Nemesis (Miss Marple 12)

“Here endeth the First Day.”

Six

LOVE

The following morning they visited a small Queen Anne Manor House. The drive there had not been very long or tiring. It was a very charming-looking house and had an interesting history as well as a very beautiful and unusually laid out garden.

Richard Jameson, the architect, was full of admiration for the structural beauty of the house and being the kind of young man who is fond of hearing his own voice, he slowed down in nearly every room that they went through, pointing out every special moulding of fireplace, and giving historical dates and references. Some of the group, appreciative at first, began to get slightly restive, as the somewhat monotonous lecturing went on. Some of them began to edge carefully away and fall behind the party. The local caretaker, who was in charge, was not himself too pleased at having his occupation usurped by one of the sightseers. He made a few efforts to get matters back into his own hands but Mr. Jameson was unyielding. The caretaker made a last try.

“In this room, ladies and gentlemen, the White Parlour, folks call it, is where they found a body. A young man it was, stabbed with a dagger, lying on the hearthrug. Way back in seventeen hundred and something it was. It was said that the Lady Moffat of that day had a lover. He came through a small side door and up a steep staircase to this room through a loose panel there was to the left of the fireplace. Sir Richard Moffat, her husband, you see, was said to be across the seas in the Low Countries. But he come home, and in he came unexpectedly and caught ’em there together.”

He paused proudly. He was pleased at the response from his audience, glad of a respite from the architectural details which they had been having forced down their throats.

“Why, isn’t that just too romantic, Henry?” said Mrs. Butler in her resonant transatlantic tones. “Why, you know, there’s quite an atmosphere in this room. I feel it. I certainly can feel it.”

“Mamie is very sensitive to atmospheres,” said her husband proudly to those around him. “Why, once when we were in an old house down in Louisiana….”

The narrative of Mamie’s special sensitivity got into its swing and Miss Marple and one or two others seized their opportunity to edge gently out of the room and down the exquisitely moulded staircase to the ground floor.

“A friend of mine,” said Miss Marple to Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow who were next to her, “had a most nerve-racking experience only a few years ago. A dead body on their library floor one morning.”

“One of the family?” asked Miss Barrow. “An epileptic fit?”

“Oh no, it was a murder. A strange girl in evening dress. A blonde. But her hair was dyed. She was really a brunette; and—oh …” Miss Marple broke off, her eyes fixed on Miss Cooke’s yellow hair where it escaped from her headscarf.

It had come to her suddenly. She knew why Miss Cooke’s face was familiar and she knew where she had seen her before. But when she had seen her then, Miss Cooke’s hair had been dark—almost black. And now it was bright yellow.

Mrs. Riseley-Porter, coming down the stairs, spoke decisively as she pushed past them and completed the staircase and turned into the hall.

“I really cannot go up and down anymore of those stairs,” she declared, “and standing around in these rooms is very tiring. I believe the gardens here, although not extensive, are quite celebrated in horticultural circles. I suggest we go there without loss of time. It looks as though it might cloud over before long. I think we shall get rain before morning is out.”

The authority with which Mrs. Riseley-Porter could enforce her remarks had its usual result. All those near at hand or within hearing followed her obediently out through french doors in the dining room into the garden. The gardens had indeed all that Mrs. Riseley-Porter had claimed for them. She herself took possession firmly of Colonel Walker and set off briskly. Some of the others followed them, others took paths in the opposite direction.

Miss Marple herself made a determined beeline for a garden seat which appeared to be of comfortable proportions as well as of artistic merit. She sank down on it with relief, and a sigh matching her own was emitted by Miss Elizabeth Temple as she followed Miss Marple and came to sit beside her on the seat.

“Going over houses is always tiring,” said Miss Temple. “The most tiring thing in the world. Especially if you have to listen to an exhaustive lecture in each room.”

“Of course, all that we were told is very interesting,” said Miss Marple, rather doubtfully.

“Oh, do you think so?” said Miss Temple. Her head turned slightly and her eyes met those of Miss

Marple. Something passed between the two women, a kind of rapport—of understanding tinged with mirth.

“Don’t you?” asked Miss Marple.

“No,” said Miss Temple.

This time the understanding was definitely established between them. They sat there companionably in silence. Presently Elizabeth Temple began to talk about gardens, and this garden in particular. “It was designed by Holman,” she said, “somewhere about 1800 or 1798. He died young. A pity. He had great genius.”

“It is so sad when anyone dies young,” said Miss Marple.

“I wonder,” said Elizabeth Temple.

She said it in a curious, meditative way.

“But they miss so much,” said Miss Marple. “So many things.”

“Or escape so much,” said Miss Temple.

“Being as old as I am now,” said Miss Marple, “I suppose I can’t help feeling that early death means missing things.”

“And I,” said Elizabeth Temple, “having spent nearly all my life amongst the young, look at life as a period in time complete in itself. What did T. S. Eliot say: The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew tree are of equal duration.”

Miss Marple said, “I see what you mean … A life of whatever length is a complete experience. But don’t you—” she hesitated, “—ever feel that a life could be incomplete because it has been cut unduly short?”

“Yes, that is so.”

Miss Marple said, looking at the flowers near her, “How beautiful peonies are. That long border of them—so proud and yet so beautifully fragile.”

Elizabeth Temple turned her head towards her.

“Did you come on this trip to see the houses or to see gardens?” she asked.

“I suppose really to see the houses,” said Miss Marple. “I shall enjoy the gardens most, though, but the houses—they will be a new experience for me. Their variety and their history, and the beautiful old furniture and the pictures.” She added: “A kind friend gave me this trip as a gift. I am very grateful. I have not seen very many big and famous houses in my life.”