‘May I come in and chat for a moment?’
Rather ungraciously she stepped back and I entered the room. I was amazed to see Jonathan rise from one of the chairs.
‘Oh, hello,’ he said.
‘Jonathan!’ I cried.
‘Jonathan is a
‘Oh,’ said Jonathan. ‘Can I go now?’
‘Yes, do,’ she said. ‘And come back tomorrow.’
She caught him and kissed him with emotion. He wriggled a little in her embrace and gave me an apologetic look as though to excuse himself for having been involved in such a demonstration.
As Jonathan went away, Griselda said: ‘He is a good boy. He looks after me and my wants.’
‘You never mingle with the family,’ I said.
‘I was the nurse. I came with my lady. I would to God we never had.’
‘You mean the lady Isabel.’
‘His wife. The mother of young Jonathan.’
‘And David,’ I added.
She was silent and her mouth hardened; her eyes looked wider and consequently more wild.
‘I’ve seen you,’ she said almost accusingly. ‘I’ve seen you … with him.’
I glanced towards the window. ‘I think I have seen you up there … from time to time.’
‘I know what goes on,’ she said.
‘Oh, do you?’
‘With him,’ she added.
‘Oh?’
‘I’ll never forgive him. He killed her, you know.’
‘Killed! Who killed whom?’
‘He did. The master. He killed my little flower.’ Her eyes filled with tears and her mouth quivered. She clenched her hands and I thought she looked quite mad.
I said gently: ‘I don’t think that is true. Tell me about Isabel.’
Her face changed so suddenly that it was startling to watch her. ‘She was my baby from the first. I had had others but there was something about little Isabel. An only child, you see. Her mother died … died giving birth to her just as …Well, there she was, my baby. And him, her father, he was a good man. Never much there. Too important. Very rich. Always doing something …. But when he was there he loved his little daughter. But really she was mine. He never tried to interfere. He’d always say, “You know what’s best for our little girl, Griselda.” A good man. He died. The good die and the evil flourish.’
‘I can see that you loved Isabel very much.’
She said angrily: ‘There should never have been this marriage. Wouldn’t have been if it had been left to me. It was the one thing I can’t forgive him for. He just had the notion that girls ought to marry and that Isabel would be all right just as others were. He didn’t know my little girl like I did. She was frightened … really frightened. She used to come to me and sob her heart out. There wasn’t anything I could do … though I would have died for her. So she was married, my poor little angel. She said, “You’ll come with me, Griselda,” and I said, “Wild horses wouldn’t drag me away from you, my love.”’
I said: ‘I understand how you feel. You loved her dearly just as a mother loves her child. I know. I have children of my own.’
‘And I had to see her brought here … to this house with him. He didn’t care for her. What he cared for was what she brought him.’
I was silent. I could agree with Griselda on that.
‘Then it started. She was terrified. You see, she had got to get this son. Men … they all want children … but it would be different, eh, if they had the bearing of them. She was frightened when she knew she’d conceived … and, then before three months had gone she had lost it. The second was even worse. That went on for six months. There was another after that. That was her life. That was all she meant to him—except of course the money. And when her father died he got that too. Then he was ready to be rid of her.’
‘You said he killed her.’
‘He did. They could have saved her … but that would have meant losing the boys. He wouldn’t have it. He wanted the boys. That was it. He got them … and it cost her her life.’
‘You mean there was a choice?’
She nodded. ‘I was mad with sorrow. I was there with her. She would have me and even he did not try to stop that. He murdered her, just as sure as you’re sitting there, Madame. And now he has his eyes on you. What does he want from you, do you think?’
‘Griselda,’ I told her, ‘I am a married woman. I have a husband and children in France and I intend to go back to them shortly.’
She moved close to me and lifted her face to mine; her eyes seemed luminous in her wrinkled face. ‘He has plans for you. Don’t forget it. He’s one who won’t see his plans go awry.’
‘I make my own plans,’ I said.
‘You’re with him all the time. I know him. I know his way with women. Even Isabel …’
‘You know nothing about me, Griselda. Tell me more about Isabel.’
‘What more is there to tell? She was happy with me. She came here and was murdered.’
‘Do stop talking about murder. I know she died giving birth to the twins. You’re very fond of them, aren’t you?’
‘David killed her,’ she said.
‘David!’
