Читать книгу A Daughter’s a Daughter - Агата Кристи, Agatha Christie, Detection Club The - Страница 10

Ann woke on the following morning and for a moment wondered where she was. Surely, that dim outline of the window should have been on the right, not the left … The door, the wardrobe …

Then she realized. She had been dreaming; dreaming that she was back, a girl, in her old home at Applestream. She had come there full of excitement, to be welcomed by her mother, by a younger Edith. She had run round the garden, exclaiming at this and that and had finally entered the house. All was as it had been, the rather dark hall, the chintz-covered drawing-room opening off it. And then, surprisingly, her mother had said: ‘We’re having tea in here today,’ and had led her through a further door into a new and unfamiliar room. An attractive room, with gay chintz covers and flowers, and sunlight; and someone was saying to her: ‘You never knew that these rooms were here, did you? We found them last year!’ There had been more new rooms and a small staircase and more rooms upstairs. It had all been very exciting and thrilling.

Now that she was awake she was still partly in the dream. She was Ann the girl, a creature standing at the beginning of life. Those undiscovered rooms! Fancy never knowing about them all these years! When had they been found? Lately? Or years ago?

Reality seeped slowly through the confused pleasurable dream state. All a dream, a very happy dream. Shot through now with a slight ache, the ache of nostalgia. Because one couldn’t go back. And how odd that a dream of discovering additional ordinary rooms in a house should engender such a queer ecstatic pleasure. She felt quite sad to think that these rooms had never actually existed.

Ann lay in bed watching the outline of the window grow clearer. It must be quite late, nine o’clock at least. The mornings were so dark now. Sarah would be waking to sunshine and snow in Switzerland.

But somehow Sarah hardly seemed real at this moment. Sarah was far away, remote, indistinct …

What was real was the house in Cumberland, the chintzes, the sunlight, the flowers—her mother. And Edith, standing respectfully to attention, looking, in spite of her young smooth unlined face, definitely disapproving as usual.

Ann smiled and called: ‘Edith!’

Edith entered and pulled the curtains back.

‘Well,’ she said approvingly. ‘You’ve had a nice lay in. I wasn’t going to wake you. It’s not much of a day. Fog coming on, I’d say.’

The outlook from the window was a heavy yellow. It was not an attractive prospect, but Ann’s sense of well-being was not shaken. She lay there smiling to herself.

‘Your breakfast’s all ready. I’ll fetch it in.’

Edith paused as she left the room, looking curiously at her mistress.

‘Looking pleased with yourself this morning, I must say. You must have enjoyed yourself last night.’

‘Last night?’ Ann was vague for a moment. ‘Oh, yes, yes. I enjoyed myself very much. Edith, when I woke up I’d been dreaming I was at home again. You were there and it was summer and there were new rooms in the house that we’d never known about.’

‘Good job we didn’t, I’d say,’ said Edith. ‘Quite enough rooms as it was. Great rambling old place. And that kitchen! When I think of what that range must have ate in coal! Lucky it was cheap then.’

‘You were quite young again, Edith, and so was I.’

‘Ah, we can’t put the clock back, can we? Not for all we may want to. Those times are dead and gone for ever.’

‘Dead and gone for ever,’ repeated Ann softly.

‘Not as I’m not quite satisfied as I am. I’ve got my health and strength, though they do say it’s at middle life you’re most liable to get one of these internal growths. I’ve thought of that once or twice lately.’

‘I’m sure you haven’t got anything of the kind, Edith.’

‘Ah, but you don’t know yourself. Not until the moment when they cart you off to hospital and cuts you up and by then it’s usually too late.’ And Edith left the room with gloomy relish.

She returned a few minutes later with Ann’s breakfast tray of coffee and toast.

‘There you are, ma’am. Sit up and I’ll tuck the pillow behind your back.’

Ann looked up at her and said impulsively:

‘How good you are to me, Edith.’

Edith flushed a fiery red with embarrassment.

‘I know the way things should be done, that’s all. And anyway, someone’s got to look after you. You’re not one of these strong-minded ladies. That Dame Laura now—the Pope of Rome himself couldn’t stand up to her.’

‘Dame Laura is a great personality, Edith.’

‘I know. I’ve heard her on the radio. Why, just by the look of her you’d always know she was somebody. Managed to get married too, by what I’ve heard. Was it divorce or death that parted them?’

‘Oh, he died.’

‘Best thing for him, I daresay. She’s not the kind any gentleman would find it comfortable to live with—although I won’t deny as there’s some men as actually prefer their wives to wear the trousers.’

Edith moved towards the door, observing as she did so:

‘Now don’t you hurry up, my dear. You just have a nice rest and lay-a-bed and think your pretty thoughts and enjoy your holiday.’

‘Holiday,’ thought Ann, amused. ‘Is that what she calls it?’

And yet in a way it was true enough. It was an interregnum in the patterned fabric of her life. Living with a child that you loved, there was always a faint clawing anxiety at the back of your mind. ‘Is she happy?’ ‘Are A or B or C good friends for her?’ ‘Something must have gone wrong at that dance last night. I wonder what it was?’

She had never interfered or asked questions. Sarah, she realized, must feel free to be silent or to talk—must learn her own lessons from life, must choose her own friends. Yet, because you loved her, you could not banish her problems from your mind. And at any moment you might be needed. If Sarah were to turn to her mother for sympathy or for practical help, her mother must be there, ready …

Sometimes Ann had said to herself: ‘I must be prepared one day to see Sarah unhappy, and even then I must not speak unless she wants me to.’

The thing that had worried her lately was that bitter and querulous young man, Gerald Lloyd, and Sarah’s increasing absorption in him. That fact lay at the back of her relief that Sarah was separated from him for at least three weeks and would be meeting plenty of other young men.

Yes, with Sarah in Switzerland, she could dismiss her happily from her mind and relax. Relax here in her comfortable bed and think about what she should do today. She’d enjoyed herself very much at the party last night. Dear James—so kind—and yet such a bore, too, poor darling! Those endless stories of his! Really, men, when they got to forty-five, should make a vow not to tell any stories or anecdotes at all. Did they even imagine how their friends’ spirits sank when they began: ‘Don’t know whether I ever told you, but rather a curious thing happened once to—’ and so on.

One could say, of course: ‘Yes, James, you’ve told me three times already.’ And then the poor darling would look so hurt. No, one couldn’t do that to James.

That other man, Richard Cauldfield. He was much younger, of course, but probably he would take to repeating long boring stories over and over again one day …

She considered … perhaps … but she didn’t think so. No, he was more likely to lay down the law, to become didactic. He would have prejudices, preconceived ideas. He would have to be teased, gently teased … He might be a little absurd sometimes, but he was a dear really—a lonely man—a very lonely man … She felt sorry for him. He was so adrift in this modern frustrated life of London. She wondered what sort of job he would get … It wasn’t so easy nowadays. He would probably buy his farm or his market garden and settle down in the country.

She wondered whether she would meet him again. She would be asking James to dinner one evening soon. She might suggest he brought Richard Cauldfield with him. It would be a nice thing to do—he was clearly lonely. And she would ask another woman. They might go to a play.

What a noise Edith was making. She was in the sitting-room next door and it sounded as though there were an army of removal men at work. Bangs, bumps, the occasional high whine of the vacuum cleaner. Edith must be enjoying herself.

Presently Edith peeped round the door. Her head was tied up in a duster and she wore the exalted rapt look of a priestess performing a ritual orgy.

‘You wouldn’t be out to lunch, I suppose? I was wrong about the fog. It’s going to be a proper nice day. I don’t mean as I’ve forgotten that bit of plaice. I haven’t. But if it’s kept till now, it’ll keep till this evening. No denying, these fridges do keep things—but it takes the goodness out of them all the same. That’s what I say.’

Ann looked at Edith and laughed.

‘All right, all right, I’ll go out to lunch.’

‘Please yourself, of course, I don’t mind.’

‘Yes, Edith, but don’t kill yourself. Why not get Mrs Hopper in to help you, if you must clean the place from top to toe.’

‘Mrs Hopper, Mrs Hopper! I’ll Hopper her! I let her clean that nice brass fender of your ma’s last time she came. Left it all smeary. Wash down the linoleum, that’s all these women are good for, and anybody can do that. Remember that cut-steel fender and grate we had at Applestream? That took a bit of keeping. I took a pride in that, I can tell you. Ah, well, you’ve some nice pieces of furniture here and they polish up something beautiful. Pity there’s so much built-in stuff.’

‘It makes less work.’

‘Too much like a hotel for my liking. So you’ll be going out? Good. I can get all the rugs up.’

‘Can I come here tonight? Or would you like me to go to a hotel?’

‘Now then, Miss Ann, none of your jokes. By the way, that double saucepan you brought home from the Stores isn’t a mite of good. It’s too big for one thing and it’s a bad shape for stirring inside. I want one like my old one.’

‘I’m afraid they don’t make them any more, Edith.’

‘This government,’ said Edith in disgust. ‘What about those china soufflé dishes I asked about? Miss Sarah likes a soufflé served that way.’

‘I forgot you’d asked me to get them. I daresay I could find some of them all right.’

‘There you are, then. That’s something for you to do.’

‘Really, Edith,’ cried Ann, exasperated. ‘I might be a little girl you’re telling to go out and have a nice bowl of her hoop.’

‘Miss Sarah being away makes you seem younger, I must admit. But I was only suggesting, ma’am—’ Edith drew herself up to her full height and spoke with sour primness—‘if you should happen to be in the neighbourhood of the Army and Navy Stores, or maybe John Barker’s—’

‘All right, Edith. Go and bowl your own hoop in the sitting-room.’

‘Well, really,’ said Edith, outraged, and withdrew.

The bangs and bumps recommenced and presently another sound was added to them, the thin tuneless sound of Edith’s voice upraised in a particularly gloomy hymn tune:

‘This is a land of pain and woe

No joy, no sun, no light.

Oh lave, Oh lave us in Thy blood

That we may mourn aright.’

Ann enjoyed herself in the china department of the Army and Navy Stores. She thought that nowadays when so many things were shoddily and badly made, it was a relief to see what good china and glass and pottery this country could turn out still.

The forbidding notices ‘For Export Only’ did not spoil her appreciation of the wares displayed in their shining rows. She passed on to the tables displaying the export rejects where there were always women shoppers hovering with keen glances to pounce on some attractive piece.

Today, Ann herself was fortunate. There was actually a nearly complete breakfast set, with nice wide round cups in an agreeable brown glazed and patterned pottery. The price was not unreasonable and she purchased it just in time. Another woman came along just as the address was being taken and said excitedly: ‘I’ll have that.’

‘Sorry, madam, I’m afraid it’s sold.’

Ann said insincerely: ‘I’m so sorry,’ and walked away buoyed up with the delight of successful achievement. She had also found some very pleasant soufflé dishes of the right size, but in glass, not china, which she hoped Edith would accept without grumbling too much.

From the china department she went across the street into the gardening department. The window-box outside the flat window was crumbling into disintegration and she wanted to order another.

She was talking to the salesman about it when a voice behind her said:

‘Why, good morning, Mrs Prentice.’

She turned to find Richard Cauldfield. His pleasure at their meeting was so evident that Ann could not help feeling flattered.

‘Fancy meeting you here like this. It really is a wonderful coincidence. I was just thinking about you as a matter of fact. You know, last night, I wanted to ask you where you lived and if I might, perhaps, come and see you? But then I thought that perhaps you would think it was rather an impertinence on my part. You must have so many friends, and—’

Ann interrupted him.

‘Of course you must come and see me. Actually I was thinking of asking Colonel Grant to dinner and suggesting that he might bring you with him.’

‘Were you? Were you really?’

His eagerness and pleasure were so evident that Ann felt a pang of sympathy. Poor man, he must be lonely. That happy smile of his was really quite boyish.

She said: ‘I’ve been ordering myself a new window-box. That’s the nearest we can get in a flat to having a garden.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’ve been looking at incubators—’

‘Still hankering after chickens.’

‘In a way. I’ve been looking at all the latest poultry equipment. I understand this electrical stunt is the latest thing.’

They moved together towards the exit. Richard Cauldfield said in a sudden rush:

‘I wonder—of course perhaps you’re engaged—whether you’d care to lunch with me—that is if you’re not doing anything else.’

‘Thank you. I’d like to very much. As a matter of fact Edith, my maid, is indulging in an orgy of spring cleaning and has told me very firmly not to come home to lunch.’

Richard Cauldfield looked rather shocked and not at all amused.

‘That’s very arbitrary, isn’t it?’

‘Edith is privileged.’

‘All the same, you know, it doesn’t do to spoil servants.’

He’s reproving me, thought Ann with amusement. She said gently:

‘There aren’t many servants about to spoil. And anyway Edith is more a friend than a servant. She has been with me a great many years.’

‘Oh, I see.’ He felt he had been gently rebuked, yet his impression remained. This gentle pretty woman was being bullied by some tyrannical domestic. She wasn’t the kind of woman who could stand up for herself. Too sweet and yielding a nature.

He said vaguely: ‘Spring cleaning? Is this the time of year one does it?’

‘Not really. It should be done in March. But my daughter is away for some weeks in Switzerland, so it makes an opportunity. When she’s at home there is too much going on.’

‘You miss her, I expect?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Girls don’t seem to like staying at home much nowadays. I suppose they’re keen on living their own lives.’

‘Not quite as much as they were, I think. The novelty has rather worn off.’

‘Oh. It’s a very nice day, isn’t it? Would you like to walk across the park, or would it tire you?’

‘No, of course it wouldn’t. I was just going to suggest it to you.’

They crossed Victoria Street and went down a narrow passage-way, coming out finally by St James’s Park station. Cauldfield looked up at the Epstein statues.

‘Can you see anything whatever in those? How can one call things like that Art?’

‘Oh, I think one can. Very definitely so.’

‘Surely you don’t like them?’

‘I don’t personally, no. I’m old-fashioned and continue to like classical sculpture and the things I was brought up to like. But that doesn’t mean that my taste is right. I think one has to be educated to appreciate new forms of art. The same with music.’

‘Music! You can’t call it music.’

‘Mr Cauldfield, don’t you think you’re being rather narrow-minded?’

He turned his head sharply to look at her. She was flushed, a trifle nervous, but her eyes met his squarely and did not flinch.

‘Am I? Perhaps I am. Yes, I suppose when you’ve been away a long time, you tend to come home and object to everything that isn’t strictly as you remember it.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘You must take me in hand.’

Ann said quickly: ‘Oh, I’m terribly old-fashioned myself. Sarah often laughs at me. But what I do feel is that it is a terrible pity to—to—how shall I put it?—close one’s mind just as one is getting—well, getting old. For one thing, it’s going to make one so tiresome—and then, also, one may be missing something that matters.’

Richard walked in silence for some moments. Then he said:

‘It sounds so absurd to hear you talk of yourself as getting old. You’re the youngest person I’ve met for a long time. Much younger than some of these alarming girls. They really do frighten me.’

‘Yes, they frighten me a little. But I always find them very kind.’

They had reached St James’s Park. The sun was fully out now and the day was almost warm.

‘Where shall we go?’

‘Let’s go and look at the pelicans.’

They watched the birds with contentment, and talked about the various species of water fowl. Completely relaxed and at ease, Richard was boyish and natural, a charming companion. They chatted and laughed together and were astonishingly happy in each other’s company.

Presently Richard said: ‘Shall we sit down for a while in the sun? You won’t be cold, will you?’

‘No, I’m quite warm.’

They sat on two chairs and looked out over the water. The scene with its rarefied colouring was like a Japanese print.

Ann said softly: ‘How beautiful London can be. One doesn’t always realize it.’

‘No. It’s almost a revelation.’

They sat quietly for a minute or two, then Richard said:

‘My wife always used to say that London was the only place to be when spring came. She said the green buds and the almond trees and in time the lilacs all had more significance against a background of bricks and mortar. She said in the country it all happened confusedly and it was too big to see properly. But in a suburban garden spring came overnight.’

‘I think she was right.’

Richard said with an effort, and not looking at Ann:

‘She died—a long time ago.’

‘I know. Colonel Grant told me.’

Richard turned and looked at her.

‘Did he tell you how she died?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s something I shall never get over. I shall always feel that I killed her.’

Ann hesitated a moment, then spoke:

‘I can understand what you feel. In your place I should feel as you do. But it isn’t true, you know.’

‘It is true.’

‘No. Not from her—from a woman’s point of view. The responsibility of accepting that risk is the woman’s. It’s implicit in—in her love. She wants the child, remember. Your wife did—want the child?’

‘Oh yes. Aline was very happy about it. So was I. She was a strong healthy girl. There seemed no reason why anything should go wrong.’

There was silence again.

Then Ann said: ‘I’m sorry—so very sorry.’

‘It’s a long time ago now.’

‘The baby died too?’

‘Yes. In a way, you know, I’m glad of that. I should, I feel, have resented the poor little thing. I should always have remembered the price that was paid for its life.’

‘Tell me about your wife.’

Sitting there, in the pale wintry sunlight, he told her about Aline. How pretty she had been and how gay. And the sudden quiet moods she had had when he had wondered what she was thinking about and why she had gone so far away.

Once he broke off to say wonderingly: ‘I have not spoken about her to anyone for years,’ and Ann said gently: ‘Go on.’

It had all been so short—too short. A three months’ engagement, their marriage—‘the usual fuss, we didn’t really want it all, but her mother insisted’. They had spent their honeymoon motoring in France, seeing the chateaux of the Loire.

He said inconsequentially: ‘She was nervous in a car, you know. She’d keep her hand on my knee. It seemed to give her confidence, I don’t know why she was nervous. She’d never been in an accident.’ He paused and then went on: ‘Sometimes, after it had all happened, I used to feel her hand sometimes when I was driving out in Burma. Imagine it, you know … It seemed incredible that she should go right away like that—right out of life …’

Yes, thought Ann, that is what it feels like—incredible. So she had felt about Patrick. He must be somewhere. He must be able to make her feel his presence. He couldn’t go out like that and leave nothing behind. That terrible gulf between the dead and the living!

Richard was going on. Telling her about the little house they had found in a cul-de-sac, with a lilac bush and a pear tree.

Then, when his voice, brusque and hard, came to the end of the halting phrases, he said again wonderingly: ‘I don’t know why I have told you all this …’

But he did know. When he had asked Ann rather nervously if it would be all right to lunch at his club—‘they have a kind of Ladies’ Annexe, I believe—or would you rather go to a restaurant?’—and when she had said that she would prefer the club, and they had got up and begun to walk towards Pall Mall, the knowledge was in his mind, though not willingly recognized by him.

This was his farewell to Aline, here in the cold unearthly beauty of the park in winter.

He would leave her here, beside the lake, with the bare branches of the trees showing their tracery against the sky.

For the last time, he brought her to life in her youth and her strength and the sadness of her fate. It was a lament, a dirge, a hymn of praise—a little perhaps of all of them.

But it was also a burial.

He left Aline there in the park and walked out into the streets of London with Ann.