二つの魔法：ねじの回転、覆い隠された結末

It was during one of those long afternoons that she was strolling by the lake with Flora (the Sea of Azof, in their geography lesson), while Miles remained indoors with his book. She had sat down on the old stone bench with her sewing. Across the lake, on the far side, she became aware—without direct vision, but with absolute certitude—that there was a third person present. The trees and shrubbery were bright in the hot still hour, and there was no ambiguity in her certainty that, when she raised her eyes, she would find a figure there. She forced herself not to look, and turned instead to watch Flora. The child was absorbed in fitting a small piece of wood into another—constructing, with intense concentration, a little boat. Her back was turned to the water. Then the governess lifted her eyes and faced what she had to face.

VII

She got hold of Mrs. Grose as soon as she could and fairly threw herself into the housekeeper’s arms. They know, she cried—they know, it’s too monstrous! Two hours ago, in the garden, Flora saw.

Mrs. Grose took it like a blow in the stomach. The child had not told her, had kept it entirely to herself. But the governess had been there; she had seen that Flora was perfectly aware. Not of a man this time. Of a woman. A woman in black, pale and dreadful, with an air and a face of unmistakable horror and evil, standing on the other side of the lake. The governess’s own predecessor, the one who had died. Miss Jessel.

Flora, the governess realized with mounting horror, did not want her to know. She would lie, if asked; she had decided that already, and even let it slip out in her distress. Mrs. Grose tried to keep up: but perhaps the child liked it—perhaps it was a proof of her blessed innocence? The governess seized on that hope, then abandoned it. The woman was a horror of horrors, and Flora was keeping silent not from kindness but from something deeper.

Mrs. Grose at last admitted that the figure sounded like Miss Jessel. They were both infamous, she said—Quint and Jessel alike. There had been everything between them, despite the difference in their rank and condition. She was a lady; he was dreadfully below. Quint had been a clever, good-looking, impudent, spoiled, depraved hound of a man. Miss Jessel had paid for it, whatever it had been. Mrs. Grose did not know exactly how she had died, but she knew the girl could not have stayed on as governess, not after that, and she had imagined—and still imagined—something dreadful. The governess, overwhelmed, burst into tears and sobbed against the housekeeper’s motherly breast that she could not save or shield them; they were lost.