The Secret Heiress Read online

  Surely the wronged Miss Matilda would be given her liberty soon?

  To this end Ida had already placed inside the room a number of items she had found in other locations that she felt would give pleasure to a woman of exacting tastes: a ruby vase, slightly chipped at the base; a German shepherdess figurine; and a small, flat and rather fetching ivory inlaid box, quite empty, yet decorated in a Moorish style, on which someone had inked inside the lid, ‘Remember Box’. That Ida had never actually had exposure to a person of exacting tastes accounted for these eclectic choices – choices driven by impressions gained from ladies she’d read about in novels.

  Ida placed the blue perfume vial among some other ornamental bits and pieces on the dressing table. Having kept it hidden in her apron pocket for far too many days, it was with some relief that Ida decided that the Chinese Room was the only possible place for such a lovely piece of glass.

  As she arranged it on the tabletop, regarding it before she shifted it another inch or so to the right, she was seized again by the impulse to open it. Ida picked up the vial and held the glass to the window light. She shook it a little and the liquid sloshed about inside. Before Ida knew it she had gripped the stopper with her apron and was struggling to pry the thing loose. It came free with a little pop. Ida brought the vial to her nose and gave a sniff.

  It was rosemary oil.

  Slightly mystified by this, as if she’d been expecting something different, even though she couldn’t have said what that might have been, Ida dabbed a little on her wrist and sniffed it again. It was unmistakably rosemary.

  She turned with a start to see Barker at the door. He saw the vial in her hand but made no comment on it. ‘The room is as clean as a shiny new pin, Mr Barker, I swear it!’ she exclaimed. She quickly put the stopper in again and placed the thing back on the dressing table.

  But Barker had apparently forgotten any threat he’d made of inspections. ‘You’re coming with us,’ he told her, ‘His Lordship and me, first thing in the morning, to Melbourne.’

  Ida’s jaw dropped in amazement. ‘I . . . I’ve never even been as far as Bendigo.’

  He laughed. ‘Then don’t make a tit of yourself. City types sniff out a hayseed like you by the dung in their hair.’ He inhaled through his long, sharp noise, smirking, as if to show her how it would be.

  Rightly offended, she self-consciously smelled the air around her. The scent of rosemary remained. ‘Are we going to find the real Miss Matilda, then?’

  He was paused to leave the room again, but held back for another moment. ‘We’re doing more than that. We’re bringing her home.’

  Ida was thrilled. ‘Poor lady. She’ll be so happy.’

  Barker just shrugged.

  ‘And Mr Hackett’s so kind.’ An unfortunate oversight occurred to her. ‘I haven’t told him how sorry I am to have heard what happened!’ she cried.

  ‘What you heard by spying at doors?’

  Ida felt awkward. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘A sackable act was what it was like,’ said Barker, enjoying this. ‘You should be thanking me for not telling him myself.’

  Ida thought is wise to change the subject. ‘What does he think will happen when she comes here?’

  Barker looked suspiciously at her. ‘What do you mean “happen”?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Ida didn’t know quite what she meant. She looked around her. ‘Will she like this room?’

  Barker seemed to take in her decorating efforts for the first time. He frowned. ‘It’s not to my taste.’

  ‘It’s meant for a lady!’

  He dismissed this. ‘You can bung her in a barrel for all it means to me.’

  Ida was finding these conversations very trying. ‘Mr Barker, you do see that this new Miss Matilda is our mistress now, don’t you? Shouldn’t you speak with respect?’

  She watched as he apparently contemplated the idea. Then he smirked again and let the net of black hair fall across his eyes, hiding them from view.

  • • •

  It was incredible to Ida that a single house could have so many rooms – and so many hallways and windows and long flights of stairs into the bargain – all of which a person was somehow expected to keep clean. Ida closed one door on a sparkling room only to open another on a room that was filthy. Or at least it felt that way, struggling with her mop and pail, her broom and pan, her duster, her rags and her vinegar. Ida tried to tell herself it would all be worthwhile, if not for herself, sacrificing her best years so selflessly, but for her sister Evie, to whom Ida would be able to turn, broken and prematurely aged by her hard labours, to duly fall upon as a favour returned.

  Ida daydreamed at length about this imagined future indolence. She constructed images of herself, reclining on cushions, happily fat and immobile, calling for honey-spread bread, sliced thick as her arm, served on good willow pattern china by her ever-grateful sister, who would succumb to hot tears of gratitude at the life Ida had so lovingly provided for her. As to what this life for Evie might actually be, Ida was vague. She found it hard to conceive of what the opportunities might be for girls who got schooling. She knew of no other girl who had been schooled beyond thirteen. She’d read in a novel once of a girl who’d worked in a big house as a governess. The job seemed to have brought the girl very few moments of happiness, but at least it was a job and better than beating rugs.

  Another room cleaned to her diminishing standards, Ida hefted her things into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind her. About to congratulate herself on having completed the entire third floor’s worth of rooms in record time, Ida was on the point of returning to the stairs when she realised there was a door she had overlooked. Different than all the others, it was disguised to match the walls, being papered halfway up, with the bottom half covered by a dado. But it was still a door – it had a handle and hinges – and Ida worried that she had hitherto missed it.

  ‘Gawd knows the state of things in there . . .’ she said to herself, anticipating Barker’s words should he learn of her mistake. She turned the handle. It was locked. Ida twisted it harder, pushing her weight against the door. It wouldn’t shift.

  Apprehensive, she looked up and down the hallway, feeling as if the dark valet was somewhere, watching her from a shadow. ‘But how can I clean a room I can’t even get into, Mr Barker?’ she whined, rehearsing the moment he would spring out and catch her.

  She peered at the ceiling above and then back towards the stairs again and tried to work out from the map of the house she carried in her head what the room beyond the door might be. ‘Is it the door to the tower?’ she wondered to herself.

  Ida gave up. The door was locked fast; the one door in the whole of Summersby to be so. She pressed an ear to it. From somewhere beyond she almost thought she heard the tap of dog’s claws upon boards. She sprang back before her mind played any more tricks upon her.

  ‘Not falling for that again,’ she said aloud.

  • • •

  Barker stretched out his black-clad limbs as he settled inside the carriage, the last one to enter, forcing Samuel to make more space for him.

  ‘Do take care,’ said Samuel, wincing.

  Already squeezed into a corner of her own, Ida watched both men, eager to make the most of the opportunity that being confined with them gave. She was primed for conversation, but thought it best to wait for overtures from Samuel first. She attempted to gauge his mood.

  Dressed splendidly for the metropolis, Samuel shifted in his seat as the carriage lurched into motion, pulling away from the great house. A fat, buzzing blowfly was trapped inside the space with them. Samuel looked fixedly outside, watching the stately kurrajongs pass the window. The fly crawled across the windowpane.

  ‘So, then. What’s the plan now?’ Barker asked, breaking the ice.

  Ida was startled. Was he addressing the question to her?

  Samuel answered without looking at the other man. ‘You are well aware of what is ahead.’

 
‘I don’t mean that,’ said Barker. ‘We’re going to Melbourne, ain’t we? Be a shame to miss the pleasures of Gomorrah.’

  Samuel shot him a glare. ‘We are not visiting bordellos.’

  Ida felt herself growing hot.

  Samuel remembered her then and was mortified. ‘I am so sorry, Ida.’ He turned to the window again, before looking back at her for a second glance. ‘How attractive you look. You have chosen your clothes with care today.’

  She beamed. ‘Thank you, Mr Hackett.’

  ‘Who says we’re not?’ Barker shot back, not having dropped his topic.

  Samuel frowned. ‘Need I remind you that I am a man of position?’ he asked, incredulous. The fly took off again, buzzing at his face.

  ‘A secretary?’ Barker chortled. ‘What position’s that in the footer field?’

  Samuel smiled apologetically at Ida.

  Barker frowned in the direction of Samuel’s trousers. ‘What’s the trouble? Doesn’t your tackle work no more? Sounds like the old mistress had a lucky escape, then.’ He laughed at his own coarse humour.

  Ida couldn’t believe her ears at what he was saying.

  Samuel seemed to be using every ounce of his will not to speak his mind. Ida wished the carriage seat would open up and swallow Barker whole for speaking so insolently. Then she and Samuel might be left alone to conduct a civilised conversation. So badly she wanted to ask him about his broken heart and his fiancée’s dreadful lies.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure it all works like clockwork,’ said Barker. The fly alighted on the seat gap between him and Ida and he crushed it under the heel of his hand.

  Silence fell between all three of them as the carriage left the Summersby grounds through the great wrought-iron gates, joining the gravelled road that led to Castlemaine. Barker seemed to be eyeing the travelling jacket Samuel wore. He reached over and plucked a cigar from the inside pocket.

  ‘Got a light?’ Barker asked him.

  Samuel visibly bit back his anger, fumbling in his pocket for a box of Cricket matches. Barker lit the cigar himself, retaining the box. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘No cat-houses then. Not if you’re squeamish about catching a dose.’

  Samuel was icy. ‘Might I remind you, Barker, you promised to aid me in this journey?’

  ‘That I did,’ said Barker, puffing on the cigar. It had failed to catch and he fumbled for the matches again. ‘Found a prime grade idiot for you in Ida.’

  Ida felt the words like a blow to the face. If he’d said them back in the house, when it was just the two of them, then she wouldn’t have cared, but to be called a fool in front of Mr Hackett was crushing. ‘You did not find me, Mr Barker,’ she said with dignity, ‘the late Miss Gregory did. And I think you’re being horribly rude to Mr Hackett.’

  Barker leant forward, relighting the cigar. ‘She reckons she hears the dog when she cleans.’ He tapped the side of his head with a long finger. ‘Prime grade idiot.’

  Samuel cast another look at her; it didn’t hold pity, there was only kindness in it. ‘I apologise again for my man, Ida,’ he said. ‘You are already my friend, a friend I value, and you deserve no such rudeness.’ He cleared his throat, evaluating the valet. ‘Barker is my friend, too, and he is very loyal to me, as I am to him, but at times I wonder if perhaps we are each too loyal.’

  Barker was chuckling now, waiting for what might come next.

  ‘. . . Some have remarked that our closeness bonds us like brothers. And like brothers we sometimes squabble and disagree more than we should. Barker can be a moody fellow, as you can see.’

  Ida looked condemningly at Barker. The valet puffed on his cigar.

  Ida took the opportunity to take the lead. ‘Mr Barker told me he became your man when you first arrived from England, Mr Hackett?’

  ‘That is true,’ said Samuel. ‘I was very grateful to find him. Perhaps we both were?’ He gave Barker a measured look.

  ‘Been here very long, then?’ Ida wondered.

  ‘I’ve been in the colony just a little under four years. I was not long turned sixteen when I disembarked – your age, Ida. Seems a lifetime ago now. Did you know Barker and I share the same birth year?’

  The valet kept the cigar clamped in his teeth, eyes out the window now, bored by Samuel’s story.

  ‘Do you miss your old home?’ Ida asked next.

  Samuel considered this, and if he arrived at an answer, Ida got the distinct impression that it wasn’t one he was prepared to share. ‘Australia is a very lucky place,’ he told her. ‘Opportunities exist here that one might never encounter at home.’

  ‘What opportunities?’

  ‘Well, ah . . .’ He blinked at her for a moment, before covering this reaction with his luminescent smile. Again Ida wished that she might never leave the warmth of it, so lovely was it to see. He patted her, his gloved hand resting upon hers, the second time in her life he had touched her; the sensation of it was intoxicating. ‘There are opportunities to converse with bright young ladies like yourself, for example,’ he told her.

  Ida felt like swooning that he should consider her ‘bright’.

  ‘At home in England such things never occur,’ he said. ‘People are that much freer here, one’s class means nothing. Everyone is able to make of themselves whatever they wish.’

  ‘But aren’t you a gentleman?’ she wondered.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Samuel. ‘I suppose that is what I am.’

  ‘Doesn’t a gentleman find opportunity wherever he might live?’ Ida suggested to him. ‘He doesn’t have to come all the way to the colonies for it.’

  Samuel’s smile lessened a degree and he took away his hand. ‘What happened to Billy’s body?’ he asked, turning back to the valet.

  ‘Tossed it on the rubbish heap,’ said Barker, still looking out the window. ‘Crow feed.’

  The image this placed in Ida’s mind was a very unpleasant one. ‘Was that the little dog’s name?’

  ‘Shut it,’ Barker growled at her. But when the valet was looking out the window again, Samuel nodded to her, confirming what she’d asked.

  ‘My fiancée adored her little pet,’ Samuel whispered. ‘She couldn’t bear to be parted from those that she loved . . . Couldn’t bear it.’

  There was a heartbreakingly unsaid aspect to the statement, Ida thought. Had Miss Gregory loved her fiancée?

  The two men lapsed into silence as the carriage continued on its way to Castlemaine, from where they would board the Melbourne train. In her mind Ida returned to the Summersby dining room and there summoned up a spot on the carpet where she imagined Miss Gregory might have expired. It was still a real shock to think that both mistress and pet had died together. Someday, Ida decided, when she was sure that Mr Hackett thought only the very best of her, and she was certain that his smile was heartfelt and not something he put on just to please a person, she would ask him about the details of those two deaths. Even she could tell that it would not be appropriate to ask of it now.

  Barker gave the appearance of snoozing, sprawled across the seat where he and Ida sat. ‘Think she’ll remember?’ he asked, with his eyes shut and his arms folded across his chest.

  Ida started. ‘Remember what?’

  A slap rang out like rifle fire and Ida saw Barker clutching his cheek. The carriage lurched on its springs as Samuel threw himself at the lanky man and gripped him by his collar. ‘Do you think I am completely your subordinate in this venture?’ he demanded.

  The valet was very shocked. ‘No.’

  ‘No what?’

  Samuel waited, hands clenched at the valet’s throat.

  ‘No what?’ he repeated.

  ‘No, Mr Hackett.’

  Samuel shook him until Barker’s collar tore.

  ‘No, sir,’ Barker said.

  Following a loaded moment while the two men held each other’s look over the sounds of the labouring horse’s hooves, Samuel let go of Barker’s ruined collar and sat down again. ‘Better,’ he said.

/>   The valet shifted uncomfortably. ‘My mistake,’ he rasped, after another minute, ‘why would she remember anything?’

  He saw shocked Ida staring at him and gave her a wide, white grin.

  Ida said nothing else for the rest of the journey. It seemed very sensible. But in her inquisitive mind new questions suggested themselves.

  One. Mr Hackett put up with outrageous liberties from his valet. How did he find this acceptable? What stopped him being rid of this man? Whatever the reason was, it outweighed everything else. Was he bound to Barker by it?

  Two. What on earth was it she might remember?

  • • •

  It occurred to Ida that much of her working life could be spent profitably listening to others if she chose it to be – and she chose it now. It was wrong to condemn eavesdropping as maliciousness, Ida told herself in justification. How else was a person who was otherwise denied basic facts supposed to get by? Eavesdropping was the one bit of usefulness a person such as herself might have in her efforts to make good.

  Ida waited outside a door, one that was firmly closed to her presence; a large and polished door of oak, very respectable, and bearing the lettering H.P. Clarkenwell Esq., Director. As lunatic asylums went, Constantine Hall was quite disappointing. Ida had anticipated a foreboding place with moaning wretches chained to walls. Instead, she had found a large, well-appointed, upper-crust house, much like Summersby. There wasn’t a wretch to be seen. She wasn’t even certain there were patients.

  Inside the room a man and a woman held a tense discourse; the woman, a servant of this establishment, Ida had glimpsed just briefly before she entered the room as Ida nodded at her respectfully. The woman was a little older, twenty-five perhaps, and a little stout, though not displeasingly. Her name was Aggie Marshall and Ida had already determined that she was employed at Constantine Hall as a lady’s maid. The man with her was Mr Clarkenwell, evidently her employer – or was he? This was slightly unclear. Ida had glimpsed him as the lady’s maid went inside: he was short, fat, bug-eyed, and as is so often the case with men of his stature, pompous. Ida stood as near to the door as she dared should anyone walk past and catch her. Having already spoken to Mr Clarkenwell at length, Samuel Hackett was now waiting outside in the garden with Barker, having given Ida orders that she was to emerge with Miss Matilda, her new charge, when the lady was ready. Ida hoped she would not be kept too much longer in this task.