The Secret Heiress Read online

  Ida didn’t much like his words, which struck her as being extremely disrespectful. ‘What do you do for him, then? What’s your position?’

  He seemed to be noting her fresh-scrubbed features with distaste. Unfazed, Ida wouldn’t let herself care about that. Other people said she was pretty. ‘Valet,’ Barker told her.

  Ida didn’t know what that was but didn’t say so. ‘Who else lives here? Who else is there in the Gregory family?’

  ‘No one else.’

  ‘No one?’

  ‘The old bloke carked it before my time.’

  Ida tried to recall any town gossip she’d been privy to, but found it was hazy in her memory. ‘But wasn’t there some other girl once, a sister?’

  ‘None of your business if there was.’

  ‘So there are only servants here?’

  Barker chuckled. ‘I’ll tell His Lordship that one.’

  Ida caught herself. ‘I didn’t mean to call Mr Hackett a servant.’

  ‘Call him what you fancy, he gets his pay just like the rest of us – he’s the one who does the paying, being the secretary.’ He sniffed derisively. ‘Bone idle otherwise, but.’

  ‘How much am I getting paid, then?’ Ida asked, going straight to the most important matter at hand.

  ‘Twenty pounds per annum, the standard rate.’

  ‘“Per annum”?’ she baulked. ‘You putting funny stuff in the bread?’

  The man did a double take. ‘Per year, you fool.’

  Ida grinned. ‘That means I’m not temporary then, does it? A year guaranteed?’

  Barker offered a grunt by way of reply, hands scraping back his hair.

  Twenty pounds really wasn’t very much, Ida thought. Still, it was better than what she’d earned before, which was precisely nothing. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said, as if she’d been contemplating flouncing off home.

  Barker grunted again. ‘You’ll get your bed and board on top of it.’ He unconsciously jangled the keys he carried on a big brass ring.

  Ida marvelled at the number of them. ‘How can you remember what opens what?’ she asked.

  Barker ignored her. He twisted the knob of a narrow door. Beyond was a plainly furnished room containing a little iron bed with a quilted coverlet; an old and faded armchair that looked quite inviting all the same; a small wardrobe; a pine tallboy with six good drawers; and a little table upon which stood a washbasin. It was a simple yet comfortable room, filled with light streaming through the lace curtains.

  ‘Hope this suits,’ said Barker. He cleared a wad of phlegm from his throat, an ugly sound. ‘Hard cheese if it don’t.’

  Ida didn’t have to lie. ‘It will suit me very nicely, Mr Barker, thank you,’ she told him. She laid her hand on the bed quilt. It was thick and soft.

  • • •

  Barker flung aside the damask drapes of the dining room windows, letting the glare of the afternoon sun bounce inside the room. He undid the first window catch and yanked the bottom pane upwards on its sash, letting the clean air of the garden to do its work on the fug.

  Ida peered at him from the door.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ said Barker, as if only now remembering she was still there at all.

  ‘I’m not going in,’ said Ida, firm.

  He blinked at her under his mass of hair. ‘You’ll do as you’re bloody well told.’ This earned him one of Ida’s best blank stares. ‘You’ll do as we pay you for.’

  ‘She died in there, didn’t she?’

  The valet glared. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘No one. It’s obvious,’ said Ida. ‘The room’s been shut up for a week. There’s still breakfast things on the table.’

  He crinkled his lips, no doubt wrestling with how best to force her. Short of being beaten into doing it, Ida intended to set her boundaries down as soon as she could. She’d willingly take orders from Mr Hackett because he was a gentleman and nice, and he wanted to be her friend, but his man Mr Barker was another matter.

  ‘All right, she died in here,’ Barker conceded. ‘Haven’t you seen a place where someone’s died before?’

  Ida blanched. ‘I should think not.’

  ‘Ever been inside a hospital?’

  ‘I saw my mum at the Benevolent Asylum in Castlemaine when she went there after having our Frank,’ Ida told him. ‘He tore her insides.’

  Barker was unfazed by this image. ‘Did your poor mum cark it?’

  ‘No. She pulled through.’

  ‘Saw her lying in a bed, then, did you?’

  Ida looked at him like he was a simpleton.

  ‘She was lucky then,’ said Barker, ‘but somebody before her wasn’t; more than one, more like. That’s what happens in hospital beds, people cark it in ’em. People cark it in dining rooms, too. It’s a fact of life. Now clean this room before I clout you for it.’

  The threat of violence, if that’s what it was, had negligible effect on Ida. She stayed where she was at the door. ‘How did poor Miss Gregory die then? Nobody seems to say.’

  The seams of Barker’s coat complained, too tight across his back. ‘She had a turn.’

  ‘What’s that even mean?’

  Barker’s temper snapped properly. ‘Get in here and start sweeping now!’

  This worked. Ida scuttled inside, clanging her dustpan, and began to address the floor. Hawkish, Barker watched her for a minute, satisfying himself she was cowed. He departed, leaving her to the chores.

  Ida continued as she’d started for a little while longer before she stopped and looked sadly about the room. People died of unknown things all the time, Ida knew, especially here on the goldfields, and especially women. Still, Summersby’s beautiful mistress was gone too soon and this was a terrible sorrow. Ida would never know the honour of serving such an elegant person. She wondered where in the room Miss Gregory had breathed her last. Had she been seated or standing? Had she fallen to the floor? What signs were there that someone had even died in here at all?

  The gleam of something blue caught her eye where the folds of the window dressings spilled to the floor to form a dust trap. Ida tried to tell what it was from the distance. The object was something hard, brightly blue and shiny, and not very large. It was glass. Curiosity overcame her and Ida stole to the window, lifting the drapes to see. It was a pretty vial, rather like a perfume bottle. Ida picked it up and held it to the light; there was liquid inside. She shook it and the contents moved about, but not as water might. This was definitely scent, Ida thought, or something like it. The vial’s neck was secured with a stopper and Ida felt a compulsion to open it. She tentatively tried but found it was tight. She could have forced it, she supposed, but another impulse took her, equally as strong, that she should leave well alone. Ida contemplated putting the vial back where she found it, but feared Barker coming across the thing later and thinking she hadn’t cleaned.

  The room had grown less spooky. Ida resumed the cleaning, which was mostly a token effort, but an effort all the same. She placed the vial on the dining table, keeping an eye upon it as she went about gathering the week-old breakfast things onto a tray. Cold tea, milk that had turned into lumps, hard, stale slices of toast.

  She was grateful to pull the doors shut behind her when she finished, with enough grit and lint in her pan to act as evidence of her labour. Balancing the tray she made her way beyond the stairs to the green baize door and into the kitchen, hoping there’d be someone else about to chat to. She walked in to find the same cosmetics-wearing woman from the funeral.

  ‘Oh!’ she said in surprise.

  The woman turned around from where she was throwing ingredients into a pot of vegetable soup. ‘So he found you then, love?’

  ‘Yes. I mean . . .’ Ida was thrown to find her here. Nothing of what the woman had said at the graveyard had suggested she was a servant at Summersby. She’d spoken like an outside observer.

  The woman seemed to appreciate Ida’s confusion. ‘I’m Mrs Jack,’ she told her, winking. Ida s
aw with dismay that her face was still heavy with rouge, which had run a little from bending over the stove. ‘I cook here from time to time, in emergencies like, and only then if I can be bothered with it, which between you and me, is less and less. Mrs Jack’s well jack of it,’ she laughed.

  Ida didn’t know what to say.

  Mrs Jack pulled her apron off and tossed it onto a chair. She was still wearing her funeral clothes. ‘Anyway, that’s me done and dusted. Keep an eye on the soup, will you, love. Keep it low and covered, then take it off after an hour. That’ll do you all for your supper. If you don’t see me again, good luck to you.’

  She plucked her folded red parasol from an umbrella stand near the dresser and made for the door to the garden.

  ‘But where are you going?’ Ida called after her.

  ‘Home, love. You didn’t think I actually lived here, did you? Not likely!’

  She was gone.

  Perplexed by this, Ida sat on a kitchen stool and wondered what to do next. It occurred to her that although there’d been a funeral, there’d not been a wake. While this seemed rather miserly, perhaps it was best. Who would have done the cooking for it, she wondered? Clearly not Mrs Jack. The grand house seemed to have a skeleton staff. The thought of the word ‘skeleton’ vaguely spooked Ida once more and she was reminded of the perfume vial inside her apron pocket. She took it out and looked at it again. It was really quite lovely, but she didn’t dare risk keeping it and being branded a thief on her first day on the job.

  Ida needed her maid’s wages dearly, or rather, her sister Evie did. A pact had been made between Ida’s mother and her maiden aunts that would see Evangeline given respectable schooling. Ida’s sister was considered to be bright, far brighter than Ida, and the whole family accepted it and hoped one day to benefit. Ida’s own schooling had ended three years ago, at age thirteen, but not so Evie’s, who was thirteen now. Ida’s maid’s wage would now help ensure Evie did the Garfield family proud. It was why Ida’s mother had been so happy when Miss Gregory had offered employment. It was why Evie herself had not shed a tear at losing Ida.

  Something stuck in Ida’s inquisitive mind. The late Miss Gregory had specifically asked about Ida’s brightness, and when told that Ida was not much known for being bright but was inquisitive at least, she had not been put off. Ida was sure she had not imagined this. Miss Gregory had been open to there being something good about her.

  Ida tucked the pretty glass vial inside her apron again, planning to do whatever was appropriate with it later. She had just given up on sitting alone and was pushing through the green baize door once more when she felt the hair on her forearms prickle. It was an unpleasant sensation and she rubbed at her skin, which then became goose pimpled under her fingers. Shivers ran up her back as if a cold, dead hand was clamped to her, shoving her into the entrance hall. Ida stood startled for a moment and compulsively looked behind her. No one was there.

  She heard a tapping sound from somewhere very close; a sound both unexpected and yet familiar. It took a moment to place it. ‘Dog’s nails,’ Ida said when she recognised it. She listened again, it was unmistakable. It was the sound of a dog’s claws trotting up the stairs overhead.

  Delighted that Summersby housed pets, Ida ran to the great staircase to see what sort of animal it was. Looking up, she could see no sign. ‘Here, girl!’ she called out, hopefully; all dogs being girls on account of Daisy, the beloved Garfield farm dog.

  Ida ran up the stairs to the first landing, and when that revealed no sign of the animal, she went all the way to the next floor, peering up and down the hallway. She listened again. The tapping was still there somewhere, only further away now, and then it was gone entirely.

  Ida was perplexed. There was no sign of a blessed dog anywhere.

  • • •

  ‘Mr Hargreaves Cooper from Kyneton is here,’ Ida announced to the drawing room in a voice little suited to the task. Two days had passed since the funeral. The men within reacted as one to her squeak and Ida thought it best to fetch brandy, but in doing so she forgot about the guest, leaving him abandoned in the hall. Hargreaves Cooper made his own way inside, approaching Samuel Hackett.

  ‘Hargreaves.’ Blond, handsome Samuel shook the greying solicitor’s broad hand. ‘You must be very parched,’ he said, ‘you’ve ridden a long distance.’

  ‘It’s a sad business. My condolences, Hackett,’ Cooper replied.

  Watching them both, and watching Ida, too, the valet Barker scraped the hair from his eyes. Perhaps it was the light, but Barker was looking happier today, it seemed to Ida. She supposed that his demons – if that’s what he had – were not troubling him quite as much. He was looking somehow fuller in his tight, black garb; more physically imposing with his black eyes glinting at her from beneath his net of hair. Still, he was nothing in comparison to Samuel Hackett, by far the most handsome man Ida had met, or would ever likely meet, she thought. The sight of him alone still sent Ida slightly giddy. The few occasions in the last two days when he had spoken to her – there’d been three so far – would be cherished always, Ida told herself. Already she had found herself dreaming of him at night.

  Ida had on a different uniform than when she’d been hired, and now wore an official housemaid’s black crepe frock and bustle. She’d received a promotion after only one day, and although she feared that Summersby – or Mr Hackett at least – might have wished for a better class of domestic than herself, she was not going to question good fortune. As her mother had so often told her, girls of small intelligence were lucky to know what day it was, let alone the month and the year. Ida knew she had been given the one opportunity she was ever likely to get in her life and she’d not be found poking holes in it.

  She delivered Samuel and the visiting solicitor a brandy bottle on a tray, having remembered to include glasses. Cooper had already seated himself in an armchair, and Samuel began to pour them both a glass once he realised that Ida lacked the wit to do it for him.

  ‘All death is a sad business,’ Samuel said to Cooper, ‘but I think in this instance we both know I was forewarned.’

  The solicitor cradled his glass and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Well, don’t we?’ Samuel asked.

  Ida looked around for Barker only to realise he had already gone. She made her way to the room’s great double doors and pulled them almost shut behind her as she left the room. But some perversity made her remain on the other side. She knew it was wrong, yet she did it anyway. The people of Summersby fascinated her, all the more because none of them much took the time to talk to her. Robbed of the pleasure of speaking, Ida felt she had no choice but to take new comfort from listening. She looked behind her into the grand entrance hall for any sign of the valet but could see nothing of him. She pressed her eye to the crack between the doors.

  ‘Miss Gregory was the embodiment of good health when you declared your engagement, Samuel,’ Cooper was saying from inside the room.

  ‘I have a doctor’s report to attest to it,’ said Samuel.

  ‘Foal is a fine Castlemaine physician.’

  ‘Who sadly writes worthless reports,’ Samuel said. ‘My fiancée, as I’m sure you now see, was anything but well and I am all the more a dupe for ever believing otherwise. Very gratifying to see Foal change his tune for the Coroner’s benefit, at least.’

  Ida had left the doors not quite closed, and through the crack she could actually tell that Samuel was pleased to see the solicitor show discomfort at this remark, although as to what it all quite meant she had no idea. The implication seemed to be that Miss Gregory had in some way been unwell, but not in a way that the doctor had been able to diagnose.

  ‘Her ailments, if that’s what she had, were not physical,’ Cooper reminded him.

  Samuel said nothing.

  ‘Blame cannot be cast upon Foal. Physically Miss Gregory was very sound.’

  ‘I am not blaming Foal,’ said Samuel, ‘I am blaming myself.’

  ‘Why, for heaven�
��s sake?’

  ‘For loving her.’

  Ida’s heart broke. ‘Poor man,’ she whispered to herself.

  Cooper looked further embarrassed, perhaps he was wary of tears, Ida wondered. ‘For a man to love his intended is not shameful,’ said Cooper.

  Samuel signalled an end to this path of discourse. ‘You are here about my late fiancée’s will, an unpleasant formality, but one for which I appreciate you making the journey, Hargreaves.’

  Cooper placed his brandy down. Ida realised too late she’d not given any coasters.

  ‘I’m sure matters could have waited another week or so,’ said Samuel, ‘until I felt fit to attend you at your office at least, but as I say, I appreciate your professionalism. When my fiancée and I signed our wills with you last year, your professionalism then put us both very much at ease.’

  Ida vaguely wondered why a Kyneton solicitor might have been preferred over a local man.

  ‘There is a later will,’ the solicitor said.

  Samuel looked up from his brandy. ‘There are the wills Matilda and I signed in your presence.’

  ‘There are. And there is a further will Miss Gregory asked my late colleague Herbert Walsh to draw up for her to sign some days later.’

  Without quite knowing why, yet knowing that she was privy to something interesting, Ida bit her tongue. Through the crack in the door, the look she saw upon Samuel’s face was one of absolute astonishment. ‘My fiancée had you prepare another will? Further to the one she just signed upon our engagement?’

  ‘Not me, Walsh,’ said Cooper. ‘She made an appointment to see him of her own accord, I gather, and she instructed Walsh to draw up another will – a will that post-dates the other.’

  Samuel became disbelieving. ‘But why didn’t she tell me of this?’

  Cooper could provide no answer.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t know of it.’

  ‘But you and Walsh shared offices?’

  The solicitor seemed to be sweating. Ida felt under her own arms and realised she was perspiring a little, too. ‘Shared rooms and furniture, yes,’ Cooper told Samuel, ‘but not confidences. I had no idea of it, Hackett. I only learned of the will’s existence when Walsh died in June. His files came to me.’