Taken at the Flood - Agatha Christie [11]
He said harshly, ‘It’s a good deal worse than that…’
He watched her as she sat quite still, thinking over that. He said to himself, ‘In another minute I shall have to tell her. She’ll know what I am…She’ll have to know. Perhaps she won’t believe it at first.’
Frances Cloade sighed and sat up straight in her big arm-chair.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘Embezzlement. Or if that isn’t the right word, that kind of thing…like young Williams.’
‘Yes, but this time — you don’t understand — I’m responsible. I’ve used trust funds that were committed to my charge. So far, I’ve covered my tracks — ’
‘But now it’s all going to come out?’
‘Unless I can get the necessary money — quickly.’
The shame he felt was the worst he had known in his life. How would she take it?
At the moment she was taking it very calmly. But then, he thought, Frances would never make a scene. Never reproach or upbraid.
Her hand to her cheek, she was frowning.
‘It’s so stupid,’ she said, ‘that I haven’t got any money of my own at all…’
He said stiffly, ‘There is your marriage settlement, but — ’
She said absently, ‘But I suppose that’s gone too.’
He was silent. Then he said with difficulty, in his dry voice: ‘I’m sorry, Frances. More sorry than I can say. You made a bad bargain.’
She looked up sharply.
‘You said that before. What do you mean by that?’
Jeremy said stiffly:
‘When you were good enough to marry me, you had the right to expect — well, integrity — and a life free from sordid anxieties.’
She was looking at him with complete astonishment.
‘Really, Jeremy! What on earth do you think I married you for?’
He smiled slightly.
‘You have always been a most loyal and devoted wife, my dear. But I can hardly flatter myself that you would have accepted me in — er — different circumstances.’
She stared at him and suddenly burst out laughing.
‘You funny old stick! What a wonderful novelettish mind you must have behind that legal façade! Do you really think that I married you as the price of saving Father from the wolves — or the Stewards of the Jockey Club, et cetera?’
‘You were very fond of your father, Frances.’
‘I was devoted to Daddy! He was terribly attractive and the greatest fun to live with! But I always knew he was a bad hat. And if you think that I’d sell myself to the family solicitor in order to save him from getting what was always coming to him, then you’ve never understood the first thing about me. Never!’
She stared at him. Extraordinary, she thought, to have been married to someone for over twenty years and not have known what was going on in their minds. But how could one know when it was a mind so different from one’s own? A romantic mind, of course, well camouflaged, but essentially romantic. She thought: ‘All those old Stanley Weymans in his bedroom. I might have known from them! The poor idiotic darling!’
Aloud she said:
‘I married you because I was in love with you, of course.’
‘In love with me? But what could you see in me?’
‘If you ask me that, Jeremy, I really don’t know. You were such a change, so different from all Father’s crowd. You never talked about horses for one thing. You’ve no idea how sick I was of horses — and what the odds were likely to be for the Newmarket Cup! You came to dinner one night — do you remember? — and I sat next to you and asked you what bimetallism was, and you told me — really told me! It took the whole of dinner — six courses — we were in funds at the moment and had a French chef!’
‘It must have been extremely boring,’ said Jeremy.
‘It was fascinating! Nobody had ever treated me seriously before. And you were so polite and yet never seemed to look at me or think I was nice or good-looking or anything. It put me on my mettle. I swore I’d make you notice me.’
Jeremy Cloade said grimly…‘I noticed you all right. I went home that evening and didn’t sleep a wink. You had a blue dress with cornflowers…’
There was silence