The Heiresses Read online

  Clio stood at the back of the small crowd for a moment and watched her aunt perform. She looked, Clio thought, decidedly more happy and in her element than put out that all women did not yet have the right to vote. Midsentence, Hestia spotted her and her eyes widened in recognition. Noticing that Clio did not look altogether happy, she quickly wound up her speech, passed her placard to a woman standing nearby with a few words, and was with her directly.

  “Clio!” she said, cheerily, on reaching her. “What a lovely surprise.”

  Clio wasted no time with niceties. “If you could explain this…?” She thrust the memorial portrait at Hestia in much the same way it had been thrust upon her yesterday evening.

  Hestia took the crumpled portrait and gasped in shock when she saw it. “Oh,” she said and then, “Oh,” again, almost recoiling within herself. Clio could see that Hestia had viewed this portrait before and knew full well what it meant. So, Thalia had been correct, then. Hestia did know more than she was telling them. Much more, it seemed.

  “Where did you get this?” Hestia was finally able to look Clio in the eye, her expression reading confusion.

  Clio was unsure whether or not to tell her aunt the truth. “It doesn’t matter,” she finally said. “I just need to know what it all means.”

  Hestia gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “Oh, dear. I can see I have lost your trust completely,” she replied. “Perhaps we had better take a stroll,” she continued, with a small shudder, as she passed the portrait back to Clio. “And I shall explain all.”

  * * *

  Hestia led Clio onto Bridge Street and then down to the Victoria Embankment, where the pair began to walk along slowly beside the Thames. Hestia finally spoke up, once they were able to walk, and talk, free of other pedestrians. “I suppose none of this makes any sense to you.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Clio was surprised to hear herself say. She found she was becoming more forthright with each day that she spent in London. She needed to be.

  “Let me begin by saying that I have not lied to you.” Hestia glanced at her niece. “But I must admit I found it difficult to tell the three of you the entire truth at once—for fear you would never speak to me again. It is not a pretty story and my character finishes rather in tatters. I was wrong not to tell you the whole truth from the beginning, I see that now. And I am sorry for it. But I was so desperate to have you all together—and to keep you all together … still, it is no excuse.”

  Hestia looked so miserable that Clio instantly forgave her. “After seeing that portrait, I believe I am ready to hear just about anything now.”

  Hestia smiled slightly at this. “Yes, I’m sure you are.” With a large intake of breath, she glanced over at the murky Thames and began. “This portrait”—she gestured toward Clio’s right hand, which was still clutching the offensive object—“is a concoction of William’s, no more, no less. As you can see, it is meant to be a memorial portrait of a mother and her two twins, dead at birth. Yet, it is not. It is a portrait of a mother who has died in childbirth and two sleeping twins, which would, of course, be Thalia and Ro, who we know are both alive and well.”

  “But what about me?” Clio frowned. “Why was I not included? I don’t understand.”

  “I am sorry to tell you this, Clio,” Hestia said as she shook her head, “but William denied a third baby had been born at all, saying Demeter’s own doctor had been wrong that she was carrying triplets. This was backed by his own family doctor, Hollingsworth, who was the only doctor he allowed at the birth. And who, as I have told you before, was nothing more than a drunkard and a liar.”

  “But why?” Clio found herself close to tears. “Why would he do that? Was it because I looked so very different?”

  Hestia nodded. “Yes, I believe so.”

  “But you were there,” Clio said now. “Why could you not have stepped forward if you had seen all three births? I don’t understand. Why did you not say anything?”

  Hestia’s step faltered here as her eyes shot toward Clio’s. “Because I did not see all three of your births.”

  Clio’s mouth fell open. “But you said that…”

  “I saw Thalia’s birth, and Ro’s,” Hestia said quickly. “That is, I arrived at my sister’s town house directly after you were born and you were with her. But Clio … you see, your mother was not faring well by that stage. There was much blood and screaming and…” She paused completely in her step now, Clio coming to a halt beside her, and brought her fingers to her temples. “Even now I cannot bear to think of it.” With a quick shake of her head, as if to right herself, Hestia started forward once more, then stopped again and closed her eyes. When she seemed to have recovered slightly, her eyes flicked open and she glanced at Clio before speaking. “You must understand, Clio, I was quite young, as well as sheltered and impressionable at that point in time. Seeing my own sister’s death was a great shock to me. And in my desperate wish for the truth to be revealed, I could not control my emotions at all well. The women in my mother’s family have a history of being … delicate, for want of a better word. Because of this, my parents were always watchful for signs of any kind of mental instability in both Demeter and myself. I’m afraid William was quite easily able to convince my parents that I had turned unstable on the death of my beloved sister and this memorial portrait was one of the key factors in his proving that I was simply mad to suggest my nieces were alive and well, let alone that there might be three of them. What better proof than two death certificates from a family doctor and a memorial portrait of a mother and twins? All other witnesses to the birth had fled the city, scared off by William, and I was alone, unable to convince my parents of the truth.”

  “So, really, you did not see any of us born at all. And afterwards—that’s when William sent you to an institution?” Clio asked quietly, shocked at the extent of her father’s treachery and at her aunt’s twisting of the truth.

  “The institutionalization was my parents’ doing, with much convincing from William. First, I was medicated, at which point I became more and more confused about what had truly happened and had constant, recurring visions of the event, both day and night. When I could bear this no longer, I was institutionalized. They continued to medicate me inside the institution for some time—morphine, cocaine, laudanum … anything and everything—as well as giving me water treatment.” Hestia visibly shuddered with this. “My memories became further jumbled. It became difficult for me to recall exactly what I had seen—whether I had seen the birth of one child, two, three, or none at all. Eventually, as I became calmer and more at ease in the institutional environment, I was medicated less and that is when I remembered what I had seen—two children that my sister knew to be hers, with a third clearly very close.”

  “So you weren’t sure if I was alive or not?” Clio saw her aunt’s problem.

  Hestia shook her head. “I believed there was a very good chance that a third child had been born alive, either a girl or a boy, but there was also the chance that it might have died. After all, Demeter did not have good medical care at hand and she may have already died before the third child’s arrival. It was almost a year before I was allowed to leave the institution. And then I had to be extremely careful about how I tracked down information following my return home. Both my parents, and William from afar, were watching me closely for signs of instability. And, of course, my burgeoning interest in women’s suffrage did not help my case. It took me many, many years to track down the other impartial witnesses to your births—the midwife and her niece, the lady’s maid.”

  “And what did they say when you found them?” Clio asked.

  There was a pause as their voices were drowned out by a train chugging noisily over the wrought-iron girders of Hungerford Bridge, on its way to Waterloo Station.

  “It took me almost as long again to get them to talk about what had happened that day. William had scared them so badly … but finally the midwife came to trust me enough to tell me that it was true—thr
ee healthy babies, all girls, had been born. And after even more time she revealed how she had cared for you for the first three days of your lives and how she had fashioned the hearts for you, with your names hidden inside. I will be forever indebted to her for that. She knew, you see. She knew how important those names were to Demeter. And, when William had her bring the two sleeping babies to her for that memorial portrait, I’m sure she realized he was up to no good of some description.”

  Hestia paused here and Clio took the opportunity to speak up. “I think, perhaps, I have something to tell you, also,” she said. She believed every word her aunt had just told her and now felt she should tell the whole truth also. “Ro believes I have a different father.” She studied her aunt to see what she thought of her statement.

  Hestia took a moment to reply. “She is clever,” she finally answered. “It took me many years to work that out.”

  “So, you know?” Clio spoke up again. “You know who my real father is?”

  The pair was approaching Cleopatra’s Needle now and, as they reached it, Hestia paused to stare upward at the ancient Egyptian obelisk with its cryptic, hieroglyph markings. “I always think it so odd to see this standing here. Two thousand years in the sand only to be dug out and sent on its merry way.” Soon enough, she returned her attention to her niece. “Oh, dear. I’m unsure what to tell you, Clio. Over the years, I have had my theories, but I have never been sure if I am correct.” She resumed walking. “I don’t want to give the impression my sister ran around with many men. Because she most certainly did not. But she was the kind of person who, when she loved, loved with all her being. It saddens me greatly that you never experienced this, because to be loved by Demeter was to be truly loved indeed. I know there was one man…”

  “Who?” Clio could not wait a moment longer. “What was his name?”

  Hestia held up one hand as if to halt her niece. “I am not deceiving you when I tell you Demeter never revealed his name to me. All I know is that there was a man and that my parents were not overjoyed at the match and did everything in their power to prevent it. It has always saddened me that she felt she could not tell me more about him, but I know she did it out of love—she wanted to protect me. After I discovered that it was likely you had another father, I decided to leave my theories as theories. I thought that, if I was ever lucky enough to have you entrusted to my care, that it could be your own business, if you so wanted to pursue it. There was always the chance that you would not want to know, so that others would not know—that you would not care to carry the stigma of being illegitimate.”

  Clio’s voice became pained with this. “But I’m more than illegitimate, aren’t I? I’m not even alive. I do not exist. There is no register of my birth, of my death, nothing. I am not even related to Charles, if this true. What if he finds this out and—”

  “The only way for Charles to find that out is if one of the three of you tells him it is so,” Hestia interjected.

  Immediately, Clio’s thoughts returned to Thalia and how she was sure it would give her great pleasure to do just that. She paused now, turning away from her aunt, to stare at the gray water of the Thames, below them. “Oh, what an awful mess,” she said, sounding altogether defeated. It was as if she were in the middle of a winding, tall-hedged maze she did not have the strength or courage to work her way out of. And how could she when the hedges themselves kept moving?

  After some time, Hestia reached out and touched her niece on the arm. “Clio,” she said. “Have you shown your sisters this portrait?”

  Mutely, her eyes remaining on the water, Clio shook her head.

  “Perhaps it would be best if you did not show them just yet. Stay in London. Get to know each other a little better. All of this information at once has obviously been a great shock for you…” Her words trailed off.

  Clio simply shrugged. It was as she had thought before. Lies. That was how they worked. Multiplying, then multiplying again and again and again. Until you could not remember what the real truth was anymore.

  * * *

  Late that night, after Hestia had retired, the girls gathered in Ro’s bedroom. On Hestia and Clio’s return to the town house, Ro had cornered her aunt and pestered her until she had all three names that she wanted—the doctor, the midwife, and the maid. All three witnesses to their births. Ro was most interested in speaking to the midwife, who was an impartial witness and who had obviously had the girls’ best interests at heart. However, it was she who Hestia said would be the least likely to want to talk about the event, though she would probably be very happy to hear of William’s death, his having always cast a shadow over her and her niece’s lives.

  “So, that’s it. One address so far.” Ro sat on her bed and waved the piece of paper. “The doctor. Dr. Hollingsworth.”

  “Won’t Hestia give you the others?” Thalia asked as she frowned.

  “She’ll have to hunt them down first,” Ro answered. “It might take some time—she even mentioned she might need to use a private detective. I do believe her.” With this, she shot a look at Thalia, who was sitting on the small seat that matched the dressing table. “I’ll call on him tomorrow. Hopefully he’s still at the same address. If he is, I don’t know how he’ll react, or even if he’ll tell me anything at all. But I can only try.”

  The three girls looked at each other.

  “That’s if we’re still in this. Together?” Ro asked, hesitantly, when there was no reply. “I really do think this is our only way forward—to find out the truth. All of it.”

  After a moment or two, Clio managed a small nod, her eyes not quite meeting Ro’s own.

  As for Thalia, she gave a wry grin. “Well, all right, then. Together. Until the bitter end.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Ro made her way to Cadogan Place and what she hoped was the current residence of Dr. Hollingsworth. Only a very short distance from Hestia’s town house, the walk took her no time at all. Unfortunately, this meant she had little time in which to rehearse her lines before she found herself knocking briskly on the front door of the redbrick house. Ro was not the kind of person who liked to be unprepared and found her heart racing skittishly as she waited for the door in front of her to open, which, before long, it did.

  A maid appeared. “I was hoping Dr. Hollingsworth might be at home?” Ro blurted out nervously, before the poor girl could even speak.

  The girl blinked at her. “No, miss. Dr. Hollingsworth has not been well for some time. Last year he had to be moved to a home for retired professional gentlemen.”

  “Oh.” Ro’s shoulders sagged. “Is that far from here?”

  “No, miss. On the south side of Brompton Road.”

  Before long, Ro had secured the address and was off once more on foot—this time to Brompton Road—asking directions as she went.

  When she located the home, Ro stood outside the iron gates of the residence for a moment to gather her thoughts and courage. The home was larger than Ro had expected, with one main building at the back and two wings toward the front, giving it a U shape. It was well kept and, inside the gates, there was a small garden at the front of the property, where a few men were sitting on wooden bench seats, enjoying the small amount of sunshine the day offered. A few other men were scattered about the place in wheelchairs, with rugs firmly tucked around their laps for warmth, and one man made his way about the garden with the help of a cane.

  After a few deep breaths, Ro opened the gate and entered the premises. As hard as she tried to decide upon exactly what she was going to say and exactly how she was going to say it, she found that the more she tried to plan, the more she seemed to be at a loss for words. She would simply have to see where the visit took her.

  A nurse pointed her in the direction of the matron’s office, who was in charge of signing visitors in and out. When she located the room, just inside the front entrance of the building, she could see an older woman, with a graying bun and a sensible, stiff uniform, sitting and writing
away busily at a large wooden desk. “Excuse me,” Ro said as she knocked hesitantly on the half-open door.

  “Yes?” The woman looked up.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’d like to call upon someone.” Ro wanted to pinch herself on hearing the words coming out of her mouth in a whisper—to pull this off she would need to be far braver than this.

  “And who would that be?” The no-nonsense woman continued to inspect her closely.

  “Dr. Hollingsworth,” Ro replied, realizing, stupidly, she had not even thought to inquire after his first name.

  “Dr. Hollingsworth.” The woman seemed slightly surprised. She stood up now. “And are you a relative?”

  This was her chance to be brave, Ro realized. Quickly, she asked herself what Thalia would do in this situation. “Oh, yes,” she replied in a flash. “I’m his niece. I would have liked to visit before, but I’ve been living abroad for a number of years…”

  The woman nodded briskly. “Well, that will be nice for him. He doesn’t have many visitors. Now, if you’ll just sign in here”—she picked up a book and placed it closer to Ro, on the other side of the desk—“I’ll take you right to him.”

  Having signed a false name, Ro was led back out into the garden and toward one of the men in wheelchairs, whom she had walked straight past before. “Now, you will know, of course, that he can become confused and agitated. If there are any problems, one of the nurses will help you. If he can’t remember who you are, try not to force him. It’s best if we can keep him calm. Sometimes family members pressing residents to recall certain names, details, or events, can do more harm than good.”