Any discussion of how fair God may or may not be was beyond my competence, so I said that it must have felt very odd for her to prepare the food together with Sandra Schelderup.
‘She is a good cook, I will give her that. But yes, it was a rather bizarre and uncomfortable situation. It was Magdalon’s idea and neither of us dared to ask why. So we just made the food together as best we could and talked as little as possible while we did it. And I can guarantee that there were no powdered nuts or any other form of poison in the food when it left the kitchen. We both kept a close eye on each other the whole time.’
I did not doubt that. But I did comment that she herself had usurped the place of an older woman here at Schelderup Hall. Her sigh was heavy.
‘That was different. Magdalon and I were happy until the day she turned up here like a snake in paradise. His first wife was unhappy here, though she may not have recognized that herself, and they should never have got married. But of course it was not very nice then and it still is not nice now. Her fate was even more tragic than my own. No woman has a child with Magdalon Schelderup without the rest of her life being marred by it. And apparently no one is thrown out of Schelderup Hall without wanting to come back. It is strange, the power he holds over us. In that way he was a true sorcerer.’
Irene Schelderup cheered up unexpectedly when I asked if she knew that Magdalon Schelderup had a new lover.
‘The illiterate secretary?’ she said, with an almost joking expression on her face.
I looked at her questioningly. She blushed a touch and cleared her throat before carrying on.
‘It was Magdalena who asked me if the illiterate secretary had moved in now, and I knew immediately what she meant. The secretary is no doubt well above the average literacy in her own family, but still well below the average in ours. So I thought perhaps he wanted something else from her and am only too happy to admit that I hoped that was the case. It certainly would have been a twist of fate and only fair if Sandra was also thrown out on the rubbish pile in favour of a younger, more attractive secretary. He once joked to me that he believed that any marriage was doomed when the average age of the partners was over fifty. And his new marriage had certainly crossed that line by a good margin.’
The corners of her mouth twitched for a moment as she said this, but it was a bitter smile that did not reach her eyes.
