Читать книгу Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Mary Westmacott - Страница 12

Miss Bulstrode’s sitting-room had windows looking out in two directions, one over the drive and lawn beyond, and another towards a bank of rhododendrons behind the house. It was quite an impressive room, and Miss Bulstrode was rather more than quite an impressive woman. She was tall, and rather noble looking, with well-dressed grey hair, grey eyes with plenty of humour in them, and a firm mouth. The success of her school (and Meadowbank was one of the most successful schools in England) was entirely due to the personality of its Headmistress. It was a very expensive school, but that was not really the point. It could be put better by saying that though you paid through the nose, you got what you paid for.

Your daughter was educated in the way you wished, and also in the way Miss Bulstrode wished, and the result of the two together seemed to give satisfaction. Owing to the high fees, Miss Bulstrode was able to employ a full staff. There was nothing mass produced about the school, but if it was individualistic, it also had discipline. Discipline without regimentation, was Miss Bulstrode’s motto. Discipline, she held, was reassuring to the young, it gave them a feeling of security; regimentation gave rise to irritation. Her pupils were a varied lot. They included several foreigners of good family, often foreign royalty. There were also English girls of good family or of wealth, who wanted a training in culture and the arts, with a general knowledge of life and social facility who would be turned out agreeable, well groomed and able to take part in intelligent discussion on any subject. There were girls who wanted to work hard and pass entrance examinations, and eventually take degrees and who, to do so, needed only good teaching and special attention. There were girls who had reacted unfavourably to school life of the conventional type. But Miss Bulstrode had her rules, she did not accept morons, or juvenile delinquents, and she preferred to accept girls whose parents she liked, and girls in whom she herself saw a prospect of development. The ages of her pupils varied within wide limits. There were girls who would have been labelled in the past as ‘finished’, and there were girls little more than children, some of them with parents abroad, and for whom Miss Bulstrode had a scheme of interesting holidays. The last and final court of appeal was Miss Bulstrode’s own approval.

She was standing now by the chimneypiece listening to Mrs Gerald Hope’s slightly whining voice. With great foresight, she had not suggested that Mrs Hope should sit down.

‘Henrietta, you see, is very highly strung. Very highly strung indeed. Our doctor says—’

Miss Bulstrode nodded, with gentle reassurance, refraining from the caustic phrase she sometimes was tempted to utter.

‘Don’t you know, you idiot, that that is what every fool of a woman says about her child?’

She spoke with firm sympathy.

‘You need have no anxiety, Mrs Hope. Miss Rowan, a member of our staff, is a fully trained psychologist. You’ll be surprised, I’m sure, at the change you’ll find in Henrietta’ (Who’s a nice intelligent child, and far too good for you) ‘after a term or two here.’

‘Oh I know. You did wonders with the Lambeth child—absolutely wonders! So I am quite happy. And I—oh yes, I forgot. We’re going to the South of France in six weeks’ time. I thought I’d take Henrietta. It would make a little break for her.’

‘I’m afraid that’s quite impossible,’ said Miss Bulstrode, briskly and with a charming smile, as though she were granting a request instead of refusing one.

‘Oh! but—’ Mrs Hope’s weak petulant face wavered, showed temper. ‘Really, I must insist. After all, she’s my child.’

‘Exactly. But it’s my school,’ said Miss Bulstrode.

‘Surely I can take the child away from a school any time I like?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Bulstrode. ‘You can. Of course you can. But then, I wouldn’t have her back.’

Mrs Hope was in a real temper now.

‘Considering the size of the fees I pay here—’

‘Exactly,’ said Miss Bulstrode. ‘You wanted my school for your daughter, didn’t you? But it’s take it as it is, or leave it. Like that very charming Balenciaga model you are wearing. It is Balenciaga, isn’t it? It is so delightful to meet a woman with real clothes sense.’

Her hand enveloped Mrs Hope’s, shook it, and imperceptibly guided her towards the door.

‘Don’t worry at all. Ah, here is Henrietta waiting for you.’ (She looked with approval at Henrietta, a nice well-balanced intelligent child if ever there was one, and who deserved a better mother.) ‘Margaret, take Henrietta Hope to Miss Johnson.’

Miss Bulstrode retired into her sitting-room and a few moments later was talking French.

‘But certainly, Excellence, your niece can study modern ballroom dancing. Most important socially. And languages, also, are most necessary.’

The next arrivals were prefaced by such a gust of expensive perfume as almost to knock Miss Bulstrode backwards.

‘Must pour a whole bottle of the stuff over herself every day,’ Miss Bulstrode noted mentally, as she greeted the exquisitely dressed dark-skinned woman.

‘Enchantée, Madame.’

Madame giggled very prettily.

The big bearded man in Oriental dress took Miss Bulstrode’s hand, bowed over it, and said in very good English, ‘I have the honour to bring to you the Princess Shaista.’

Miss Bulstrode knew all about her new pupil who had just come from a school in Switzerland, but was a little hazy as to who it was escorting her. Not the Emir himself, she decided, probably the Minister, or Chargé d’Affaires. As usual when in doubt, she used that useful title Excellence, and assured him that Princess Shaista would have the best of care.

Shaista was smiling politely. She was also fashionably dressed and perfumed. Her age, Miss Bulstrode knew, was fifteen, but like many Eastern and Mediterranean girls, she looked older—quite mature. Miss Bulstrode spoke to her about her projected studies and was relieved to find that she answered promptly in excellent English and without giggling. In fact, her manners compared favourably with the awkward ones of many English school girls of fifteen. Miss Bulstrode had often thought that it might be an excellent plan to send English girls abroad to the Near Eastern countries to learn courtesy and manners there. More compliments were uttered on both sides and then the room was empty again though still filled with such heavy perfume that Miss Bulstrode opened both windows to their full extent to let some of it out.

The next comers were Mrs Upjohn and her daughter Julia.

Mrs Upjohn was an agreeable young woman in the late thirties with sandy hair, freckles and an unbecoming hat which was clearly a concession to the seriousness of the occasion, since she was obviously the type of young woman who usually went hatless.

Julia was a plain freckled child, with an intelligent forehead, and an air of good humour.

The preliminaries were quickly gone through and Julia was despatched via Margaret to Miss Johnson, saying cheerfully as she went, ‘So long, Mum. Do be careful lighting that gas heater now that I’m not there to do it.’

Miss Bulstrode turned smilingly to Mrs Upjohn, but did not ask her to sit. It was possible that, despite Julia’s appearance of cheerful common-sense, her mother, too, might want to explain that her daughter was highly strung.

‘Is there anything special you want to tell me about Julia?’ she asked.

Mrs Upjohn replied cheerfully:

‘Oh no, I don’t think so. Julia’s a very ordinary sort of child. Quite healthy and all that. I think she’s got reasonably good brains, too, but I daresay mothers usually think that about their children, don’t they?’

‘Mothers,’ said Miss Bulstrode grimly, ‘vary!’

‘It’s wonderful for her to be able to come here,’ said Mrs Upjohn. ‘My aunt’s paying for it, really, or helping. I couldn’t afford it myself. But I’m awfully pleased about it. And so is Julia.’ She moved to the window as she said enviously, ‘How lovely your garden is. And so tidy. You must have lots of real gardeners.’

‘We had three,’ said Miss Bulstrode, ‘but just now we’re short-handed except for local labour.’

‘Of course the trouble nowadays,’ said Mrs Upjohn, ‘is that what one calls a gardener usually isn’t a gardener, just a milkman who wants to do something in his spare time, or an old man of eighty. I sometimes think—Why!’ exclaimed Mrs Upjohn, still gazing out of the window—‘how extraordinary!’

Miss Bulstrode paid less attention to this sudden exclamation than she should have done. For at that moment she herself had glanced casually out of the other window which gave on to the rhododendron shrubbery, and had perceived a highly unwelcome sight, none other than Lady Veronica Carlton-Sandways, weaving her way along the path, her large black velvet hat on one side, muttering to herself and clearly in a state of advanced intoxication.

Lady Veronica was not an unknown hazard. She was a charming woman, deeply attached to her twin daughters, and very delightful when she was, as they put it, herself—but unfortunately at unpredictable intervals, she was not herself. Her husband, Major Carlton-Sandways, coped fairly well. A cousin lived with them, who was usually at hand to keep an eye on Lady Veronica and head her off if necessary. On Sports Day, with both Major Carlton-Sandways and the cousin in close attendance, Lady Veronica arrived completely sober and beautifully dressed and was a pattern of what a mother should be.

But there were times when Lady Veronica gave her well-wishers the slip, tanked herself up and made a bee-line for her daughters to assure them of her maternal love. The twins had arrived by train early today, but no one had expected Lady Veronica.

Mrs Upjohn was still talking. But Miss Bulstrode was not listening. She was reviewing various courses of action, for she recognized that Lady Veronica was fast approaching the truculent stage. But suddenly, an answer to prayer, Miss Chadwick appeared at a brisk trot, slightly out of breath. Faithful Chaddy, thought Miss Bulstrode. Always to be relied upon, whether it was a severed artery or an intoxicated parent.

‘Disgraceful,’ said Lady Veronica to her loudly. ‘Tried to keep me away—didn’t want me to come down here—I fooled Edith all right. Went to have my rest—got out car—gave silly old Edith slip…regular old maid…no man would ever look at her twice…Had a row with police on the way…said I was unfit to drive car…nonshense…Going to tell Miss Bulstrode I’m taking the girls home—want ’em home, mother love. Wonderful thing, mother love—’

‘Splendid, Lady Veronica,’ said Miss Chadwick. ‘We’re so pleased you’ve come. I particularly want you to see the new Sports Pavilion. You’ll love it.’

Adroitly she turned Lady Veronica’s unsteady footsteps in the opposite direction, leading her away from the house.

‘I expect we’ll find your girls there,’ she said brightly. ‘Such a nice Sports Pavilion, new lockers, and a drying room for the swim suits—’ their voices trailed away.

Miss Bulstrode watched. Once Lady Veronica tried to break away and return to the house, but Miss Chadwick was a match for her. They disappeared round the corner of the rhododendrons, headed for the distant loneliness of the new Sports Pavilion.

Miss Bulstrode heaved a sigh of relief. Excellent Chaddy. So reliable! Not modern. Not brainy—apart from mathematics—but always a present help in time of trouble.

She turned with a sigh and a sense of guilt to Mrs Upjohn who had been talking happily for some time…

‘…though, of course,’ she was saying, ‘never real cloak and dagger stuff. Not dropping by parachute, or sabotage, or being a courier. I shouldn’t have been brave enough. It was mostly dull stuff. Office work. And plotting. Plotting things on a map, I mean—not the story telling kind of plotting. But of course it was exciting sometimes and it was often quite funny, as I just said—all the secret agents followed each other round and round Geneva, all knowing each other by sight, and often ending up in the same bar. I wasn’t married then, of course. It was all great fun.’

She stopped abruptly with an apologetic and friendly smile.

‘I’m sorry I’ve been talking so much. Taking up your time. When you’ve got such lots of people to see.’

She held out a hand, said goodbye and departed.

Miss Bulstrode stood frowning for a moment. Some instinct warned her that she had missed something that might be important.

She brushed the feeling aside. This was the opening day of summer term, and she had many more parents to see. Never had her school been more popular, more assured of success. Meadowbank was at its zenith.

There was nothing to tell her that within a few weeks Meadowbank would be plunged into a sea of trouble; that disorder, confusion and murder would reign there, that already certain events had been set in motion…