Murder Is Easy - Agatha Christie [41]
“Your father disapproved?”
“Well, not disapproved exactly. Oh, I suppose it did amount to that, really.”
Luke said gently:
“He thought you were too young?”
“That’s what he said.”
Luke said acutely: “But you think there was something more than that?”
Rose bent her head slowly and reluctantly.
“Yes—I’m afraid what it really amounted to was that daddy didn’t—well, didn’t really like Geoffrey.”
“They were antagonistic to each other?”
“It seemed like that sometimes…Of course, daddy was rather a prejudiced old dear.”
“And I suppose he was very fond of you and didn’t like the thought of losing you?”
Rose assented but still with a shade of reservation in her manner.
“It went deeper than that?” asked Luke. “He definitely didn’t want Thomas as a husband for you?”
“No. You see—daddy and Geoffrey are so very unlike—and in some ways they clashed. Geoffrey was really very patient and good about it—but knowing daddy didn’t like him made him even more reserved and shy in his manner, so that daddy really never got to know him any better.”
“Prejudices are very hard to combat,” said Luke.
“It was so completely unreasonable!”
“Your father didn’t advance any reasons?”
“Oh, no. He couldn’t! Naturally, I mean, there wasn’t anything he could say against Geoffrey except that he didn’t like him.”
“I do not like thee, Dr. Fell, the reason why I cannot tell.”
“Exactly.”
“No tangible thing to get hold of? I mean, your Geoffrey doesn’t drink or back horses?”
“Oh, no. I don’t believe Geoffrey even knows what won the Derby.”
“That’s funny,” said Luke. “You know, I could swear I saw your Dr. Thomas at Epsom on Derby Day.”
For a moment he was anxious lest he might already have mentioned that he only arrived in England on that day. But Rose responded at once quite unsuspiciously.
“You thought you saw Geoffrey at the Derby? Oh, no. He couldn’t get away, for one thing. He was over at Ashewold nearly all that day at a difficult confinement case.”
“What a memory you’ve got!”
Rose laughed.
“I remember that, because he told me they called the baby Jujube as a nickname!”
Luke nodded abstractedly.
“Anyway,” said Rose, “Geoffrey never goes to race meetings. He’d be bored to death.”
She added, in a different tone:
“Won’t you—come in? I think mother would like to see you.”
“If you’re sure of that?”
Rose led the way into a room where twilight hung rather sadly. A woman was sitting in an armchair in a curiously huddled up position.
“Mother, this is Mr. Fitzwilliam.”
Mrs. Humbleby gave a start and shook hands. Rose went quietly out of the room.
“I’m glad to see you, Mr. Fitzwilliam. Some friends of yours knew my husband many years ago, so Rose tells me.”
“Yes, Mrs. Humbleby.” He rather hated repeating the lie to the widowed woman, but there was no way out of it.
Mrs. Humbleby said:
“I wish you could have met him. He was a fine man and a great doctor. He cured many people who had been given up as hopeless just by the strength of his personality.”
Luke said gently:
“I’ve heard a lot about him since I’ve been here. I know how much people thought of him.”
He could not see Mrs. Humbleby’s face very distinctly. Her voice was rather monotonous, but its very lack of feeling seemed to emphasize the fact that actually feeling was in her, strenuously held back.
She said rather unexpectedly:
“The world is a very wicked place, Mr. Fitzwilliam. Do you know that?”
Luke was a little surprised.
“Yes, perhaps that may be.”
She insisted:
“No, but do you know it? It’s important that. There’s a lot of wickedness about…One must be prepared—to fight it! John was. He knew. He was on the side of the right!”
Luke said gently:
“I’m sure he was.”
“He knew the wickedness there was in this place,” said Mrs. Humbleby. “He knew—”
She burst suddenly into tears.
Luke murmured:
“I’m so sorry—” and stopped.
She controlled herself as suddenly as she had lost control.
“You must forgive me,” she said. She held out her hand and he took it. “Do come and see us while you are here,” she said. “It would be so good