Herbert Nelson Mansfield

Don't know what it is with "Herbert" these days, but I'm going to roll with it.... :)
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Interview #2 (Interviewer, Interviewee)

My you are prompt. Right on time.

Time is valuable. Which means we should make the most of this ten minutes, don't you think?

Right. Well, I understand you've inherited your sister's daughter.

Only until I can get in touch with my sister and hopefully I can forego wringing her neck so that the child has a family to go back to.

Why did she and her husband send the girl to you?

For the answer to that question, you'd have to interview a different person.

I see. Well, what do you intend to do in the meantime? She seems a friendly little thing.

She's friendly alright. She talks all the time. She is ten going on twenty-five.

Were you like that when you were little?

Perhaps. I was always more serious than the rest, it seemed.

Were you and your sister close?

No, we were not. When I was three my mother left the family and took Sabrina along. My father and I continued on as best we could in this house. I really don't feel questions about my childhood are relevant. In fact, I am questioning why I agreed to this interview at all.

Your story is an interesting one, wouldn't you agree?

It's weird. Nothing more. We'll straighten the whole mess out, and we'll go back to our lives, and everything will be as it was. As it should be.

Is your father enjoying her company?

My father died of liver failure twenty-four years ago, on the 12th of October.

I see. So you and the girl are alone in that huge house?

I have a housekeeper who lives on the premises with her husband who tends the gardens.

The gardens are lovely. He does excellent work.

Thank you. I do enjoy the gardens; Bert knows what he's doing. Patricia makes lovely meals and keeps the place immaculate. Of course, adding a ten-year-old to the mix will make it harder. She'll want a raise--and deserves one. Of course these are things that obviously never crossed Sabrina's mind when she was so irresponsible as to---- I still can't believe she'd do something like this. It's been at least twelve years since I've seen her, and five since we last talked.

Thank you Mr. Mansfield, for talking with us this evening. In the interests of being punctual, our ten minutes is up.