For her part, Mrs Grose was confident. She entered the room, sat down firmly, refused any refreshment, clasped her hands and actually began to direct the course of the conversation. That is to say, she came to the point at once. ‘I believe, sir, you want me to tell you what occurred at Bly before the death of Miles,’ she said.
And Geoffrey responded, ‘I do indeed. Partly to know, as one must in such cases, partly because I wish to know the influences on Miss Flora before her marriage. In case her past is affecting her in any way.’
He had reached that point, Charles, when a man must be direct or he might as well say nothing.
‘I hope there is nothing in her behaviour at the moment which worries you,’ Mrs Grose said.
‘Not on the surface,’ he replied.
‘You think she is concealing something?’ she said in a quiet, clear voice.
‘You don’t seem surprised that she should.’
‘She has seen and concealed much before,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked sharply.
‘Well, during the events leading to Miles’s death,’ she said, as if we should have known.
I confess, Charles, I so much wished not to hear what she was going to say that my mind, almost without my own conscious volition (you will say, impossible), began to invent reasons why I must leave the room: a tactful withdrawal in the face of family business, the onset of a bad headache, anything – anything – to get out of the room. But I could not leave, not now. Simply because I did not want to leave Geoffrey alone to face whatever shocks were coming.
I had two fears – one being that this apparently sensible woman was, in spite of her appearance, about to produce a spate of village gossip and old superstitions which would make her look foolish in our eyes, and us feel foolish for having begun to take her seriously. My other fear was that she would tell us things to horrify us. And suddenly the room seemed very dark, though it was still light outside and lamps burned on a table and on the mantelpiece, by the statuette I had uncovered.
‘You remember Miss Jessell, sir?’ Mrs Grose asked.
‘The governess before Miss Selsden who left after a year. What of her?’
‘You remember Quint?’
‘Yes. He worked at Bly, didn’t he? And Jessell? Why are you asking all this?’
I feared her answer.
‘They’re both dead,’ she said.
‘Dead? Miss Jessell?’ Plainly he was not interested in Quint. ‘But she resigned from my employ. And was – what? – twenty-four-years-old. How?’
Mrs Grose gazed at him steadily. ‘Some months after she left Bly, she died.’
There was a pause. ‘But how?’ asked Geoffrey.
‘She died – as women do,’ Mrs Grose said impeturbably.
Geoffrey frowned. ‘As women do? You mean in childbirth?’
‘Or something like it.’
Or something like it. What did she mean by that? Perhaps a woman would have quickly known, or guessed. There was a silence. Into it I said, as calmly as I could, ‘You mean – she was unmarried, I suppose – that she was seduced.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Grose. ‘Oh yes, she was seduced.’
There was another pause during which I guess both Geoffrey and I battled to imagine the implications. Did she mean that the two children, then seven and nine years old respectively, had been alone the country, supervised by a governess engaged in an illicit relationship?
‘Was this while she was in charge of my niece and nephew?’ Geoffrey asked.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Grose, and she dropped her head, unwilling to meet his angry, incredulous gaze. ‘I was uncertain. I did not know – was not sure – if it was my place to tell you. I have often thought I did wrong.’
It was plain Geoffrey was stunned by this information. Controlling himself, he said, ‘It should not have been such a difficult decision. But I suppose you knew Miss Jessell well. You were much alone together at Bly. Perhaps you developed some affection for her.’
‘Yes – at first,’ Mrs Grose muttered, as if ashamed. She grew bolder and looked directly at Geoffrey. ‘We were, as you say, alone together. She had grace and charm. You will know that, sir,’ she told him, ‘for you appointed her. Later I came to hate Jessell. She deceived me. She began, in secret, an illicit, a vile relationship with the servant Quint, Peter Quint. Quint was a devil – a devil. Too clever for his position, defiant, heedless of any law – a devil. They met at night, when she should have been with the children. And during the day, in any corner they could find – in her room, in his, above the empty stables, even in the open countryside. I knew nothing at first. When I began to suspect and faced her with my suspicions she confessed. Confessed, I say. She was shameless – shameless! And called it love. She was proud. “Love – we love each other,” she told me. I begged her, I pleaded with her, to give him up. And she agreed, and pretended to do so, but it was all cunning. The evil connection continued.’
‘But the children …’ Geoffrey said.
‘I do not know what they saw, what she let them see. At first they knew nothing. Later, when she had gone, I realised she had employed them, poor innocents, to deceive me. They would say she was somewhere else when she was meeting him. They would tell me she was “out walking” when she was with him above the stables, pretend she had been in her bed at night in the rooms they had as a nursery, when in fact she had left them alone to be with him. I do not know what they knew, or saw. Elaine told me a horrid tale of their toy village, Fullheart, of their horrid games with the little figures and buildings. Oh, sir,’ she appealed, ‘of that I cannot speak. I only know, or think I do, they lied for her, and Quint, too. They loved her, you see. She was pretty, and gay and lively in her ways. And the boy, he loved Quint. Quint taught him to fish, and find the birds’ nests in spring. He had a way with him, Quint.’ She broke off, to calm herself, I think.
Geoffrey, horror-struck, repeated incredulously. ‘He had a way with him.’
‘They were greatly upset when Miss Jessell left so suddenly. It was worse, of course, when Quint died.’
There was a terrible silence.
‘How did he die?’
‘He was found in a ditch one morning with a dent in his skull,’ she said, shortly.
Charles, I believe neither Geoffrey nor I could bring ourselves to ask if his death had been an accident. There was something closed in Mrs Grose’s manner as she spoke of the man’s death which, made me suppose Quint had met with an unnatural end, Quint attacked as a result of some village feud, or as an act of revenge.
One smelled the closed, intense, unknown world of a small Essex village, where families have lived together for a hundred, two hundred years.
Geoffrey and I did what Mrs Grose wanted: we did not ask about the circumstances of Quint’s death. It was not the main concern.
I tried to take a calm and worldly tone. ‘What can have possessed Miss Jessell to take up with the fellow?’ I asked.
‘Possessed is sometimes the correct description in these cases,’ she said, in a low voice.
‘A lonely house, a young woman with too much time on her hands, an unscrupulous man in and out of the house all the time – you may call it possession, Mrs Grose, as if it had some special quality of evil giving it dignity. I have heard such descriptions before of affairs which are nothing more than sordid,’ I said.
She ignored me and spoke to Geoffrey. ‘After Miss Selsden came I thought the children began, secretly, to pretend that their governess and Quint had not died. You will know how children invent companions, to challenge loneliness, to amuse themselves. It’s quite common – a little girl will have an imaginary little girl with whom she shares her dolls, quarrels, talks. A boy will have a little boy to joust with, run off to see things with. But I began to detect that these children at Bly – and by now it was winter, and the days short and dark – had imaginary friends who were their former governess, Miss Jessell, and Quint. One would overhear little Flora, alone by the n
ursery fire, say, “Well, Miss Jessell, my dear” – for she had this quaint way of talking – “and what shall we do today?” And once I was looking from an upper window when I saw Miles, his fishing pole over his shoulder, marching down towards the lake, looking up at someone, a taller person, and chatting to this person in the same lively manner he used when with Quint – but he was alone. It came to me suddenly – Miles and Flora each had imaginary friends. And both were dead.’
‘My God,’ Geoffrey Bennett said in horror. ‘Oh my God.’ He stood up and went to the window, leaning his head against the pane.
‘Dead,’ Mrs Grose continued implacably. ‘It was bad enough living with the knowledge that Miles and Flora were pretending to see that evil pair. That was a game, a fantasy, though an unhealthy one, but only a game. Soon, I thought, Miles would be at school and Flora would have a new governess. But then one day—’ she said, ‘one day – I saw them too.’
Geoffrey spun round angrily. ‘What are you saying? What are you saying, Mrs Grose?’
‘I say, I saw Quint and Jessell. As I see you. First, one morning I saw Quint down by the lake. Clearly. That was just after Miss Selsden came. Then, no later than next day, they were in the Great Hall at Bly. I stood by the fireplace. They were at the mullioned window which looks out on to the garden.’
Mrs Grose’s voice was calm and steady, as though, reluctantly, she was being forced to report some unfortunate event, a death, a fire. But these things of which she spoke were not normal.
Poor Geoffrey still stood by the window. I could not imagine his feelings at hearing what had happened to his nephew and niece at Bly. The story of the connection between the governess appointed by him for the children and the male servant seemed hideous enough. And now this … One saw, horribly, two innocent children, too young to know what was wrong, too young to appeal against it, in what seemed like a house of madness. I thought if Geoffrey had reproached himself before over Miles’s suicide, how much worse it must now seem to him. He turned, put his hand to his brow, as if his head hurt, and sat down. He said in a controlled voice, ‘So, Mrs Grose. Your theory became that Miles and Flora were in communication with two ghosts. They then revealed themselves to you? And, pray, where did Miss Selsden figure in this?’
‘I told her nothing,’ she said. ‘How could I speak to that innocent and well-meaning young girl of these horrors. I hid my fears. But, one day, that poor young woman came to me in dread. She had seen Quint outside the window, on the terrace. He, who had been dead almost a year! She was horrified by him – she described him exactly. Sir,’ she appealed to Geoffrey, ‘what was I to do? She had never seen the man before, heard nothing of him – the servants had been threatened by me with dismissal if they spoke.’
Geoffrey met her eyes and muttered, ‘Servants will gossip, nevertheless.’ But his face was grey.
Mrs Grose continued implacably, ‘I was forced to tell her everything. We came to see the children were in danger. They knew Quint and Jessell were there. They were under their influence. We had to fight to get them back.’
‘Madness!’ Geoffrey burst out. ‘Madness!’ Then he sat, quite still, looking at Mrs Grose. He went on, more calmly, ‘You cannot have believed two children were under the influence of the dead.’
‘We had to save them,’ she said solidly.
‘Save them?’ he said in a low voice.
‘Their souls.’
‘And,’ he said in the same flat, hopeless tone, ‘what means did you employ for your task?’
‘We watched them and made them tell us of their encounters with Quint and Jessell.’
‘You watched them – made them tell you …?’ Geoffrey could barely speak.
Mrs Grose said vigorously, ‘Your instructions, sir, were not to vex you with any difficulties at Bly. Your instructions to Miss Selsden were quite plain, that nothing was to trouble you. We tried our best to obey your orders. Later Miss Selsden decided that, nevertheless, she must write to you.’ She paused. ‘I believe Miles intercepted the letter.’
‘Miles? Stole a letter?’
She nodded. ‘We watched them. We pleaded with them but they were sly and cunning beyond their years. Small wonder, when you think who guided them.’
She paused and stared at him, half defiant. To do the woman justice, she told her tale fairly, as she saw it, though she must have detected Geoffrey’s slowly mounting, sick rage and known her pension, her new cottage, everything he had offered, were at stake.
‘And this went on for what – three, four months, until Miles killed himself,’ he said. His voice rose, ‘You and Miss Selsden – witch-hunting.’
She bent her head. She could not reply. There was a dreadful silence. The clock ticked. Geoffrey’s face was drained. He must have been between intense remorse at what he had done and intense rage about what had been done, and not done, by those he ought to have been able to trust. Mrs Grose sat looking down, saying nothing.
I said, ‘Geoffrey. I believe it would be better if Mrs Grose left us now.’ He did not reply. ‘Mrs Grose,’ I said, ‘will you go?’ And she rose, and, with some remaining dignity, left the room.
Once she had gone Geoffrey put his head in his hands and said, ‘Oh, Henry, Henry. What have I done? My poor brother – my poor brother. I was entrusted with his children.’
There was no response I could make. In the end I told him, ‘Your task now is to protect Flora.’
‘Yes, of course – Flora,’ he muttered, but he was not thinking of her. Then he said, ‘All the time I have thought Grose was a good, honest, sensible country woman, a loyal servant. I should like to kill her now. And Elaine Selsden. But then,’ he said, ‘she was too young and Mrs Grose too ignorant to be left in charge without supervision. The fault is mine.’
There was no point in denying it. No one, not Mrs Grose nor Elaine Selsden, nor Geoffrey, had wished to harm the children, yet, it seemed, all were at fault.
That was our evening, Charles. Geoffrey is now in bed, sleeping, I hope. I am here writing to you. Can you help me with some professional insights of your own? What must we do? What of Flora? What do you think must have happened at Bly? I need some overview, some voice of sanity to help me understand what has happened and how to proceed. I know you will try.
Your brother,
Henry
Thirty-Eight
Marguerite Selsden had given up hope of sleeping that night. She sat in her window as the dawn came up, throwing golden light over the silent Lion House and its undisturbed garden. No one stirred, nothing moved.
On her return from Lion House, Mrs Grose had told her everything that had occurred at Bly so long ago and of her interview with Flora’s uncle and Henry Reeve. As she has listened, there were times when Marguerite thought she would faint. The picture Mrs Grose painted of the lonely house, the two orphaned children, of her own and Elaine’s attempts to drive the devils out of them, horrified Marguerite. And this had ended in Miles’s suicide. Utterly shocked, she had left Mrs Grose without a word and lain down on her bed, knowing she would not sleep. Now at dawn she searched with her eyes the quiet houses, empty streets, the garden of the other house where, last night, this story had been told – for what?
And Elaine had kept all this from her. She had come back from Russia to help her sister and had instead found herself being dragged into a pit of lies, secrecy and superstition.
* * *
In Elaine’s room Mrs Grose slept fitfully, her sleep interrupted from the corner of her room near the window by the giggling and chuckling, the whispers and broken sentences of the dead Quint and Jessell, who had come with her from Bly.
Thirty-Nine
Flora’s wedding dress stood on a dressmaker’s model, a pole, on which the canvas torso of a woman was set. This was at the end of the corridor outside her room. The pale light of dawn, dimly penetrating blue and green woven curtains, therefore apparently showed the body of a headless woman in a long ivory satin gown, the bodice beautifully embroidered with sma
ll pearls.
In the room where Flora slept, her tawny hair spread out on the pillow, the coronet made to go with the dress, which was also of pearls, and the long pale gloves were set out on an upholstered chest. She sighed gently and turned, her delicately flushed cheek bright against the white pillow. One pale arm lay outside her sheets.
Below, in the square, Elaine Selsden moved in a half-sleep on the bench on which she had spent the night. She had watched the house until very late, seeing figures coming and going through the front door and sporadically appearing in the drawing room window. She had witnessed the arrival of two little girls, who were to be flower girls at the wedding, with a woman who was probably their nanny. She had seen them leaving carrying proudly but with difficulty large boxes containing their dresses. She saw Henry Reeve come to the house and, later, other guests for dinner.
Before that, in the drawing room window she saw Beth Bennett energetically counting out a series of procedures on her fingers, the butler, Bradley, nodding as she went. She saw Geoffrey, holding a glass, wander to the window, and stand gazing out into the middle distance. After dinner she saw Flora, by candlelight, turning in her wedding dress, before the guests.
Bad luck, thought Elaine, to wear the dress before the wedding.
On her bench she had been barely conscious of the passing of time. She sat in a kind of daze, seeing the comings and goings of the house.
Miles and Flora Page 15
