Agatha Christie - They Do It With Mirrors

Just a visit - that's what I thought.'

The frown became a scowl.

'But it hasn't turned out like that. We're caught up in this crazy business. Why don't we stay here - make our home here - that's what they say? Plenty of jobs for me.

Jobs! I don't want a job feeding candy to gangster kids and helping them play at kids' games…, what's the sense of it all? This place could be swell - really swell. Don't people who've got money understand their luck? Don't they understand that most of the world can't have a swell place like this and that they've got one? Isn't it plain crazy to kick your luck when you've got it? I don't mind working if I've got to. But I'll work the way I like and at what I like - and I'll work to get somewhere. This place makes me feel I'm tangled up in a spider's web. And Gina - I can't make Gina out. She's not the same girl I married over in the States. I can't - dang it all - I can't even talk to her now. Oh hell!'

Miss Marple said gently:

'I quite see your point of view.'

Wally shot a swift glance at her.

'You're the only one I've shot my mouth off to so far. Most of the time I shut up like a clam. Don't know what it is about you - you're English right enough, really English - but in the durndest way you remind me of my Aunt Betsy back home.'

'Now that's very nice.'

'A lot of sense she had,' Wally continued reflectively.

'Looked as frail as though you could snap her in two, but actually she was tough - yes, sir, I'll say she was tough.' He got up.

'Sorry talking to you this way,' he apologized. For the first time, Miss Marple saw him smile. It was a very attractive smile, and Wally Hudd was suddenly transfigured from an awkward sulky boy into a handsome and appealing young man. 'Had to get things off my chest, I suppose. But too bad picking on you.'

'Not at all, my dear boy,' said Miss Marple. 'I have a nephew of my own - only, of course, a great deal older than you are.'

Her mind dwelt for a moment on the sophisticated modern writer Raymond West. A greater contrast to Walter Hudd could not have been imagined.

'You've got other company coming,' said Walter Hudd. 'That dame doesn't like me. So I'll quit. So long, ma'am. Thanks for the talk.'

He strode away and Miss Marple watched Mildred Strete coming across the lawn to join her.

'I see you've been victimized by that terrible young man,' said Mrs Strete, rather breathlessly, as she sank down on the seat. 'What a tragedy that is.'

'A tragedy?'

'Gina's marriage. It all case about from sending her off to America. I told mother at the time it was most unwise. After all, this is quite a quiet district. We had hardly any raids here. I do so dislike the way many people gave way to panic about their families - and themselves, too, very often.'

'It must have been difficult to decide what was right to do,' said Miss Marple thoughtfully. 'Where children were concerned, I mean. With the prospect of possible invasion, it might have meant their being brought up under a German rgime - as well as the danger of bombs.'

'All nonsense,' said Mrs Strete. 'I never had the least doubt that we should win. But mother has always been quite unreasonable where Gina is concerned. The child was always spoilt and indulged in every way. There was absolutely no need to take her away from Italy in the first place.'

'Her father raised no objection, I understand?'

'Oh San Severiano! You know what Italians are.

Nothing matters to them but money. He married Pippa for her money, of course.'

'Dear me. I always understood he was very devoted to her and was quite inconsolable at her death.'

'He pretended to be, no doubt. Why mother ever countenanced her marrying a foreigner, I can't imagine.

Just the usual American pleasure in a title, I suppose.' Miss Marple said mildly:

'I always thought that dear Carrie Louise was almost too unworldly in her attitude to life.'

'Oh, I know. I've no patience with it. Mother's fads and whims and idealistic projects. You've no idea, Aunt Jane, of all that it has meant. I can speak with knowledge, of course. I was brought up in the middle of it all.'

It was with a very faint shock that Miss Marple heard herself addressed as Aunt Jane. And yet that had been the convention of those times. Her Christmas presents to Carrie Louise's children were always labelled 'With love from Aunt Jane,' and as 'Aunt Jane' they thought of her, when they thought of her at all. Which was not, Miss Marple supposed, very often.

She looked thoughtfully at the middle-aged woman sitting beside her. At the pursed tight mouth, the deep lines from the nose down, the hands tightly pressed together.

She said gently:

'You must have had - a difficult childhood.' Mildred Strete turned eager grateful eyes to her.

'Oh I'm so glad that somebody appreciates that.

People don't really know what children go through.

Pippa, you see, was the pretty one. She was older than I was, too. It was always she who got all the attention. Both father and mother encouraged her to push herself forward - not that she needed any encouragement - to show off. I was always the quiet one. I was shy - Pippa didn't know what shyness was. A child can suffer a great deal, Aunt Jane.'

'I know that,' said Miss Marple.

'"Mildred's so stupid" - that's what Pippa used to say.

But I was younger than she was. Naturally I couldn't be expected to keep up with her in lessons. And it's very unfair on a child when her sister is always put in front of her.

'"What a lovely little girl," people used to say to Mamma. They never noticed me. And it was Pippa that Papa used to joke and play with. Someone ought to have seen how hard it was on me. All the notice and attention going to her. I wasn't old enough to realize that it's character that matters.' Her lips trembled, then hardened again.

'And it was unfair - really unfair - I was their own child. Pippa was only adopted. I was the daughter of the house. She was - nobody.'

'Probably they were extra indulgent to her on that account,' said Miss Marple.

'They liked her best,' said Mildred Strete. And added: 'A child whose own parents didn't want her - or more probably illegitimate.' She went on: 'It's come out in Gina. There's bad blood there. Blood will tell. Lewis can have what theories he likes about environment. Bad blood does tell. Look at Gina.'

'Gina is a very lovely girl,' said Miss Marple.

'Hardly in behaviour,' said Mrs Strete. 'Everyone but mother notices how she is carrying on with Stephen Restarick. Quite disgusting, I call it. Admittedly she made a very unfortunate marriage, but marriage is marriage and one should be prepared to abide by it. After all, she chose to marry that dreadful young man.'

'Is he so dreadful?'

'Oh dear Aunt Jane! He really looks to me quite like a gangster. And so surly and rude. He hardly opens his mouth. And he always looks so raw and uncouth.'

'He is unhappy, I think,' said Miss Marple mildly.

'I really don't know why he should be - apart from Gina's behaviour, I mean. Everything has been done for him here. Lewis has suggested several ways in which he could try to make himself useful - but he prefers to skulk about doing nothing.' She burst out: 'Oh this whole place is impossible quite impossible. Lewis thinks of nothing but these horrible young criminals. And mother thinks of nothing but him. Everything Lewis does is right. Look at the state of the garden - the weeds - the overgrowth. And the house - nothing properly done. Oh I know a domestic staff is difficult nowadays, but it can be got. It's not as though there were any shortage of money. It's just that nobody cares. If it were my house -' She stopped.

'I'm afraid,' said Miss Marple, 'that we have all to face the fact that conditions are different. These large establishments are a great problem. It must be sad for you, in a way, to come back here and find everything so different.