“You must have X-ray eyes,” I said. “She looks completely shapeless to me.”
Mary Grey laughed.
“It’s these schools,” she said. “They seem to take a pride in turning out girls who preen themselves on looking like nothing on earth. They call it being sweet and unsophisticated. Sometimes it takes a whole season before a girl can pull herself together and look human. Don’t worry, leave it all to me.”
“Right,” I said. “I’ll come back and fetch her about six.”
II
Marcus Kent was pleased with me. He told me that I surpassed his wildest expectations.
“You must have the constitution of an elephant,” he said, “to make a comeback like this. Oh well, wonderful what country air and no late hours or excitements will do for a man if he can only stick it.”
“I grant you your first two,” I said. “But don’t think that the country is free from excitements. We’ve had a good deal in my part.”
“What sort of excitement?”
“Murder,” I said.
Marcus Kent pursed up his mouth and whistled.
“Some bucolic love tragedy? Farmer lad kills his lass?”
“Not at all. A crafty, determined lunatic killer.”
“I haven’t read anything about it. When did they lay him by the heels?”
“They haven’t, and it’s a she!”
“Whew! I’m not sure that Lymstock’s quite the right place for you, old boy.”
I said firmly:
“Yes, it is. And you’re not going to get me out of it.”
Marcus Kent has a low mind. He said at once:
“So that’s it! Found a blonde?”
“Not at all,” I said, with a guilty thought of Elsie Holland. “It’s merely that the psychology of crime interests me a good deal.”
“Oh, all right. It certainly hasn’t done you any harm so far, but just make sure that your lunatic killer doesn’t obliterate you.”
“No fear of that,” I said.
“What about dining with me this evening? You can tell me all about your revolting murder.”
“Sorry. I’m booked.”
“Date with a lady—eh? Yes, you’re definitely on the mend.”
“I suppose you could call it that,” I said, rather tickled at the idea of Megan in the role.
I was at Mirotin’s at six o’clock when the establishment was officially closing. Mary Grey came to meet me at the top of the stairs outside the showroom. She had a finger to her lips.
“You’re going to have a shock! If I say it myself, I’ve put in a good bit of work.”
I went into the big showroom. Megan was standing looking at herself in a long mirror. I give you my word I hardly recognized her! For the minute it took my breath away. Tall and slim as a willow with delicate ankles and feet shown off by sheer silk stockings and well-cut shoes. Yes, lovely feet and hands, small bones—quality and distinction in every line of her. Her hair had been trimmed and shaped to her head and it was glowing like a glossy chestnut. They’d had the sense to leave her face alone. She was not made-up, or if she was it was so light and delicate that it did not show. Her mouth needed no lipstick.
Moreover there was about her something that I had never seen before, a new innocent pride in the arch of her neck. She looked at me gravely with a small shy smile.
“I do look—rather nice, don’t I?” said Megan.
“Nice?” I said. “Nice isn’t the word! Come on out to dinner and if every second man doesn’t turn round to look at you I’ll be surprised. You’ll knock all the other girls into a cocked hat.”
Megan was not beautiful, but she was unusual and striking looking. She had personality. She walked into the restaurant ahead of me and, as the head waiter hurried towards us, I felt the thrill of idiotic pride that a man feels when he has got something out of the ordinary with him.
We had cocktails first and lingered over them. Then we dined. And later we danced. Megan was keen to dance and I didn’t want to disappoint her, but for some reason or other I hadn’t thought she would dance well. But she did. She was light as a feather in my arms, and her body and feet followed the rhythm perfectly.
“Gosh!” I said. “You can dance!”
She seemed a little surprised. “Well, of course I can. We had dancing class every week at school.”
“It takes more than dancing class to make a dancer,” I said.
We went back to our table.
“Isn’t this food lovely?” said Megan. “And everything!”
She heaved a delighted sigh.
“Exactly my sentiments,” I said.
It was a delirious evening. I was still mad. Megan brought me down to earth when she said doubtfully:
“Oughtn’t we to be going home?”
My jaw dropped. Yes, definitely I was mad. I had forgotten everything! I was in a world divorced from reality, existing in it with the creature I had created.
“Good Lord!” I said.
I realized that the last train had gone.
“Stay there,” I said. “I’m going to telephone.”
I rang up the Llewellyn Hire people and ordered their biggest and fastest car to come round as soon as possible.
I came back to Megan. “The last train has gone,” I said. “So we’re going home by car.”
“Are we? What fun!”
What a nice child she was, I thought. So pleased with everything, so unquestioning, accepting all my suggestions without fuss or bother.
The car came, and it was large and fast, but all the same it was very late when we came into Lymstock.
Suddenly conscience-stricken, I said, “They’ll have been sending out search parties for you!”
But Megan seemed in an equable mood. She said vaguely:
“Oh, I don’t think so. I often go out and don’t come home for lunch.”
“Yes, my dear child, but you’ve been out for tea and dinner too.”
However, Megan’s lucky star was in the ascendant. The house was dark and silent. On Megan’s advice, we went round to the back and threw stones at Rose’s window.
In due course Rose looked out and with many suppressed exclamations and palpitations came down to let us in.
“Well now, and I saying you were asleep in your bed. The master and Miss Holland”—(slight sniff after Miss Holland’s name)—“had early supper and went for a drive. I said I’d keep an eye to the boys. I thought I heard you come in when I was up in the nursery trying to quiet Colin, who was playing up, but you weren’t about when I came down so I thought you’d gone to bed. And that’s what I said when the master came in and asked for you.”
I cut short the conversation by remarking that that was where Megan had better go now.
“Good night,” said Megan, “and thank you awfully. It’s been the loveliest day I’ve ever had.”
I drove home slightly light-headed still, and tipped the chauffeur handsomely, offering him a bed if he liked. But he preferred to drive back through the night.
The hall door had opened during our colloquy and as he drove away it was flung wide open and Joanna said:
“So it’s you at last, is it?”
“Were you worried about me?” I asked, coming in and shutting the door.
Joanna went into the drawing room and I followed her. There was a coffee pot on the trivet and Joanna made herself coffee whilst I helped myself to a whisky and soda.
“Worried about you? No, of course not. I thought you’d decided to stay in town and have a binge.”
“I’ve had a binge—of a kind.”
I grinned and then began to laugh.
Joanna asked what I was laughing at and I told her.
“But Jerry, you must have been mad—quite mad!”
“I suppose I was.”
“But, my dear boy, you can’t do things like that—not in a place like this. It will be all round Lymstock tomorrow.”
“I suppose it will. But, after all, Megan’s only a child.
”
“She isn’t. She’s twenty. You can’t take a girl of twenty to London and buy her clothes without a most frightful scandal. Good gracious, Jerry, you’ll probably have to marry the girl.”
Joanna was half serious, half laughing.
It was at that moment that I made a very important discovery. “Damn it all,” I said. “I don’t mind if I do. In fact— I should like it.”
A very funny expression came over Joanna’s face. She got up and said dryly, as she went towards the door:
“Yes, I’ve known that for some time….”
She left me standing, glass in hand, aghast at my new discovery.
Twelve
I
I don’t know what the usual reactions are of a man who goes to propose marriage.
In fiction his throat is dry and his collar feels too tight and he is in a pitiable state of nervousness. I didn’t feel at all like that. Having thought of a good idea I just wanted to get it all settled as soon as possible. I didn’t see any particular need for embarrassment.
I went along to the Symmingtons’ house about eleven o’clock. I rang the bell and when Rose came, I asked for Miss Megan. It was the knowing look that Rose gave me that first made me feel slightly shy.
She put me in the little morning room and whilst waiting there I hoped uneasily that they hadn’t been upsetting Megan.
When the door opened and I wheeled round, I was instantly relieved. Megan was not looking shy or upset at all. Her head was still like a glossy chestnut, and she wore that air of pride and self-respect that she had acquired yesterday. She was in her old clothes again but she had managed to make them look different. It’s wonderful what knowledge of her own attractiveness will do for a girl. Megan, I realized suddenly, had grown up.
I suppose I must really have been rather nervous, otherwise I should not have opened the conversation by saying affectionately, “Hallo, catfish!” It was hardly, in the circumstances, a lover-like greeting.
It seemed to suit Megan. She grinned and said, “Hallo!”
“Look here,” I said. “You didn’t get into a row about yesterday, I hope?”
Megan said with assurance, “Oh, no,” and then blinked, and said vaguely, “Yes, I believe I did. I mean, they said a lot of things and seemed to think it had been very odd—but then you know what people are and what fusses they make all about nothing.”
I was relieved to find that shocked disapproval had slipped off Megan like water off a duck’s back.
“I came round this morning,” I said, “because I’ve a suggestion to make. You see I like you a lot, and I think you like me—”
“Frightfully,” said Megan with rather disquieting enthusiasm.
“And we get on awfully well together, so I think it would be a good idea if we got married.”
“Oh,” said Megan.
She looked surprised. Just that. Not startled. Not shocked. Just mildly surprised.
“You mean you really want to marry me?” she asked with the air of one getting a thing perfectly clear.
“More than anything in the world,” I said—and I meant it.
“You mean, you’re in love with me?”
“I’m in love with you.”
Her eyes were steady and grave. She said:
“I think you’re the nicest person in the world—but I’m not in love with you.”
“I’ll make you love me.”
“That wouldn’t do. I don’t want to be made.”
She paused and then said gravely: “I’m not the sort of wife for you. I’m better at hating than at loving.”
She said it with a queer intensity.
I said, “Hate doesn’t last. Love does.”
“Is that true?”
“It’s what I believe.”
Again there was a silence. Then I said:
“So it’s ‘No,’ is it?”
“Yes, it’s no.”
“And you don’t encourage me to hope?”
“What would be the good of that?”
“None whatever,” I agreed, “quite redundant, in fact—because I’m going to hope whether you tell me to or not.”
II
Well, that was that. I walked away from the house feeling slightly dazed but irritatingly conscious of Rose’s passionately interested gaze following me.
Rose had had a good deal to say before I could escape.
That she’d never felt the same since that awful day! That she wouldn’t have stayed except for the children and being sorry for poor Mr. Symmington. That she wasn’t going to stay unless they got another maid quick—and they wouldn’t be likely to do that when there had been a murder in the house! That it was all very well for that Miss Holland to say she’d do the housework in the meantime. Very sweet and obliging she was—Oh yes, but it was mistress of the house that she was fancying herself going to be one fine day! Mr. Symmington, poor man, never saw anything—but one knew what a widower was, a poor helpless creature made to be the prey of a designing woman. And that it wouldn’t be for want of trying if Miss Holland didn’t step into the dead mistress’s shoes!
I assented mechanically to everything, yearning to get away and unable to do so because Rose was holding firmly on to my hat whilst she indulged in her flood of spite.
I wondered if there was any truth in what she said. Had Elsie Holland envisaged the possibility of becoming the second Mrs. Symmington? Or was she just a decent kindhearted girl doing her best to look after a bereaved household?
The result would quite likely be the same in either case. And why not? Symmington’s young children needed a mother—Elsie was a decent soul—beside being quite indecently beautiful—a point which a man might appreciate—even such a stuffed fish as Symmington!
I thought all this, I know, because I was trying to put off thinking about Megan.
You may say that I had gone to ask Megan to marry me in an absurdly complacent frame of mind and that I deserved what I got—but it was not really like that. It was because I felt so assured, so certain, that Megan belonged to me—that she was my business, that to look after her and make her happy and keep her from harm was the only natural right way of life for me, that I had expected her to feel, too, that she and I belonged to each other.
But I was not giving up. Oh no! Megan was my woman and I was going to have her.
After a moment’s thought, I went to Symmington’s office. Megan might pay no attention to strictures on her conduct, but I would like to get things straight.
Mr. Symmington was disengaged, I was told, and I was shown into his room. By a pinching of the lips, and an additional stiffness of manner, I gathered that I was not exactly popular at the moment.
“Good morning,” I said. “I’m afraid this isn’t a professional call, but a personal one. I’ll put it plainly. I dare say you’ll have realized that I’m in love with Megan. I’ve asked her to marry me and she has refused. But I’m not taking that as final.”
I saw Symmington’s expression change, and I read his mind with ludicrous ease. Megan was a disharmonious element in his house. He was, I felt sure, a just and kindly man, and he would never have dreamed of not providing a home for his dead wife’s daughter. But her marriage to me would certainly be a relief. The frozen halibut thawed. He gave me a pale cautious smile.
“Frankly, do you know, Burton, I had no idea of such a thing. I know you’ve taken a lot of notice of her, but we’ve always regarded her as such a child.”
“She’s not a child,” I said shortly.
“No, no, not in years.”
“She can be her age anytime she’s allowed to be,” I said, still slightly angry. “She’s not twenty-one, I know, but she will be in a month or two. I’ll let you have all the information about myself you want. I’m well off and have led quite a decent life. I’ll look after her and do all I can to make her happy.”
“Quite—quite. Still, it’s up to Megan herself.”
“She’ll come round in time,” I said. “But I
just thought I’d like to get straight with you about it.”
He said he appreciated that, and we parted amicably.
III
I ran into Miss Emily Barton outside. She had a shopping basket on her arm.
“Good morning, Mr. Burton, I hear you went to London yesterday.”
Yes, she had heard all right. Her eyes were, I thought, kindly, but full of curiosity, too.
“I went to see my doctor,” I said.
Miss Emily smiled.
That smile made little of Marcus Kent. She murmured:
“I hear Megan nearly missed the train. She jumped in when it was going.”
“Helped by me,” I said. “I hauled her in.”
“How lucky you were there. Otherwise there might have been an accident.”
It is extraordinary how much of a fool one gentle inquisitive old maiden lady can make a man feel!
I was saved further suffering by the onslaught of Mrs. Dane Calthrop. She had her own tame elderly maiden lady in tow, but she herself was full of direct speech.
“Good morning,” she said. “I heard you’ve made Megan buy herself some decent clothes? Very sensible of you. It takes a man to think of something really practical like that. I’ve been worried about that girl for a long time. Girls with brains are so liable to turn into morons, aren’t they?”
With which remarkable statement, she shot into the fish shop.
Miss Marple, left standing by me, twinkled a little and said:
“Mrs. Dane Calthrop is a very remarkable woman, you know. She’s nearly always right.”
“It makes her rather alarming,” I said.
“Sincerity has that effect,” said Miss Marple.
Mrs. Dane Calthrop shot out of the fish shop again and rejoined us. She was holding a large red lobster.
“Have you ever seen anything so unlike Mr. Pye?” she said—“very virile and handsome, isn’t it?”
IV
I was a little nervous of meeting Joanna but I found when I got home that I needn’t have worried. She was out and she did not return for lunch. This aggrieved Partridge a good deal, who said sourly as she proffered two loin chops in an entrée dish: “Miss Burton said specially as she was going to be in.”