Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie [33]
Suddenly voicing his thoughts, Stephen said sharply, ‘We needn’t go.’
Sandra turned her face slightly towards him. It wore a thoughtful considering air.
‘You think not?’
‘It’s easy to make some excuse.’
‘He’ll only insist on us coming some other time—or change the day. He—he seems very set on our coming.’
‘I can’t think why. It’s Iris’s party—and I can’t believe she is so particularly anxious for our company.’
‘No—no—’ Sandra sounded thoughtful.
Then she said:
‘You know where this party is to be?’
‘No.’
‘The Luxembourg.’
The shock nearly deprived him of speech. He felt the colour ebbing out of his cheeks. He pulled himself together and met her eyes. Was it his fancy or was there meaning in the level gaze?
‘But it’s preposterous,’ he exclaimed, blustering a little in his attempt to conceal his own personal emotion. ‘The Luxembourg where—to revive all that. The man must be mad.’
‘I thought of that,’ said Sandra.
‘But then we shall certainly refuse to go. The—the whole thing was terribly unpleasant. You remember all the publicity—the pictures in the papers.’
‘I remember the unpleasantness,’ said Sandra.
‘Doesn’t he realize how disagreeable it would be for us?’
‘He has a reason, you know, Stephen. A reason that he gave me.’
‘What was it?’
He felt thankful that she was looking away from him when she spoke.
‘He took me aside after lunch. He said he wanted to explain. He told me that the girl—Iris—had never recovered properly from the shock of her sister’s death.’
She paused and Stephen said unwillingly:
Well, I daresay that may be true enough—she looks far from well. I thought at lunch how ill she was looking.’
‘Yes, I noticed it too—although she has seemed in good health and spirits on the whole lately. But I am telling you what George Barton said. He told me that Iris has consistently avoided the Luxembourg ever since as far as she was able.’
‘I don’t wonder.’
‘But according to him that is all wrong. It seems he consulted a nerve specialist on the subject—one of these modern men—and his advice is that after a shock of any kind, the trouble must be faced, not avoided. The principle, I gather, is like that of sending up an airman again immediately after a crash.’
‘Does the specialist suggest another suicide?’
Sandra replied quietly, ‘He suggests that the associations of the restaurant must be overcome. It is, after all, just a restaurant. He proposed an ordinary pleasant party with, as far as possible, the same people present.’
‘Delightful for the people!’
‘Do you mind so much, Stephen?’
A swift pang of alarm shot through him. He said quickly: ‘Of course I don’t mind. I just thought it rather a gruesome idea. Personally I shouldn’t mind in the least…I was really thinking of you. If you don’t mind—’
She interrupted him.
‘I do mind. Very much. But the way George Barton put it made it very difficult to refuse. After all, I have frequently been to the Luxembourg since—so have you. One is constantly being asked there.’
‘But not under these circumstances.’
‘No.’
Stephen said:
‘As you say, it is difficult to refuse—and if we put it off the invitation will be renewed. But there’s no reason, Sandra, why you should have to endure it. I’ll go and you can cry off at the last minute—a headache, chill—something of that kind.’
He saw her chin go up.
‘That would be cowardly. No, Stephen, if you go, I go. After all,’ she laid her hand on his arm, ‘however little our marriage means, it should at least mean sharing our difficulties.’
But he was staring at her—rendered dumb by one poignant phrase which had escaped her so easily, as though it voiced a long familiar and not very important fact.
Recovering himself he said, ‘Why do you say that? However little our marriage means?’
She looked at him steadily, her eyes wide and honest.
‘Isn’t it true?’
‘No, a thousand times no. Our marriage means everything to me.’
She smiled.
‘I suppose it does—in a way. We’re a good team, Stephen. We pull together with a satisfactory result.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’ He found his breath was coming