A Little Death by Laura Wilson Page A

home on his holidays Miss Georgina never came downstairs much. If there was something she wanted, it was always, ‘My sister says, please would you be kind enough…’ Master Edmund was a perfect gentleman, even then. He used to come and talk to me, I used to ask him about his school and he’d tell me stories about what they got up to. I enjoyed that. He had a very nice way with him, never made you feel uncomfortable. Unlike his sister. It’s a shame she couldn’t have been sent away to school too, but she might as well have been a cat for all the thought her father gave her.
    But Miss Georgina was bound to get some funny ideas, really, living at Dennys all the time and scarcely meeting a soul from the outside world. I used to think: Whatever will become of her? She did used to get the odd letter from time to time, from Miss Louisa, but she never saw either of her cousins—their father wouldn’t let them come, even though Master Edmund and Master Roland went to the same school. In fact, I used to wonder if perhaps Miss Louisa sent Miss Georgina those letters in secret, without her father knowing. As for me, well, I’d have had a little chat with Miss Georgina every now and then, if she’d wanted it. But when I took the trays up to her I often had the idea that she was standing in the next room, waiting for me to leave. I didn’t have time for playing hide-and-seek so I never looked, but I’m sure that’s what she was up to.
    Although I’ve known Miss Georgina almost all herlife, I’d never say I
knew
her, if you see what I mean. Some people are just more open—I don’t mean they tell you all their business, but… sometimes when you’re with them, well, the best way I can put it is: You can see into their heart. I’ll tell you who’s like that—Miss Louisa. Anyone can see what a good person she is and I’m sure that’s why Master Edmund loves her like he does. But Miss Georgina, I don’t believe even Master Edmund knows what she’s really like, not right inside. And Mr. James, he didn’t know her at all. Because she keeps everything locked away, all the secrets she’s got shut up inside, she won’t let nobody see. And she’s very clever when it comes to getting her own way, there’s no denying that. That’s why you don’t want to believe everything she says. She’s as cunning as a barrel-load of monkeys. She knew she could count on me, long before I knew it myself. She knew it and she used it, too, else why would I be sat here in this dingy old basement after all these years?
    After Mrs. Mattie went, Mr. Lomax told me to make up a bed in the study for him and he never again went back upstairs. He was all taken up with the idea that he was being cheated in his business. He never stirred from his study and of course there was no telephone then, only letters, but he brooded and brooded, and he read every newspaper he could get his hands on. He was sure that there would be something in the papers about the cheating, but there never was. He sold the London house and we never had any visitors, only folk from the village, delivering. So it was just him and Miss Georgina, and Master Edmund when he came home for the holidays. And then there was me, and I had to do for all of them.
    That was when Miss Georgina started to play her little games with the furniture, after Mrs. Mattie left.
    She must have known that Mrs. Mattie wouldn’t have stood for it. What would happen was I’d go upstairs and I’d see a chair in the corridor outside Miss Georgina’s room, and I’d think, ‘Where did that come from?’ Because it hadn’t been there that morning. Her trick was to go round all the upstairs rooms, which were shut up with the dust sheets over, and anything that caught her eye, she’d have it out of there and put it in her room. She was like a magpie, the things she’d got hoarded up. I’d keep finding doors ajar where they shouldn’t be and I’d stick my head round, and sure enough, there were all