I found a door and knocked. There was no answer, so I went to the next and knocked again.
There was still no answer but I sensed that someone was on the other side of the door.
‘Please may I come in?’ I said.
The door opened suddenly. An old woman was standing there. The grey hair escaped from under a cap; her face was pale and her deep-set eyes wide with the whites visible all round the pupil which gave her an expression of staring. She was dressed in a gown of sprigged muslin, high-necked and tight-bodiced. She was very slight and thin.
‘Are you Griselda?’ I asked.
‘What do you want?’ she demanded.
‘I wanted to meet you. I am going soon, and I did want to make the acquaintance of everyone in the house before I do.’
‘I know who you are,’ she said, as though the knowledge gave her little pleasure.
‘I am Madame de Tourville. I lived here once.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘before my lady came here. You were here then.’
‘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 good boy,’ said Griselda; and to him: ‘Madame de Tourville thinks she should see everybody so she called on me.’
‘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!’
‘It was both of them. Him forcing that on her … using her … my little Isabel, just to bear children when she wasn’t capable of it. Her mother had died giving birth to her. It was a weakness in the family. She should never have been forced to try it. Then there was David. He was born two hours after Jonathan. She might have been saved. But he had to have David, you see. He wanted two sons … just in case something happened to one of them. Between them they murdered her … him and David.’
‘Griselda, at least you shouldn’t blame David. A newly-born child! Isn’t that rather foolish of you?’
‘Whenever I look at him, I say to myself: It was you … It was your life or hers. They had Jonathan. That should have been enough.’
‘Griselda, what proof have you of this?’
Her wild eyes searched my face and she did not answer my question. She said: ‘He never married again. He’s got his two sons. That leaves him free for his women. He’s brought them here sometimes. I’ve seen them. I used to wonder whether there’d be anyone set up in Isabel’s place.’
‘Isn’t it time to forget the past, Griselda?’
‘Forget Isabel? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Why did you watch me?’
‘I watch all of them.’
‘You mean … ’
She leaned towards me again and said: ‘His women.’
‘I am not one of them.’
She smiled secretly. I remembered that moment in the minstrels’ gallery at Enderby and was ashamed.
I said: ‘Do you have helpers in your watching?’