Caribbean Mystery - Agatha Christie [49]
“Oh, come sir, you mustn’t say that.” Jackson was full of professional cheerfulness. “You’d soon notice if you left it off.”
He wheeled the chair deftly round.
Miss Marple rose to her feet, smiled at Esther and went down to the beach.
Eighteen
WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY
I
The beach was rather empty this morning. Greg was splashing in the water in his usual noisy style, Lucky was lying on her face on the beach with a sun-tanned back well oiled and her blonde hair splayed over her shoulders. The Hillingdons were not there. Señora de Caspearo, with an assorted bag of gentlemen in attendance, was lying face upwards and talking deep-throated, happy Spanish. Some French and Italian children were playing at the water’s edge and laughing. Canon and Miss Prescott were sitting in beach chairs observing the scene. The Canon had his hat tilted forward over his eyes and seemed half asleep. There was a convenient chair next to Miss Prescott and Miss Marple made for it and sat down.
“Oh dear,” she said with a deep sigh.
“I know,” said Miss Prescott.
It was their joint tribute to violent death.
“That poor girl,” said Miss Marple.
“Very sad,” said the Canon. “Most deplorable.”
“For a moment or two,” said Miss Prescott, “we really thought of leaving, Jeremy and I. But then we decided against it. It would not really be fair, I felt, on the Kendals. After all, it’s not their fault—It might have happened anywhere.”
“In the midst of life we are in death,” said the Canon solemnly.
“It’s very important, you know,” said Miss Prescott, “that they should make a go of this place. They have sunk all their capital in it.”
“A very sweet girl,” said Miss Marple, “but not looking at all well lately.”
“Very nervy,” agreed Miss Prescott. “Of course her family—” she shook her head.
“I really think, Joan,” said the Canon in mild reproof, “that there are some things—”
“Everybody knows about it,” said Miss Prescott. “Her family live in our part of the world. A great-aunt—most peculiar—and one of her uncles took off all his clothes in one of the tube stations. Green Park, I believe it was.”
“Joan, that is a thing that should not be repeated.”
“Very sad,” said Miss Marple, shaking her head, “though I believe not an uncommon form of madness. I know when we were working for the Armenian relief, a most respectable elderly clergyman was afflicted the same way. They telephoned his wife and she came along at once and took him home in a cab, wrapped in a blanket.”
“Of course, Molly’s immediate family’s all right,” said Miss Prescott. “She never got on very well with her mother, but then so few girls seem to get on with their mothers nowadays.”
“Such a pity,” said Miss Marple, shaking her head, “because really a young girl needs her mother’s knowledge of the world and experience.”
“Exactly,” said Miss Prescott with emphasis. “Molly, you know, took up with some man—quite unsuitable, I understand.”
“It so often happens,” said Miss Marple.
“Her family disapproved, naturally. She didn’t tell them about it. They heard about it from a complete outsider. Of course her mother said she must bring him along so that they met him properly. This, I understand, the girl refused to do. She said it was humiliating to him. Most insulting to be made to come and meet her family and be looked over. Just as though you were a horse, she said.”
Miss Marple sighed. “One does need so much tact when dealing with the young,” she murmured.
“Anyway, there it was! They forbade her to see him.”
“But you can’t do that nowadays,” said Miss Marple. “Girls have jobs and they meet people whether anyone forbids them or not.”
“But then, very fortunately,” went on Miss Prescott, “she met Tim Kendal, and the other man sort of faded out of the picture. I can’t tell you how relieved the family was.”
“I hope they didn’t show it too plainly,” said Miss Marple. “That so often puts girls off from forming suitable attachments.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“One remembers oneself—” murmured Miss Marple, her mind going back to the past. A young man she had met at a croquet