Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [62]
Chapter 15
Aunt Matilda Takes A Cure
I
‘A cure of some kind, I thought?’ Lady Matilda hazarded.
‘A cure?’ said Dr Donaldson. He looked faintly puzzled for a moment, losing his air of medical omniscience, which, of course, so Lady Matilda reflected, was one of the slight disadvantages attached to having a younger doctor attending one rather than the older specimen to whom one has been accustomed for several years.
‘That’s what we used to call them,’ Lady Matilda explained. ‘In my young days, you know, you went for the Cure. Marienbad, Carlsbad, Baden-Baden, all the rest of it. Just the other day I read about this new place in the paper. Quite new and up to date. Said to be all new ideas and things like that. Not that I’m really sold on new ideas, but I wouldn’t really be afraid of them. I mean, they would probably be all the same things all over again. Water tasting of bad eggs and the latest sort of diet and walking to take the Cure, or the Waters, or whatever they call them now, at a rather inconvenient hour in the morning. And I expect they give you massage or something. It used to be seaweed. But this place is somewhere in the mountains. Bavaria or Austria or somewhere like that. So I don’t suppose it would be seaweed. Shaggy moss, perhaps–sounds like a dog. And perhaps quite a nice mineral water as well as the eggy sulphury one, I mean. Superb buildings, I understand. The only thing one is nervous about nowadays is that they never seem to put banisters in any up-to-date modern buildings. Flights of marble steps and all that, but nothing to hang on to.’
‘I think I know the place you mean,’ said Dr Donaldson. ‘It’s been publicized a good deal, in the press.’
‘Well, you know what one is at my age,’ said Lady Matilda. ‘One likes trying new things. Really, I think it is just to amuse one. It doesn’t really make one feel one’s health would be any better. Still, you don’t think it would be a bad idea, do you, Dr Donaldson?’
Dr Donaldson looked at her. He was not so young as Lady Matilda labelled him in her mind. He was just approaching forty and he was a tactful and kindly man and willing to indulge his elderly patients as far as he considered it desirable, without any actual danger of their attempting something obviously unsuitable.
‘I’m sure it wouldn’t do you any harm at all,’ he said. ‘Might be quite a good idea. Of course travel’s a bit tiring though one flies to places very quickly and easily nowadays.’
‘Quickly, yes. Easily, no,’ said Lady Matilda. ‘Ramps and moving staircases and in and out of buses from the airport to the plane, and the plane to another airport and from the airport to another bus. All that, you know. But I understand one can have wheelchairs in the airports.’
‘Of course you can. Excellent idea. If you promise to do that and not think you can walk everywhere…’
‘I know, I know,’ said his patient, interrupting him. ‘You do understand. You’re really a very understanding man. One has one’s pride, you know, and while you can still hobble around with a stick or a little support, you don’t really want to look absolutely a crock or bedridden or something. It’d be easier if I was a man,’ she mused. ‘I mean, one could tie up one’s leg with one of those enormous bandages and padded things as though one had the gout. I mean, gout is all right for the male sex. Nobody thinks anything the worse of them. Some of their older friends think they’ve been tucking in to the port too much because that used to be the old idea, though I believe that is not really true at all. Port wine does not give you gout. Yes, a wheelchair, and I could fly to Munich or somewhere like that. One could arrange for a car or something at the other end.’
‘You will take Miss Leatheran with you, of course.’
‘Amy? Oh, of course. I couldn’t do without her. Anyway, you think no harm would be done?’
‘I think it might do you a world of good.’
‘You really are a nice man.’
Lady Matilda gave him the twinkle from her eyes with which now he was becoming familiar.
‘You think it’ll amuse me and cheer me up