Listerdale Mystery - Agatha Christie [73]
It seemed that she had friends there. Friends! Again James laughed sardonically. His mind went back over the last three years of his leisurely courtship of Grace. Extremely pleased she had been when he first singled her out for notice. That was before she had risen to heights of glory in the millinery salons at Messrs Bartles in the High Street. In those early days it had been James who gave himself airs, now alas! the boot was on the other leg. Grace was what is technically known as ‘earning good money’. It had made her uppish. Yes, that was it, thoroughly uppish. A confused fragment out of a poetry book came back to James’s mind, something about ‘thanking heaven fasting, for a good man’s love’. But there was nothing of that kind of thing observable about Grace. Well fed on an Esplanade Hotel breakfast, she was ignoring a good man’s love utterly. She was indeed accepting the attentions of a poisonous idiot called Claud Sopworth, a man, James felt convinced, of no moral worth whatsoever.
James ground a heel into the the earth, and scowled darkly at the horizon. Kimpton-on-Sea. What had possessed him to come to such a place? It was preeminently a resort of the rich and fashionable, it possessed two large hotels, and several miles of picturesque bungalows belonging to fashionable actresses, rich Jews and those members of the English aristocracy who had married wealthy wives. The rent, furnished, of the smallest bungalow was twenty-five guineas a week. Imagination boggled at what the rent of the large ones might amount to. There was one of these palaces immediately behind James’s seat. It belonged to that famous sportsman Lord Edward Campion, and there were staying there at the moment a houseful of distinguished guests including the Rajah of Maraputna, whose wealth was fabulous. James had read all about him in the local weekly newspaper that morning: the extent of his Indian possessions, his palaces, his wonderful collection of jewels, with a special mention of one famous emerald which the papers declared enthusiastically was the size of a pigeon’s egg. James, being town bred, was somewhat hazy about the size of a pigeon’s egg, but the impression left on his mind was good.
‘If I had an emerald like that,’ said James, scowling at the horizon again, ‘I’d show Grace.’
The sentiment was vague, but the enunciation of it made James feel better. Laughing voices hailed him from behind, and he turned abruptly to confront Grace. With her was Clara Sopworth, Alice Sopworth, Dorothy Sopworth and–alas! Claud Sopworth. The girls were arm-in-arm and giggling.
‘Why, you are quite a stranger,’ cried Grace archly.
‘Yes,’ said James.
He could, he felt, have found a more telling retort. You cannot convey the impression of a dynamic personality by the use of the one word ‘yes’. He looked with intense loathing at Claud Sopworth. Claud Sopworth was almost as beautifully dressed as the hero of a musical comedy. James longed passionately for the moment when an enthusiastic beach dog should plant wet, sandy forefeet on the unsullied whiteness of Claud’s flannel trousers. He himself wore a serviceable pair of dark-grey flannel trousers which had seen better days.
‘Isn’t the air beau-tiful?’ said Clara, sniffing it appreciatively. ‘Quite sets you up, doesn’t it?’
She giggled.
‘It’s ozone,’ said Alice Sopworth. ‘It’s as good as a tonic, you know.’ And she giggled also.
James thought:
‘I should like to knock their silly heads together. What is the sense of laughing all the time? They are not saying anything funny.’
The immaculate Claud murmured languidly:
‘Shall we have a bathe, or is it too much of a fag?’
The idea of bathing was accepted shrilly. James fell into line with them. He even managed, with a certain amount of cunning, to draw Grace a little behind the others.
‘Look here!’ he complained, ‘I am hardly seeing anything of you.’
‘Well, I am sure we are all together now,’ said Grace, ‘and you can come and lunch with us at the hotel, at least–’
She looked dubiously