Agatha Christie - Sad Cypress

"Mary. Mary Riley."

"That's all right. Put down you leaving everything to Mary Riley, sister of the late Eliza Gerrard of Hunterbury, Maidensford."

Mary bent over the form, writing. As she came to the end she shivered suddenly. A shadow had come between her and the sun. She looked up to see Elinor Carlisle standing outside the window looking in.

Elinor said, "What are you doing so busily?''

Nurse Hopkins said with a laugh, "She's making her will, that's what she's doing."

"Making her will?" Suddenly Elinor laughed – a strange laugh – almost hysterical.

She said, "So you're making your will, Mary. That's funny. That's very funny." Still laughing, she turned away and walked rapidly along the street.

Nurse Hopkins stared. "Did you ever? What's come to her?"

Elinor had not taken more than half a dozen steps – she was still laughing – when a hand fell on her arm from behind. She stopped abruptly and turned. Dr. Lord looked straight at her, his brow creased into a frown. He said peremptorily, "What were you laughing at?"

Elinor said, "Really – I don't know."

Peter Lord said, "That's rather a silly answer!"

Elinor flushed. She said, "I think I must be nervous or something. I looked in at the District Nurse's cottage and – and Mary Gerrard was writing out her will. It made me laugh; I don't know why!"

Lord said abruptly, "Don't you?"

Elinor said, "It was silly of me – I tell you – I'm nervous."

Peter Lord said, "I'll write you out a tonic."

Elinor said incisively, "How useful!"

He grinned disarmingly. "Quite useless, I agree. But it's the only thing one can do when people won't tell one what is the matter with them!"

Elinor said, "There's nothing the matter with me."

Peter Lord said calmly, "There's quite a lot the matter with you."

Elinor said, "I've had a certain amount of nervous strain I suppose."

He said, "I expect you've had quite a lot. But that's not what I'm talking about." He paused. "Are you – are you staying down here much longer?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow."

"You won't – live down here?"

Elinor shook her head. "No – never. I think – I think – I shall sell the place if I can get a good offer."

Dr. Lord said rather flatly, "I see."

Elinor said, "I must be getting home now."

She held out her hand very firmly. Peter Lord took it. He held it. He said very earnestly, "Miss Carlisle, will you please tell me what was in your mind when you laughed just now?"

She wrenched her hand away quickly. "What should there be in my mind?"

"That's what I'd like to know."

His face was grave and a little unhappy.

Elinor said impatiently, "It just struck me as funny, that was all!"

"That Mary Gerrard was making a will? Why? Making a will is a perfectly sensible procedure. Saves a lot of trouble. Sometimes, of course, it makes trouble!"

Elinor said impatiently, "Of course – everyone should make a will. I didn't mean that."

Dr. Lord said, "Mrs. Welman ought to have made a will."

Elinor said with feeling, "Yes, indeed."

The colour rose in her face.

Dr. Lord said unexpectedly, "What about you?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you said just now everyone should make a will! Have you?"

Elinor stared at him for a minute, then she laughed. "How extraordinary!" she said. "No, I haven't. I hadn't thought of it! I'm just like Aunt Laura. Do you know, Dr. Lord, I shall go home and write to Mr. Seddon about it at once."

Peter Lord said, "Very sensible."

In the library Elinor had just finished a letter:

DEAR Mr. Seddon, – Will you draft a will for me to sign? Quite a simple one. I want to leave everything to Roderick Welman absolutely.

Yours sincerely,

Elinor Carlisle.

She glanced at the clock. The post would be going in a few minutes. She opened the drawer of the desk, then remembered she had used the last stamp that morning. There were some in her bedroom she was sure. She went upstairs. When she re-entered the library with the stamp in her hand, Roddy was standing by the window.

He said, "So we leave here tomorrow. Good old Hunterbury. We've had some good times here."

Elinor said, "Do you mind its being sold?"

"Oh, no, no! I quite see it's the best thing to be done."

There was a silence. Elinor picked up her letter, glanced through it to see if it was all right. Then she sealed and stamped it.

Letter from Nurse O'Brien to Nurse Hopkins, July 14th: Laborough Court.

Dear Hopkins,

Have been meaning to write to you for some days now. This is a lovely house and the pictures, I believe, quite famous. But I can't say it's as comfortable as Hunterbury was, if you know what I mean. Being in the dead country it's difficult to get maids, and the girls they have got are a raw lot, and some of them not too obliging, and though I'm sure I'm never one to give trouble, meals sent up on a tray should at least be hot, and no facilities for boiling a kettle and the tea not always made with boiling water! Still, all that's neither here nor there. The patient's a nice quiet gentleman – double pneumonia, but the crisis is past.

What I've got to tell you that will really interest you is the very queerest coincidence you ever knew. In the drawingroom, on the grand piano, there's a photograph in a big silver frame, and would you believe it, it's the same photograph that I told you about – the one signed Lewis that old Mrs. Welman asked for.

Well, of course I was intrigued – and who wouldn't be? And I asked the butler who it was, which he answered at once saying it was Lady Rattery's brother – Sir Lewis Rycroft. He lived not far from here, and he was killed in the War. Very sad, wasn't it? I asked casual like was he married, and the butler said yes, but that Lady Rycroft went into an asylum, poor thing, soon after the marriage. She was still alive, he said. Now, isn't that interesting? And we were quite wrong, you see, in all our ideas. They must have been very fond of each other, he and Mrs. W., and unable to marry because of the wife being in an asylum. Just like the pictures, isn't it? And her remembering all those years and looking at his photograph just before she died. He was killed in 1917, the butler said. Quite a romance, that's what I feel.

No movies anywhere near here! Oh, it's awful to be buried in the country. No wonder they can't get decent maids!

Well, good-by for the present, dear, write and tell me all the news.

Yours sincerely,

ElLEEN O'BRIEN.

Letter from Nurse Hopkins to Nurse O'Brien, July 14th: Rose Cottage.

Dear O'BRIEN,

Everything goes on here much as usual. Hunterbury is deserted – all the servants gone and a board up: For Sale. I saw Mrs. Bishop the other day, she is staying with her sister who lives about a mile away. She was very upset, as you can imagine, at the place being sold. It seems she made sure Miss Carlisle would marry Mr. Welman and live there. Mrs. B. says that the engagement is off! Miss Carlisle went to London soon after you left. She was very peculiar in her manner once or twice. I really didn't know what to make of her! Mary Gerrard has gone to London and is starting to train for a masseuse. Very sensible of her, I think. Miss Carlisle's going to settle two thousand pounds on her, which I call very handsome and more than what many would do.

By the way, it's funny how things come about. Do you remember telling me something about a photograph signed Lewis that Mrs. Welman showed you? I was having a chat the other day with Mrs. Slattery (she was housekeeper to old Dr. Ransome who had the practice before Dr. Lord), and of course she's lived here all her life and knows a lot about the gentry round about. I just brought the subject up in a casual manner, speaking of Christian names and saying that the name of Lewis was uncommon and among others she mentioned Sir Lewis Rycroft over at Forbes Park. He served in the War in the 17th Lancers and was killed toward the end of the War. So I said he was a great friend of Mrs. Welman's at Hunterbury, wasn't he? And at once she gave me a look and said, Yes, very close friends they'd been, and some said more than friends, but that she herself wasn't one to talk – and why shouldn't they be friends? So I said but surely Mrs. Welman was a widow at the time, and she said. Oh, yes, she was a widow. So, dear, I saw at once she meant something by that, so I said it was odd then, that they'd never married, and she said at once, "They couldn't marry. He'd got a wife in an asylum!" So now, you see, we know all about it! Curious the way things come about, isn't it? Considering the easy way you get divorces nowadays, it does seem a shame that insanity shouldn't have been a ground for it then. Do you remember a good-looking young chap, Ted Bigland, who used to hang around after Mary Gerrard a lot? He's been at me for her address in London, but I haven't given it to him. In my opinion, Mary's a cut above Ted Bigland. I don't know if you realized it, dear, but Mr. R – - W – - was taken with her. A pity, because it's made trouble. Mark my words, that's the reason for the engagement between him and Miss Carlisle being off. And, if you ask me, it's hit her badly. I don't know what she saw in him, I'm sure – he wouldn't have been my cup of tea, but I hear from reliable sources that she's always been madly in love with him. It does seem a mix-up, doesn't it? And she's got all that money, too. I believe he was always led to expect his aunt would leave him something substantial.