The Secret Heiress by Luke Devenish

Author:Luke Devenish [Devenish, Luke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia

BIDDY

DECEMBER 1903

4

Biddy sensed she was sprawled upon the flagstone floor, her head cradled in Miss Garfield’s lap, a wet towel applied to her forehead. She was awake, yet somehow not. She felt her chest struggle to rise with each breath. She heard Sybil cry out in shock.

‘What is it? What has happened to Biddy?’

Biddy sensed Mrs Marshall there, trying to speak but somehow not making herself lucid.

‘Biddy has had a turn,’ said Miss Garfield, sounding very strained. ‘I found her fallen in the stillroom. I managed to pull her out here but she is still unconscious.’

Biddy sensed Sybil fly to her side and take her unresponsive hand. ‘Biddy, Biddy . . .’ Sybil rubbed her fingers and palms. ‘You must wake up, Biddy; you’re giving us a nasty fright.’

But Biddy stayed still.

‘We must send for the doctor, Mrs Marshall,’ Sybil implored.

Biddy sensed Mrs Marshall was shaking, still unable to speak, rooted to the floor.

‘I have sent a farmhand to town in the trap to fetch him,’ said Miss Garfield.

Sybil started to cry. ‘Oh, please wake up . . . This isn’t very fun of you at all.’

Biddy’s eyes flickered.

‘Biddy!’ cried Mrs Marshall, finding her own tongue again. She took the towel from Miss Garfield’s hands and dabbed at Biddy’s cheeks with it. ‘There you are, come back to us now, that’s the way.’

Biddy murmured and groaned. ‘My head . . .’ She opened her eyes and shut them again, the glare from the windows painful.

‘There, there,’ said Mrs Marshall, ‘you lie still.’

‘Rosemary . . . It was only rosemary . . .’

The housekeeper’s voice caught in her throat. ‘What did you say?’

‘That’s all it was, just rosemary.’

Biddy opened her eyes again to see the housekeeper looking as if she was experiencing a sickening deja vu.

‘Mrs Marshall, not you, too!’

Biddy saw the housekeeper catch at Sybil’s arm and succumb to a faint of her own.

• • •

When the commotion was all over and the patients, both, examined by a doctor from town, Mrs Marshall nodded in assent that bed rest was essential for herself and Biddy, and of several days duration, if not a full week. Mrs Marshall had been meek in the face of medicine, blaming the cessation of her monthly bleeds for her fainting spell. The doctor was sympathetic and easily swayed, turning his attention back to Biddy, whose own collapse was viewed by him with rather more mystery and significantly less conclusion. ‘The onset of womanly maturity’ was the best he could do, which was likely a tactful avoidance of the most likely culprit, Mrs Marshall’s bread. Biddy knew it was by no means unknown for rye to go rotten before it was baked. People who ate it could end up with hallucinations, or worse. Mrs Marshall was far too respected for anyone to cast aspersions at her baking, but the unsaid was clear. She said she would take it upon herself to dispose of all the baking ingredients as a caution.

Once the doctor had gone and Summersby returned to quietude, Mrs Marshall removed herself from her bedroom and descended the stairs.

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