The Moving Finger (Miss Marple 4)

“It is a theory of mine,” I said, warming to my theme, “that we owe most of our great inventions and most of the achievements of genius to idleness—either enforced or voluntary. The human mind prefers to be spoon-fed with the thoughts of others, but deprived of such nourishment it will, reluctantly, begin to think for itself—and such thinking, remember, is original thinking and may have valuable results.

“Besides,” I went on, before Aimée could get in another sniff, “there is the artistic side.”

I got up and took from my desk where it always accompanied me a photograph of my favourite Chinese picture. It represents an old man sitting beneath a tree playing cat’s cradle with a piece of string on his fingers and toes.

“It was in the Chinese exhibition,” I said. “It fascinated me. Allow me to introduce you. It is called ‘Old Man enjoying the Pleasure of Idleness.’”

Aimée Griffith was unimpressed by my lovely picture. She said: “Oh well, we all know what the Chinese are like!”

“It doesn’t appeal to you?” I asked.

“Frankly, no. I’m not very interested in art, I’m afraid. Your attitude, Mr. Burton, is typical of that of most men. You dislike the idea of women working—of their competing—”

I was taken aback, I had come up against the Feminist. Aimée was well away, her cheeks flushed.

“It is incredible to you that women should want a career. It was incredible to my parents. I was anxious to study for a doctor. They would not hear of paying the fees. But they paid them readily for Owen. Yet I should have made a better doctor than my brother.”

“I’m sorry about that,” I said. “It was tough on you. If one wants to do a thing—”

She went on quickly:

“Oh, I’ve got over it now. I’ve plenty of willpower. My life is busy and active. I’m one of the happiest people in Lymstock. Plenty to do. But I do go up in arms against the silly old-fashioned prejudice that women’s place is always the home.”

“I’m sorry if I offended you,” I said. “And that wasn’t really my point. I don’t see Megan in a domestic role at all.”

“No, poor child. She’ll be a misfit anywhere, I’m afraid.” Aimée had calmed down. She was speaking quite normally again. “Her father, you know—”

She paused and I said bluntly: “I don’t know. Everyone says ‘her father’ and drops their voice, and that is that. What did the man do? Is he alive still?”

“I really don’t know. And I’m rather vague myself, I’m afraid. But he was definitely a bad lot. Prison, I believe. And a streak of very strong abnormality. That’s why it wouldn’t surprise me if Megan was a bit ‘wanting.’”

“Megan,” I said, “is in full possession of her senses, and as I said before, I consider her an intelligent girl. My sister thinks so too. Joanna is very fond of her.”

Aimée said:

“I’m afraid your sister must find it very dull down here.”

And as she said it, I learnt something else. Aimée Griffith disliked my sister. It was there in the smooth conventional tones of her voice.

“We’ve all wondered how you could both bear to bury yourselves in such an out-of-the-way spot.”

It was a question and I answered it.

“Doctor’s orders. I was to come somewhere very quiet where nothing ever happened.” I paused and added, “Not quite true of Lymstock now.”

“No, no, indeed.”

She sounded worried and got up to go. She said then:

“You know—it’s got to be put a stop to—all this beastliness! We can’t have it going on.”

“Aren’t the police doing anything?”

“I suppose so. But I think we ought to take it in hand ourselves.”

“We’re not as well equipped as they are.”

“Nonsense! We probably have far more sense and intelligence! A little determination is all that is needed.”

She said goodbye abruptly and went away.

When Joanna and Megan came back from their walk I showed Megan my Chinese picture. Her face lighted up. She said, “It’s heavenly, isn’t it?”

“That is rather my opinion.”

Her forehead was crinkling in the way I knew so well.

“But it would be difficult, wouldn’t it?”

“To be idle?”

“No, not to be idle—but to enjoy the pleasures of it. You’d have to be very old—”

She paused. I said: “He is an old man.”

“I don’t mean old that way. Not age. I mean old in—in….”

“You mean,” I said, “that one would have to attain a very high state of civilization for the thing to present itself to you in that way—a fine point of sophistication? I think I shall complete your education, Megan, by reading to you one hundred poems translated from the Chinese.”

III

I met Symmington in the town later in the day.

“Is it quite all right for Megan to stay on with us for a bit?” I asked. “It’s company for Joanna—she’s rather lonely sometimes with none of her own friends.”

“Oh—er— Megan? Oh yes, very good of you.”

I took a dislike to Symmington then which I never quite overcame. He had so obviously forgotten all about Megan. I wouldn’t have minded if he had actively disliked the girl—a man may sometimes be jealous of a first husband’s child—but he didn’t dislike her, he just hardly noticed her. He felt towards her much as a man who doesn’t care much for dogs would feel about a dog in the house. You notice it when you fall over it and swear at it, and you give it a vague pat sometimes when it presents itself to be patted. Symmington’s complete indifference to his stepdaughter annoyed me very much.

I said, “What are you planning to do with her?”

“With Megan?” He seemed rather startled. “Well, she’ll go on living at home. I mean, naturally, it is her home.”

My grandmother, of whom I had been very fond, used to

sing old-fashioned songs to her guitar. One of them, I remembered, ended thus:

“Oh maid, most dear, I am not here

I have no place, no part,

No dwelling more, by sea nor shore,

But only in your heart.”

I went home humming it.

IV

Emily Barton came just after tea had been cleared away.

She wanted to talk about the garden. We talked garden for about half an hour. Then we turned back towards the house.

It was then that lowering her voice, she murmured:

“I do hope that that child—that she hasn’t been too much upset by all this dreadful business?”

“Her mother’s death, you mean?”

“That, of course. But I really meant, the—the unpleasantness behind it.”

I was curious. I wanted Miss Barton’s reaction.

“What do you think about that? Was it true?”

“Oh, no, no, surely not. I’m quite sure that Mrs. Symmington never—that he wasn’t”—little Emily Barton was pink and confused—“I mean it’s quite untrue—although of course it may have been a judgment.”

“A judgment?” I said, staring.

Emily Barton was very pink, very Dresden china shepherdess-like.

“I cannot help feeling that all these dreadful letters, all the sorrow and pain they have caused, may have been sent for a purpose.”

“They were sent for a purpose, certainly,” I said grimly.

“No, no, Mr. Burton, you misunderstood me. I’m not talking of the misguided creature who wrote them—someone quite abandoned that must be. I mean that they have been permitted—by Providence! To awaken us to a sense of our shortcomings.”

“Surely,” I said, “the Almighty could choose a less unsavoury weapon.”

Miss Emily murmured that God moved in a mysterious way.

“No,” I said. “There’s too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will. I might concede you the Devil. God doesn’t really need to punish us, Miss Barton. We’re so very busy punishing ourselves.”

“What I can’t make out is why should anyone want to do such a thing?”