Agatha Christie - Sparkling Cyanide

Iris merely said with what energy she could command, "I'm perfectly well, Aunt Lucilla."

"Black under the eyes," said Mrs Drake. "You've been doing too much."

"I've done nothing at all – for weeks."

"So you think, dear. But too much tennis is overtiring for young girls. And I think the air down here is inclined to be enervating. This place is in a hollow. If George had consulted me instead of that girl."

"Girl?"

"That Miss Lessing he thinks so much of. All very well in the office, I daresay – but a great mistake to take her out of her place. Encourage her to think herself one of the family. Not that she needs much encouragement, I should say."

"Oh, well, Aunt Lucilla, Ruth is practically one of the family."

Mrs Drake sniffed. "She means to be – that's quite clear. Poor George – really an infant in arms where women are concerned. But it won't do, Iris. George must be protected from himself and if I were you I should make it very clear that nice as Miss Lessing is, any idea of marriage is out of the question."

Iris was startled for a moment out of her apathy.

"I never thought of George marrying Ruth."

"You don't see what goes on under your nose, child. Of course you haven't had my experience of life." Iris smiled in spite of herself. Aunt Lucilla was really very funny sometimes. "That young woman is out for matrimony."

"Would it matter?" asked Iris.

"Matter? Of course it would matter."

"Wouldn't it really be rather nice?" Her aunt stared at her. "Nice for George, I mean. I think you're right about her, you know. I think she is fond of him. And she'd be an awfully good wife to him and look after him."

Mrs Drake snorted and an almost indignant expression appeared on her rather sheep-like amiable face.

"George is well looked after at present. What more can he want, I should like to know? Excellent meals and his mending seen to. Very pleasant for him to have an attractive young girl like you about the house and when you marry some day I should hope I was still capable of seeing to his comfort and looking after his health. Just as well or better than a young woman out of an office could do – what does she know about housekeeping? Figures and ledgers and shorthand and typing – what good is that in a man's home?"

Iris smiled and shook her head, but she did not argue the point. She was thinking of the smooth dark satin of Ruth's head, of the clear complexion and the figure so well set off by the severe tailor-mades that Ruth affected.

Poor Aunt Lucilla, all her mind on comfort and housekeeping, with romance so very far behind her that she had probably forgotten what it meant – if indeed, thought Iris, remembering her uncle by marriage, it had ever meant anything to her.

Lucilla Drake was Hector Marle's half-sister from the father's earlier marriage. When her stepmother died she had performed the part of a mother to Hector, who was much younger. Taking care of her father she went towards spinsterhood and was nearly forty when she met Reverend Caleb Drake, who himself was over fifty. Her married life had been short. Two years later she was a widow with a child…

Maternity, late and unexpected, had been the supreme experience in Lucilla's life. Her son became to her an anxiety, a source of suffering and a constant financial drain – but never a disappointment.

Mrs Drake refused to see in Victor anything more serious than a lovable weakness of character. Victor was too trusting, easily influenced by bad company, due to his trusting nature. Victor had bad luck; Victor was cheated on; he was only a pawn to bad men who exploited his innocence.

When any criticism to him was made, Mrs Drake's simple and nice face became hard and obstinate. She knew her son – a good boy with the best intentions, and his so-called friends took advantage of him. Lucilla knew how he hated having to beg her for money. But what could he do in such a terrible situation? He had nobody else to turn to.

Anyway, Lucilla had to admit that the invitation to live at George's house and take care of Iris was a godsend. Her life in that house during the last year had been happy and comfortable. And so she didn't like the idea of the young and efficient Ruth marrying George and evicting her from this place.

Miss Lessing was very presentable – but, thank goodness, there was one person at least who saw what she was up to!

Lucilla Drake nodded her head several times, causing her soft double chins to quiver, raised her eyebrows with an air of superb human sapience, and abandoned the subject for one equally interesting and possibly even more pressing.

"It's the blankets I can't make up my mind about, dear. You see, I can't get it clearly laid down whether we shan't be coming down again until next spring or whether George means to run down for weekends. He won't say."

"I suppose he doesn't really know." Iris tried to give her attention to a point that seemed completely unimportant. "If it was nice weather it might be fun to come down occasionally. Though I don't think I want to particularly. Still, the house will be here if we do want to come."

"Yes, dear, but one wants to know. Because, you see, if we aren't coming down until next year, then the blankets ought to be put away with moth balls. But if we are coming down, that wouldn't be necessary, because the blankets would be used – and the smell of moth balls is so unpleasant."

"Well, don't use them."

"Yes, but it's been such a hot summer there are a lot of moths about. Everyone says it's a bad year for moths. And for wasps, of course. Hawkins told me yesterday he's taken thirty wasps' nests this summer – thirty – just fancy –"

Iris thought of Hawkins – stalking out at dusk – cyanide in hand – Cyanide – Rosemary – Why did everything lead back to that?

The thin trickle of sound that was Aunt Lucilla's voice was going on – it had reached by now a different point –

"– and whether one ought to send the silver to the bank or not? Lady Alexandra was saying so many burglaries – though of course we do have good shutters – I don't like the way she does her hair myself – it makes her face look so hard – but I should think she was a hard woman. And nervy, too. Everyone is nervy nowadays. When I was a girl people didn't know what nerves were. Which reminds me that I don't like the look of George lately – I wonder if he could be going to have 'flu? I've wondered once or twice whether he was feverish. But perhaps it is some business worry. He looks to me, you know, as though he has got something on his mind."

Iris shivered, and Lucilla Drake exclaimed triumphantly: "There, I said you had a chill."

"How I wish that we had never ever come here."

Sandra Farraday uttered the words with such unusual bitterness that her husband turned to look at her in surprise. It was as though his own thoughts had been put into words – the thoughts that he had been trying so hard to conceal. So Sandra, too, felt as he did? She, too, had felt that Fairhaven was spoiled, its peace impaired, by these new neighbours a mile away across the Park.

He said, voicing his surprise impulsively: "I didn't know you felt like that about them, too."

Immediately, or so it seemed to him, she withdrew into herself.

"Neighbours are so very important in the country. One has either to be rude or friendly, one can't, as in London , just keep people as amiable acquaintances."

"No," said Stephen, "one can't do that."

"And now we are committed to this extraordinary party."

They were both silent, both running over in their minds the scene at lunch. George Barton had been friendly, even exuberant in manner, with a kind of undercurrent of excitement of which they had both been conscious. George Barton was really very odd these days. Stephen had never noticed him much in the time preceding Rosemary's death. George had just been there in the background, the kindly dull husband of a young and beautiful wife. Stephen had never even felt a pang of disquiet over the betrayal of George. George had been the kind of husband who was born to be betrayed. So much older – so devoid of the attractions necessary to hold an attractive and capricious woman. Had George himself been deceived? Stephen did not think so. George, he thought, knew Rosemary very well. He loved her, and he was the kind of man who was humble about his own powers of holding a wife's interest. All the same, George must have suffered…