Five Little Pigs - Agatha Christie [70]
On this day, Sept. 17, as we were sitting in the drawing room after lunch, Miss Greer came out with an amazing remark as to how she was going to redecorate the room when she was living at Alderbury.
Naturally Mrs. Crale couldn’t let that pass. She challenged her, and Miss Greer had the impudence to say, before us all, that she was going to marry Mr. Crale. She actually talked about marrying a married man—and she said it to his wife!
I was very, very angry with Mr. Crale. How dared he let this girl insult his wife in her own drawing room? If he wanted to run away with the girl, he should have gone off with her, not brought her into his wife’s house and backed her up in her insolence.
In spite of what she must have felt, Mrs. Crale did not lose her dignity. Her husband came in just then, and she immediately demanded confirmation from him.
He was, not unnaturally, annoyed with Miss Greer for her unconsidered forcing of the situation. Apart from anything else, it made him appear at a disadvantage, and men do not like appearing at a disadvantage. It upsets their vanity.
He stood there, a great giant of a man, looking as sheepish and foolish as a naughty schoolboy. It was his wife who carried off the honours of the situation. He had to mutter foolishly that it was true, but that he hadn’t meant her to learn it like this.
I have never seen anything like the look of scorn she gave him. She went out of the room with her head held high. She was a beautiful woman—much more beautiful than that flamboyant girl—and she walked like an Empress.
I hoped, with all my heart, that Amyas Crale would be punished for the cruelty he had displayed and for the indignity he had put upon a long-suffering and noble woman.
For the first time, I tried to say something of what I felt to Mrs. Crale, but she stopped me.
She said:
“We must try and behave as usual. It’s the best way. We’re all going over to Meredith Blake’s to tea.”
I said to her then:
“I think you are wonderful, Mrs. Crale.”
She said:
“You don’t know….”
Then, as she was going out of the room, she came back and kissed me. She said:
“You’re such a comfort to me.”
She went to her room then and I think she cried. I saw her when they all started off. She was wearing a big-brimmed hat that shaded her face—a hat she very seldom wore.
Mr. Crale was uneasy, but was trying to brazen things out. Mr. Philip Blake was trying to behave as usual. That Miss Greer was looking like a cat who has got at the cream jug. All self-satisfaction and purrs!
They all started off. They got back about six. I did not see Mrs. Crale again alone that evening. She was very quiet and composed at dinner, and she went to bed early. I don’t think that anyone knew how she was suffering.
The evening was taken up with a kind of running quarrel between Mr. Crale and Angela. They brought up the old school question again. He was irritable and on edge, and she was unusually trying. The whole matter was settled and her outfit had been bought, and there was no sense in starting up an argument again, but she suddenly chose to make a grievance of it. I have no doubt she sensed the tension in the air and that it reacted on her as much as on everybody else. I am afraid I was too preoccupied with my own thoughts to try and check her as I should have done. It all ended with her flinging a paperweight at Mr. Crale and dashing out of the room.
I went after her and told her sharply that I was ashamed of her behaving like a baby, but she was still very uncontrolled, and I thought it best to leave her alone.
I hesitated as to whether to go to Mrs. Crale’s room, but I decided in the end that it would, perhaps, annoy her. I wish since that I had overcome my diffidence and insisted on her talking to me. If she had done so, it might possibly have made a difference. She had no one, you see, in whom she could confide. Although I admire self-control, I must regretfully admit that sometimes