The Changeling Read Online Free PDF Page A

kissed me. “I just wanted you to be the first to know. Goodnight, my darling.”
    She was faintly uneasy because I had cast a cloud over her happiness—but only a little one. I knew that she was thinking I was only a child and I was perhaps a little jealous and afraid of Benedict Lansdon coming between us.
    It was natural, she was telling herself.
    Perhaps I should have pretended to be pleased, but I could not be as deceitful as that.
    The family were delighted. There was a dinner party at Uncle Peter’s to celebrate the engagement. The wedding was to be soon.
    My grandparents would come up to London for the ceremony. They had written sending congratulations and expressing their pleasure in the forthcoming marriage. Uncle Peter was clearly delighted. He was fond of my mother and very proud of Benedict who had become so rich without any help from him. I think he cared more for him than his son Peterkin who had devoted his life to good works at the Mission, and Helena who had been such a perfect wife to Martin Hume.
    It was rather different in our house where I was conscious of an atmosphere of brooding apprehension.
    The servants did not speak to me about their fears but I used to listen shamelessly to their conversations because it was imperative that I should know what was in their minds. It was possible in a smallish house like ours to listen to talk and I made the most of it.
    I heard Mr. and Mrs. Emery once. She was putting things in the linen cupboard and he was handing them to her. It was just outside my room and if the door were a little open—which I had contrived that it should be—it was possible for me to hear quite a bit.
    She was saying: “It don’t do to worry. We’ll know in good time.”
    “There is this new house they’re getting. But if I know Mrs. Mandeville, she’s not the sort to forget them as has been good servants to her.”
    “Oh, it’ll be all right if it’s left to her … but …”
    “Why shouldn’t it be? She’ll be the mistress, won’t she?”
    “Well, yes … I reckon he’ll leave all that sort of thing to her.”
    “I doubt he’ll buy that house unless he gets in.”
    “Oh, I don’t know. He’s been close before, hasn’t he? That means if he loses first time round he could win next. There’ll be a general election before long … bound to be. Yes, I reckon he’ll want that house now he’s been selected.”
    “Do you think he’ll get into Parliament?”
    “He seems the sort to get what he wants.”
    “Don’t forget last time … a regular scandal that was.”
    I crept near to the door. I must not miss this. What scandal? I asked myself. Did my mother know of it?
    “Well, it was all cleared up, wasn’t it?”
    “Sort of. He didn’t kill her. That’s what they thought at first.”
    “But it turned out she took the stuff herself instead.”
    “All nice and convenient, wasn’t it?”
    “Convenient! Why, it lost him the seat, they said. He was all set to take it.”
    “Who knows? It was a Tory stronghold and he’s a Liberal.”
    “But, but the Tories was getting really rattled. It looked like he was going to take it … make a record. The first time the Tories had been ousted for a hundred years or something.”
    “But it didn’t happen.”
    “No, his poor unwanted wife died in mysterious circumstances.”
    “But I told you it was all right. He didn’t kill her.”
    “I reckon it all worked out for the best. It kept the seat for the Tories.”
    “Oh, you and your Tories. I’m a bit of a Liberal myself.”
    “What do you know about it?”
    “About as much as you do. There! That’ll be the lot. Come on. I’ve got the dinner to see to.”
    I crept away from the door.
    I felt excited, and the same time full of misgiving.
    He had been married before. His wife had died … mysteriously. His first wife! And my mother was proposing to become his second.
    I wondered what I could do. Warn her? But she must know about that long-ago scandal. She ignored