The changeling

“Will she ever be able to grow away from it?” she demanded. “Oh, Madam, Miss Rebecca ... sometimes I feel I could kill him.”

“Leah!” I murmured.

“Oh yes, Miss Rebecca, that is how I feel. What has he done to our child? I see the terror in her eyes. She whimpers in her sleep. Sometimes she calls out. It will be a long time before it goes away. These men, they ... they should not be allowed to live. If I see him ... I could not trust myself.”

“You must not talk like this, Leah,” said my grandmother. “It may well have been a mistake. Perhaps she was frightened ... she did not see very well.”

Leah looked at my grandmother as though she thought her a little stupid.

“She saw ...” she said. “Men ... they are not what they seem. They are wicked. They think only of themselves ... their need of the moment. Their victims mean nothing to them.” I had never seen her so vehement. “They submit them to their will ... and then cast them aside.”

“Dear Leah,” said my grandmother, “you have always been wonderful with Belinda. You will know how to help her through this. She will need such careful treatment.” Leah was fierce. “I will not have her questioned and cross-questioned. She must forget quickly ... it is the only way.”

“Leah is right,” said my grandmother.

Leah nodded and when I looked at her eyes, wild with hatred, I had a horrible conviction that she meant it when she said she would kill Pedrek.

Afterwards my grandmother said: “She was so fierce. Of course, she has looked after Belinda since she was a baby and regards her as her own child. I can see great trouble growing out of this. I do hope it is not going to be known. It will kill Josiah.”

“It isn’t true, Granny, I know it in my heart.”

“I feel the same. After all these years ... we know Pedrek and it is not plausible.

And yet if it were so ... there are other children to be thought of ... protected.”

“I know there is some explanation.”

“I feel that, too. We must not act rashly. Your grandfather feels we should wait a few days before taking any action.”

Wait? What could we do by waiting?

But I could see that it was imperative for us to get away. It was what I needed, too.

I wrote to Pedrek. I made several drafts of the letter before I produced the final one.

Dear Pedrek,

I am going back to London. I cannot stay here. I have been so unhappy since this happened. I know you have been, too. At the moment I am bemused and I don’t know what to say. My grandparents think I should get away for a while. I don’t want to believe it. I am trying not to. Sometimes I think how absurd it is and then ... at others ... I am so unsure. Do try to understand. Give me time.

Rebecca

He wrote back to me:

Dear Rebecca,

I see that you doubt me. I cannot understand how you could possibly believe this of me. I had thought you loved me. I can see now that I was wrong. After all these years you don’t know me if you think I could molest a child. It is a cruel fabrication of lies. But you prefer to believe others rather than me.

Pedrek

I wept over his letter. I wanted to go to him, to comfort him, to tell him that, no matter what he had done, I still loved him.

But I could not do it. I knew that I would always be watching him for signs. I thought of the weakness of men. It was no use setting them up on pedestals and thinking of them as perfect gentle knights. They were not like that. Oddly enough memories of Benedict Lansdon kept coming into my mind. I remembered the love I had witnessed between him and my mother, and yet he had married his first wife for the goldmine she brought him. My mother had known this and forgiven him. That was different. My image of Pedrek had been changed and when I thought of him I would see the lust I had witnessed in Jean Pascal’s eyes, and the two seemed to merge into one.

I was not ready at this time to make a decision.

So I left Cador with Belinda, Lucie, Leah and Miss Stringer, for London. As the train took us nearer to London I wished that I had not left. I felt a yearning to be back there. I think if I could have seen Pedrek then I should have told him that I believed there had been some hideous mistake. Now that I was away from him I seemed to see more clearly that he could not have been guilty of such an act.

I looked at Belinda. She was pale and sat back in her seat with her eyes closed. Lucie looked a little bewildered. We had told her that Belinda was not well and we must be careful not to upset her.

Miss Stringer was unaware of what had happened. I feared she would have insisted on an open accusation of Pedrek. I could imagine what her verdict would have been. As for Leah, her attitude had become more protective. She hardly took her eyes from Belinda. I wondered whether she blamed herself for not noticing that the child had left the house to go to Mary Kellaway.

I wanted to tell her that no blame attached to her. We all knew how strong-willed Belinda could be, and if she wanted to go and visit Mary she would have found some way of doing so.

And so we reached London.