The Changeling Read Online Free PDF Page B

right.”
    “Of course. I’ll tell them at once. Then they can decide whether they want to come. What else did they say?”
    I was silent. I could hear the clock ticking and the seconds passing. I was on the point of telling her what they had said about his wife. I could warn her perhaps. The moment passed. She did not seem to notice the hiatus.
    “Oh, nothing … I can’t remember …” I said.
    It was the first lie I remembered telling her.
    He had indeed come between us.
    My grandparents arrived in London.
    I was disappointed that they seemed to be overcome by their admiration for Benedict Lansdon and delighted by the prospect of the marriage.
    There was a great deal of excited talk about the constituency and the possibility of a general election.
    “Not much chance yet,” said my grandfather. “Gladstone is well in … unless he comes a cropper over Ireland again.”
    “It will come in time,” said my mother. “And we don’t want it too soon. Benedict has to make his presence felt before that.”
    “He will do that,” added my grandmother with conviction.
    She soon noticed that all was not well with me.
    We went for a walk in the Park together and I quickly realized that she had arranged it so that we could talk in peace.
    It was one of those late autumnal days—the mist only faintly disturbed by the softest of winds which blew from the southwest—dampish, leaving the skin glowing. There was a smell of autumn in the air and a few bronze leaves remaining on the trees.
    As we walked by the Serpentine, she said to me: “I believe you are feeling a little … left out. Are you, my dear?”
    I was silent for a moment. She put her arm through mine.
    “You mustn’t think that. Everything is the same between you and your mother.”
    “How can it be?” I demanded. “He will be there.”
    “You will enjoy his company. He will be like your father.”
    “I can only have one father.”
    “My dearest child, your father died before you were born. You never knew him.”
    “I know that he died saving Pedrek’s father’s life—and I don’t want any other father.”
    She pressed my arm. “It has been a surprise to you. People often feel like that. You think there will be a change. Yes, there will be. But had you thought it might be a change for the better?”
    “I liked it as it was.”
    “Your mother is very happy,” she said.
    “Yes,” I agreed bitterly. “Because of him.”
    “You and she have been together so much. The fact that your father died made that inevitable. I know there is a very special relationship between you—and there always will be. But she and Benedict … they have been such good friends … always.”
    “Then why did she marry my father? He must have been a closer friend to her.”
    “Benedict went to Australia. He was out of her life. They both married different people … at first.”
    “Yes, and my father died saving another man’s life. His wife … she died too.”
    “Why do you say it like that, Rebecca?”
    “Like what?”
    “As though there was something odd about it.”
    “There was something odd about it.”
    “Who said so?”
    I closed my lips firmly. I was not going to betray the servants.
    “Tell me what you heard,” she urged.
    I remained silent.
    “Please, Rebecca, tell me,” she begged.
    “She died and they thought he had killed her because he didn’t want to be married to her any more … and he did not win the election because of it. And afterwards they found that she had killed herself.
    “It’s true,” said my grandmother. “People will always blacken the case against others, particularly if they are in a prominent position. It’s a form of envy.”
    “But she did die.”
    “Yes.”
    “I wish my mother was not going to marry him.”
    “Rebecca, you must not judge him before you know him.”
    “I do know him.”
    “No, you don’t. We don’t even fully know those who are closest to us. He loves your mother. I am sure of that, and she