Nemesis - Agatha Christie [26]
‘Of course, all that we were told is very interesting,’ said Miss Marple, rather doubtfully.
‘Oh, do you think so?’ said Miss Temple. Her head turned slightly and her eyes met those of Miss Marple. Something passed between the two women, a kind of rapport— of understanding tinged with mirth.
‘Don’t you?’ asked Miss Marple.
‘No,’ said Miss Temple.
This time the understanding was definitely established between them. They sat there companionably in silence. Presently Elizabeth Temple began to talk about gardens, and this garden in particular. ‘It was designed by Holman,’ she said, ‘somewhere about 1800 or 1798. He died young. A pity. He had great genius.’
‘It is so sad when anyone dies young,’ said Miss Marple.
‘I wonder,’ said Elizabeth Temple.
She said it in a curious, meditative way.
‘But they miss so much,’ said Miss Marple. ‘So many things.’
‘Or escape so much,’ said Miss Temple.
‘Being as old as I am now,’ said Miss Marple, ‘I suppose I can’t help feeling that early death means missing things.’
‘And I,’ said Elizabeth Temple, ‘having spent nearly all my life amongst the young, look at life as a period in time complete in itself. What did T.S. Eliot say: The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew tree are of equal duration.’
Miss Marple said, ‘I see what you mean…A life of whatever length is a complete experience. But don’t you — ’ she hesitated, ‘ — ever feel that a life could be incomplete because it has been cut unduly short?’
‘Yes, that is so.’
Miss Marple said, looking at the flowers near her, ‘How beautiful peonies are. That long border of them — so proud and yet so beautifully fragile.’
Elizabeth Temple turned her head towards her.
‘Did you come on this trip to see the houses or to see gardens?’ she asked.
‘I suppose really to see the houses,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I shall enjoy the gardens most, though, but the houses — they will be a new experience for me. Their variety and their history, and the beautiful old furniture and the pictures.’ She added: ‘A kind friend gave me this trip as a gift. I am very grateful. I have not seen very many big and famous houses in my life.’
‘A kind thought,’ said Miss Temple.
‘Do you often go on these sight-seeing tours?’ asked Miss Marple.
‘No. This is not for me exactly a sight-seeing tour.’
Miss Marple looked at her with interest. She half opened her lips to speak but refrained from putting a question. Miss Temple smiled at her.
‘You wonder why I am here, what my motive is, my reason. Well, why don’t you make a guess?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t like to do that,’ said Miss Marple.
‘Yes, do do so.’ Elizabeth Temple was urgent. ‘It would interest me. Yes, really interest me. Make a guess.’
Miss Marple was silent for quite a few moments. Her eyes looked at Elizabeth Temple steadily, ranging over her thoughtfully in her appraisement. She said,
‘This is not from what I know about you or what I have been told about you. I know that you are quite a famous person and that your school is a very famous one. No. I am only making my guess from what you look like. I should — write you down as a pilgrim. You have the look of one who is on a pilgrimage.’
There was a silence and then Elizabeth said,
‘That describes it very well. Yes. I am on a pilgrimage.’
Miss Marple said after a moment or two,
‘The friend who sent me on this tour and paid all my expenses, is now dead. He was a Mr Rafiel, a very rich man. Did you by any chance know him?’
‘Jason Rafiel? I know him by name, of course. I never knew him personally, or met him. He gave a large endowment once to an educational project in which I was interested. I was very grateful. As you say, he was a very wealthy man. I saw the notice of his death in the papers a few weeks ago. So he was an old friend of yours?’
‘No,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I had met him just over a year ago abroad. In the West Indies. I never knew much about him. His life or his family or any personal friends that he had. He was a great financier but otherwise, or so people always said, he was a man who was very reserved about himself.