other concerns. The well-to-do girl must be very lonely, or failing that, she had some other reason for wanting Biddy near.
Once she was washed, Biddy was reluctant to put her Sunday best back on again, but it was either she wear those garments or put on her kitchen maid’s uniform, which Biddy guessed would not befit a companion, so she stepped into her skirt and buttoned up her shirtwaist once more.
Sybil had asked her to wait in the hall outside once she was done and so Biddy did. There was no chair, so she stood, her portmanteau at her side. The great house was extremely quiet. From somewhere outside she could hear mocking laughs of kookaburras, but within the walls all was noiseless save the deep tick of a pendulum clock in the entrance hall two floors below. Biddy waited, the ticking clock growing louder in her ears as the clock chimed a half past and then, after an interval that felt far longer than thirty minutes, an o’clock. Biddy’s nerves began to fray. ‘Why do they have to know the blessed time anyway?’ she exclaimed aloud. ‘Can’t they just look at the sun like any other normal person?’
Biddy turned with a start to find the housekeeper there with her keys.
‘We have a clock because of the importance we place upon punctuality, girl,’ said Mrs Marshall.
Biddy thought this was ripe given she’d been left waiting there for so long, but said nothing.
‘Come this way, won’t you,’ Mrs Marshall said, and led Biddy down the hall. Walking ahead, the housekeeper kept her hand inside a skirt pocket.
‘So then,’ said Biddy, after a moment or two’s progress. ‘What happens now?’
‘You are to fulfil the position of paid companion six days out of seven,’ Mrs Marshall instructed, without turning around, ‘although, if you show signs of diligence and application, you may be accorded the right to take Saturday afternoons off.’
Biddy thought she might have water in her ears. ‘Did you say paid companion?’
‘Well, of course it’s paid. Do you think we practise slavery?’
Biddy flushed with pleasure. ‘How much then?’
Mrs Marshall’s look suggested that such a question was an insult to Summersby and those within it. ‘Thirty pounds per annum, the standard rate.’
That really wasn’t very much, Biddy thought, although she tried to hide the disappointment. The Reverend had paid her twenty-five to work in the kitchen. ‘I’ll take it.’
‘You’d be a fool if you didn’t,’ said Mrs Marshall. ‘You’ll receive your meals and board in addition.’
The housekeeper stopped and jangled the keys she carried on a big brass ring. Biddy marvelled to herself at how many there were. How could anyone remember what opened what, she wondered? Only one key seemed marked to stand out in any way – a piece of string had been looped through its hole. Mrs Marshall selected a different key and slid it into the lock of a narrow door. It opened effortlessly. Inside was a plainly furnished room containing a little iron bed with a quilted coverlet; an old and faded armchair; a small valet’s wardrobe; a pine tallboy and a little table, upon which stood a washbasin. It was filled with light streaming through the lace curtains. It was the loveliest room Biddy had ever called her own.
‘I hope this will suit you,’ said Mrs Marshall, making it plain that it would be unfortunate for Biddy if it didn’t.
Biddy didn’t have to make up stories. ‘It will suit me very nicely, Mrs Marshall, thank you.’ She laid her hand on the bed quilt. It was thick and soft.
‘Further to your meals and board, you will also receive your clothes,’ Mrs Marshall told her. She gave a meaningful glance at Biddy’s Sunday best. ‘The paid companion’s position comes with certain . . . expectations regarding attire. And you do not meet those expectations.’
In any other circumstances Biddy would have been offended, but she could sense more good news coming.
‘Please open the wardrobe,’ Mrs Marshall directed.
Biddy did so. Inside were half a dozen ensembles; skirts, jackets, blouses and even a gown, in a lovely array of colours and shades, and made from fine fabrics that Biddy had never known near her skin. There were two hatboxes on top of the wardrobe containing, Biddy hoped, some equally delightful hats, and there were several pairs of shoes and slippers arranged on the wardrobe floor.
‘In the tallboy drawers you will find stockings and gloves, and various undergarments,’ Mrs Marshall said.
Biddy was overwhelmed. ‘I . . . don’t know what to say.’
The housekeeper held up a hand. ‘They are a loan, not a gift. They belong to Miss Sybil; fashions from seasons past. It is fortunate you are of such a similar frame. Where items do not fit you it is your responsibility to make them fit. You will also find needles and thread in the drawers.’
Biddy nodded and waited for anything more. The housekeeper remained where she was, staring at Sybil’s no longer wanted clothes with what seemed to Biddy almost a faraway look in her eye.
‘Do you have other instructions for me?’ Biddy asked.
Mrs Marshall started a little, her hand balled tight in her skirt pocket. It almost seemed as if she’d forgotten where she was, and Biddy saw an unexpected depth of feeling in her face. ‘We have not had a companion at Summersby before,’ Mrs Marshall said, ‘it is something new for us – and new for Miss Sybil.’
‘I understand,’ said Biddy.
‘I don’t know that you do,’ said the housekeeper, sharp. ‘You will find Sybil to be . . . unlike other girls you may have known before.’
‘She is very well-to-do,’ Biddy agreed.
‘That she is but it’s not what makes her uncommon. Her life is . . .’ Mrs Marshall took her hand from her pocket. ‘Her life is protected,’ she said. ‘It has been so since she was a born. She is on a path that has been laid out to ensure her utmost welfare.’
Biddy nodded as if she comprehended what that meant, even though she didn’t remotely. ‘By Miss Sybil’s relatives?’
Mrs Marshall didn’t reply.
‘Who are these people? An aunt?’
‘That is not your concern.’
Biddy blinked. ‘I’m not to know them?’
‘You are not.’
Biddy tried her best not to look even more puzzled by this. The day so far had been one of continued confusion in Biddy’s view, but she would not be caught complaining about it.
‘Miss Sybil’s relatives are her only family,’ said Mrs Marshall. ‘If you are to succeed as companion . . .’ she said.
Biddy guessed there was something she needed to speak of, but was unable. ‘You can trust me, Mrs Marshall; I want only to do well h
ere.’
The housekeeper looked searchingly at her. ‘If you hope to win that trust then you will do so by ensuring that Miss Sybil sticks to the path. You will not, in truth, be a companion at all, but a colleague to Miss Garfield and me in our own work. You will strive, Biddy, just as we do, towards one goal: Miss Sybil’s success. Do you see?’
‘I see completely,’ said Biddy, even though she didn’t. ‘Everything you say makes perfect sense, don’t you worry.’
Mrs Marshall became emotional. ‘Scandal . . .’ she implored. ‘It is scandal I fear, do you see that?’
Biddy nodded, a little unnerved, thinking of Mr Hackett with his lovely fair hair, barging into her mother’s Carlton kitchen and telling Biddy that nothing she had ever believed to be true was actually true at all; a disgusting scandal. ‘I would not bring any shame,’ she said with as much conviction as she could pray for.
Mrs Marshall gave the first smile Biddy had yet seen from her. ‘I know none of it makes sense at all,’ she said, ‘but it does not matter. You will come to understand in time.’
‘I know I will,’ said Biddy, hoping this was what was needed from her. ‘You can rely on me, Mrs Marshall. Just let me prove myself.’
• • •
Left alone, Biddy felt filled with happiness. She stood in the exact middle of the little room and turned around on the spot, letting her eyes fall on every single thing that the tidy space contained, committing it all to her memory, letting it swell in her heart.
‘It’s just so perfect,’ she whispered to herself. She sat upon the bed and found to her delight that it bounced. ‘A real spring mattress!’ She jumped up and down, her dusty portmanteau bobbing along with her. One bounce too many saw the bag topple from the edge. ‘Oh, blow.’
She got onto her hands and knees to retrieve her bits and pieces. Each little thing she owned seemed soiled and cheap in contrast to the items in the room.
Biddy realised she’d lost her old pencil stub in the spill and decided she didn’t care – pencils were unlikely to be scarce at Summersby – but sentimentality took hold and she thought of how Lewis Fitzwater had held the bit of pencil when he’d written on the paper scrap. Biddy peered under the bed and saw that the stub had rolled right into the corner. She tried to reach for it but her arm wouldn’t go that far. Taking care not scuff the floor, Biddy pulled the bed away, creating a gap, so she could reach down from above. She seized the pencil only to see that something had been scratched into the skirting board – two or three little words. Craning to see from above, she couldn’t quite read what they said. She gave up, the contents of the wardrobe more interesting. Then the urge to read the words returned, unaccountably strong. She felt compelled to know what they said, as if someone else, someone who had been in this room long before her, needed her to read what was scratched there. The feeling was strange, uncanny, yet it would not be ignored.
The Secret Heiress Page 14