Ordeal by Innocence - Agatha Christie [68]
Hester half fell across his chair. He kissed her.
“What you need is a husband, my girl,” he said. “Not that solemn young ass, Donald Craig, with his head full of psychiatry and jargon. You’re silly and idiotic and—completely lovely, Hester.”
The door opened. Mary Durrant stood abruptly still in the doorway. Hester struggled to an upright postion and Philip gave his wife a sheepish grin.
“I’m just cheering up Hester, Polly,” he said.
“Oh,” said Mary.
She came in carefully, placing the tray on a small table. Then she wheeled the table up beside him. She did not look at Hester. Hester looked uncertainly from husband to wife.
“Oh, well,” she said, “perhaps I’d better go and—go and—” She didn’t finish.
She went out of the room, shutting the door behind her.
“Hester’s in a bad way,” said Philip. “Contemplating suicide. I was trying to dissuade her,” he added.
Mary did not answer.
He stretched out a hand towards her. She moved away from him.
“Polly, have I made you angry? Very angry?”
She did not reply.
“Because I kissed her, I suppose? Come, Polly, don’t grudge me one silly little kiss. She was so lovely and so silly—and I suddenly felt—well, I felt it would be fun to be a gay dog again and have a flirtation now and then. Come, Polly, kiss me. Kiss and make friends.”
Mary Durrant said:
“Your soup will get cold if you don’t drink it.”
She went through the door to the bedroom and shut it behind her.
Eighteen
“There’s a young lady down below wanting to see you, sir.”
“A young lady?” Calgary looked surprised. He could not think who was likely to visit him. He looked at the work which littered his desk, and frowned. The voice of the hall porter spoke again, discreetly lowered.
“A real young lady, sir, a very nice young lady.”
“Oh, well. Show her up then.”
Calgary could not help smiling to himself slightly. The discreet undertones and the assurance tickled his sense of humour. He wondered who it could be who wanted to see him. He was completely astonished when his door bell buzzed and on going to open it he was confronted by Hester Argyle.
“You!” The exclamation came out with full surprise. Then, “Come in, come in,” he said. He drew her inside and shut the door.
Strangely enough, his impression of her was almost the same as the first time he had seen her. She was dressed with no regard to the conventions of London. She was hatless, her dark hair hanging round her face in a kind of elf lock disarray. The heavy tweed coat showed a dark green skirt and sweater underneath. She looked as though she had just come in breathless from a walk on the moor.
“Please,” said Hester, “please, you’ve got to help me.”
“To help you?” He was startled. “In what way? Of course I’ll help you if I can.”
“I didn’t know what to do,” said Hester. “I didn’t know who to come to. But someone’s got to help me. I can’t go on, and you’re the person. You started it all.”
“You’re in trouble of some kind? Bad trouble?”
“We’re all in trouble,” said Hester. “But one’s so selfish, isn’t one? I mean, I only think of myself.”
“Sit down, my dear,” he said gently.
He cleared papers off an armchair and settled her there. Then he went over to his corner cupboard.
“You must have a glass of wine,” he said. “A glass of dry sherry. Will that suit you?”
“If you like. It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s very wet and cold out. You need something.”
He turned, decanter and glass in hand. Hester was slumped down in the chair with a queer kind of angular grace that touched him by its complete abandonment.
“Don’t worry,” he said gently, as he put the glass by her side and filled it. “Things are never quite so bad as they seem, you know.”
“People say that, but it’s not true,” said Hester. “Sometimes they’re worse than they seem.” She sipped the wine, then she said accusingly, “We were all right till you came. Quite all right. Then, then it all started.”
“I won’t pretend,” said Arthur Calgary, “that I don’t know what you mean. It took me completely aback when you first said that to me, but now I understand