Agatha Christie: Appointment with Death

And then with a shock, Dr. Gerard noticed her hands. They were concealed from the group around her by the table, but he could see them clearly from where he sat. In the shelter of her lap they were picking-picking-tearing a delicate handkerchief into tiny shreds.

It gave him a horrible shock.

The aloof remote smile-the still body-and the busy destructive hands…

There was a slow asthmatic wheezing cough-then the monumental knitting woman spoke.

"Ginevra, you're tired; you'd better go to bed."

The girl started; her fingers stopped their mechanical action.

"I'm not tired. Mother."

Gerard recognized appreciatively the musical quality of her voice. It had the sweet singing quality that lends enchantment to the most commonplace utterances.

"Yes, you are. I always know. I don't think you'll be able to do any sightseeing tomorrow."

"Oh! But I shall. I'm quite all right."

In a thick hoarse voice, almost a grating voice, her mother said: "No, you're not. You're going to be ill."

"I'm not! I'm not!" The girl began trembling violently.

A soft calm voice said: "I'll come up with you. Jinny." The quiet young woman with wide, thoughtful gray eyes and neatly coiled dark hair rose to her feet.

Old Mrs. Boynton said: "No. Let her go up alone."

The girl cried: "I want Nadine to come!"

"Then of course I will." The young woman moved a step forward.

The old woman said: "The child prefers to go by herself-don't you Jinny?"

There was a pause-a pause of a moment-then Ginevra Boynton said, her voice suddenly flat and dull: "Yes-I'd rather go alone. Thank you, Nadine."

She walked away, a tall angular figure that moved with a surprising grace.

Dr. Gerard lowered his paper and took a full satisfying gaze at old Mrs. Boynton. She was looking after her daughter and her fat face was creased into a peculiar smile. It was a caricature of the lovely unearthly smile that had transformed the girl's face so short a time before. Then the old woman transferred her gaze to Nadine.

The latter had just sat down again. She raised her eyes and met her mother-in-law's glance. Her face was quite imperturbable. The old woman's glance was malicious.

Dr. Gerard thought: "What an absurdity of an old tyrant!"

And then, suddenly, the old woman's eyes were full on him, and he drew in his breath sharply. Small, black, smoldering eyes they were, but something came from them-a power, a definite force, a wave of evil malignancy. Dr. Gerard knew something about the power of personality. He realized that here was no spoilt tyrannical invalid indulging petty whims. This old woman was a definite force. In the malignancy of her glare he felt a resemblance to the effect produced by a cobra. Mrs. Boynton might be old, infirm, a prey to disease, but she was not powerless.

She was a woman who knew the meaning of power, who recognized a lifetime of power and who had never once doubted her own force. Dr. Gerard had once met a woman who performed a most dangerous and spectacular act with tigers. The great slinking brutes had crawled to their places and performed their degrading and humiliating tricks. Their eyes and subdued snarls told of hatred, bitter fanatical hatred, but they had obeyed, cringed. That had been a young woman, a woman with an arrogant dark beauty, but the look had been the same.

"Une dompteuse!" said Dr. Gerard to himself. And he understood now what that undercurrent to the harmless family talk had been. It was hatred-a dark eddying stream of hatred.

He thought: "How fanciful and absurd most people would think me! Here is a commonplace devoted American family reveling in Palestine-and I weave a story of black magic round it!"

Then he looked with interest at the quiet young woman who was called Nadine. There was a wedding ring on her left hand, and as he watched her, he saw her give one swift betraying glance at the fair-haired, loose-limbed Lennox. He knew, then… They were man and wife, those two. But it was a mother's glance rather than a wife's-a true mother's glance-protecting, anxious. And he knew something more. He knew that out of that group, Nadine Boynton alone was unaffected by her mother-in-law's spell. She may have disliked the old woman, but she was not afraid of her. The power did not touch her.

She was unhappy, deeply concerned about her husband, but she was free.

Dr. Gerard said to himself: "All this is very interesting."

INTO THESE DARK imaginings a breath of the commonplace came with almost ludicrous effect.

A man came into the lounge, caught sight of the Boyntons and came across to them.

He was a pleasant middle-aged American of a strictly conventional type. He was carefully dressed, with a long, clean-shaven face and he had a slow, pleasant, somewhat monotonous voice.

"I was looking around for you all," he said. Meticulously he shook hands with the entire family.

"And how do you find yourself, Mrs. Boynton? Not too tired by the journey?"

Almost graciously, the old lady wheezed out: "No, thank you. My health's never good, as you know-"

"Why, of course; too bad-too bad."

"But I'm certainly no worse." Mrs. Boynton added with a slow reptilian smile: "Nadine, here, takes good care of me; don't you, Nadine?"

"I do my best." Her voice was expressionless.

"Why, I'll bet you do," said the stranger heartily. "Well, Lennox, and what do you think of King David's city?"

"Oh, I don't know." Lennox spoke apathetically-without interest.

"Find it kind of disappointing, do you? I'll confess it struck me that way at first. But perhaps you haven't been around much yet?"

Carol Boynton said: "We can't do very much because of Mother."

Mrs. Boynton explained: "A couple of hours' sightseeing is about all I can manage every day."

The stranger said heartily: "I think it's wonderful you manage to do all you do, Mrs. Boynton."

Mrs. Boynton gave a slow wheezy chuckle; it had an almost gloating sound. "I don't give in to my body! It's the mind that matters! Yes, it's the mind…"

Her voice died away. Gerard saw Raymond Boynton give a nervous jerk.

"Have you been to the Weeping Wall yet, Mr. Cope?" he asked.

"Why, yes, that was one of the first places I visited. I hope to have done Jerusalem thoroughly in a couple more days and I'm letting them get me out an itinerary at Cook's so as to do the Holy Land thoroughly-Bethlehem, Nazareth, Tiberias, the Sea of Galilee. It's all going to be mighty interesting. Then there's Jerash; there are some very interesting ruins there-Roman, you know. And I'd very much like to have a look at the Rose Red City of Petra, a most remarkable natural phenomenon, I believe that is, and right off the beaten track; but it takes the best part of a week to get there and back and do it properly."

Carol said: "I'd love to go there. It sounds marvelous."

"Why I should say it was definitely worth seeing-yes, definitely worth seeing." Mr. Cope paused, shot a somewhat dubious glance at Mrs. Boynton, and then went on in a voice that to the listening Frenchman was palpably uncertain: "I wonder now if I couldn't persuade some of you people to come with me? Naturally I know you couldn't manage it, Mrs. Boynton, and naturally some of your family would want to remain with you; but if you were to divide forces, so to speak-"

He paused. Gerard heard the even click of Mrs. Boynton's knitting needles. Then she said: "I don't think we'd care to divide up. We're a very homey group." She looked up. "Well, children, what do you say?"

There was a queer ring in her voice. The answers came promptly: "No, Mother."

"Oh, no."

"No, of course not."

Mrs. Boynton said, smiling that very odd smile of hers: "You see-they won't leave me. What about you, Nadine? You didn't say anything."