She turned to Sophia:

"Nannie's asking for you, Sophia. Fish."

"Bother," said Sophia. "I'll go and telephone about it." T She walked briskly towards the house.

Miss de Haviland turned and walked slowly in the same direction. I fell into step beside her.

"Don't know what we'd all do without Nannies," said Miss de Haviland. "Nearly everybody's got an old Nannie. They come back and wash and iron and cook and do housework. Faithful. Chose this one myself - years ago."

She stooped and pulled viciously at an entangling twining bit of green.

"Hateful stuff- bindweed! Worst weed there is! Choking, entangling - and you can't get at it properly, runs along underground." 

With her heel she ground the handful of greenstuff viciously underfoot.

"This is a bad business, Charles Hayward," she said. She was looking towards the house. "What do the police think about it? Suppose I mustn't ask you that. Seems odd to think of Aristide being poisoned.

For that matter it seems odd to think of him being dead. I never liked him - never!

But I can't get used to the idea of his being dead… Makes the house seem so -empty."

I said nothing. For all her curt way of speech, Edith de Haviland seemed in a reminiscent mood.

"Was thinking this morning - I've lived here a long time. Over forty years. Came here when my sister died. He asked me to.

Seven children - and the youngest only a year old… Couldn't leave 'em to be brought up by a dago, could I? An impossible marriage, of course. I always felt Marcia must have been - well - bewitched.

Ugly common little foreigner! He gave me a free hand - I will say that.

Nurses, governesses, schools. And proper wholesome nursery food - not those queer spiced rice dishes he used to eat."

"And you've been here ever since?" I murmured.

"Yes. Queer in a way… I could have left, I suppose, when the children grew up and married… I suppose, really, I'd got interested in the garden. And then there was Philip. If a man marries an actress he can't expect to have any home life. Don't know why actresses have children. As soon as a baby's born they rush off and play in Repertory in Edinburgh or somewhere as remote as possible. Philip did the sensible thing - moved in here with his books."