Isobel's Story by Jennie Walters

Author:Jennie Walters
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Swallowcliffe Hall Book 3
Published: 2011-09-03T23:00:00+00:00

‘You think she must be grateful. Look at this good thing you have done for her and she does not even say thank you.’ Andreas held up a pencil at arm’s length and squinted along it, marking off some measurement with his thumbnail which he checked against the drawing on his lap. It was a lovely spring afternoon and the Hall lay spread out below us in the sunshine. Alina had been part of the household for a couple of weeks by now, Gran having introduced her to Lady Vye as the new house-parlourmaid, Angela Lucas. We didn’t know what she thought about the position - then again, we didn’t really know what she thought about anything.

‘Shouldn’t imagine you’ll get much work out of that one,’ Eunice had said with some satisfaction, pulling on her gloves for the last time. ‘Looks like a puff of wind would blow her away. Well, goodbye, Isobel.’ She’d pinched my cheek with her hard leather fingers - affectionately, I hoped. ‘Look after your granny, won’t you? Don’t let them take advantage.’ There was no need to ask who she meant by ‘them’.

That night, I’d lain in my bed and listened to Alina sobbing in hers on the other side of the wall until I couldn’t bear it any longer and crept into her room. ‘Are you all right?’ I whispered. ‘Do you want to come in with me for a bit?’ But she’d only turned her face to the wall and shrugged my hand off her shoulder. Eunice was wrong about one thing, though - we soon discovered that Alina could work for hours. She was a neat and methodical housework machine, going about the duties that used to be Eunice’s. And all the time, she hardly spoke a word.

‘She doesn’t have to thank us,’ I said, stung by Andreas’s remark. ‘I just wish she’d talk to me.’

‘You cannot wish anything from her.’ He looked up from the drawing with an expression in his dark eyes that was hard to understand. ‘Perhaps you think, oh, if this was me I will be so happy to have a friend who helps me in this country. But she is different than you. English people have saved her life but she cannot be your friend so quick. She thinks about things you do not know.’

‘Then tell me! I want to find out.’

He sighed and laid down the sliver of charcoal. ‘All right, I will try. First, she thinks every minute about her family in Poland, how she can get them out of there. Perhaps they say to her, now, Alina, you must find a way for us to come to England too, ask the good people you meet for help. But everyone has done so much already, she cannot ask for more. She knows she has always to be grateful and that is hard. And then she thinks, why do I escape, when so many stay behind? I do not know the word for that.’

‘Guilty,’ I said, feeling the very same thing myself.

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