They Do It With Mirrors - Christie Agatha. Страница 5

They turned in through some imposing gates where a Commissionaire was standing on duty in a military manner and drove up a drive flanked with rhododen-drons.

The drive was badly kept and the grounds seemed neglected.

Interpreting her companion's glance, Gina said, 'No gardeners during the war, and since we haven't bothered.

But it does look rather terrible.'

They came round a curve and Stonygates appeared in its full gloryl It was, as Gina had said, a vast edifice of Victorian Gothic - a kind of temple to Plutocracy.

Philanthropy had added to it in various wings and out-buildings which, while not positively dissimilar in style, had robbed the structure as a whole of any cohesion or purpose.

'Hideous, isn't it?' said Gina affectionately. 'There's Grandam on the terrace. I'll stop here and you can go and meet her.'

Miss Marple advanced along the terrace towards her old friend.

From a distance, the slim little figure looked curiously girlish in spite of the stick on which she leaned and her slow and obviously rather painful progress. It was as though a young girl was giving an exaggerated imitation of old age.

'Jane,' said Mrs Serrocold.

'Dear Carrie Louise.'

Yes, unmistakably Carrie Louise. Strangely unchanged, strangely youthful still, although, unlike her sister, she used no cosmetics or artificial aids to youth.

Her hair was grey, but it had always been of a silvery fairness and the colour had changed very little. Her skin had still a rose leaf pink and white appearance, though now it was a crumpled rose leaf. Her eyes had still their starry innocent glance. She had the slender youthful figure of a girl and her head kept its eager birdlike tilt.

'I do blame myself,' said Carrie Louise in her sweet voice, 'for letting it be so long. Years since I saw you, Jane dear. It's just lovely that you've come at last to pay us a visit here.' From the end of the terrace Gina called: 'You ought to come in, Grandam. It's getting cold and Jolly will be furious.' Carrie Louise gave her little silvery laugh.

'They all fuss about me so,' she said. 'They rub it in that I'm an old woman.' 'And you don't feel like one.' 'No, I don't, Jane. In spite of all my aches and pains and I've got plenty. Inside I go on feeling just a chit like Gina. Perhaps everyone does. The glass shows them how old they are and they just don't believe it. It seems only a few months ago that we were at Florence. Do you remember Fraulein Schweich and her boots?' The two elderly women laughed together at events that had happened nearly half a century ago.

They walked together to a side door. In the doorway a gaunt elderly lady met them. She had an arrogant nose, a short haircut and wore stout well-cut tweeds.

She said fiercely: 'It's absolutely crazy of you, Cara, to stay out so late.

You're absolutely incapable of taking care of yourself.

What will Mr Serrocold say?'

'Don't scold me, Jolly,' said Carrie Louise pleadingly.

She introduced Miss Believer to Miss Marple.

'This is Miss Bellever, who is simply everything to me.

Nurse, dragon, watchdog, secretary, housekeeper and very faithful friend.' Juliet Bellever sniffed, and the end of her big nose turned rather pink, a sign of emotion.

'I do what I can,' she said gruffly. 'This is a crazy household. You simply can't arrange any kind of planned routine.' 'Darling Jolly, of course you can't. I wonder why you ever try. Where are you putting Miss Marple?' 'In the Blue Room. Shall I take her up?' asked Miss Believer.

'Yes, please do, Jolly. And then bring her down to tea.

It's in the library today, I think.' The Blue Room had heavy curtains of a rich faded blue brocade that must have been, Miss Marple thought, about fifty years old. The furniture was mahogany, big and solid, and the bed was a vast mahogany fourposter.

Miss Bellever opened a door into a connecting bathroom.

This was unexpectedly modern, orchid in colouring and with much dazzling chromium.

She observed grimly: 'John Restarick had ten bathrooms put into the house when he married Cara. The plumbing is about the only thing that's ever been modernized. He wouldn't hear of the rest being altered - said the whole place was a perfect Period Piece. Did you ever know him at all?' 'No, I never met him. Mrs Serrocold and I have met very seldom though we have always corresponded.' 'He was an agreeable fellow,' said Miss Believer. 'No good, of course! A complete rotter. But pleasant to have about the house. Great charm. Women liked him far too much. That was his undoing in the end. Not really Cara's type.'

She added with a brusque resumption of her practical manner:

'The housemaid will unpack for you. Do you want a wash before tea?'

Receiving an affirmative answer, she said that Miss Marple would find her waiting at the top of the stairs.

Miss Marple went into the bathroom and washed her hands and dried them a little nervously on a very beautiful orchid-coloured face towel. Then she removed her hat and patted her soft white hair into place.

Opening her door, she found Miss Bellever waiting for her, and was conducted down the big gloomy staircase and across a vast dark hall and into a room where bookshelves went up to the ceiling and a big window looked out over an artificial lake.

Carrie Louise was standing by the window and Miss Marple joined her.

'What a very imposing house this is,' said Miss Marple. 'I feel quite lost in it.'

'Yes, I know. It's ridiculous, really. It was built by a prosperous iron master - or something of that kind. He went bankrupt not long after. I don't wonder really.

There were about fourteen living-rooms - all enormous.

I've never seen what people can want with more than one sitting-room. And all those huge bedrooms. Such a lot of unnecessary space. Mine is terribly overpowering - and quite a long way to walk from the bed to the dressing table. And great heavy dark crimson curtains.'

'You haven't had it modernized and redecorated?' Carrie Louise looked vaguely surprised.

'No. On the whole it's very much as it was when I first lived here with Eric. It's been repainted, of course, but they always do it the same colour. Those things don't really matter, do they? I mean I shouldn't have felt justified in spending a lot of money on that kind of thing when there are so many things that are so much more important.'

'Have there been no changes at all in the house?, 'Oh - yes - heaps of them. We've just kept a kind of block in the middle of the house as it was - the Great Hall and the rooms off and over. They're the best ones and Johnnie - my second husband - was lyrical over them and said they should never be touched or altered - and of course he was an artist and a designer and he knew about these things. But the East and West wings have been completely remodelled. All the rooms partitioned off and divided up, so that we have offices, and bedrooms for the teaching staff, and all that. The boys are all in the College building - you can see it from here.'

Miss Marple looked out towards where large red brick buildings showed through a belt of sheltered trees. Then her eyes fell on something nearer at hand, and she smiled a little.

'What a very beautiful girl Gina is,' she said.

Carrie Louise's face lit up.

'Yes, isn't she?' she said softly. 'It's so lovely to have her back here again. I sent her to America at the beginning of the war - to Ruth. Did Ruth talk about her at all?'

'No. At least she did just mention her.'

Carrie Louise sighed.

'Poor Ruth! She was frightfully upset over Gina's marriage. But I've told her again and again that I don't blame her in the least. Ruth doesn't realize, as I do, that the old barriers and class shibboleths are gone - or at any rate are going.

'Gina was doing her war work- and she met this young man. He was a Marine and had a very good war record.