Agatha Christie - Sparkling Cyanide

She would have liked to forget – but everything conspired to make her remember.

Even Fairhaven was no longer exempt now that George Barton had come to live at Little Priors.

It was really rather extraordinary of him. George Barton was altogether an odd man. Not at all the kind of neighbour she liked to have. His presence at Little Priors spoiled for her the charm and peace of Fairhaven .

Always, up to this summer, it had been a place of healing and rest, a place where she and Stephen had been happy – that is, if they ever had been happy?

Her lips pressed thinly together. Yes, a thousand times, yes! They could have been happy but for Rosemary. It was Rosemary who had shattered the delicate edifice of mutual trust and tenderness that she and Stephen were beginning to build. Something, some instinct, had bade her hide from Stephen her own passion, her single-hearted devotion. She had loved him from the moment he came across the room to her that day at Kidderminster House, pretending to be shy, pretending not to know who she was.

For he had known. She could not say when she had first accepted that fact. Some time after their marriage, the day when he was expounding some neat piece of political manipulation necessary to the passing of some Bill.

The thought had flashed across her mind then: "This reminds me of something. What?" Later she realised that it was, in essence, the same tactics he had used that day at Kidderminster House. She accepted the knowledge without surprise, as though it were something of which she had had long been aware, but which had only just risen to the surface of her mind.

From the day of their marriage she had realised that he did not love her in the same way as she loved him. But she thought it possible that he was actually incapable of such a love. That power of loving her was her own unhappy heritage. To care with a desperation, an intensity that was, she knew, unusual among women! She would have died for him willingly; she was ready to lie for him, scheme for him, suffer for him! Instead she accepted with pride and reserve the place he wanted her to fill. He wanted her co-operation, her sympathy, her active and intellectual help. He wanted of her, not her heart, but her brains, and those material advantages which birth had given her.

One thing she would never do, embarrass him by the expression of a devotion to which he could make no adequate return. And she did believe honestly that he liked her, that he took pleasure in her company. She foresaw a future in which her burden would be immeasurably lightened – a future of tenderness and friendship.

In his way, she thought, he loved her.

And then Rosemary came.

She wondered sometimes, with a wry painful twist of the lips, how it was that he could imagine that she did not know. She had known from the first minute – up there at St Moritz – when she had first seen the way he looked at the woman.

She had known the very day the woman became his mistress.

She knew the scent the creature used…

She could read in Stephen's polite face, with eyes abstracted, just what his memories were, what he was thinking about – that woman – the woman he had just left!

It was difficult, she thought dispassionately, to assess the suffering she had been through. Enduring, day after day, the tortures of the damned, with nothing to carry her through but her belief in courage – her own natural pride. She would not show, she would never show, what she was feeling. She lost weight, grew thinner and paler, the bones of her head and shoulders showing more distinctly with the flesh stretched tightly over them. She forced herself to eat, but could not force herself to sleep. She lay long nights, with dry eyes, staring into darkness. She despised the taking of drugs as weakness. She would hang on. To show herself hurt, to plead, to protest – all these things were abhorrent to her.

She had one crumb of comfort, a meagre one – Stephen did not wish to leave her.

Granted that that was for the sake of his career, not out of fondness for her, still the fact remained. He did not want to leave her.

Some day, perhaps, the infatuation would pass…

What could he, after all, see in the girl? She was attractive, beautiful – but so were other women. What did he find in Rosemary Barton that infatuated him?

She was brainless – silly – and not – she clung to this point especially – not even particularly amusing. If she had had wit, charm and provocation of manner – those were the things that held men. Sandra clung to the belief that the thing would end – that Stephen would tire of it.

She was convinced that the main interest in his life was his work. He was marked out for great things and he knew it. He had a fine statesmanlike brain and he delighted in using it. It was his appointed task in life. Surely once the infatuation began to wane he would realise that fact?

Never for one minute did Sandra consider leaving him. The idea never even came to her. She was his, body and soul, to take or discard. He was her life, her existence. Love burned in her with a medieval force.

There was a moment when she had hope.

They went down to Fairhaven . Stephen seemed more his normal self. She felt suddenly a renewal of the old sympathy between them. Hope rose in her heart. He wanted her still, he enjoyed her company, he relied on her judgment. For the moment, he had escaped from the clutches of that woman.

He looked happier, more like his own self. Nothing was irretrievably ruined. He was getting over it. If only he could make up his mind to break with her…

Then they went back to London and Stephen relapsed. He looked haggard, worried, ill. He began to be unable to fix his mind on his work.

She thought she knew the cause. Rosemary wanted him to go away with her… He was making up his mind to take the step – to break with everything he cared about most. Folly! Madness! He was the type of man with whom his work would always come first – a very English type. He must know that himself, deep down – Yes, but Rosemary was very lovely – and very stupid. Stephen would not be the first man who had thrown away his career for a woman and been sorry afterwards!

Sandra caught a few words – a phrase one day at a cocktail party.

"… telling George – got to make up our minds."

It was soon after that that Rosemary went down with 'flu.

A little hope rose in Sandra's heart. Suppose she were to get pneumonia – people did after 'flu – a young friend of hers had died that way only last winter. If Rosemary died –

She did not try to repress the thought – she was not horrified at herself. She was medieval enough to hate with a steady and untroubled mind.

She hated Rosemary Barton. If thoughts could kill, she would have killed her. But thoughts do not kill –

Thoughts are not enough…

How beautiful Rosemary had looked that night at the Luxembourg with her pale fox furs slipping off her shoulders in the ladies' cloak-room. Thinner, paler since her illness – an air of delicacy made her beauty more ethereal. She had stood in front of the glass touching up her face…

Sandra, behind her, looked at their joint reflection in the mirror. Her own face like something sculptured, cold lifeless. No feeling there, you would have said – a cold hard woman.

And then Rosemary said: "Oh, Sandra, am I taking all the glass? I've finished now. This horrid 'flu has pulled me down a lot. I look a sight. And I feel weak and headachy."

Sandra had asked with quiet polite concern: "Have you got a headache tonight?"

"Just a bit of one. You haven't got an aspirin, have you?"

"I've got a Cachet Faivre."

She had opened her handbag, taken out the cachet. Rosemary had accepted it. "I'll take it in my bag in case."