Star over Bethlehem - Agatha Christie [8]
What beautiful material the cloth of his coat was. It seemed to be woven all in one piece. So finely woven, too. She obeyed an almost irresistible impulse to touch it …
She could never recapture afterwards the feeling that the touch of the coat brought her. It was quite indescribable. It was like what happens when you shake a kaleidoscope. The parts of it are the same parts, but they are arranged differently; they are arranged in a new pattern …
She had wanted when she got on the water bus to escape from herself and the pattern of her morning. She had not escaped in the way she had meant to escape. She was still herself and she was still in the pattern, going through it all over again in her mind. But it was different this time. It was a different pattern because she was different.
She was standing again by Mrs. Chubb—poor Mrs. Chubb—She heard the story again only this time it was a different story. It was not so much what Mrs. Chubb said, but what she had been feeling—her despair and—yes, her guilt. Because, of course, she was secretly blaming herself, striving to tell herself how she had done everything for her girl—her lovely little girl—recalling the frocks she had bought her and the sweets—and how she had given in to her when she wanted things—she had gone out to work, too—but of course, in her innermost mind, Mrs. Chubb knew that it was not a gramophone for Edie she had been working for, but a washing machine—a washing machine like Mrs. Peters had down the road (and so stuck up about it, too!). It was her own fierce housepride that had set her fingers to toil. True, she had given Edie things all her life—plenty of them—but had she thought about Edie enough? Thought about the boyfriends she was making? Thought about asking her friends to the house—seeing if there wasn’t some kind of party at home Edie could have? Thinking about Edie’s character, her life, what would be best for her? Trying to find out more about Edie because after all, Edie was her business—the real paramount business of her life. And she mustn’t be stupid about it! Good will wasn’t enough. One had to manage not to be stupid, too.
In fancy, Mrs. Hargreaves’ arm went round Mrs. Chubb’s shoulder. She thought with affection: “You poor stupid dear. It’s not as bad as you think. I don’t believe she’s dying at all.” Of course Mrs. Chubb had exaggerated, had sought deliberately for tragedy, because that was the way Mrs. Chubb saw life—in melodramatic terms. It made life less drab, easier to live. Mrs. Hargreaves understood so well …
Other people came into Mrs. Hargreaves’ mind. Those women enjoying their fight at the butcher’s counter. Characters, all of them. Fun, really! Especially the big red-faced woman with her passion for justice. She really liked a good row!
Why on earth, Mrs. Hargreaves wondered, had she minded the woman at the greengrocer’s calling her “Luv”? It was a kindly term.
That bad-tempered bus conductress—why—her mind probed, came up with a solution. Her young man had stood her up the evening before. And so she hated everybody, hated her monotonous life, wanted to make other people feel her power—one could so easily feel like that if things went wrong …
The kaleidoscope shook—changed. She was no longer looking at it—she was inside it—part of it …
The boat hooted. She sighed, moved, opened her eyes. They had come at last to Greenwich.
Mrs. Hargreaves went back by train from Greenwich. The train, at this time of day, the lunch hour, was almost empty.
But Mrs. Hargreaves wouldn’t have cared if it had been full …
Because, for a brief space of time, she was at one with her fellow beings. She liked people. Almost—she loved them!
It wouldn’t last, of course. She knew that. A complete change of character was not within the bounds of reality. But she was deeply, humbly, and comprehendingly grateful for what she had been given.
She knew now what the thing that she had coveted was like. She knew the warmth of it, and the happiness—knew it, not from intelligent observation from without, but