The Secret Heiress

by Luke Devenish

  He stopped short. ‘The Law?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Ida. ‘I’ll go to them; I don’t care what happens now.’

  He was on her at the sink before she could run, one hand gripped at her throat. ‘You breathe a word to the Law and they’ll hang you for the little slut you are.’

  Ida choked, unable to draw air.

  ‘Is that what you want?’ He pressed her throat. ‘Is that the idea? They’ll hang you for trying to drag a good man down.’

  She couldn’t struggle, couldn’t take her eyes from his pitch-black pupils.

  Long, sharp fingers groped for her belly. ‘They’ll see this, and that’s all they’ll see – won’t care how young you are, won’t care for anything you say about me. All they’ll see is this.’ He clutched at her flesh, squeezing it, clawing at her unborn baby. ‘The tell-tale sign of a slut.’

  He was still affected by the powders, incapable of thinking straight. Somehow he’d awoken with no inkling that she’d drugged him at all. Instead, he’d guessed she was pregnant, seizing upon it as a focus for his malice.

  Ida slammed the fistful of sand in his eyes and burst away from his grasp.

  Barker howled. ‘You little whore!’

  She spat on the floor with contempt. ‘Do you really think Matilda cares about you?’ she taunted. ‘Do you really think she’d do anything for you, just like you would do for her?’

  He froze.

  ‘Matilda wanted me to poison you!’ She paused, savouring the worst of it. ‘And if I were half the cretin you think I am, I would have done it, too.’

  His mind took a moment to understand that she’d at last uncovered the truth of him. ‘What?’

  ‘That what’s she wanted, not just Mr Samuel dead by my hands, but you, as well. She wanted you both gone. She despised you! You were just a servant in her eyes – worse than a servant, a slave!’

  Barker clawed at his eyes. ‘Stop it!’

  Ida let herself laugh. ‘Pathetic you are, in love with someone so above your station. What a fool you are, thinking you could have her! Well, it’s all too late now, Mr Barker,’ she said, relishing it, ‘and do you know why?’ She pointed to the ceiling. ‘Matilda Gregory, the love of your life, is upstairs dead.’

  ‘That’s lies!’

  ‘I’m sorry it’s the truth. Matilda is dead, utterly dead.’ Ida started backing out the room, hands clutched at her stomach, grinning at him.

  He roared. ‘You’re not having that brat, do you hear me?’ He lunged for her.

  Ida bolted for the baize door. ‘Help!’ she screamed into the greater house for her mistress. ‘Help me, miss! Please!’

  She fled into the entrance hall and then made towards the stairs. Barker was behind her, stumbling half blind. ‘You’re not having that bastard – I’ll bloody rip it from your guts.’ His hand found a heavy brass oil lamp on a hall table, snatching it up. Ida slipped and skidded on the polished wooden boards. The lamp came down on her back, shattering the glass. Oil doused her head and hair. Barker raised the heavy base again and struck her across the neck. Ida shrieked, blood mingling with oil. She tried to reach the stairs, but lost her footing in the oil, falling onto her hands and elbows. Barker raised the lamp to strike her a third time but Ida turned and kicked him in a shin, sending him off balance, the oil lamp clattering from his hand.

  ‘You filthy whore,’ he spat at her. ‘You’ll not ruin me.’

  She rolled on her belly from his grip, feeling her helpless child crushed beneath her. ‘Miss!’ She reached the bottom stair and then was scaling on her hands and knees. Barker had her by an ankle, just as he’d had her on the night she’d seen his evil for what it was. She kicked and kicked, screaming out her lungs.

  A massive object flew from above, hurtling towards its target. She heard the shriek of agony from behind her and turned to see that the thing that had dropped was a marble bust; it had struck Barker on the leg, shattering it.

  ‘Ida? Ida?’ Margaret called from above. It was she who had saved her.

  Ida’s heel connected with the valet’s face and he let go, writhing in misery.

  She made it to the landing and was free of him.

  BIDDY

  FEBRUARY 1904

  9

  Miss Garfield had taken charge of their party, striding forth and securing two transports in the busy street outside Spencer Street Railway Station: an open, comfortable carriage for herself and Sybil and Biddy, and a dray for Jim, Lewis and the accompanying luggage. Once the young men had been extricated from the third class carriage she’d obliged them to travel in, Miss Garfield had left them to procure porters while she, Sybil and Biddy waited in sunshine outside, sipping lemonades.

  Their carriage ride first took them along chaotic Flinders Street, choked with traffic and unpleasant odours from the river wharfs, passing sites of note, including St Paul’s, which Miss Garfield endeavoured to use to engage with Sybil, extolling its fine architecture. Sybil would have had them believe she was more concerned with their luggage, although Biddy knew better. Several times Sybil turned to look for the dray that was following them. ‘Our things will be perfectly safe,’ Miss Garfield assured her, ‘Jim and Lewis are taking good care.’ Biddy placed a comforting hand around Sybil’s own, guessing what was filling her thoughts: Jim. Sybil still didn’t know that Biddy knew.

  ‘I am attributing your quietude to awe at the great metropolis, Sybil,’ Miss Garfield declared. ‘Melbourne must be an astonishing sight for a girl who has seen very few views of the world. Our new nation’s capital should rightly give you awe, why, I’ve been remembering my own response the very first time I was taken to visit the city – I was much the same age as you.’ She laughed at the thought, and Sybil and Biddy, listening to her monologue, were attentive enough to smile at least.

  ‘My Methodist aunts referred to Melbourne as Sodom,’ the governess revealed. ‘I had expected to encounter licentious writhing before golden calves as a consequence, and was most disappointed at uncovering neither.’ She looked about her as she said it, as if such things might yet be found.

  Biddy found Miss Garfield’s pleasure in the whole adventure endearing. Sybil had been told no such falsehoods about Melbourne, she guessed. Rather, she’d been told very little at all. Still, she was very quiet, and of course Miss Garfield had noticed it. Sybil was also somewhat ill, an affliction Biddy accounted to nerves. Truth be told, Biddy’s nerves were similarly jangled at the thought of the meeting ahead of them.

  ‘Your own silence, Biddy, I can little account for, however,’ Miss Garfield said, changing the focus of her attention.

  ‘Sorry, Miss Garfield,’ Biddy replied. She and Sybil met eyes.

  Melbourne’s business district receded, replaced by the parks that surrounded the Treasury, before East Melbourne was reached, the Cricket Ground, and shortly afterwards the less salubrious suburb of Richmond and the commencement of the Bridge Road.

  Biddy unconsciously stiffened and the governess saw it. ‘Do you know this locality, Biddy?’

  ‘A little,’ Biddy said, vaguely.

  Miss Garfield was watching her. ‘Did you live here before you came to Summersby?’

  ‘Oh no, miss, never lived here . . .’

  The look on Miss Garfield’s face told Biddy that the governess was becoming better at seeing through her stories. She could rightly guess that Biddy had lived in Richmond, and Biddy saw that Miss Garfield also suspected she’d received ill treatment while doing so.

  Several times the traffic fell to a halt due to a tramcar ahead of them. Biddy suddenly realised with alarm that their carriage had drawn level with Topp’s General Store. To her mortification she recognised a pair of faces from among the crowd thronging the street: an older woman, severe in attire, accompanied by a girl of Biddy’s age wearing a servant’s uniform: Mrs Rattray and Queenie. The two of them stopped and stared in astonishment at the carriage, recognising Biddy immediately. Queenie was open-mouthed and pointing.

  Wishin
g she could shrink in her seat, Biddy prayed they would not call out to her.

  ‘How incredibly rude,’ said Miss Garfield, seeing them.

  The carriage began to move along again and soon the two unpleasant reminders of the past were lost.

  ‘I can only assume they were struck by our fashionable millinery,’ said Miss Garfield, adjusting her hat. ‘Is fine attire rare in Richmond perhaps, Biddy?’

  Biddy said that she thought it might be.

  In time, the Yarra River was crossed and the driver turned around to inform them that they had now reached Hawthorn. Miss Garfield repeated the desired address again, relieved that the man seemed to hold a map of the metropolis’s thoroughfares inside his head. Soon all thoughts of Richmond were behind Biddy as they clip-clopped through green and prosperous streets.

  ‘Yes, this is one of the city’s better situated environs indeed,’ Miss Garfield emphasised again, in the hope, perhaps, of reassuring Sybil of the rightness of their destination. ‘What a difference to where we have just been, Sybil, in the noisy Bridge Road. Why, the air is quite breathable here, almost as wholesome as home.’ She took a deep lungful of air to prove the point, only to inhale a fly. A coughing fit ensued but no laughter came from either Sybil or Biddy. Biddy knew Miss Garfield took this as a sure sign that nerves were behind their uncharacteristic lack of pep.

  ‘All will be well, Sybil,’ Miss Garfield said, unprompted once recovered from the fly. Biddy met Sybil’s eye again and caught a sudden glimpse of a terrible fear that was there and felt thrown by it. Her own emotions threatened, and Biddy realised that she had barely acknowledged them at all since Jim’s phoney telegraph message had been received – a guilty secret that neither she nor Jim had shared with Sybil. Both of them wanted the Secret Heiress exposed, real or otherwise, and Sybil’s relatives met, no matter how scandalous, so that Sybil’s life proper could begin.

  ‘Sybil,’ Miss Garfield repeated, warmer now, ‘you are truly an exemplary girl, a credit to Summersby. You have learned all I could teach you and could not have learned more. You are ready for this visit and you will do well.’

  Sybil’s fear remained palpable. She was ill with it. ‘The Secret Heiress . . .’ she began,

  Miss Garfield anticipated what it was she imagined filled Sybil’s thoughts. ‘She is real,’ she said, softly. ‘That much I do know, but that is all that I know. Mrs Marshall knows everything, I am sure of it, but is bound somehow not to share it – not with you, not with me. She has chosen to remain in Summersby today and we must respect that she has her reasons. I don’t know what these reasons might be, but they are because of some event from the past – an event of which you are wholly blameless, Sybil, but an event of great shame. Again, I do not know what this might be.’

  Sybil looked to Biddy again, and if there was a flash of triumph in Biddy’s eyes, Sybil lacked it. She was expressionless.

  ‘And shortly, I hope, you will learn why you could not know of her before now,’ said Miss Garfield. She allowed her deep and abiding love to show in her face. ‘. . . And why so many things were kept from you,’ she went on, ‘kept for a reason, a reason that was not of your making, I promise you.’ She took Sybil’s hand. ‘You are a lovely girl, an ornament,’ she insisted. ‘Your family will see the great goodness at once in you, I know they will, and they will be so much gladdened by it.’ She kissed Sybil on the cheek.

  The open-topped carriage took them along an appealing, tree-lined avenue with large, elegant homes displayed on both sides of the road. The driver turned to tell them that Number One Hundred and Eight had been reached in Auburn Grove. The carriage pulled to a stop. All three of them looked to where a grand and imposing villa of some three storeys stood behind high stone walls amid a garden of claret ash and maple trees.

  Biddy frowned, puzzled by where they’d arrived.

  ‘Will she be inside there?’ Sybil pressed.

  Miss Garfield seemed to want no more paths left to them but that of total truthfulness now. ‘I am sure of it . . .’ She saw that Sybil still doubted her. ‘Please believe me,’ she pleaded, ‘I have never met this person. I do not know who or what she is. I know only that she is of your family and that therefore your happiness and welfare must surely be at the very utmost of her mind.’

  ‘Despite everything?’

  Miss Garfield didn’t know what she meant by those words, but Biddy did – the clandestine romance with Jim. The governess searched Sybil’s face for any sign that the girl was in some way reassured. There was none. ‘What is it, child? You are ready to meet your relatives and show that you are more than their equal.’

  But Sybil shook her head, tears pricking her eyes. Miss Garfield was plainly at a loss.

  The luggage dray came to a halt at the rear of their carriage. The governess turned to look behind them just as Sybil did, and for the briefest moment Biddy saw the yearning look of connection pass between Sybil and Jim, seated in the dray. The intensity of it stunned her before the connection was broken and both young people now looked as if nothing connected them at all. Biddy turned to realise that Miss Garfield had seen the look, too.

  Sybil composed herself. ‘I wish Biddy to accompany me,’ she announced.

  The governess nodded. ‘Of course, child.’

  ‘I would like you to remain in the carriage.’

  Miss Garfield caught her breath.

  Sybil saw the hurt astonishment in her governess’s face and reached for her hand. ‘Please. I mean no slight.’ She drew herself up. ‘This is my visit and mine alone. Biddy will accompany me inside, that is all. I will meet my family – and Margaret Gregory – alone.’

  Miss Garfield nodded, with nothing left to say. Lewis and Jim had alighted from the dray and now were coming to assist them from the carriage. Lewis positioned himself to help Biddy to the ground, given she was nearest the door, and as he did so a look of great connection passed between them, too, open and unembarrassed.

  Biddy realised what it meant. She and Lewis were in love.

  The surprise of this was in no way shocking. Why shouldn’t they seek happiness with each other, she thought? She was reminded of the brief and somehow fiercer look she had just seen pass between Sybil and Jim, and then it was Jim himself helping Sybil to alight and the same look was between them again, unmistakable, yet somehow lacking the joy that she and Lewis had shared.

  Biddy turned and saw that Miss Garfield had seen everything. Sybil was in love with Jim Skews, and she, the governess, had only now realised it. How long had she been blind to this fact?

  Sybil and Biddy were now thanking the young men and adjusting their hats and gloves, readying themselves to open the wrought iron gate. ‘Wait . . .’ said Miss Garfield, with apprehension. ‘Wait, Sybil . . .’

  Sybil turned. ‘What is it, Miss Garfield?’

  The governess could only stare at her pupil as if seeing Sybil for the first time in years, grown up without her guessing at it, living a secret life in which she, Miss Garfield, played not the slightest part at all. Sybil was no longer a girl but a woman. ‘You will do well,’ she managed to tell her. ‘You will do very well.’

  Sybil turned and faced the gate.

  Biddy could see a plaque on the wall, a nameplate grown over and obscured by ivy. She brushed the tendrils away.

  Constantine Hall.

  She frowned, dismissing some half-formed thought from her mind.

  • • •

  Sybil stood with Biddy upon the entrance porch poised to ring the bell, and yet not doing so, unable to complete the simple action, her hand in mid-air.

  ‘What is it?’ Biddy wondered.

  ‘I must tell you something,’ Sybil whispered, and when Biddy turned to look at her she saw how ill Sybil really was, ill in a way that wasn’t just physical but emotional; a terrible weight of guilt.

  Biddy had been expecting this and was glad that her friend finally felt ready to confide. ‘No you don’t,’ she whispered back, taking Sybil’s hand. ‘You see, I alr
eady know it.’

  Sybil’s mouth fell open and Biddy nodded, smiling naughtily.

  ‘You know?’ Sybil asked, incredulous. Both of them were all too aware of Miss Garfield watching through the gate from the street.

  ‘Of course, I know,’ said Biddy. ‘I’d be a pretty dim companion if I didn’t know by now, wouldn’t I?’

  Sybil was verging on tears. ‘Oh, Biddy . . . but, but what must you think of me?’ Humiliation was bleak in her face.

  ‘Sybil,’ Biddy said to her, firmly, ‘it’s not the old days anymore. Miserable Queen Victoria is cold in her grave and all the things she frowned upon are tossed in there with her. We’re in the lovely new century now and this one belongs to girls like you and me. What’s there to be ashamed of in having a nice boyfriend, for goodness sake?’

  A tear rolled down Sybil’s cheek and she shook her head. ‘No . . . no . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Biddy was quick with a handkerchief, mindful of Miss Garfield. Biddy felt she’d best say every word of reassurance she could think of in order to get them both through the door. ‘Jim’s a very fine young man, adept with a trade – I was wrong to once say he had teeth like a hare – and it’s obvious he cares for you, it’s as plain as the nose on your face.’

  ‘Oh, Biddy,’ Sybil whispered. ‘That’s not it.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she told her, ‘I’ll not breathe a word, as if I would. You and I might be sitting pretty in the lovely new twentieth century, but I’m not such a twit as to think that Margaret Gregory is.’ She winked but Sybil just stared back, desolate. ‘Come on, Syb,’ Biddy pleaded with her, ‘you and me are a couple of champion fibbers. We can make up stories with the best of ’em! Just keep your wits about you and you’ll sail through this with all flags flying and no one’ll be any the wiser that you’ve got a secret sweetheart.’

  Sybil was trying to tell her, ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘What’s to understand about a couple of stolen kisses in the long grass?’ Biddy laughed. ‘Sounds like heaven to me,’ she said, thinking of Lewis on the other side of the garden wall, rolling cigarettes with his cousin.