Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [107]
Darkness, and through it the tune that Pierrette has sung. Light comes slowly. The cottage once more. Pierrot and Pierrette grown old and grey sit in front of the fire in two armchairs. The music is happy, but subdued. Pierrette nods in her chair. Through the window comes a shaft of moonlight, and with it the motif of Pierrot’s long-forgotten song. He stirs in his chair.
Faint music–fairy music…Harlequin and Columbine outside. The door swings open and Columbine dances in. She leans over the sleeping Pierrot, kisses him on the lips…
Crash! A peal of thunder. She is outside again. In the centre of the stage is the lighted window and through it are seen the two figures of Harlequin and Columbine dancing slowly away, growing fainter and fainter…
A log falls. Pierrette jumps up angrily, rushes across to the window and pulls the blind. So it ends, on a sudden discord…
Mr Satterthwaite sat very still among the applause and vociferations. At last he got up and made his way outside. He came upon Molly Stanwell, flushed and eager, receiving compliments. He saw John Denman, pushing and elbowing his way through the throng, his eyes alight with a new flame. Molly came towards him, but, almost unconsciously, he put her aside. It was not her he was seeking.
‘My wife? Where is she?’
‘I think she went out in the garden.’
It was, however, Mr Satterthwaite who found her, sitting on a stone seat under a cypress tree. When he came up to her, he did an odd thing. He knelt down and raised her hand to his lips.
‘Ah!’ she said. ‘You think I danced well?’
‘You danced–as you always danced, Madame Kharsanova.’
She drew in her breath sharply.
‘So–you have guessed.’
‘There is only one Kharsanova. No one could see you dance and forget. But why–why?’
‘What else is possible?’
‘You mean?’
She had spoken very simply. She was just as simple now. ‘Oh! but you understand. You are of the world. A great dancer–she can have lovers, yes–but a husband, that is different. And he–he did not want the other. He wanted me to belong to him as–as Kharsanova could never have belonged.’
‘I see,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. ‘I see. So you gave it up?’
She nodded.
‘You must have loved him very much,’ said Mr Satterthwaite gently.
‘To make such a sacrifice?’ She laughed.
‘Not quite that. To make it so light-heartedly.’
‘Ah, yes–perhaps–you are right.’
‘And now?’ asked Mr Satterthwaite.
Her face grew grave.
‘Now?’ She paused, then raised her voice and spoke into the shadows.
‘Is that you, Sergius Ivanovitch?’
Prince Oranoff came out into the moonlight. He took her hand and smiled at Mr Satterthwaite without self-consciousness.
‘Ten years ago I mourned the death of Anna Kharsanova,’ he said simply. ‘She was to me as my other self. Today I have found her again. We shall part no more.’
‘At the end of the lane in ten minutes,’ said Anna. ‘I shall not fail you.’
Oranoff nodded and went off again. The dancer turned to Mr Satterthwaite. A smile played about her lips.
‘Well–you are not satisfied, my friend?’
‘Do you know,’ said Mr Satterthwaite abruptly, ‘that your husband is looking for you?’
He saw the tremor that passed over her face, but her voice was steady enough.
‘Yes,’ she said gravely. ‘That may well be.’
‘I saw his eyes. They–’ he stopped abruptly.
She was still calm.
‘Yes, perhaps. For an hour. An hour’s magic, born of past memories, of music, of moonlight–That is all.’
‘Then there is nothing that I can say?’ He felt old, dispirited.
‘For ten years I have lived with the man I love,’ said Anna Kharsanova. ‘Now I am going to the man who for ten years has loved me.’
Mr Satterthwaite said nothing. He had no arguments left. Besides it really seemed the simplest solution. Only–only, somehow, it was not the solution he wanted. He felt her hand on his shoulder.
‘I know, my friend, I know. But there is no third way. Always one looks for one thing–the lover,