Crooked House - Agatha Christie [46]
She sighed.
“Roger’s rather a pet. I love him when he rumples his hair and starts knocking things over. Wasn’t it sweet of Edith to offer her legacy to him? She really meant it, you know, it wasn’t just a gesture. But it was terribly stupid—it might have made Philip think he ought to do it too! Of course Edith would do anything for the family! There’s something very pathetic in the love of a spinster for her sister’s children. Some day I shall play one of those devoted spinster aunts. Inquisitive and obstinate and devoted.”
“It must have been hard for her after her sister died,” I said, refusing to be sidetracked into discussion of another of Magda’s roles. “I mean if she disliked old Leonides so much.”
Magda interrupted me.
“Disliked him? Who told you that? Nonsense. She was in love with him.”
“Mother!” said Sophia.
“Now don’t try and contradict me, Sophia. Naturally at your age, you think love is all two good-looking young people in the moonlight.”
“She told me,” I said, “that she had always disliked him.”
“Probably she did when she first came. She’d been angry with her sister for marrying him. I dare say there was always some antagonism—but she was in love with him all right! Darling, I do know what I’m talking about! Of course, with deceased wife’s sister and all that, he couldn’t have married her, and I dare say he never thought of it—and quite probably she didn’t either. She was quite happy mothering the children, and having fights with him. But she didn’t like it when he married Brenda. She didn’t like it a bit!”
“No more did you and father,” said Sophia.
“No, of course we hated it! Naturally! But Edith hated it most. Darling, the way I’ve seen her look at Brenda!”
“Now, Mother,” said Sophia.
Magda threw her an affectionate and half-guilty glance, the glance of a mischieveous, spoilt child.
She went on, with no apparent realization of any lack of continuity:
“I’ve decided Josephine really must go to school.”
“Josephine? To school?”
“Yes. To Switzerland. I’m going to see about it tomorrow. I really think we might get her off at once. It’s so bad for her to be mixed up in a horrid business like this. She’s getting quite morbid about it. What she needs is other children of her own age. School life. I’ve always thought so.”
“Grandfather didn’t want her to go to school,” said Sophia slowly. “He was very much against it.”
“Darling old Sweetie Pie liked us all here under his eye. Very old people are often selfish in that way. A child ought to be amongst other children. And Switzerland is so healthy—all the winter sports, and the air, and so much, much better food than we get here!”
“It will be difficult to arrange for Switzerland now with all the currency regulations, won’t it?” I asked.
“Nonsense, Charles. There’s some kind of educational racket—or you exchange with a Swiss child—there are all sorts of ways. Rudolph Alstir’s in Lausanne. I shall wire him tomorrow to arrange everything. We can get her off by the end of the week!”
Magda punched a cushion, smiled at us, went to the door, stood a moment looking back at us in a quite enchanting fashion.
“It’s only the young who count,” she said. As she said it, it was a lovely line. “They must always come first. And, darlings—think of the flowers—the blue gentians, the narcissus….”
“In October?” asked Sophia, but Magda had gone.
Sophia heaved an exasperated sigh.
“Really,” she said. “Mother is too trying! She gets these sudden ideas, and she sends thousands of telegrams and everything has to be arranged at a moment’s notice. Why should Josephine be hustled off to Switzerland all in a flurry?”
“There’s probably something in the idea of school. I think children of her own age would be a good thing for Josephine.”
“Grandfather didn’t think so,” said Sophia obstinately.
I felt slightly irritated.
“My dear Sophia, do you really think an old gentleman of over eighty is the best judge of a child’s welfare?”
“He was about the best judge of anybody in this house,” said Sophia.
“Better than your Aunt Edith?”
“No, perhaps not. She did