Agatha Christie - Sparkling Cyanide

He paused, and then went on: "It was here, at Fairhaven , that I woke up and realised the truth."

"The truth?"

"That the only thing in life that mattered to me was you – and keeping your love."

"If I had only known…"

"What did you think?"

"I thought you were planning to go away with her."

"With Rosemary?" He gave a short laugh. "That would have been penal servitude for life!"

"Didn't she want you to go away with her?"

"Yes, she did."

"What happened?"

Stephen drew a deep breath. They were back again. Facing once more that intangible menace. He said: "The Luxembourg happened."

They were both silent, seeing, they both knew, the same thing. The blue cyanosed face of a once lovely woman.

Staring at a dead woman, and then looking up to meet each other's eyes…

Stephen said: "Forget it, Sandra, for God's sake, let us forget it!"

"It's no use forgetting. We're not going to be allowed to forget."

There was a pause. Then Sandra said: "What are we going to do?"

"What you said to me just now. Face things – together. Go to this horrible party whatever the reason for it may be."

"You don't believe what George Barton said about Iris?"

"No. Do you?"

"It could be true. But even if it is, it's not the real reason."

"What do you think the real reason is?"

"I don't know, Stephen. But I'm afraid."

"Of George Barton?"

"Yes, I think he – knows."

Stephen said sharply: "Knows what?"

She turned her head slowly until her eyes met his.

She said in a whisper: "We mustn't be afraid. We must have courage – all the courage in the world. You're going to be a great man, Stephen – a man all the world needs – and nothing shall interfere with that. I'm your wife and I love you."

"What do you think this party is, Sandra?"

"I think it's a trap."

He said slowly, "And we walk into it?"

"We can't afford to show we know it's a trap."

"No, that's true."

Suddenly Sandra threw back her head and laughed. She said: "Do your worst, Rosemary. You won't win."

He gripped her shoulder. "Be quiet, Sandra, Rosemary's dead."

"Is she? Sometimes – she feels very much alive…"

Half-way across the Park, Iris said:

"Do you mind if I don't come back with you, George? I feel like a walk. I thought I'd go up over Friar's Hill and come down through the wood. I've had an awful headache all day."

"My poor child. Do go. I won't come with you – I'm expecting a fellow along sometime this afternoon and I'm not quite sure when he'll turn up."

"Right. Good-bye till tea-time."

She turned abruptly and made off at right angles to where a belt of larches showed on the hillside.

When she came out on the brow of the hill she drew a deep breath. It was one of those close humid days common in October. A dank moisture coated the leaves of the trees and the grey cloud hung very low overhead promising yet more rain shortly. There was not really much more air up here on the hill than there had been in the valley, but Iris felt nevertheless as though she could breathe more freely.

"Oh, not the hatred – if true. I meant your use of the word 'us.' My question referred to you personally."

"Oh, I see… I think they like me quite well in a negative sort of way. I think it's us as a family living next door that they mind about. We weren't particular friends of theirs – they were Rosemary's friends."

"Yes," said Anthony, "as you say they were Rosemary's friends – not that I should imagine Sandra Farraday and Rosemary were ever bosom friends, eh?"

"No," said Iris, and she looked faintly apprehensive as Anthony smoked peacefully.

Presently he said: "Do you know what strikes me most about the Farradays?"

"What?"

"Just that – that they are the Farradays. I always think of them like that – not as Stephen and Sandra, two individuals linked by the State and the Established Church – but as a definite dual entity – the Farradays. That is rarer than you would think. They are two people with a common aim, a common way of life, identical hopes and fears and beliefs. And the odd part of it is that they are actually very dissimilar in character. Stephen, I should say, is a man of wide intellectual scope, extremely sensitive to opinion from outside, horribly diffident about himself and somewhat lacking in moral courage. Sandra, on the other hand, has a narrow medieval mind, is capable of fanatical devotion, and is courageous to the point of recklessness."

"He always seems to me," said Iris, "rather pompous and stupid."

"He's not at all stupid. He's just one of the usual unhappy successes."

"Unhappy?"

"Most successes are unhappy. That's why they are successes – they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice."

"What very extraordinary ideas you have, Anthony."

"You'll find they're quite true if you only examine them. The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves that they don't give a damn. Like me. They are also usually agreeable to get on with – again like me."

"You have a very good opinion of yourself."

"I am just drawing attention to my good points in case you mayn't have noticed them."

Iris laughed. Her spirits had risen. The dull depression and fear had lifted from her mind. She glanced down at her watch.

"Come home and have tea, and give a few more people the benefit of your unusually agreeable society."

Anthony shook his head.

"Not today. I must be getting back." Iris turned sharply on him.

"Why will you never come to the house? There must be a reason."

Anthony shrugged his shoulders.

"Put it that I'm rather peculiar in my ideas of accepting hospitality. Your brother-in-law doesn't like me – he's made that quite clear."

"Oh, don't bother about George. If Aunt Lucilla and I ask you – she's an old dear – you'd like her."

"I'm sure I should – but my objection holds."

"You used to come in Rosemary's time."

"That," said Anthony, "was different."

A faint cold hand touched Iris's heart. She said, "What made you come down today? Had you business in this part of the world?"

"Very important business – with you. I came here to ask you a question, Iris."

The cold hand vanished. Instead there came a faint flutter, that throb of excitement that women have known from time immemorial. And with it Iris's face adopted that same look of blank inquiry that her great-grandmother might have worn prior to saying a few minutes later, "Oh, Mr X, this is so sudden!"

"Yes?" She turned that impossibly innocent face towards Anthony.

He was looking at her, his eyes were grave, almost stern.

"Answer me truthfully, Iris. This is my question. Do you trust me?"

It took her aback. It was not what she had expected. He saw that.

"You didn't think that that was what I was going to say? But it is a very important question, Iris. The most important question in the world to me. I ask it again. Do you trust me?"

She hesitated, a bare second, then she answered, her eyes falling: "Yes."

"Then I'll go on and ask you something else. Will you come up to London and marry me without telling anybody about it?"

She stared.

"But I couldn't! I simply couldn't."

"You couldn't marry me?"

"Not in that way."

"And yet you love me. You do love me, don't you?"

She heard herself saying: "Yes, I love you, Anthony."

"But you won't come and marry me at the Church of Saint Elfrida , Bloomsbury , in the parish of which I have resided for some weeks and where I can consequently get married by licence at any time?"

"How can I do a thing like that? George would be terribly hurt and Aunt Lucilla would never forgive me. And anyway I'm not of age. I'm only eighteen."