King of the Castle by Victoria Holt

her that she must not say such things of her father;
    she had listened to me quietly and made no comment; but I would never forget the quiet certainty in her voice when she had said: “He murdered her.”
    It was gossip, of course. Where had she heard it? It must be from someone in the house. Could it be the nurse? Poor child! How terrible for her! All my animosity towards her had disappeared. I felt I wanted to know more of her life, what her mother had been like, how those terrible suspicions had been planted in her mind.
    But the matter made me very uneasy.
    I had eaten a lonely dinner in my room and had gone through the notes I had made; then I tried to read a novel. The evening seemed long; and I wondered whether this was the life I should be expected to lead if I was allowed to stay on. In other great houses we had had our meals with the managers of the estates and sometimes with the families themselves. I had never before felt so lonely when working. But of course I must remember that I was not yet accepted; this was necessarily a period of waiting.
    I went to the gallery and spent all the morning examining the pictures, assessing darkening of pigment, failing of paint which we called ‘chalking’ and other deteriorations such as cracks in the paint which had caught the dust and grime. I tried to work out what materials I should need
     
    beyond those which I had brought with me, and I planned to ask Philippe de la Talle if I could look at some of the other pictures in the chateau, particularly some of the murals I had noticed.
    I returned to my room for lunch and afterwards went out. I had made up my mind that today I should have a look at the surrounding country and perhaps the town.
    All about me lay the vineyards and I took the road through them although it led away from the town. I would look at the town tomorrow.
    I imagined what activity there must be during the harvest and wished that I had been here earlier to see it. Next year. I thought, and then laughed at myself. Did I really think I should be here next year?
    I had come to several buildings and beyond them I saw a house of red brick and there were the inevitable shutters at all the windows green in this case. They added a charm to the house which I realized must be about one hundred and fifty years old built, I guessed, some fifty years or so before the Revolution. I could not resist the temptation of going a little nearer to examine it. , There was a lime tree in front of the house and as I came near a high shrill voice called: “Hallo, miss.” Not ‘mademoiselle,” as might have been expected, but ‘miss,” pronounced ‘mees,” which told me of course that whoever was calling was aware of my identity.
    “Hallo,” I answered, but looking over the iron gates I could see no one.
    I heard a chuckle and, looking up, saw a boy swinging in the tree like a monkey. He took a sudden leap and was beside me.
    “Hallo, miss. I’m Yves Bastide.”
    “How do you do?”
    “This is Margot. Margot, come down and don’t be silly.”
    “I am not silly.”
     
    The girl wriggled out of the branches and slid perilously down the trunk to the ground. She was slightly smaller than the boy.
    “We live there,” he told me.
    The girl nodded, her eyes bright and inquisitive.
    “It’s a very pleasant house.”
    “We all live in it… all of us.”
    “That must be very nice for all of you.”
    “Yves! Margot!” called a voice from the house.
    “We’ve got miss, Gran’mere.”
    “Then invite her to come in, and remember your manners.”
    “Miss,” said Yves with a little bow, ‘will you come in to see Gran’mere? “
    “I should be pleased to.” I smiled at the girl, who gave me a pretty curtsy. How different, I thought, from Genevieve.
    The boy ran forward to open the wrought-iron gates and gravely bowed as he held them for me to pass through. The girl walked beside me up the path between the bushes calling: “We’re here, Gran’mere.”
    I