Absent in the Spring

by Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott, Agatha

  A terrific figure, Miss Gilbey, justly feared and admired and who could produce just as frightening an effect on parents as on pupils. No denying it, Miss Gilbey was St Anne’s!

  Joan saw herself entering that sacred room, with its flowers, its Medici prints; its implications of culture, scholarship and social graces.

  Miss Gilbey, turning majestically from her desk –

  ‘Come in, Joan. Sit down, dear child.’

  Joan had sat down as indicated in the cretonne-covered armchair. Miss Gilbey had removed her pince-nez, had produced suddenly an unreal and distinctly terrifying smile.

  ‘You are leaving us, Joan, to go from the circumscribed world of school into the larger world which is life. I should like to have a little talk with you before you go in the hope that some words of mine may be a guide to you in the days that are to come.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Gilbey.’

  ‘Here, in these happy surroundings, with young companions of your own age, you have been shielded from the perplexities and difficulties which no one can entirely avoid in this life.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Gilbey.’

  ‘You have, I know, been happy here.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Gilbey.’

  ‘And you have done well here. I am pleased with the progress you have made. You have been one of our most satisfactory pupils.’

  Slight confusion – ‘Oh – er – I’m glad, Miss Gilbey.’

  ‘But life opens out before you now with fresh problems, fresh responsibilities –’

  The talk flowed on. At the proper intervals Joan murmured:

  ‘Yes, Miss Gilbey.’

  She felt slightly hypnotized.

  It was one of Miss Gilbey’s assets in her career to possess a voice that was, according to Blanche Haggard, orchestral in its compass. Starting with the mellowness of a cello, administering praise in the accents of a flute, deepening to warning in the tones of a bassoon. Then to those girls of marked intellectual prowess the exhortation to a career was proclaimed in terms of brass – to those of more domestic calibre the duties of wifehood and motherhood were mentioned in the muted notes of the violin.

  Not until the end of the discourse did Miss Gilbey, as it were, speak pizzicato.

  ‘And now, just a special word. No lazy thinking, Joan, my dear! Don’t just accept things at their face value – because it’s the easiest way, and because it may save you pain! Life is meant to be lived, not glossed over. And don’t be too pleased with yourself!’

  ‘Yes – no, Miss Gilbey.’

  ‘Because, just entre nous, that is a little your failing, isn’t it, Joan? Think of others, my dear, and not too much of yourself. And be prepared to accept responsibility.’

  And then on to the grand orchestral climax:

  ‘Life, Joan, must be a continual progress – a rising on the stepping stones of our dead selves to higher things. Pain and suffering will come. They come to all. Even Our Lord was not immune from the sufferings of our mortal life. As he knew the agony of Gethsemane, so you will know it – and if you do not know that, Joan, then it will mean that your path has veered far from the true way. Remember this when the hour of doubt and travail comes. And remember, my dear, that I am glad to hear from my old girls at any time – and always ready to help them with advice if they should ask for it. God bless you, dear.’

  And thereupon the final benediction of Miss Gilbey’s parting kiss, a kiss that was less a human contact than a glorified accolade.

  Joan, slightly dazed, was dismissed.

  She returned to her dormitory to find Blanche Haggard, wearing Mary Grant’s pince-nez, and with a pillow stuffed down the front of her gym tunic, giving an orchestral recital to an enraptured audience:

  ‘You are going,’ boomed Blanche, ‘from this happy world of school into the larger more perilous world of life. Life opens out before you with its problems, its responsibilities …’

  Joan joined the audience. The applause grew as Blanche worked up to her climax.

  ‘To you, Blanche Haggard, I say but one word. Discipline. Discipline your emotions, practise self-control. Your very warmth of heart may prove perilous. Only by strict discipline can you attain the heights. You have great gifts, my dear. Use them well. You have a lot of faults, Blanche – a lot of faults. But they are the faults of a generous nature and they can be corrected.

  ‘Life –’ Blanche’s voice rose to a shrill falsetto, ‘is a continual progress. Rise on the stepping stones of our dead selves – (see Wordsworth). Remember the old school and remember that Aunt Gilbey gives advice and help at any time if a stamped addressed envelope is enclosed!’

  Blanche paused, but to her surprise neither laughter nor applause greeted the pause. Everyone looked as though turned into marble and all heads were turned to the open doorway where Miss Gilbey stood majestically, pince-nez in hand.

  ‘If you are thinking of taking up a stage career, Blanche, I believe there are several excellent schools of dramatic art where they would teach you proper voice control and elocution. You seem to have some talents in that direction. Kindly return that pillow to its proper place at once.’

  And with that she moved swiftly away.

  ‘Whew,’ said Blanche. ‘The old tartar! Pretty sporting of her – but she does know how to make you feel small.’

  Yes, thought Joan, Miss Gilbey had been a great personality. She had finally retired from St Anne’s just a term after Averil had been sent there. The new headmistress had lacked her dynamic personality, and the school had started to go down in consequence.

  Blanche had been right, Miss Gilbey had been a tartar. But she had known how to make herself felt. And she had certainly, Joan reflected, been quite right about Blanche. Discipline – that was what Blanche had needed in her life. Generous instincts – yes, possibly. But self-control had been notably lacking. Still, Blanche was generous. That money, for instance, the money that Joan had sent her – Blanche hadn’t spent it on herself. It had bought a roll-top desk for Tom Holliday. A roll-top desk was the last thing in the world that Blanche would have wanted. A warm-hearted kindly creature, Blanche. And yet she had left her children, gone off callously and deserted the two little creatures she herself had brought into the world.

  It just showed that there were people who had simply no maternal instinct whatsoever. One’s children, thought Joan, should always come first. She and Rodney had always agreed on that. Rodney was really very unselfish – if it was put to him, that is, in the right way. She had pointed out to him, for instance, that that nice sunny dressing-room of his really ought to be the children’s day nursery and he had agreed quite willingly to move into the little room overlooking the stable yard. Children should have all the sun and light there was.

  She and Rodney had really been very conscientious parents. And the children had really been very satisfactory, especially when they were quite small – such attractive, handsome children. Much better brought up than the Sherston boys, for instance. Mrs Sherston never seemed to mind what those children looked like. And she herself seemed to join them in the most curious activities, crawling along the ground as a Red Indian – uttering wild whoops and yells – and once when they were attempting a reproduction of a circus, giving a most lifelike imitation of a sea lion!

  The fact was, Joan decided, that Leslie Sherston herself had never properly grown up.

  Still, she’d had a very sad life, poor woman.

  Joan thought of the time when she had so unexpectedly run across Captain Sherston in Somerset.

  She had been staying with friends in that part of the world and had had no idea the Sherstons were living there. She had come face to face with Captain Sherston as he emerged (so typical) from the local pub.

  She had not seen him since his release and it was really quite a shock to see the difference from the old days of the jaunty, confident bank manager.

  That curiously deflated look that big aggressive men got when they had failed in the world. The sagging shoulders, the loose waistcoat,
the flabby cheeks, the quick shifty look of the eyes.

  To think that anyone could ever have trusted this man.

  He was taken aback by meeting her, but he rallied well, and greeted her with what was a painful travesty of his old manner:

  ‘Well, well, well, Mrs Scudamore! The world is indeed a small place. And what brings you to Skipton Haynes?’

  Standing there, squaring his shoulders, endeavouring to put into his voice the old heartiness and self assurance. It was a pitiful performance and Joan had, in spite of herself, felt quite sorry for him.

  How dreadful to come down in the world like that! To feel that at any moment you might come across someone from the old life, someone who might refuse even to recognize you.

  Not that she had any intention herself of behaving that way. Naturally she was quite prepared to be kind.

  Sherston was saying, ‘You must come back and see my wife. You must have tea with us. Yes, yes, dear lady, I insist!’

  And the parody of his old manner was so painful that Joan, albeit rather unwillingly, allowed herself to be piloted along the street, Sherston continuing to talk in his new uneasy way.

  He’d like her to see their little place – at least not so little. Quite a good acreage. Hard work, of course, growing for the market. Anemones and apples were their best line.

  Still talking he unlatched a somewhat dilapidated gate that needed painting and they walked up a weedy drive. Then they saw Leslie, her back bent over the anemone beds.

  ‘Look who’s here,’ Sherston called and Leslie had pushed her hair back from her face and had come over and said this was a surprise!

  Joan had noticed at once how much older Leslie looked and how ill. There were lines carved by fatigue and pain on her face. But, otherwise, she was exactly the same as usual, cheerful and untidy and terrifically energetic.

  As they were standing there talking, the boys arrived home from school, charging up the drive with loud howls and rushing at Leslie, butting at her with their heads, shouting out Mum, Mum, Mum, and Leslie after enduring the onslaught for some minutes suddenly said in a very peremptory voice, ‘Quiet! Visitors.’

  And the boys had suddenly transformed themselves into two polite angels who shook hands with Mrs Scudamore, and spoke in soft hushed voices.

  Joan was reminded a little of a cousin of hers who trained sporting dogs. On the word of command the dogs would sit, dropping to their haunches, or on another word dash wildly for the horizon. Leslie’s children, she thought, seemed trained much on the same plan.

  They went into the house and Leslie went to get tea with the boys helping her and presently it came in on a tray, with the loaf and the butter and the homemade jam, and the thick kitchen cups and Leslie and the boys laughing.

  But the most curious thing that happened was the change in Sherston. That uneasy, shifty, painful manner of his vanished. He became suddenly the master of the house and the host – and a very good host. Even his social manner was in abeyance. He looked suddenly happy, pleased with himself and with his family. It was as though, within these four walls, the outer world and its judgment ceased to exist for him. The boys clamoured for him to help them with some carpentry they were doing, Leslie adjured him not to forget that he had promised to see to the hoe for her and ought they to bunch the anemones tomorrow or could they do it Thursday morning?

  Joan thought to herself that she had never liked him better. She understood, she felt, for the first time Leslie’s devotion to him. Besides, he must have been a very good-looking man once.

  But a moment or two later she got rather a shock.

  Peter was crying eagerly, ‘Tell us the funny story about the warder and the plum pudding!’

  And then, urgently, as his father looked blank:

  ‘You know, when you were in prison, what the warder said, and the other warder?’

  Sherston hesitated and looked slightly shamefaced. Leslie’s voice said calmly:

  ‘Go on, Charles. It’s a very funny story. Mrs Scudamore would like to hear it.’

  So he had told it, and it was quite funny – if not so funny as the boys seemed to think. They rolled about squirming and gasping with laughter. Joan laughed politely, but she was definitely startled and a little shocked, and later, when Leslie had taken her upstairs she murmured delicately:

  ‘I’d no idea – they knew!’

  Leslie – really, Joan thought, Leslie Sherston must be most insensitive – looked rather amused.

  ‘They’d be bound to know some day,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t they? So they might just as well know now. It’s simpler.’

  It was simpler, Joan agreed, but was it wise? The delicate idealism of a child’s mind, to shatter its trust and faith – she broke off.

  Leslie said she didn’t think her children were very delicate and idealistic. It would be worse for them, she thought, to know there was something – and not be told what it was.

  She waved her hands in that clumsy, inarticulate way she had and said, ‘Making mysteries – all that – much worse. When they asked me why Daddy had gone away I thought I might just as well be natural about it, so I told them that he’d stolen money from the bank and gone to prison. After all, they know what stealing is. Peter used to steal jam and get sent to bed for it. If grown-up people do things that are wrong they get sent to prison. It’s quite simple.’

  ‘All the same, for a child to look down on its father instead of up to him –’

  ‘Oh they don’t look down on him.’ Leslie again seemed amused. ‘They’re actually quite sorry for him – and they love to hear all about the prison life.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not a good thing,’ said Joan decidedly.

  ‘Oh don’t you think so?’ Leslie meditated. ‘Perhaps not. But it’s been good for Charles. He came back simply cringing – like a dog. I couldn’t bear it. So I thought the only thing to do was to be quite natural about it. After all, you can’t pretend three years of your life have never existed. It’s better, I think, to treat it as just one of those things.’

  And that, thought Joan, was Leslie Sherston, casual, slack, and with no conception of any finer shades of feeling! Always taking the way of least resistance.

  Still, give her her due, she had been a loyal wife.

  Joan had said kindly, ‘You know, Leslie, I really think you have been quite splendid, the way you have stuck to your husband and worked so hard to keep things going while he was – er – away. Rodney and I often say so.’

  What a funny one-sided smile the woman had. Joan hadn’t noticed it until this minute. Perhaps her praise had embarrassed Leslie. It was certainly in rather a stiff voice that Leslie asked:

  ‘How is – Rodney?’

  ‘Very busy, the poor lamb. I’m always telling him he ought to take a day off now and again.’

  Leslie said, ‘That’s not so easy. I suppose in his job – like mine – it’s pretty well full time. There aren’t many possible days off.’

  ‘No. I daresay that’s true, and of course Rodney is very conscientious.’

  ‘A full-time job,’ Leslie said. She went slowly towards the window and stood there staring out.

  Something about the outline of her figure struck Joan – Leslie usually wore things pretty shapeless, but surely –

  ‘Oh Leslie,’ Joan exclaimed impulsively. ‘Surely you aren’t –’

  Leslie turned and meeting the other woman’s eyes slowly nodded her head.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘In August.’

  ‘Oh my dear.’ Joan felt genuinely distressed.

  And suddenly, surprisingly, Leslie broke into passionate speech. She was no longer casual and slack. She was like a condemned prisoner who puts up a defence.

  ‘It’s made all the difference to Charles. All the difference! Do you see? I can’t tell you how he feels about it. It’s a kind of symbol – that he’s not an outcast – that everything’s the same as it always was. He’s even tried to stop drinking since he’s known.’

  So im
passioned was Leslie’s voice that Joan hardly realized until afterwards the implication of the last sentence.

  She said, ‘Of course you know your own business best, but I should have thought it was unwise – at the moment.’

  ‘Financially, you mean?’ Leslie laughed. ‘Oh we’ll weather the storm. We grow pretty well all we eat anyway.’

  ‘And, you know, you don’t look very strong.’

  ‘Strong? I’m terribly strong. Too strong. Whatever kills me won’t kill me easily, I’m afraid.’

  And she had given a little shiver – as though – even then – she had had some strange prevision of disease and racking pain …

  And then they had gone downstairs again, and Sherston had said he would walk with Mrs Scudamore to the corner and show her the short cut across the fields, and, turning her head as they went down the drive, she saw Leslie and the boys all tangled up and rolling over and over on the ground with shrieks of wild mirth. Leslie, rolling about with her young, quite like an animal, thought Joan with slight disgust, and then bent her head attentively to listen to what Captain Sherston was saying.

  He was saying in rather incoherent terms that there never was, never had been, never would be, any woman like his wife.

  ‘You’ve no idea, Mrs Scudamore, what she’s been to me. No idea. Nobody could. I’m not worthy of her. I know that …’

  Joan observed with alarm that the easy tears were standing in his eyes. He was a man who could quickly become maudlin.

  ‘Always the same – always cheerful – seems to think that everything that happens is interesting and amusing. And never a word of reproach. Never a word. But I’ll make it up to her – I swear I’ll make it up to her.’

  It occurred to Joan that Captain Sherston could best show his appreciation by not visiting the Anchor and Bell too frequently. She very nearly said so.