Biddy sat up in the bed. ‘And what if that happens?’
‘It won’t, Biddy,’ Sybil said, determined.
‘But if it does?’
‘It never will. It can’t. I am the Summersby heiress. I will inherit it all, Biddy. I must.’ But somehow Sybil lacked conviction.
‘But if your relatives decide that you are found wanting?’
There was a silence.
‘I want to hear you tell me,’ Biddy pressed. ‘Not Miss Garfield or Mrs Marshall, I want to hear it from you – it’s your life and your inheritance, after all, not theirs, and I’m your companion.’
Sybil gathered herself. ‘There is a person we call the Secret Heiress,’ she said, finally, ‘the second heiress, there are two of us. I’ve always known of it and she is the greatest mystery of my life, greater than all the others combined. I don’t know who she is or what she looks like or even where she lives. So I can only call her the Secret Heiress. I have always believed, because I have always been told, that she will have everything if I am found to be wanting – everything. Despite the years and years of training and lessons and refinement to get there, I will be left with nothing at all. Just like that – nothing, Biddy. I will be cast out from Summersby, poor and alone.’
Sybil’s circumstances were sounding more like the Brothers Grimm with every word, Biddy thought. And while she didn’t doubt that Sybil believed it all, to Biddy’s ear it sounded more like a story that only someone kept shut away from the rest of the world would believe. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as Sybil waited for her to reply, ‘it’s just, well . . . it’s just so unlike anything I’ve ever known before.’
‘It’s all I’ve ever known,’ said Sybil. ‘Mrs Marshall, and Miss Garfield have held the existence of the Secret Heiress over me throughout my childhood. They turned her into some kind of bad fairy – or rather, a fairy so impossibly good that I could only be seen as bad in comparison to her.’
‘And you’re sure she’s even real?’ asked Biddy, sceptical.
It was revealing, Biddy thought, that Sybil didn’t answer at once.
‘I believe that she must be,’ she said at last, ‘if only because Mrs Marshall and Miss Garfield persist with using her against me. If she’d been a fabrication, like Father Christmas was or the Bunyip, then they would have abandoned her as soon I began to question. But whenever I’ve doubted the existence of the Secret Heiress Mrs Marshall in particular has redoubled the efforts to control me with the threat of her. It’s never gone away. Yes, I’m quite sure she exists.’
Biddy took Sybil’s hands in her own. ‘But you will not fail. You said so yourself.’ Yet she couldn’t help thinking of the unspoken thing that existed between them: Sybil’s clandestine romance. Biddy had never once raised the matter, never once hinted that she had guessed that a love affair was going on, and she intended remaining mum until Sybil herself raised it. Yet as to whom Sybil’s secret beau actually was, Biddy couldn’t imagine. But what might happen if the relatives learned of it, she wondered?
Sybil trembled, perhaps thinking of the very same thing. ‘You do not know that, Biddy. I could fail easily.’ She rubbed at her tummy again. ‘There are so many things I must still perfect, so many accomplishments I’m yet to attain. I’m barely refined at all and I must be, and must be soon. I could be summoned by my relatives at any time, there will be no warning, and when it happens . . .’
‘You will not fail,’ Biddy repeated, ‘I mean it.’
‘You cannot be sure.’
‘But I am. Do you know why?’
Sybil looked at her hands curled inside Biddy’s own.
‘Because I am here,’ said Biddy.
Sybil slipped her hands free. ‘That is very sweet of you to say, but it is naïve. You cannot gain my inheritance for me,’ she said. ‘No one can. It is solely my task to achieve.’
Biddy was insistent. ‘Of course I can’t,’ she said. ‘Only you can do that – I wouldn’t know where to start. But one thing I can do is even up the odds a bit.’ She gave her most cunning smile. ‘Honestly, I don’t know what you people did before I came along. No imagination and hardly any gumption. You needed a dose of me.’
‘Biddy . . .’
‘I’ll make you a wager,’ said Biddy. ‘Your very last Summersby shilling says I can dig up this Secret Heiress for you and discover if she’s even real or just some storybook witch made up to keep your nose clean. Seems to me you could do a lot better if you had few more of the facts up your sleeve.’
Sybil paled. ‘Biddy, that’s . . .’ The words failed her.
‘Good, because if there’s one thing I just can’t stand it’s other people presuming to hide the truth. I’m going to find the truth out for you, and when I do, well, who knows what we’ll then uncover! Secrets by the score, I’ll bet – useful secrets, just you see. Nothing’s going to get in the way of Miss Sybil Gregory and her rightful inheritance – not if her faithful companion Biddy MacBryde has anything to do with it.’
Sybil leapt up from the bed. ‘Biddy, you’ve gone mad!’
‘Well, what’s the matter? Aren’t you pleased?’
‘This is not even a thing that should concern you . . .’ Sybil started.
‘For heaven’s sake, I keep telling you I’m your companion, don’t I?’
‘This is not something a companion does.’
‘What else have I got to worry about but your health and happiness?’ Biddy asked, smiling with all the confidence she could muster to hide the uncomfortable truth of the words.
Sybil opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish. ‘But my relatives have forbidden me knowing anything of the other heiress at all.’
‘Again, very convenient,’ said Biddy, dismissive. ‘Have your relatives forbidden me knowing anything?’
‘Well, I . . .’
‘Of course they haven’t. There’s the loophole.’
Sybil stood there, floundering. ‘But if my relatives should learn of it . . .’ She started to wring her hands.
Knowing she was the vessel by which the relatives had discovered her own existence, Biddy was unconcerned. ‘These people’s so-called power to see from the other side of the world, or wherever they happen to be, seems all pretty convenient, too,’ she declared.
‘What will you do exactly . . . to find things out?’
Biddy waved her hands, airily. ‘The less you’re told, the safer your inheritance. Keep your own hands clean.’
‘Biddy, what will you do?’ Sybil insisted.
‘Use your noggin,’ said Biddy, ‘you’re always going on about how much you like Sherlock Holmes stories.’
‘This is real, not a detective fiction!’
Biddy just shrugged, before tapping the side of her nose, enigmatically.
‘Will this involve dishonesty?’
‘Goodness no!’ Biddy exclaimed. ‘I never lie.’
Sybil weighed up Biddy’s answer and then plainly decided to be relieved. ‘And neither do I,’ she said, quietly. ‘So long as lies are avoided then perhaps it could be useful to know who my rival is,’ said Sybil.
‘I’ll flush her out of the woodwork,’ declared Biddy.
Sybil seemed to dislike this coarse choice of words.
‘I’ll investigate her,’ Biddy rephrased.
‘If you really think you could ever find out such a thing for me discreetly?’
Biddy smiled. ‘So many people underestimate me, you know,’ she said. ‘They’re the easiest ones to pull the wool over.’
‘You said no dishonesty.’
‘And I meant it,’ said Biddy, crossing her heart with the fingers of her right hand. The fingers of her left hand crossed themselves and crept behind her back where Sybil couldn’t see them.
Sybil looked long at Biddy’s beaming face before succumbing to hope. ‘Oh, Biddy, if you find out if the Secret Heiress really exists at all I will never forget you, no matter what might happen. I will always look out for you and I will always be your friend.’
Biddy felt a rush of emotion. She hugged Sybil. ‘That’s all the encouragement I need. Just what you said, nothing more than that.’
But as they held each other, Biddy’s feelings churned inside her. She was frightened. Her promise was ill thought out and reckless. She didn’t have the first idea how to find this strange person. But this was what friendship required, she knew, when one side was so unequal to the other.
The lesser friend must prove herself worthy of having a friend at all.
IDA
JANUARY 1887
5
Ida felt detached from herself, as if a hundred miles away and on the train again to Melbourne, cushioned and snug in the comfort of a first class carriage.
‘Ida! Ida, wake up, please . . .’
She was vaguely aware of Aggie slapping at her cheeks to no response.
‘Ida!’
They were her cheeks and yet they were not her cheeks. She was not at Summersby anymore, but safe on the train. Samuel sat across the compartment from her, his smile tender and warm.
‘Ida, please don’t die.’
She heard Aggie sobbing and felt her take her wrist; the wrist that was not her wrist. She felt fingers jab between her tendons, trying to detect signs of life perhaps. Ida sensed Aggie press her head against her chest, listening for a heartbeat. Across the compartment, Samuel beckoned Ida to sit with him. She did so, bashfully.
‘God, help me!’ Aggie cried from somewhere even further away now. ‘Don’t let her be dead.’
Ida heard a door flung open, footsteps running into the hall. ‘Mr Barker! Mr Barker!’ she heard Aggie call out. ‘Are you up here?’
Ida looked to Samuel sitting next to her on the soft, warm compartment seat and realised with a shock that Barker was now slouched there, his long legs stretched out insolently before him. Samuel was gone.
‘What’s got into you, woman?’ Barker answered Aggie, yet he looked Ida hard in the eye.
‘Mr Barker, please help, it’s Ida,’ Aggie’s voice said, so many miles away.
The valet picked his hard, white teeth with a nail. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘She’s . . . she’s fallen,’ Aggie told him.
He dug out some forgotten morsel and regarded it on the end of his finger for a moment before popping it back in his mouth. ‘From the roof? Good riddance.’
Ida felt her stomach turn.
‘In our mistress’s room,’ said Aggie’s voice. ‘She’s in there on the floor. Please help me.’
Ida heard Aggie’s running steps, followed by another set of feet, not running at all.
‘What’s the hurry?’ said Barker
‘She’s fallen!’ Aggie yelled at him. ‘She’s on the floor!’
Both voices seemed nearer, yet Barker hadn’t moved and Ida couldn’t see Aggie anywhere. It was confusing, and with Samuel gone and only Barker to share the compartment with, unpleasant.
‘Felt for a pulse?’ Barker wondered.
‘Yes!’ cried Aggie’s voice. ‘I can’t feel one.’
Barker seemed to consider this prospect. ‘Don’t waste your breath then,’ he told her. ‘There’s a rubbish pile up the back paddock. I’ll toss her on top in the morning.’
Ida distinctly heard Aggie cry out at this remark and she decided there and then that she’d had enough. ‘Go on and try it, you lanky bastard,’ she yelled at him, ‘I’ll snap your pretty nose like a pencil!’
‘Ida!’
The train compartment was gone and Ida found herself lying on the carpet in the Chinese room with Aggie crouching over her.
‘Spoke too soon,’ muttered Barker from where he leant against the doorframe. He sloped off into the hallway.
Aggie hugged Ida. ‘I thought you were gone.’
Ida was shaking, weak in her limbs. She clutched her friend. ‘I’ve got such a shocking headache, like you wouldn’t believe . . . worst one I’ve ever had . . .’
‘For God’s sake, you were knocked out cold!’ Aggie admonished her, helping her stand.
‘I’m fine now,’ Ida insisted. But her legs gave out beneath her and she looked like slipping to the floor again.
Aggie steadied her with difficulty. ‘Have you lost your senses, Ida? Something very bad is going on and you were almost made the worse for it!’
Ida’s bottom lip began to tremble, more shocked by what had occurred than she was letting on. She looked at the blue glass vial on the floor. Aggie had had the presence of mind to put the stopper back in, preventing whatever was inside from leaking out entirely.
‘What would have happened if you’d done more than smell the stuff?’ Aggie wanted to know.
Ida didn’t have a reply.
Aggie pleaded with her. ‘We’ve got to forget about this business, Ida, whatever it all is. It’s getting too dangerous. Whatever’s going on, it’s nothing to do with us. All we do is work here. We’ll look out for our mistress, but that’s the limit of it. Promise me you’ll keep your nose out of it.’
Ida said nothing. She was beginning to feel angry now, angry that someone was treating her like a fool.
‘Promise me,’ said Aggie.
Ida looked at the sapphire perfume vial, the thing that was making her angriest of all. It was as if it was taunting her. Why did it keep moving around seemingly of its own accord, but never quite hiding itself properly? Why did it always manage to get found again?
‘Promise me, Ida!’
She refused to promise anything of the kind.
• • •
Evie was horrified by what she’d just been told. ‘Poisoned?’
Ida took a sip of her bottled lemon barley water, as if scrapes with death were par for the course for girls with inquisitive minds. ‘Thing is, though, it’s a funny kind of poison – it makes me wonder now if it’s even a poison at all.’
Evie nearly choked on her pie. They were seated on a long bench together, outside the bakery in Mostyn Street, Castlemaine. The schoolhouse across the road thronged with children on their dinnertime break. Ida had come to see her sister on her one afternoon off for the month. ‘You smelled it and you fell into a stupor!’ Evie reminded her. ‘If that’s not a nasty poison, what is?’
Ida had to agree it was mystifying. ‘I’ve got so many questions, Evie, and answers are thin on the ground.’
‘I don’t see why you’re making this your affair at all – especially since being poisoned!’
‘For instance,’ said Ida, ignoring this concern, ‘Miss Matilda wrote the letter to Miss Margaret, but when did she write it and why? To put in her Remember Box the letter said, but Miss Matilda’s the one who can’t remember anything.’ She thought of the few words she’d managed to read of the hut letter before it had been slapped it from her hand. ‘Yet Matilda wrote that it was Margaret whose mind was damaged.’
‘Well, obviously it was, you already said that everyone thought she was ill – ill enough to top herself in the first place,’ said Evie, returning to her pie.
‘True,’ said Ida, ‘but is it the same as being damaged? My mistress’s mind is as damaged a mind as I’ve ever seen in a person – her memory’s all in little bits and pieces.’
‘But she’s Matilda, not Margaret,’ Evie reminded her. ‘You and I both saw Margaret get put in a hole in the ground.’
‘Then there’s the handwriting,’ said Ida, ‘Aggie swears it’s not our mistress’s and I believe her, but handwriting was what Mr Samuel wanted to know about when we found the first letter and lost it – he wanted to know what it looked like and I told him: it looked awful.’
‘What did he say to that then?’ asked Evie, intrigued despite everything.
‘He didn’t say anything at all,’ said Ida, thinking on it now. ‘But he did seem relieved. I only wish that we’d found it again in the dark, I should liked to have read all of it.’
They heard the Post Office clock chime the half hour.
‘I’ve got fifteen minutes left,’ said Evie.
�
��Let’s take a walk. I want to stretch my legs.’
‘A quick one,’ warned Evie.
The two girls walked west along Mostyn Street, Evie peering in all the shop windows as they went, while Ida’s inquisitive head stayed with her questions, ordering them and reordering them as she strolled. They reached the corner where the street of shops met the road that went north to Bendigo. Evie wanted to turn around again. ‘One more block,’ said Ida. ‘You’ve still got ten minutes.’
‘I don’t want to have to run back,’ said Evie, ‘it’s undignified.’
But they crossed the road and made their way up the Mostyn Street hill towards the Castlemaine Railway Station. They neared a double-fronted villa, painted white, with a steep flight of steps leading to the red front door. Pink and red pelargoniums made a cheery little front garden. Ida studied at the polished brass plaque that was screwed to the wall.
Dr A. L. Foal, Physician
‘I feel a bit unwell,’ said Ida.
Evie looked at her worriedly. ‘Well, of course you do, you went and smelled that horrible poison.’
‘I think I should see the doctor about it.’
‘What? But that’s ruinous expense, Mum’ll tell you.’
Ida opened the little wrought-iron gate. ‘I’ll say goodbye to you here, Evie, and come and see you again next month.’
‘Wait . . . what?’ She realised what her older sister was doing. ‘You can’t go in there, that’s for toffy people!’
‘I’m sick,’ said Ida. ‘I need a doctor’s care.’
Evie was on to her. ‘You’re inquisitive to a fault, Ida Garfield, and one day soon it’s going to bite you on the unmentionable!’
‘I earn a wage. I’ve got every right to come here.’
Evie screwed up her face. ‘If you don’t stop doing whatever it is you think you’re going to do, I’ll be telling Mum!’
The school bell began to peal from the other end of Mostyn Street.
Ida kissed her on the cheek. ‘Sorry, Evie, looks like you’ll have to run.’
• • •
The woman who answered the door was pleasant enough, but reserved. Standing on the doorstep, Ida felt as if her character was being assessed. ‘Dr Foal,’ she repeated, ‘would it be possible for me to see him, miss?’
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