The Mirror Crack'd - Agatha Christie [15]
‘She seems to like the house,’ said Mrs Bantry, ‘and to feel she will be happy here.’
‘I expect it’ll last a year or two,’ said Ella Zielinsky.
‘Not longer than that?’
‘Well, I rather doubt it. Marina is one of those people, you know, who are always thinking they’ve found their heart’s desire. But life isn’t as easy as that, is it?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Bantry forcefully, ‘it isn’t.’
‘It’ll mean a lot to him if she’s happy here,’ said Miss Zielinsky. She ate two more sandwiches in an absorbed, rather gobbling fashion in the manner of one who crams food into themselves as though they had an important train to catch. ‘He’s a genius, you know,’ she went on. ‘Have you seen any of the pictures he’s directed?’
Mrs Bantry felt slightly embarrassed. She was of the type of woman who when she went to the cinema went entirely for the picture. The long lists of casts, directors, producers, photography and the rest of it passed her by. Very frequently, indeed, she did not even notice the names of the stars. She was not, however, anxious to call attention to this failing on her part.
‘I get mixed up,’ she said.
‘Of course he’s got a lot to contend with,’ said Ella Zielinsky. ‘He’s got her as well as everything else and she’s not easy. You’ve got to keep her happy, you see; and it’s not really easy, I suppose, to keep people happy. Unless — that is — they — they are —’ she hesitated.
‘Unless they’re the happy kind,’ suggested Mrs Bantry. ‘Some people,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘enjoy being miserable.’
‘Oh, Marina isn’t like that,’ said Ella Zielinsky, shaking her head. ‘It’s more that her ups and downs are so violent. You know — far too happy one moment, far too pleased with everything and delighted with everything and how wonderful she feels. Then of course some little thing happens and down she goes to the opposite extreme.’
‘I suppose that’s temperament,’ said Mrs Bantry vaguely.
‘That’s right,’ said Ella Zielinsky. ‘Temperament. They’ve all got it, more or less, but Marina Gregg has got it more than most people. Don’t we know it! The stories I could tell you!’ She ate the last sandwich. ‘Thank God I’m only the social secretary.’
Chapter 5
The throwing open of the grounds of Gossington Hall for the benefit of the St John Ambulance Association was attended by a quite unprecedented number of people. Shilling admission fees mounted up in a highly satisfactory fashion. For one thing, the weather was good, a clear sunny day. But the preponderant attraction was undoubtedly the enormous local curiosity to know exactly what these ‘film people’ had done to Gossington Hall. The most extravagant assumptions were entertained. The swimming pool in particular caused immense satisfaction. Most people’s ideas of Hollywood stars were of sun-bathing by a pool in exotic surroundings and in exotic company. That the climate of Hollywood might be more suited to swimming pools than that of St Mary Mead failed to be considered. After all, England always has one fine hot week in the summer and there is always one day that the Sunday papers publish articles on How to Keep Cool, How to Have Cool Suppers and How to Make Cool Drinks. The pool was almost exactly what everyone had imagined it might be. It was large, its waters were blue, it had a kind of exotic pavilion for changing and was surrounded with a highly artificial plantation of hedges and shrubs. The reactions of the multitude were exactly as might have been expected and hovered over a wide range of remarks.
‘O-oh, isn’t it lovely!’
‘Two penn’orth of splash here, all right!’
‘Reminds me of that holiday camp I went to.’
‘Wicked luxury I call it. It oughtn’t to be allowed.’
‘Look at all that fancy marble. It must have cost the earth!’
‘Don’t see why these people think they can come over here and spend all the money they like.’
‘Perhaps this