Agatha Christie: Sad Cypress

An anonymous letter! Elinor Carlisle stood looking down at it as it lay open in her hand. She'd never had such a thing before. It gave one an unpleasant sensation. It's written, badly spelled, on cheap pink paper.

This is to Warn You,

I'm naming no Names but there's Someone sucking up to your Aunt and if you're not kareful you'll get Cut Out of Everything. Girls Are very Artful and Old Ladies is Soft when Young Ones suck up to Them and Flatter them What I say is You'd best come down and see for Yourself whats Going On its not right you and the Young Gentleman should be Done Out of What's yours – and She's Very Artful and the Old Lady might Pop off at any time.

Well-Wisher

Elinor was still staring at this missive, her plucked brows drawn together in distaste, when the door opened. The maid announced, "Mr. Welman," and Roddy came in. Roddy! As always when she saw Roddy, Elinor was conscious of a slightly giddy feeling, a throb of sudden pleasure, a feeling that it was incumbent upon her to be very matter-of-fact and unemotional. Because it was so very obvious that Roddy, although he loved her, didn't feel about her the way she felt about him. The first sight of him did something to her, twisted her heart round so that it almost hurt. Absurd that a man – an ordinary, yes, a perfectly ordinary young man – should be able to do that to one! That the mere look of him should set the world spinning, that his voice should make you want – just a little – to cry. Love surely should be a pleasurable emotion – not something that hurt you by its intensity.

One thing was clear: one must be very, very careful to be off-hand and casual about it all. Men didn't like devotion and adoration. Certainly Roddy didn't.

She said lightly, "Hallo, Roddy!"

Roddy said, "Hallo, darling. You're looking very tragic. Is it a bill?"

Elinor shook her head.

Roddy said, 'I thought it might be – midsummer, you know – when the fairies dance, and the accounts rendered come tripping along!"

Elinor said, "It's rather horrid. It's an anonymous letter."

Roddy's brows went up. His keen, fastidious face stiffened and changed. He said – a sharp, disgusted exclamation, "No!"

Elinor said again, "It's rather horrid…" She moved a step toward her desk. "I'd better tear it up, I suppose."

She could have done that – she almost did – for Roddy and anonymous letters were two things that ought not to come together. She might have thrown it away and thought no more about it. He would not have stopped her. His fastidiousness was far more strongly developed than his curiosity.

But on an impulse Elinor decided differently. She said, "Perhaps, though, you'd better read it first. Then we'll burn it. It's about Aunt Laura."

Roddy's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Aunt Laura?"

He took the letter, read it, gave a frown of distaste, and handed it back. "Yes," he said. "Definitely to be burned! How extraordinary people are!"

Elinor said, "One of the servants, do you think?"

"I suppose so." He hesitated. "I wonder who – who the person is – the one they mention?"

Elinor said thoughtfully, "It must be Mary Gerrard, I think."

Roddy frowned in an effort of remembrance. "Mary Gerrard? Who is she?"

"The daughter of the people at the lodge. You must remember her as a child? Aunt Laura was always fond of the girl, and took an interest in her. She paid for her schooling and for various extras – piano lessons and French and things."

Roddy said, "Oh, yes, I remember her now; scrawny kid, all legs and arms, with a lot of messy fair hair."

Elinor nodded. "Yes, you probably haven't seen her since those summer holidays when Mum and Dad were abroad. You've not been down at Hunterbury as often as I have, of course, and she's been abroad au pair in Germany lately, but we used to rout her out and play with her when we were all kids."

"What's she like now?" asked Roddy.

Elinor said, "She's turned out very nice-looking. Good manners and all that. As a result of her education, you'd never take her for old Gerrard's daughter."

"Gone all lady-like, has she?"

"Yes. I think, as a result of that, she doesn't get on very well at the lodge. Mrs. Gerrard died some years ago, you know, and Mary and her father don't get on. He jeers at her schooling and her "fine ways.'"

Roddy said irritably, "People never dream what harm they may do by 'educating' someone! Often it's cruelty, not kindness!"

Elinor said, "I suppose she is up at the house a good deal. She reads aloud to Aunt Laura, I know, since she had her stroke."

Roddy said, "Why can't the nurse read to her?"

Elinor said with a smile, "Nurse O'Brien's got a brogue you can cut with a knife! I don't wonder Aunt Laura prefers Mary."

Roddy walked rapidly and nervously up and down the room for a minute or two. Then he said, "You know, Elinor, I believe we ought to go down."

Elinor said with a slight recoil, "Because of this -?"

"No, no – not at all. Oh, damn it all, one must be honest, yes! Foul as that communication is, there may be some truth behind it. I mean, the old girl is pretty ill -"

"Yes, Roddy."

He looked at her with his charming smile – admitting the fallibility of human nature. He said, "And the money does matter – to you and me, Elinor."

She admitted it quickly: "Oh, it does."

He said seriously, "It's not that I'm mercenary. But, after all, Aunt Laura herself has said over and over again that you and I are her only family ties. You're her own niece, her brother's child, and I'm her husband's nephew. She's always given us to understand that at her death all she's got would come to one or the other – or more probably both – of us. And -it's a pretty large sum, Elinor."

"Yes," said Elinor thoughtfully. "It must be."

"It's no joke keeping up Hunterbury." He paused. "Uncle Henry was what you'd call, I suppose, comfortably off when he met your Aunt Laura. But she was an heiress. She and your father were both left very wealthy. Pity your father speculated and lost most of his."

Elinor sighed. "Poor father never had much business sense. He got very worried over things before he died."

"Yes, your Aunt Laura had a much better head than he had. She married Uncle Henry and they bought Hunterbury, and she told me the other day that she'd been exceedingly lucky always in her investments. Practically nothing had slumped."

"Uncle Henry left all he had to her when he died, didn't he?"

Roddy nodded. "Yes, tragic his dying so soon. And she's never married again. Faithful old bean. And she's always been very good to us. She's treated me as if I were her nephew by blood. If I've been in a hole she's helped me out; luckily I haven't done that too often!"

"She's been awfully generous to me, too," said Elinor gratefully.

Roddy nodded. "Aunt Laura," he said, "is a brick. But, you know, Elinor, perhaps without meaning to do so, you and I live pretty extravagantly, considering what our means really are!"

She said ruefully, "I suppose, we do. Everything costs so much – clothes and one's face – and just silly things like movies and cocktails – and even gramophone records!"

Roddy said, "Darling, you are one of the lilies of the field, aren't you? You toil not, neither do you spin!"

Elinor said, "Do you think I ought to, Roddy?"

He shook his head. "I like you as you are: delicate and aloof and ironical. I'd hate you to go all earnest. I'm only saying that if it weren't for Aunt Laura you probably would be working at some grim job."

He went on: "The same with me. I've got a job, of sorts. Being with Lewis Hume is not too arduous. It suits me. I preserve my self-respect by having a job; but – mark this – but I don't worry about the future because of my expectations – from Aunt Laura."