Murder Is Easy - Agatha Christie [8]
He had had an acknowledged picture at the back of his mind during his voyage home to England—a picture of an English girl flushed and sunburnt—stroking a horse’s neck, stooping to weed a herbaceous border, sitting holding out her hands to the blaze of a wood fire. It had been a warm gracious vision….
Now—he didn’t know if he liked Bridget Conway or not—but he knew that that secret picture wavered and broke up—became meaningless and foolish….
He said:
“How d’you do? I must apologize for wishing myself on you like this. Jimmy would have it that you wouldn’t mind.”
“Oh, we don’t. We’re delighted.” She smiled, a sudden curving smile that brought the corners of her long mouth halfway up her cheeks. “Jimmy and I always stand in together. And if you’re writing a book on folklore this is a splendid place. All sorts of legends and picturesque spots.”
“Splendid,” said Luke.
They went together towards the house. Luke stole another glance at it. He discerned now traces of a sober Queen Anne dwelling overlaid and smothered by the florid magnificence. He remembered that Jimmy had mentioned the house as having originally belonged to Bridget’s family. That, he thought grimly, was in its unadorned days. Stealing a glance at the line of her profile, at the long beautiful hands, he wondered.
She was about twenty-eight or -nine, he supposed. And she had brains. And she was one of those people about whom you knew absolutely nothing unless they chose that you should….
Inside, the house was comfortable and in good taste—the good taste of a first-class decorator. Bridget Conway led the way to a room with bookshelves and comfortable chairs where a tea table stood near the window with two people sitting by it.
She said:
“Gordon, this is Luke, a sort of cousin of a cousin of mine.”
Lord Whitfield was a small man with a semi-bald head. His face was round and ingenuous, with a pouting mouth and boiled gooseberry eyes. He was dressed in careless-looking country clothes. They were unkind to his figure, which ran mostly to stomach.
He greeted Luke with affability.
“Glad to see you—very glad. Just come back from the East, I hear? Interesting place. Writing a book, so Bridget tells me. They say too many books are written nowadays. I say no—always room for a good one.”
Bridget said, “My aunt, Mrs. Anstruther,” and Luke shook hands with a middle-aged woman with a rather foolish mouth.
Mrs. Anstruther, as Luke soon learned, was devoted body and soul to gardening. She never talked of anything else, and her mind was constantly occupied by considerations of whether some rare plant was likely to do well in the place she intended to put it.
After acknowledging the introduction, she said now:
“You know, Gordon, the ideal spot for a rockery would be just beyond the rose garden, and then you could have the most marvellous water garden where the stream comes through that dip.”
Lord Whitfield stretched himself back in his chair.
“You fix all that with Bridget,” he said easily. “Rock plants are niggly little things, I think—but that doesn’t matter.”
Bridget said:
“Rock plants aren’t sufficiently in the grand manner for you, Gordon.”
She poured out some tea for Luke and Lord Whitfield said placidly:
“That’s right. They’re not what I call good value for money. Little bits of flowers you can hardly see…I like a nice show in a conservatory, or some good beds of scarlet geraniums.”
Mrs. Anstruther, who possessed par excellence the gift of continuing with her own subject undisturbed by that of anyone else, said:
“I believe those new rock roses would do perfectly in this climate,” and proceeded to immerse herself in catalogues.
Throwing his squat little figure back in his chair, Lord Whitfield sipped his tea and studied Luke appraisingly.
“So you write books,” he murmured.
Feeling slightly nervous, Luke was about to enter on explanations when he perceived that Lord Whitfield was not really seeking for information.