Freddie any good, though, did it?’
‘You want to watch it, saying things like that, Mary Spencer, or you’ll be in trouble.’
‘What trouble? Anyway, I’ve heard she just sits up there in the nursery and sings hymns and won’t come out. Won’t let Miss Georgina out, neither.’
‘Poor Miss Georgina,’ said Ellen. ‘They saw Master Freddie too, you know, the children.’
I said, ‘Where’d you hear that?’ and Mary said, ‘They never! How?’
‘They were with Miss Childers.’
‘Oh, I don’t believe you.’
‘Well, it’s true, they were out playing and when Jenny fetched Miss Childers, they all saw. One of the gardeners told me he’d taken Miss Georgina indoors himself.’
‘But we’d have seen them.’
‘No, we wouldn’t. They went the other way, past the boot room. It was when we were all in the scullery.’
‘I still don’t believe it. Whoever it was told you, Ellen, he was having you on.’
‘All the same, it was a funny sort of accident if you ask me, Master Freddie falling down and hitting his head like that.’
‘Perhaps he had a turn, like Jenny.’
‘Don’t talk daft.’
But there were plenty saying that: How could it be an accident? And the ones that weren’t saying it were thinking it. There was a great deal of talk about Miss Georgina’s and Master Freddie’s nurse too, because there was a lot of feeling against her. I heard one of the older ones call her a whited sepulchre, which I thought was a bit hard, but it’s true to say that she did develop a sort of religious mania after Master Freddie was killed and wouldn’t say a word to a soul, just kept on praying all the time. But it was poor Jenny I felt sorry for, when they all started on her. I think it was the policeman, really, that set it all off. Whether Mrs. Mattie gave him a nudge in that direction I don’t know, but he decided Master Freddie’s death was her doing. When I say policeman, I don’t mean him from the village, because a proper policeman came down to do an investigation. When he came along, we all had to go and sit down in rows in front of him as if we were at school, and listen to his little speech—Mrs. Mattie even got me to put a little vase of flowers on the table for him—and then we all had to leave the room and come back one by one so he could ask us questions. Of course, everyone was going, ‘Well, if it was an accident like they’re saying, what’s he want to ask questions for?’ It was horrible, we felt like we were being accused of something. I think that’s why some of them turned against Jenny. I’m notsaying they’d done something bad to Master Freddie and put the blame on her or anything like that, but once you got in there with the policeman, he kept on and on asking the same things, and if you said you’d got nothing to tell, he didn’t believe you. I was one of the last to see him, because they took us by the alphabet. He kept asking me if I’d heard people in the passageway when I was in the scullery washing out the cloths. I said, ‘Of course I did,’ because you could hear them coming and going. Not that I took much notice; I had my work to be getting on with. This policeman said, ‘Was the door to the passage open?’
‘Oh, yes, it was always open.’ Well, it had to be, people coming in and out all the time with great big trays—they’d have dropped the lot if they’d tried to open the door.
‘Were you facing the door?’ Because there were two sinks, one looking towards the door and one the other way, and I was at the one facing.
‘Yes.’
‘So you could see who was going past?’
‘If I looked up I could see.’
Then he said, ‘Well, who did you see?’
I said, ‘I can’t remember,’ because I couldn’t, not really, you don’t take notice of things like that unless you’ve a special reason, do you? The policeman asked, if he said their names, would that jog my memory, and he started off: Ellen, Mary, Dora, Doris and so on like that.
‘You want to watch it, saying things like that, Mary Spencer, or you’ll be in trouble.’
‘What trouble? Anyway, I’ve heard she just sits up there in the nursery and sings hymns and won’t come out. Won’t let Miss Georgina out, neither.’
‘Poor Miss Georgina,’ said Ellen. ‘They saw Master Freddie too, you know, the children.’
I said, ‘Where’d you hear that?’ and Mary said, ‘They never! How?’
‘They were with Miss Childers.’
‘Oh, I don’t believe you.’
‘Well, it’s true, they were out playing and when Jenny fetched Miss Childers, they all saw. One of the gardeners told me he’d taken Miss Georgina indoors himself.’
‘But we’d have seen them.’
‘No, we wouldn’t. They went the other way, past the boot room. It was when we were all in the scullery.’
‘I still don’t believe it. Whoever it was told you, Ellen, he was having you on.’
‘All the same, it was a funny sort of accident if you ask me, Master Freddie falling down and hitting his head like that.’
‘Perhaps he had a turn, like Jenny.’
‘Don’t talk daft.’
But there were plenty saying that: How could it be an accident? And the ones that weren’t saying it were thinking it. There was a great deal of talk about Miss Georgina’s and Master Freddie’s nurse too, because there was a lot of feeling against her. I heard one of the older ones call her a whited sepulchre, which I thought was a bit hard, but it’s true to say that she did develop a sort of religious mania after Master Freddie was killed and wouldn’t say a word to a soul, just kept on praying all the time. But it was poor Jenny I felt sorry for, when they all started on her. I think it was the policeman, really, that set it all off. Whether Mrs. Mattie gave him a nudge in that direction I don’t know, but he decided Master Freddie’s death was her doing. When I say policeman, I don’t mean him from the village, because a proper policeman came down to do an investigation. When he came along, we all had to go and sit down in rows in front of him as if we were at school, and listen to his little speech—Mrs. Mattie even got me to put a little vase of flowers on the table for him—and then we all had to leave the room and come back one by one so he could ask us questions. Of course, everyone was going, ‘Well, if it was an accident like they’re saying, what’s he want to ask questions for?’ It was horrible, we felt like we were being accused of something. I think that’s why some of them turned against Jenny. I’m notsaying they’d done something bad to Master Freddie and put the blame on her or anything like that, but once you got in there with the policeman, he kept on and on asking the same things, and if you said you’d got nothing to tell, he didn’t believe you. I was one of the last to see him, because they took us by the alphabet. He kept asking me if I’d heard people in the passageway when I was in the scullery washing out the cloths. I said, ‘Of course I did,’ because you could hear them coming and going. Not that I took much notice; I had my work to be getting on with. This policeman said, ‘Was the door to the passage open?’
‘Oh, yes, it was always open.’ Well, it had to be, people coming in and out all the time with great big trays—they’d have dropped the lot if they’d tried to open the door.
‘Were you facing the door?’ Because there were two sinks, one looking towards the door and one the other way, and I was at the one facing.
‘Yes.’
‘So you could see who was going past?’
‘If I looked up I could see.’
Then he said, ‘Well, who did you see?’
I said, ‘I can’t remember,’ because I couldn’t, not really, you don’t take notice of things like that unless you’ve a special reason, do you? The policeman asked, if he said their names, would that jog my memory, and he started off: Ellen, Mary, Dora, Doris and so on like that.
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