"No nice girl would do it," and shut her thin lips disapprovingly.
"Do what?" I inquired.
"Be a secretary to an unmarried man," said Miss Wetherby in a horrified tone.
"Oh! my dear," said Miss Marple, "I think married ones are the worst. Remember poor Mollie Carter."
"Married men living apart from their wives are, of course, notorious," said Miss Wetherby.
"And even some of the ones living with their wives," murmured Miss Marple. "I remember -"
I interrupted these unsavoury reminiscences.
"But surely," I said, "in these days a girl can take a post in just the same way as a man does."
"To come away to the country? And stay at the same hotel?" said Mrs. Price Ridley in a severe voice.
Miss Wetherby murmured to Miss Marple in a low voice.
"And all the bedrooms on the same floor…"
Miss Hartnell, who is weather-beaten and jolly and much dreaded by the poor, observed in a loud, hearty voice:
"The poor man will be caught before he knows where he is. He's as innocent as a babe unborn, you can see that."
Curious what turns of phrase we employ. None of the ladies present would have dreamed of alluding to an actual baby till it was safely in the cradle, visible to all.
"Disgusting, I call it," continued Miss Hartnell, with her usual tactlessness. "The man must be at least twenty-five years older than she is."
Three female voices rose at once making disconnected remarks about the Choir Boys' Outing, the regrettable incident at the last Mothers' Meeting, and the draughts in the church. Miss Marple twinkled at Griselda.
"Don't you think," said my wife, "that Miss Cram may just like having an interesting job? And that she considers Dr. Stone just as an employer."
There was a silence. Evidently none of the four ladies agreed. Miss Marple broke the silence by patting Griselda on the arm.
"My dear," she said, "you are very young. The young have such innocent minds."
Griselda said indignantly that she hadn't got at all an innocent mind.
"Naturally," said Miss Marple, unheeding of the protest, "you think the best of every one."
"Do you really think she wants to marry that bald-headed dull man?"
"I understand he is quite well off," said Miss Marple. "Rather a violent temper, I'm afraid. He had quite a serious quarrel with Colonel Protheroe the other day."
Every one leaned forward interestedly.
"Colonel Protheroe accused him of being an ignoramus."
"How like Colonel Protheroe, and how absurd," said Mrs. Price Ridley.
"Very like Colonel Protheroe, but I don't know about it being absurd,'' said Miss Marple. "You remember the woman who came down here and said she represented Welfare, and after taking subscriptions she was never heard of again and proved to having nothing whatever to do with Welfare. One is so inclined to be trusting and take people at their own valuation."
I should never have dreamed of describing Miss Marple as trusting.
"There's been some fuss about that young artist, Mr. Redding, hasn't there?" asked Miss Wetherby.
Miss Marple nodded.
"Colonel Protheroe turned him out of the house. It appears he was painting Lettice in her bathing dress."
"I always thought there was something between them," said Mrs. Price Ridley. "That young fellow is always mouthing off up there. Pity the girl hasn't got a mother. A stepmother is never the same thing."
"I dare say Mrs. Protheroe does her best," said Miss Hartnell.
"Girls are so sly," deplored Mrs. Price Ridley.
"Quite a romance, isn't it?" said the softer-hearted Miss Wetherby. "He's a very good-looking young fellow."
"But loose," said Miss Hartnell. "Bound to be. An artist! Paris! Models! The Altogether!"
"Painting her in her bathing dress," said Mrs. Price Ridley. "Not quite nice."
"He's painting me too," said Griselda.
"But not in your bathing dress, dear," said Miss Marple.
"It might be worse," said Griselda solemnly.
"Naughty girl," said Miss Hartnell, taking the joke broadmindedly. Everybody else looked slightly shocked.
"Did dear Lettice tell you of the trouble?" asked Miss Marple of me.
"Tell me?"
"Yes. I saw her pass through the garden and go round to the study window."
Miss Marple always sees everything. Gardening is as good as a smoke screen, and the habit of observing birds through powerfull glasses can always be turned to account.
"She mentioned it, yes," I admitted.
"Mr. Hawes looked worried," said Miss Marple. "I hope he hasn't been working too hard."
"Oh!" cried Miss Wetherby excitedly. "I quite forgot. I knew I had some news for you. I saw Dr. Haydock coming out of Mrs. Lestrange's cottage."
Every one looked at each other.
"Perhaps she's ill," suggested Mrs. Price Ridley.
"It must have been very sudden, if so," said Miss Hartnell. "For I saw her walking round her garden at three o'clock this afternoon, and she seemed in perfect health."
"She and Dr. Haydock must be old acquaintances," said Mrs. Price Ridley. "He's been very quiet about it."
"It's curious," said Miss Wetherby, "that he's never mentioned it."
"As a matter of fact -" said Griselda in a low, mysterious voice, and stopped. Every one leaned forward excitedly.
"I happen to know,'' said Griselda impressively. "Her husband was a missionary. Terrible story. He was eaten, you know. Actually eaten. And she was forced to become the chief's head wife. Dr. Haydock was with an expedition and rescued her."
For a moment excitement was rife, then Miss Marple said reproachfully, but with a smile: "Naughty girl!"
She tapped Griselda reprovingly on the arm.
"Very unwise thing to do, my dear. If you make up these things, people are quite likely to believe them. And sometimes that leads to complications."
A distinct frost had come over the assembly. Two of the ladies rose to take their departure.
"I wonder if there is anything between young Lawrence Redding and Lettice Protheroe," said Miss Wetherby. "It certainly looks like it. What do you think, Miss Marple?"
Miss Marple seemed thoughtful.
"I shouldn't have said so myself. Not Lettice. Quite another person I should have said."
"But Protheroe must have thought -"
"He has always struck me as rather a stupid man," said Miss Marple. "The kind of man who gets the wrong idea into his head and is obstinate about it. Do you remember Joe Bucknell who used to keep the Blue Boar? Such a to-do about his daughter carrying on with young Bailey. And all the time it was that minx of a wife of his."
She was looking full at Griselda as she spoke, and I suddenly felt a wild surge of anger.
"Don't you think, Miss Marple," I said, "that we're an inclined to let our tongues run away with us too much. Charity thinketh no evil, you know. Inestimable harm may be done by foolish wagging of tongues in ill-natured gossip."
"Dear Vicar," said Miss Marple, "You are so unworldly. I'm afraid that observing human nature for as long as I have done, one gets not to expect very much from it. I dare say the idle tittle-tattle is very wrong and unkind, but it is so often true, isn't it?"
That last Parthian shot went home.
Chapter III
"Nasty old cat," said Griselda, as soon as the door was closed. She made a face in the direction of the departing visitors and then looked at me and laughed.
"Len, do you really suspect me of having an affair with Lawrence Redding?"
"My dear, of course not."
"But you thought Miss Marple was hinting at it. And you rose to my defence simply beautifully. Like - like an angry tiger."
A momentary uneasiness assailed me. A clergyman of the Church of England ought never to put himself in the position of being described as an angry tiger.
"I felt the occasion could not pass without a protest," I said. "But Griselda, I wis
h you would be a little more careful in what you say."
"Do you mean the cannibal story?" she asked. "Or the suggestion that Lawrence was painting me in the nude! If they only knew that he was painting me in a thick cloak with a very high fur collar - the sort of thing that you could go quite purely to see the Pope in - not a bit of sinful flesh showing anywhere! In fact, it's all marvellously pure. Lawrence never even attempts to make love to me - I can't think why."
"Surely, knowing that you're a married woman "
"Don't pretend to come out of the ark, Len. You know very well that an attractive young woman with an elderly husband is a kind of gift from heaven to a young man. There must be some other reason - it's not that I'm unattractive - I'm not."
"Surely you don't want him to make love to you?"
"N-n-o," said Griselda, with more hesitation than I thought becoming.
"If he's in love with Lettice Protheroe -"
"Miss Marple didn't seem to think he was."
"Miss Marple may be mistaken."
"She never is. That kind of old cat is always right." She paused a minute and then said, with a quick sidelong glance at me: "You do not believe me, don't you? I mean, that there's nothing between Lawrence and me."
"My dear Griselda," I said, surprised. "Of course."
My wife came across and kissed me.
"I wish you weren't so terribly easy to deceive, Len. You'd believe me whatever I said."
"I should hope so. But, my dear, I do beg of you to guard your tongue and be careful what you say. These women are singularly deficient in humour, remember, and take everything seriously."
"What they need," said Griselda, "is a little immorality in their lives. Then they wouldn't be so busy looking for it in other people's."
And on this she left the room, and glancing at my watch I hurried out to pay some visits that ought to have been made earlier in the day.
The Wednesday evening service was sparsely attended as usual, but when I came out through the church, after disrobing in the vestry, it was empty save for a woman who stood staring up at one of our windows. We have some rather fine old stained glass, and indeed the church itself is well worth looking at. She turned at my footsteps, and I saw that it was Mrs. Lestrange.
We both hesitated a moment, and then I said:
"I hope you like our little church."
"I've been admiring the screen," she said.
Her voice was pleasant, low, yet very distinct, with a clear-cut enunciation. She added:
"I'm so sorry to have missed your wife yesterday."
We talked a few minutes longer about the church. She was evidently a cultured woman who knew something of Church history and architecture. We left the building together and walked down the road, since one way to the Vicarage led past her house. As we arrived at the gate, she said pleasantly:
"Come in, won't you? And tell me what you think of what I have done."
I accepted the invitation. Little Gates had formerly belonged to an Anglo-Indian colonel, and I could not help feeling relieved by the disappearance of the brass tables and Burmese idols. It was furnished now very simply, but in exquisite taste. There was a sense of harmony and rest about it.
Yet I wondered more and more what had brought such a woman as Mrs. Lestrange to St. Mary Mead. She was so very clearly a woman of the world that it seemed a strange taste to bury herself in a country village.
In the clear light of her drawing-room I had an opportunity of observing her closely for the first time.
She was a very tall woman. Her hair was gold with a tinge of red in it. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were dark, whether by art or by nature I could not decide. If she was, as I thought, made up, it was done very artistically. There was something Sphinxlike about her face when it was in repose and she had the most curious eyes I have ever seen - they were almost golden in shade.
Her clothes were perfect and she had all the ease of manner of a well-bred woman, and yet there was something about her that was incongruous and baffling. You felt that she was a mystery. The word Griselda had used occurred to me - sinister. Absurd, of course, and yet - was it so absurd? The thought sprang unbidden into my mind: "This woman would stick at nothing."
Our talk was on most normal lines - pictures, books, old churches. Yet somehow I got very strongly the impression that there was something else - something of quite a different nature that Mrs. Lestrange wanted to say to me.
I caught her eyes on me once or twice, looking at me with a curious hesitancy, as though she were unable to make up her mind. She kept the talk, I noticed, strictly to impersonal subjects. She made no mention of a husband or of friends or relations.
But all the time there was that strange urgent appeal in her glance. It seemed to say: "Shall I tell you? I want to. Can't you help me?"
Yet in the end it died away - or perhaps it had all been my fancy. I had the feeling that I was being dismissed. I rose and took my leave. As I went out of the room, I glanced back and saw her staring after me with a puzzled, doubtful expression. On an impulse I came back:
"If there is anything I can do -"
She said doubtfully: "It's very kind of you -"
We were both silent. Then she said:
"I wish I knew. It's very difficult. No, I don't think any one can help me. But thank you for offering to do so."
That seemed final, so I went. But as I did so, I wondered. We are not used to mysteries in St. Mary Mead.
So much is this the case that as I emerged from the gate I was pounced upon. Miss Hartnell is very good at pouncing in a heavy and cumbrous way.
"I saw you!" she exclaimed with ponderous humour. "And I was so excited. Now can you tell us all about it."
"About what?"
"The mysterious lady! Is she a widow or has she a husband somewhere?"
"I really couldn't say. She didn't tell me."
"How very peculiar. One would think she would be certain to mention something casually. It almost looks, doesn't it, as though she had a reason for not speaking?"
"I really don't see that."
"Ah! but as dear Miss Marple says, you are so unworldly, dear vicar. Tell me, has she known Dr. Haydock long?"
"She didn't mention him, so I don't know.''
"Really? But what did you talk about then?"
"Pictures, music, books," I said truthfully.
Miss Hartnell, whose only topics of conversation are the purely personal, looked suspicious and unbelieving. Taking advantage of a momentary hesitation on her part as to how to proceed next, I bade her good-night and walked rapidly away.
I called in at a house farther down the village and returned to the Vicarage by the garden gate, passing, as I did so, the danger point of Miss Marple's garden. However, I did not see how it was humanly possible for the news of my visit to Mrs. Lestrange to have yet reached her ears, so I felt reasonably safe.
As I latched the gate, it occurred to me that I would just step down to the shed in the garden which young Lawrence Redding was using as a studio, and see for myself how Griselda's portrait was progressing.
I append a rough sketch here which will be useful in the light of after happenings, only sketching in such details as are necessary.
PLAN A
I had no idea there was any one in the studio. There had been no voices from within to warn me, and I suppose that my own footsteps made no noise upon the grass.
I opened the door and then stopped awkwardly on the threshold. For there were two people in the studio, and the man's arms were round the woman and he was kissing her passionately.
The two people were the artist, Lawrence Redding, and Mrs. Protheroe.
I backed out precipitately and beat a retreat to my study. There I sat down in a chair, took out my pipe, and thought things over. The discovery had come as a great shock to me. Especially since my conversation with Lettice that afternoon, I had felt fairly certain that there was some kind of understanding growing up between her and the young man. Moreover, I
was convinced that she herself thought so. I felt positive that she had no idea of the artist's feelings for her stepmother.
A nasty tangle. I paid a grudging tribute to Miss Marple. She had not been deceived but had evidently suspected the true state of things with a fair amount of accuracy. I had entirely misread her meaning glance at Griselda.
I had never dreamed of considering Mrs. Protheroe in the matter. There has always been rather a suggestion of Cжsar's wife about Mrs. Protheroe - a quiet, self-contained woman whom one would not suspect of any great depths of feeling.
I had got to this point in my meditations when a tap on my study window aroused me. I got up and went to it. Mrs. Protheroe was standing outside. I opened the window and she came in, not waiting for an invitation on my part. She crossed the room in a breathless sort of way and dropped down on the sofa.
I had the feeling that I had never really seen her before. The quiet self-contained woman that I knew had vanished. In her place was a quick-breathing, desperate creature. For the first time I realised that Anne Protheroe was beautiful.
She was a brown-haired woman with a pale face and very deep set grey eyes. She was flushed now and her breast heaved. It was as though a statue had suddenly come to life. I blinked my eyes at the transformation.
"I thought it best to come," she said. "You - you saw just now?" I bowed my head.
She said very quietly: "We love each other…"
And even in the middle of her evident distress and agitation she could not keep a little smile from her lips. The smile of a woman who sees something very beautiful and wonderful.
I still said nothing, and she added presently:
"I suppose to you that seems very wrong?"
"Can you expect me to say anything else, Mrs. Protheroe?"
"No - no, I suppose not."
I went on, trying to make my voice as gentle as possible:
"You are a married woman -"
She interrupted me.
"Oh! I know - I know. Do you think I haven't gone over all that again and again? I'm not a bad woman really - I'm not. And things aren't - aren't - as you might think they are."
I said gravely: "I'm glad of that."
She asked rather timorously:
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