After the Funeral - Agatha Christie [62]
Maude felt it without comment.
“Timothy, shall we go to an hotel until the house painting is finished?”
“It would be a great waste of money.”
“Does that matter so much—now?”
“You’re just like all women—hopelessly extravagant! Just because we’ve come into a ridiculously small part of my brother’s estate, you think we can go and live indefinitely at the Ritz.”
“I didn’t quite say that, dear.”
“I can tell you that the difference Richard’s money will make will be hardly appreciable. This bloodsucking Government will see to that. You mark my words, the whole lot will go in taxation.”
Mrs. Abernethie shook her head sadly.
“This coffee’s cold,” said the invalid, looking with distaste at the cup which he had not as yet tasted. “Why can’t I ever get a cup of really hot coffee?”
“I’ll take it down and warm it up.”
In the kitchen Miss Gilchrist was drinking tea and conversing affably, though with slight condescension, with Mrs. Jones.
“I’m so anxious to spare Mrs. Abernethie all I can,” she said. “All this running up and down stairs is so painful for her.”
“Waits on him hand and foot, she does,” said Mrs. Jones, stirring the sugar in her cup.
“It’s very sad his being such an invalid.”
“Not such an invalid either,” Mrs. Jones said darkly. “Suits him very well to lie up and ring bells and have trays brought up and down. But he’s well able to get up and go about. Even seen him out in the village, I have, when she’s been away. Walking as hearty as you please. Anything he really needs—like his tobacco or a stamp—he can come and get. And that’s why when she was off to that funeral and got held up on the way back, and he told me I’d got to come in and stay the night again, I refused. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I said, ‘but I’ve got my husband to think of. Going out to oblige in the mornings is all very well, but I’ve got to be there to see to him when he comes back from work.’ Nor I wouldn’t budge, I wouldn’t. Do him good, I thought, to get about the house and look after himself for once. Might make him see what a lot he gets done for him. So I stood firm, I did. He didn’t half create.”
Mrs. Jones drew a deep breath and took a long satisfying drink of sweet inky tea. “Ar,” she said.
Though deeply suspicious of Miss Gilchrist, and considering her as a finicky thing and a “regular fussy old maid,” Mrs. Jones approved of the lavish way in which Miss Gilchrist dispensed her employer’s tea and sugar ration.
She set down the cup and said affably:
“I’ll give the kitchen floor a nice scrub down and then I’ll be getting along. The potatoes is all ready peeled, dear, you’ll find them by the sink.”
Though slightly affronted by the “dear,” Miss Gilchrist was appreciative of the goodwill which had divested an enormous quantity of potatoes of their outer coverings.
Before she could say anything the telephone rang and she hurried out in the hall to answer it. The telephone, in the style of fiftyodd years ago, was situated inconveniently in a draughty passage behind the staircase.
Maude Abernethie appeared at the top of the stairs while Miss Gilchrist was still speaking. The latter looked up and said:
“It’s Mrs.—Leo—is it?—Abernethie speaking.”
“Tell her I’m just coming.”
Maude descended the stairs slowly and painfully.
Miss Gilchrist murmured, “I’m so sorry you’ve had to come down again, Mrs. Abernethie. Has Mr. Abernethie finished his elevenses? I’ll just nip up and get the tray.”
She trotted up the stairs as Mrs. Abernethie said into the receiver:
“Helen? This is Maude here.”
The invalid received Miss Gilchrist with a baleful glare. As she picked up the tray he asked fretfully:
“Who’s that on the telephone?”
“Mrs. Leo Abernethie.”
“Oh? Suppose they’ll go on gossiping for about an hour. Women have no sense of time when they get on the phone. Never think of the money they’re wasting.”
Miss Gilchrist said brightly that it would be Mrs. Leo who had to pay, and Timothy grunted.
“Just pull that curtain