Agatha Christie - Miss Marple – Miss Marple and Mystery - The Complete Short Stories

But the coffee-coloured driver, appealed to, responded with the cheering news that their destination was just round the next bend of the road.

The manager of the estate, Mr Walters, was waiting on the stoep to receive them with the touch of deference due to George Crozier’s prominence in Union Tobacco. He introduced his daughter-in-law, who shepherded Deirdre through the cool, dark inner hall to a bedroom beyond, where she could remove the veil with which she was always careful to shield her complexion when motoring. As she unfastened the pins in her usual leisurely, graceful fashion, Deirdre’s eyes swept round the whitewashed ugliness of the bare room. No luxuries here, and Deirdre, who loved comfort as a cat loves cream, shivered a little. On the wall a text confronted her. ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’ it demanded of all and sundry, and Deirdre, pleasantly conscious that the question had nothing to do with her, turned to accompany her shy and rather silent guide. She noted, but not in the least maliciously, the spreading hips and the unbecoming cheap cotton gown. And with a glow of quiet appreciation her eyes dropped to the exquisite, costly simplicity of her own French white linen. Beautiful clothes, especially when worn by herself, roused in her the joy of the artist.

The two men were waiting for her.

‘It won’t bore you to come round, too, Mrs Crozier?’

‘Not at all. I’ve never been over a tobacco factory.’

They stepped out into the still Rhodesian afternoon.

‘These are the seedlings here; we plant them out as required. You see –’

The manager’s voice droned on, interpolated by her husband’s sharp staccato questions – output, stamp duty, problems of coloured labour. She ceased to listen.

This was Rhodesia, this was the land Tim had loved, where he and she were to have gone together after the War was over. If he had not been killed! As always, the bitterness of revolt surged up in her at that thought. Two short months – that was all they had had. Two months of happiness – if that mingled rapture and pain were happiness. Was love ever happiness? Did not a thousand tortures beset the lover’s heart? She had lived intensely in that short space, but had she ever known the peace, the leisure, the quiet contentment of her present life? And for the first time she admitted, somewhat unwillingly, that perhaps all had been for the best.

‘I wouldn’t have liked living out here. I mightn’t have been able to make Tim happy. I might have disappointed him. George loves me, and I’m very fond of him, and he’s very, very good to me. Why, look at that diamond he bought me only the other day.’ And, thinking of it, her eyelids dropped a little in pure pleasure.

‘This is where we thread the leaves.’ Walters led the way into a low, long shed. On the floor were vast heaps of green leaves, and white-clad black ‘boys’ squatted round them, picking and rejecting with deft fingers, sorting them into sizes, and stringing them by means of primitive needles on a long line of string. They worked with a cheerful leisureliness, jesting amongst themselves, and showing their white teeth as they laughed.

‘Now, out here –’

They passed through the shed into the daylight again, where the lines of leaves hung drying in the sun. Deirdre sniffed delicately at the faint, almost imperceptible fragrance that filled the air.

Walters led the way into other sheds where the tobacco, kissed by the sun into faint yellow discoloration, underwent its further treatment. Dark here, with the brown swinging masses above, ready to fall to powder at a rough touch. The fragrance was stronger, almost overpowering it seemed to Deirdre, and suddenly a sort of terror came upon her, a fear of she knew not what, that drove her from that menacing, scented obscurity out into the sunlight. Crozier noted her pallor.

‘What’s the matter, my dear, don’t you feel well? The sun, perhaps. Better not come with us round the plantations? Eh?’

Walters was solicitous. Mrs Crozier had better go back to the house and rest. He called to a man a little distance away.

‘Mr Arden – Mrs Crozier. Mrs Crozier’s feeling a little done up with the heat, Arden. Just take her back to the house, will you?’

The momentary feeling of dizziness was passing. Deirdre walked by Arden’s side. She had as yet hardly glanced at him.

‘Deirdre!’

Her heart gave a leap, and then stood still. Only one person had ever spoken her name like that, with the faint stress on the first syllable that made of it a caress.

She turned and stared at the man by her side. He was burnt almost black by the sun, he walked with a limp, and on the cheek nearer hers was a long scar which altered his expression, but she knew him.

‘Tim!’

For an eternity, it seemed to her, they gazed at each other, mute and trembling, and then, without knowing how or why, they were in each other’s arms. Time rolled back for them. Then they drew apart again, and Deirdre, conscious as she put it of the idiocy of the question, said:

‘Then you’re not dead?’

‘No, they must have mistaken another chap for me. I was badly knocked on the head, but I came to and managed to crawl into the bush. After that I don’t know what happened for months and months, but a friendly tribe looked after me, and at last I got my proper wits again and managed to get back to civilization.’ He paused. ‘I found you’d been married six months.’

Deirdre cried out:

‘Oh, Tim, understand, please understand! It was so awful, the loneliness – and the poverty. I didn’t mind being poor with you, but when I was alone I hadn’t the nerve to stand up against the sordidness of it all.’

‘It’s all right, Deirdre; I did understand. I know you always have had a hankering after the flesh-pots. I took you from them once – but the second time, well – my nerve failed. I was pretty badly broken up, you see, could hardly walk without a crutch, and then there was this scar.’

She interrupted him passionately.

‘Do you think I would have cared for that?’

‘No, I know you wouldn’t. I was a fool. Some women did mind, you know. I made up my mind I’d manage to get a glimpse of you. If you looked happy, if I thought you were contented to be with Crozier – why, then I’d remain dead. I did see you. You were just getting into a big car. You had on some lovely sable furs – things I’d never be able to give you if I worked my fingers to the bone – and – well – you seemed happy enough. I hadn’t the same strength and courage, the same belief in myself, that I’d had before the War. All I could see was myself, broken and useless, barely able to earn enough to keep you – and you looked so beautiful, Deirdre, such a queen amongst women, so worthy to have furs and jewels and lovely clothes and all the hundred and one luxuries Crozier could give you. That – and – well, the pain – of seeing you together, decided me. Everyone believed me dead. I would stay dead.’

‘The pain!’ repeated Deirdre in a low voice.

‘Well, damn it all, Deirdre, it hurt! It isn’t that I blame you. I don’t. But it hurt.’

They were both silent. Then Tim raised her face to his and kissed it with a new tenderness.

‘But that’s all over now, sweetheart. The only thing to decide is how we’re going to break it to Crozier.’

‘Oh!’ She drew herself away abruptly. ‘I hadn’t thought –’ She broke off as Crozier and the manager appeared round the angle of the path. With a swift turn of the head she whispered:

‘Do nothing now. Leave it to me. I must prepare him. Where could I meet you tomorrow?’

Nugent reflected.

‘I could come in to Bulawayo. How about the Café near the Standard Bank? At three o’clock it would be pretty empty.’