The Secret Heiress

by Luke Devenish

  ‘Was Mr Skews there?’ Aggie asked from her bed, changing the subject.

  ‘I see. Conversation’s closed again, is it?’ Ida wondered.

  ‘Was he there?’ Aggie fumbled for the glass of water at her bedside, but lost her grip and sent the glass spilling to the floor.

  ‘He was not,’ said Ida. Ignoring the puddle, she picked up the glass, which had landed without breaking. She poured more water into it from the jug and handed it back to Aggie.

  Her older friend sipped with difficulty, sickness clear in her face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Ida, watching her. ‘Changed your mind again now, have we? I know she shouldn’t have hit you, but you’ve got to get it in your head that they’re married now, and that’s the end of it.’ Ida bit back her own despair at the thought. She knew she would do just about anything to be kissed by Samuel again. ‘Just as well they’ve got me looking out for both of them, isn’t it, seeing as you’ve given up?’

  ‘Leave me, Ida. I’m too unwell for this,’ said Aggie. She placed the glass upon the table again with difficulty, the strength sapped from her hands.

  ‘I only hope your brains return as soon as this flu passes,’ Ida declared, going to the door.

  ‘Ida . . .’ Aggie started to say.

  But she shut the door on Aggie, leaving her alone in her sick bed.

  • • •

  Ida made her way with a pile of folded linen in her arms, up the great stairs towards the western wing’s second floor. She stopped still upon the last step, hearing the voice of her mistress she now privately thought of as Margaret, no longer Matilda.

  ‘He has married me . . . You cannot marry him, too, dearest. You are dead.’

  Leaving the stairs she neared the door to the master suite of rooms. Margaret was inside, Ida having already moved all her things from the Chinese room.

  ‘These rooms are riddled with hiding spots,’ Margaret was saying, ‘places for letters you never actually intended for me to uncover at all but someone else. Is it Samuel you want to find them? Is that why you persist with this?’

  Looking up and then down the deserted hallway, listening for tell-tale sounds of anyone else, Ida tested the handle of the door. It turned. In a single motion she was inside the room leaving the door ajar behind her.

  ‘Excuse me, miss?’

  Margaret was waiting alone in the master bedroom inside the great, canopied bed that had once been her father’s and now belonged to her – and her husband.

  ‘Just thought I’d look in,’ said Ida, tormented by thoughts of the wedding night. ‘Are you comfy there, miss?’

  Margaret ran her arm between the sheets of the opposite side and felt the coolness there, the smoothness of the unrumpled linen. ‘Soon my husband will come,’ she whispered. ‘I will triumph over my sister.’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ said Ida.

  ‘What is keeping him, do you think? Has he tired of me so soon?’

  ‘No, miss!’ said Ida. She wondered, too, what was delaying Samuel from the room. Was he so exhausted that he had fallen asleep inside his old room out of habit, forgetting all about his bride? Or was he thinking of the night-time kiss upon the stairs, just like Ida was thinking of it, unable to stop, reliving it again and again in her heart? ‘Why don’t you have something to eat while you’re waiting?’ she suggested.

  Margaret slipped out of the great bed and examined, one by one, the things Ida had already placed in the room with the hope of pleasing Samuel. Candles cast a soft light upon the walls, throwing shadows and mystery into the corners. Bowls of dried and perfumed rose petals gave off sweet scents. Champagne waited to be popped and drunk. A tray of tiny titbits invited consumption. Everything had been placed there with love.

  Ida watched her and took a moment to stand still, breathing in the exotic scents of the male environ. She could smell traces of Samuel’s pomade, and behind it the cologne he favoured, too.

  Still holding the linens, she moved towards his dressing room and lingered at that door. An open wardrobe displayed Samuel’s suits and coats, at its base his pairs of boots. Ida stepped inside the little room for a moment to put the linen down. She touched the fabrics of his clothes, the fine-spun wools and the rougher tweeds. She slipped her hands inside the pockets, pulling out and examining each small item that she found. She felt inside the boots.

  Ida took another moment to stand very still, the pine-scented pomade sharp in her nostrils. A flicker of movement from the bedroom outside revealed Margaret standing now behind the same door that Ida had opened to enter from the hallway. When had she moved there?

  ‘I’ll go now, miss . . .’ Ida started to say, caught out.

  The dressing room door slammed shut in her face.

  ‘Miss!’ She rattled the door. It was locked.

  ‘Why did I write those scraps?’ Margaret asked from outside.

  ‘Write what scraps, miss? Let me out,’ Ida implored her.

  ‘For him,’ Margaret answered herself, ‘You wrote them to make him happy, why else?’ There was a brief second’s pause before she posed another question. ‘Did it work?’ There was another pause, less than a second long, before she answered in a voice that at first seemed the same as the one she had used to pose the question, but in fact held the very subtlest of differences. ‘Oh yes, he was very pleased. You gave him what he needed. Or rather, what he thought he needed, which was much the same thing in his view.’

  Ida rapped at the door. ‘Miss, I don’t understand what you’re saying! Please let me out at once.’

  ‘But what did he need them for?’ Margaret asked. She immediately laughed in response and there was the difference to her voice again. ‘Are you really such a fool?’ The laugh stopped just as quickly and with it the change in Margaret’s voice. ‘I may not be as wise as you but people say I am kinder.’

  ‘Miss, please,’ Ida insisted, ‘I’ve still got work to do and Mr Samuel will be coming along any minute. I don’t want him to find me in here.’

  ‘He needed them for me,’ said Margaret.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Margaret, ‘I didn’t write them for you.’

  ‘No,’ Margaret agreed, ‘but that was their purpose. He gave each and every one of them to me. Not all at once, of course, but over time, a scrap here and there, sometimes weeks apart, at other times barely hours. The process was quite relentless really, insidious, too. Some of his hiding spots actually shocked me.’

  Ida listened, suddenly mesmerised by what was being said in the bedroom outside. Was she talking about the so-called scraps she had written for Samuel when still at the Hall? Whether she was or not, another truth was inescapable: Margaret was holding a conversation with both her dead sister and herself . . .

  Ida’s mind whirled and ticked. Her mistress had once said that her sister had been the more graceful dancer when taught by the Messieurs and Miss Roberts. When she encountered Miss Roberts again at the ball the instructress had praised her dancing, and exclaimed that she’d recognise her anywhere as Matilda because of her elegant steps. The mistress was changeable, swinging to extremes. So much of the time she was gentle, kind, if scattered and confused, but there were other occasions, fewer, when she was none of those things. At those times she was cold, harsh and cunning. She was also wanton; her eyes ablaze with desire. Why were there two poles of behaviour in Margaret? Had she and Matilda created confusion too many times as girls? Did it now seem to Margaret that sometimes she really was her own sister? Is this why she still thought of her as alive? Had she had become her sister while somehow remaining herself?

  Samuel had been right, she was ill. She was more than ill, she was insane.

  ‘But what did I imagine you felt guilty about?’ Margaret asked.

  Margaret laughed again. ‘Me? Nothing!’ This was the sister’s personality, the sister’s reply. The delicate change to her voice was the voice of Matilda, the twin who was cold in the ground.

  ‘And yet I wrote the scraps?’ Margaret pressed. />
  ‘At Samuel’s behest, he gave you the words. You merely transcribed, dearest.’

  ‘Then what did he imagine you felt guilty about?’

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Margaret, now sounding thoughtful in her sister’s voice, ‘rather a lot I’m afraid.’ There was cruelty in her inflection, in her sigh; the sister’s cruelty, not Margaret herself. ‘He thought me wracked with guilt, poor Samuel and I know I allowed him to think it, but truly, he was all too easily fooled. Like a tiny little boy. I wasn’t guilty of anything. He only thought I was. Just like he thought I was really you.’

  ‘You’ve been unkind to him then, sister?’ said Margaret, bristling. ‘Lying to him?’

  ‘He’s been unkind to me. Do you realise what his purpose was with all those little scraps? They were meant to drive me mad with the guilt he imagined I had – drive me so mad I would kill myself!’

  ‘But I love him,’ Margaret answered in a hurt little voice.

  ‘Dearest,’ said Margaret, patiently, her voice unmistakably her twin’s again, ‘he has thought to fool me, and this dismaying pride is simply bestial in a gentleman. So he will be punished for it in order that he might change his ways.’

  ‘I will not let you hurt him,’ Margaret vowed.

  ‘We shall see . . .’

  Margaret lapsed into a final silence. The conversation had ended. Ida waited to hear any more but there was nothing. As she reached out to rattle the handle again, the door sprang open. Margaret had unlocked it. She looked at Ida, deeply ashamed. ‘I am so sorry. It was all my sister. She locked the door.’

  She held a crumpled letter in her hand – written in the same ugly hand.

  Ida indicated it, no longer surprised by anything now. ‘She left something new for you to find?’

  ‘Not for me to find,’ Margaret whispered. Her nerves were in shreds. ‘It’s meant for someone else, I realise it now; they all are. They are not meant for me at all.’

  Who then, Ida wondered? What was really going on inside her mistress’s shattered mind? ‘May I see it?’ She gently held out her hand.

  They heard the creak of a footfall in the hallway.

  ‘Samuel?’ Margaret called. The shivers of the house replied.

  Clutching the letter still Margaret took a lighted candle and went to the bedroom door. She peered into the hall outside. ‘Samu—’

  ‘What is it, madam?’ Barker asked her from the shadows.

  Margaret leapt back, causing the candle to fall, splashing wax upon the carpet. Ida sprang forward to pick up the candle before it took flame. She thrust the glow before the valet’s surly face. ‘What are you doing lurking out there, Mr Barker?’

  He ignored her. ‘You wanted help with something, madam?’ he said to Margaret. Wedding alcohol was sour upon his breath.

  Margaret struggled to make words. ‘Why are you waiting there?’

  ‘In case madam needed me.’

  Ida took a step away from his fumes. ‘Where is Mr Samuel?’

  ‘Coming along,’ said Barker. ‘All in due course.’ He lapsed into a moment’s silence before seemingly remembering himself again. He gave them a laboured wink, showing his too white, too wide grin.

  Ida shuddered. ‘Why is he delayed?’

  ‘Who says he is?’ Barker tapped his long nose. ‘Probably just scrubbing himself nice and sparkling clean.’ He found this funny and began chuckling in his drunkenness.

  Margaret’s face filled with anger. A forgotten raindrop of memory suddenly fell from the branches of her mind. ‘You were a stable boy here in my father’s time,’ she said accusingly, ‘a foul, disgusting boy. We laughed at you!’

  Barker stopped chuckling.

  Ida was transfixed. She had been right. Margaret had recognised him that day in the Hall and had not been mistaken at all. Barker had worked at Summersby before. And what was it Mrs Jack had said about him? He had been ‘nice’ to Miss Gregory.

  ‘When did you become a valet?’ Margaret demanded. ‘How did you?’

  ‘Now, now,’ said Barker, ‘we all have hope for advancement. Some of us have means for making hope real.’ He watched her with glinting black eyes.

  ‘What means? What could you have had that ever would have seen you let past the kitchen door?’

  Barker’s eyes flashed in the glow of the candle. ‘Not all were so uncharitable, madam. Some saw my potential.’

  ‘Who? Who did?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘Your sister for one.’

  Ida’s inquisitive mind was racing.

  Margaret scoffed. ‘But she laughed at you, I tell you. She laughed louder than I did.’

  Ida imagined the memory: now dead Matilda laughing, pointing at the strange shock-haired youth hefting manure on a fork; spitting words of scorn at him, calling him ‘devil’ and ‘beast’. He had loved her for it, worshipped her.

  ‘Until the day she stopped,’ said Barker, meaningfully.

  Margaret gripped the bedroom door, frightened by him now. ‘Leave me. Go to your bed and sober yourself.’

  ‘I’m in no hurry,’ said Barker. He blew out the candle.

  ‘Mr Barker, what are you doing—’ Ida cried out.

  ‘Leave me, I said. Get out!’ Margaret screamed.

  They could no longer see where he stood in the gloom. ‘Toey little filly, aren’t you, eh?’ came his voice from the dark. ‘Soon your stallion will put all that to rights.’

  Margaret made to slam the door on him. ‘Leave!’

  But Barker had his boot in the doorjamb. ‘There, there,’ he said. ‘Just you put yourself to bed instead, eh?’

  Ida rushed forward and kicked at his foot, stamping on it. ‘Aggie! Aggie, we need you!’ she screamed into the hallway.

  Barker lashed out with a single slap and Ida fell to the floor.

  ‘That fat lump’s come down with a dose,’ he said, chuckling again. ‘Won’t be rousing her in a hurry.’

  Margaret picked up the fallen brass candlestick and smashed it onto his boot. Barker withdrew with a yell. Margaret kicked the door closed and then locked it from inside with the key. She stood there a moment, panting in shock and dismay. ‘Ida, are you hurt?’

  Ida felt her cheek where he’d struck her. It was very sore. ‘I might have a bruise in the morning.’

  Barker remained on the other side of the door.

  ‘I shall tell my husband of your outrage,’ Margaret spat at him through the keyhole.

  ‘Shame you’ve got a memory like a hessian sack,’ he countered from the other side. ‘Reckon you’ll still remember it in five minutes?’

  ‘I’ll remember it!’ Ida hissed at him. ‘I’ll tell him everything!’

  Margaret’s hands clenched at her sides. ‘Where is Samuel? Bring him to me!’

  ‘All in good time,’ said Barker. They heard him fumbling with the big brass ring of keys he carried at his waist.

  Margaret flew to the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ida trembled with dread.

  ‘Never you mind,’ said Barker.

  ‘Don’t worry, miss, he can’t come in again,’ Ida reassured her mistress.

  ‘Don’t you dare come back inside!’ Margaret ordered him, wide-eyed in fear.

  ‘Now, why would I want to do that?’ the valet asked. They heard the noise of a key being inserted into the lock. The key with which Margaret had locked the door from inside fell dislodged to the floor.

  Margaret gripped the bed covers ‘Don’t come inside . . . Please don’t come in here . . .’

  The door opened.

  ‘Mr Barker, no!’ Ida cried out.

  The grinning valet advanced on her first, the glint of sapphire blue glass in his hand.

  • • •

  Ida opened her eyes at the sound of the door handle turning. She was on the dressing room floor. She saw Samuel’s boots and clothes. She tried to move but couldn’t. Her head felt as if it weighed more than her body.

  ‘Samuel . . .’ she murmured
.

  ‘Samuel, is that you?’ It was Margaret’s voice.

  The dressing room door was partly ajar. Ida could half make out her mistress in the gloom. Margaret was still in the bed.

  ‘Of course it is, my love,’ Samuel held a candle in his hand and the soft light made his hair and skin glow like honey.

  Margaret stretched between the sheets. ‘Oh, husband,’ she purred. ‘I must have fallen asleep.’ The change in her voice was there once more—Matilda’s voice.

  ‘Then I am sorry to have woken you,’ he said. He placed the candle at the table by her bedside and kneeled on the floor before her. He was oblivious of Ida slumped on the dressing room floor. She could see him, she could see everything. Ida tried to move again, tried to call out for help. She was paralysed.

  Samuel took Margaret’s hand between his fingers, kissing the softness at her wrist.

  ‘But I wanted to be awoken,’ she told him. The catlike smile was there, curling at her lips, the desire. ‘I was waiting for you.’

  ‘Have I kept you very long?’

  Margaret laughed; a rich peal of mirth as she threw her head back. ‘Only many years,’ she said.

  He seemed to register the oddness of the answer for only a moment before her soft moans of pleasure told him to take her in his arms.

  ‘So long I have waited,’ said Margaret. ‘So long I have dreamt of this.’

  As he stepped from his robe, Margaret threw the bed covers wide, letting him see her fully. She was naked; her rich chestnut hair spread out on the pillows like a halo. ‘Take me, husband,’ she begged him. ‘Take me and give me a child in our joy.’

  This was the girl that Samuel once thought he loved, Ida knew; the girl that was dead Matilda, made alive once again in her sister.

  • • •

  Ida came to again, aware that more time had passed. It was still night, she was still on the dressing room floor. She still couldn’t move or cry out. Her head was throbbing horribly. Through the crack in the door she could still see the bedroom outside. Her mistress’s eyes were open, the surroundings plainly unfamiliar to her. Did she recognise her new bed, Ida wondered? Did she recognise her new room? Margaret propped herself up on her elbows and only then saw she was not alone. Samuel slept next to her. Startled, Margaret slipped from the sheets, snatching a robe from the floor to cover herself; Samuel’s robe. She looked at the form of the man sharing the bed and only then seemed to recognise he was her husband.