Ordeal by Innocence - Agatha Christie [80]
He sighed impatiently. He could hardly wait for Tina to arrive. If only this could be cleared up. Just among themselves. That was all that was necessary. Once they knew—then they would all be free. Free of this stifling atmosphere of suspicion and hopelessness. They could all, except one, get on with their own lives. He and Mary would go back home and—
His thoughts stopped. Excitement died down again. He faced his own problem. He didn’t want to go home… He thought of its orderly perfection, its shining chintzes, its gleaming brass. A clean, bright, well-tended cage! And he in the cage, tied to his invalid-chair, surrounded by the loving care of his wife.
His wife … When he thought of his wife, he seemed to see two people. One the girl he had married, fair-haired, blue-eyed, gentle, reserved. That was the girl he had loved, the girl he teased whilst she stared at him with a puzzled frown. That was his Polly. But there was another Mary—a Mary who was hard as steel, who was passionate, but incapable of affection—a Mary to whom nobody mattered but herself. Even he only mattered because he was hers.
A line of French verse passed through his mind—how did it go.
Venus toute entière à sa proie attaché….
And that Mary he did not love. Behind the cold blue eyes of that Mary was a stranger—a stranger he did not know….
And then he laughed at himself. He was getting nervy and het up like everybody else in the house. He remembered his mother-in-law talking to him about his wife. About the sweet little fair-haired girl in New York. About the moment when the child had thrown her arms round Mrs. Argyle’s neck and had cried out: “I want to stay with you. I don’t want to leave you ever!”
That had been affection, hadn’t it? And yet—how very unlike Mary. Could one change so much between child and woman? How difficult, almost impossible it was for Mary ever to voice affection, to be demonstrative?
Yet certainly on that occasion—His thoughts stopped dead. Or was it really quite simple? Not affection—just calculation. A means to an end. A show of affection deliberately produced. What was Mary capable of to get what she wanted?
Almost anything, he thought—and was shocked with himself for thinking it.
Angrily he dashed down his pen, and wheeled himself out of the sitting room into the bedroom next door. He wheeled himself up to the dressing table. He picked up his brushes and brushed back his hair from where it was hanging over his forehead. His own face looked strange to him.
Who am I, he thought, and where am I going? Thoughts that had never occurred to him before … He wheeled his chair close to the window and looked out. Down below, one of the daily women stood outside the kitchen window and talked to someone inside. Their voices, softly accented in the local dialect, floated up to him….
His eyes widening, he remained as though tranced.
A sound from the next room awakened him from his preoccupation. He wheeled himself to the connecting door.
Gwenda Vaughan was standing by the writing table. She turned towards him and he was startled by the haggardness of her face in the morning sunshine.
“Hallo, Gwenda.”
“Hallo Philip. Leo thought you might like the Illustrated London News.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“This is a nice room,” said Gwenda, looking round her. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been in it before.”
“Quite the Royal Suite isn’t it?” said Philip. “Away from everybody. Ideal for invalids and honeymoon couples.”
Just too late he wished he had not used the last two words. Gwenda’s face quivered.
“I must get on with things,” she said vaguely.
“The perfect secretary.”
“Not even that nowadays. I make mistakes.”
“Don’t we all?” He added deliberately: “When are you and Leo getting married?”
“We probably never shall.”
“That would be a real mistake,” said Philip.
“Leo thinks it might cause unfavourable comment—from the police!”
Her voice was bitter.
“Dash it all, Gwenda, one has to take some risks.