“Ah that, completely covered by—what is that flowering creeper just coming into bloom?”
“Oh yes. It’s quite a common one,” said Anthea. “It begins with a P. Now what is the name of it?” she said doubtfully. “Poly something, something like that.”
“Oh yes. I think I do know the name. Polygonum Baldschuanicum. Very quick growing, I think, isn’t it? Very useful really if one wants to hide any tumbledown building or anything ugly of that kind.”
The mound in front of her was certainly thickly covered with the all-enveloping green and white flowering plant. It was, as Miss Marple well knew, a kind of menace to anything else that wanted to grow. Polygonum covered everything, and covered it in a remarkably short time.
“The greenhouse must have been quite a big one,” she said.
“Oh yes—we had peaches in it, too—and nectarines.” Anthea looked miserable.
“It looks really very pretty now,” said Miss Marple in a consoling tone. “Very pretty little white flowers, aren’t they?”
“We have a very nice magnolia tree down this path to the left,” said Anthea. “Once I believe there used to be a very fine border here—a herbaceous border. But that again one cannot keep up. It is too difficult. Everything is too difficult. Nothing is like it used to be—it’s all spoilt—everywhere.”
She led the way quickly down a path at right angles which ran along a side wall. Her pace had increased. Miss Marple could hardly keep up with her. It was, thought Miss Marple, as though she were deliberately being steered away from the Polygonum mound by her hostess. Steered away as from some ugly or displeasing spot. Was she ashamed perhaps that the past glories no longer remained? The Polygonum certainly was growing with extraordinary abandonment. It was not even being clipped or kept to reasonable proportions. It made a kind of flowery wilderness of that bit of the garden.
She almost looks as though she was running away from it, thought Miss Marple, as she followed her hostess. Presently her attention was diverted to a broken down pigsty which had a few rose tendrils round it.
“My great-uncle used to keep a few pigs,” explained Anthea, “but of course one would never dream of doing anything of that kind nowadays, would one? Rather too noisome, I am afraid. We have a few floribunda roses near the house. I really think floribundas are such a great answer to difficulties.”
“Oh, I know,” said Miss Marple.
She mentioned the names of a few recent productions in the rose line. All the names, she thought, were entirely strange to Miss Anthea.
“Do you often come on these tours?”
The question came suddenly.
“You mean the tours of houses and of gardens?”
“Yes. Some people do it every year.”
“Oh I couldn’t hope to do that. They’re rather expensive, you see. A friend very kindly gave me a present of this to celebrate my next birthday. So kind.”
“Oh. I wondered. I wondered why you came. I mean—it’s bound to be rather tiring, isn’t it? Still, if you usually go to the West Indies, and places like that….”
“Oh, the West Indies was the result of kindness, too. On the part of a nephew, that time. A dear boy. So very thoughtful for his old aunt.”
“Oh, I see. Yes, I see.”
“I don’t know what one would do without the younger generation,” said Miss Marple. “They are so kind, are they not?”
“I—I suppose so. I don’t really know. I—we haven’t—any young relations.”
“Does your sister, Mrs. Glynne, have any children? She did not mention any. One never likes to ask.”
“No. She and her husband never had any children. It’s as well perhaps.”
“And what do you mean by that?” Miss Marple wondered as they returned to the house.
Ten
“OH! FOND, OH! FAIR, THE DAYS THAT WERE”
I
At half past eight the next morning there was a smart tap on the door, and in answer to Miss Marple’s “Come in” the door was opened and an elderly woman entered, bearing a tray with a teapot, a cup and a milk jug and a small plate of bread and butter.
“Early morning tea, ma’am,” she said cheerfully. “It’s a nice day, it is. I see you’ve got your curtains drawn back already. You’ve slept well then?”
“Very well indeed,” said Miss Marple, laying aside a small devotional book which she had been reading.
“Well, it’s a lovely day, it is. They’ll have it nice for going to the Bonaventure Rocks. It’s just as well you’re not doing it. It’s cruel hard on the legs, it is.”
“I’m really very happy to be here,” said Miss Marple. “So kind of Miss Bradbury-Scott and Mrs. Glynne to issue this invitation.”
“Ah well, it’s nice for them too. It cheers them up to have a bit of company come to the house. Ah, it’s a sad place nowadays, so it is.”
She pulled the curtains at the window rather more fully, pushed back a chair and deposited a can of hot water in the china basin.
“There’s a bathroom on the next floor,” she said, “but we think it’s better always for someone elderly to have their hot water here, so they don’t have to climb the stairs.”
“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure—you know this house well?”
“I was here as a girl—I was the housemaid then. Three servants they had—a cook, a housemaid—a parlourmaid—kitchen maid too at one time. That was in the old Colonel’s time. Horses he kept too, and a groom. Ah, those were the days. Sad it is when things happen the way they do. He lost his wife young, the Colonel did. His son was killed in the war and his only daughter went away to live on the other side of the world. Married a New Zealander she did. Died having a baby and the baby died too. He was a sad man living alone here, and he let the house go—it wasn’t kept up as it should have been. When he died he left the place to his niece Miss Clotilde and her two sisters, and she and Miss Anthea came here to live—and later Miss Lavinia lost her husband and came to join them—” she sighed and shook her head. “They never did much to the house—couldn’t afford it—and they let the garden go as well—”
“It all seems a great pity,” said Miss Marple.
“And such nice ladies as they all are, too—Miss Anthea is the scatty one, but Miss Clotilde went to university and is very brainy—she talks three languages—and Mrs. Glynne, she’s a very nice lady indeed. I thought when she came to join them as things might go better. But you never know, do you, what the future holds? I feel sometimes, as though there was a doom on this house.”
Miss Marple looked enquiring.
“First one thing and then another. The dreadful plane accident—in Spain it was—and everybody killed. Nasty things, aeroplanes—I’d never go in one of them. Miss Clotilde’s friends were both killed, they were husband and wife—the daughter was still at school, luckily, and escaped, but Miss Clotilde brought her here to live and did everything for her. Took her abroad for trips—to Italy and France, treated her like a daughter. She was such a happy girl—and a very sweet nature. You’d never dream that such an awful thing could happen.”
“An awful thing. What was it? Did it happen here?”
“No, not here, thank God. Though in a way you might say it did happen here. It was here that she met him. He was in the neighbourhood—and the ladies knew his father, who was a very rich man, so he came here to visit—that was the beginning—”
“They fell in love?”
“Yes, she fell in love with him right away. He was an attractive-looking boy, with a nice way of talking and passing the time of day. You’d never think—you’d never think for one moment—” she broke off.
“There was a love affair? And it went wrong? And the girl committed suicide?”
“Suicide?” The old woman stared at Miss Marple with startled eyes.
“Whoever now told you that? Murder it was, barefaced murder. Strangled and her head beaten to pulp. Miss Clotilde had to go and identify her—she’s never been quite the same since. T
hey found her body a good thirty miles from here—in the scrub of a disused quarry. And it’s believed that it wasn’t the first murder he’d done. There had been other girls. Six months she’d been missing. And the police searching far and wide. Oh! A wicked devil he was—a bad lot from the day he was born or so it seems. They say nowadays as there are those as can’t help what they do—not right in the head, and they can’t be held responsible. I don’t believe a word of it! Killers are killers. And they won’t even hang them nowadays. I know as there’s often madness as runs in old families—there was the Derwents over at Brassington—every second generation one or other of them died in the loony bin—and there was old Mrs. Paulett; walked about the lanes in her diamond tiara saying she was Marie Antoinette until they shut her up. But there wasn’t anything really wrong with her—just silly like. But this boy. Yes, he was a devil right enough.”
“What did they do to him?”
“They’d abolished hanging by then—or else he was too young. I can’t remember it all now. They found him guilty. It may have been Bostol or Broadsand—one of those places beginning with ‘B’ as they sent him to.”
“What was the name of the boy?”