Chapter four

Mrs Grose and I talked a lot about Quint’s ghost.

‘I have never seen anything,’ she said. But she knew my story was true. ‘Who was he looking for?’ she asked me.

‘He was looking for little Miles,’ I said, because suddenly I knew that it was true.

Mrs Grose looked frightened. ‘The child?’ she asked.

‘His ghost wants to find the children.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know, I know! And you know too, don’t you?’ She did not answer, so I continued, ‘Miles never speaks about Quint. Isn’t that strange? He says nothing to me. “They were great friends, Miles and Quint,” you told me.’

‘It was Quint’s idea,’ Mrs Grose said. ‘He wanted to play with Miles all the time. He was too free with him.’

‘Too free!’ He was too free with my boy! – this was terrible.

‘He was too free with everyone.’

‘So he was truly a bad man?’

‘I knew it, but the master didn’t. He didn’t like to hear about any sort of trouble. I couldn’t tell him. I was afraid.’

‘What were you afraid of?’

‘Quint was so clever – he could do terrible things.’

‘A dreadful man, with those innocent little children – couldn’t you do something?’

‘I couldn’t say anything. Peter Quint gave the orders.’ She began to cry.

Did Mrs Grose tell me everything? No – there was something that she didn’t say. I had to be brave. I had to watch carefully. The children must not meet this ghost!

And then, one afternoon, I took Flora out into the garden. Miles was reading inside, so Flora and I walked down to the lake together. It was hot, and we walked under the trees for much of the time. When we arrived at the lake, I sat down with a book, and for an hour everything was quiet. Suddenly I thought, ‘Someone is watching us.’ But I did not look up at once. I looked at Flora first. She had stopped playing and was very still. ‘She can see the person too!’ I thought. Then she turned away quickly from the lake.

Now I had to look up. A woman was standing on the other side of the lake – a dreadful woman, dressed in black. She was staring at Flora. I knew that she was the ghost of Miss Jessel, the children’s old governess.

‘Flora saw her too!’ I told Mrs Grose later.

‘Did she tell you?’ Mrs Grose asked.

‘No – and that makes it more terrible! The woman has come for Flora. The way she looks at her-‘

Mrs Grose turned white. ‘She was dressed in black?’

‘Yes, and she was handsome. She was a beautiful woman, but a bad one.’

‘They were both bad,’ she said at last.

‘You must tell me about them now,’ I said.

‘They were – together,’ she said. ‘They were lovers. But she paid a terrible price for it. Yes, she suffered, poor woman! He did what he wanted.’

‘With her?’

‘With them all.’

‘How did she die?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t want to know. But she couldn’t stay in the house after that. She had to leave. She was a lady, and he was only a servant.’

‘And Peter Quint? How did he die?’

‘He drank too much one night. He came out of the bar in the village and fell down on the ice. He cut his head on a stone. Well, that’s what people say. Nobody really knows.’

‘It’s all so terrible!’ And now I began to cry, and Mrs Grose took me in her arms. ‘We can’t save the children! They’re lost! Lost!’

But I still wanted to be with the children most of all, specially with Flora. She looked into my face carefully with her big, blue eyes, and said, ‘You were crying.’ She was so sweet, so innocent – how could she know about these dreadful things?

‘And Miles?’ I asked Mrs Grose about Miles. ‘”He was sometimes bad,” you said to me. How was he bad?’

‘Naughty,’ she replied. ‘I said naughty, not bad.’

‘Please tell me!’ I continued. ‘He’s always so good with me. So when he was bad – or naughty – it was unusual. What happened?’ We were talking late into the night, and now the grey light of morning was coming. Mrs Grose was silent for a minute, then she answered me.

‘Quint and the boy were together all the time. I didn’t like it. I spoke to Miss Jessel about it. She was angry with me. “It’s none of your business,” she said. So I spoke to Miles.’

‘You told him that Peter Quint was only a servant?’

‘Yes. “You’re only a servant too,” he answered me. And there were times when he and Peter Quint were together for hours, but he said, “I haven’t seen Peter today.”‘

‘He lied to you?’

Mrs Grose seemed surprised by this word. ‘Yes – perhaps he did.’

‘And he knew about Quint, and Miss Jessel?’

‘I don’t know – I don’t know!’

‘Yes, you do know! And we need to know more!’