魔手41

Fifteen

IMorning in the High Street.

Miss Emily Barton comes out of the grocer’s with her shopping bag. Hercheeks are pink and her eyes are excited.

“Oh, dear, Mr. Burton, I really am in such a flutter. To think I really amgoing on a cruise at last!”

“I hope you’ll enjoy it.”

“Oh, I’m sure I shall. I should never have dared to go by myself. It doesseem so providential the way everything has turned out. For a long timeI’ve felt that I ought to part with Little Furze, that my means were reallytoo straitened but I couldn’t bear the idea of strangers there. But now thatyou have bought it and are going to live there with Megan—it is quite dif-ferent. And then dear Aimée, after her terrible ordeal, not quite knowingwhat to do with herself, and her brother getting married (how nice tothink you have both settled down with us!) and agreeing to come with me.

We mean to be away quite a long time. We might even”— Miss Emilydropped her voice—“go round the world! And Aimée is so splendid and sopractical. I really do think, don’t you, that everything turns out for thebest?”

Just for a fleeting moment I thought of Mrs. Symmington and AgnesWoddell in their graves in the churchyard and wondered if they wouldagree, and then I remembered that Agnes’s boy hadn’t been very fond ofher and that Mrs. Symmington hadn’t been very nice to Megan and, whatthe hell? we’ve all got to die some time! And I agreed with happy MissEmily that everything was for the best in the best of possible worlds.

I went along the High Street and in at the Symmingtons’ gate and Megancame out to meet me.

It was not a romantic meeting because an out-size Old English sheepdogcame out with Megan and nearly knocked me over with his ill-timed ex-uberance.

“Isn’t he adorable?” said Megan.

“A little overwhelming. Is he ours?”

“Yes, he’s a wedding present from Joanna. We have had nice weddingpresents, haven’t we? That fluffy woolly thing that we don’t know what it’sfor from Miss Marple, and the lovely Crown Derby tea set from Mr. Pye,and Elsie has sent me a toast-rack—”

“How typical,” I interjected.

“And she’s got a post with a dentist and is very happy. And—where wasI?”

“Enumerating wedding presents. Don’t forget if you change your mindyou’ll have to send them all back.”

“I shan’t change my mind. What else have we got? Oh, yes, Mrs. DaneCalthrop has sent an Egyptian scarab.”

“Original woman,” I said.

“Oh! Oh! but you don’t know the best. Partridge has actually sent me apresent. It’s the most hideous teacloth you’ve ever seen. But I think shemust like me now because she says she embroidered it all with her ownhands.”

“In a design of sour grapes and thistles, I suppose?”

“No, true lovers’ knots.”

“Dear, dear,” I said, “Partridge is coming on.”

Megan had dragged me into the house.

She said:

“There’s just one thing I can’t make out. Besides the dog’s own collarand lead, Joanna has sent an extra collar and lead. What do you thinkthat’s for?”

“That,” I said, “is Joanna’s little joke.”

 

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