The Moving Finger - Agatha Christie [28]
“Megan,” I said, “is in full possession of her senses, and as I said before, I consider her an intelligent girl. My sister thinks so too. Joanna is very fond of her.”
Aimée said:
“I’m afraid your sister must find it very dull down here.”
And as she said it, I learnt something else. Aimée Griffith disliked my sister. It was there in the smooth conventional tones of her voice.
“We’ve all wondered how you could both bear to bury yourselves in such an out-of-the-way spot.”
It was a question and I answered it.
“Doctor’s orders. I was to come somewhere very quiet where nothing ever happened.” I paused and added, “Not quite true of Lymstock now.”
“No, no, indeed.”
She sounded worried and got up to go. She said then:
“You know—it’s got to be put a stop to—all this beastliness! We can’t have it going on.”
“Aren’t the police doing anything?”
“I suppose so. But I think we ought to take it in hand ourselves.”
“We’re not as well equipped as they are.”
“Nonsense! We probably have far more sense and intelligence! A little determination is all that is needed.”
She said goodbye abruptly and went away.
When Joanna and Megan came back from their walk I showed Megan my Chinese picture. Her face lighted up. She said, “It’s heavenly, isn’t it?”
“That is rather my opinion.”
Her forehead was crinkling in the way I knew so well.
“But it would be difficult, wouldn’t it?”
“To be idle?”
“No, not to be idle—but to enjoy the pleasures of it. You’d have to be very old—”
She paused. I said: “He is an old man.”
“I don’t mean old that way. Not age. I mean old in—in….”
“You mean,” I said, “that one would have to attain a very high state of civilization for the thing to present itself to you in that way—a fine point of sophistication? I think I shall complete your education, Megan, by reading to you one hundred poems translated from the Chinese.”
III
I met Symmington in the town later in the day.
“Is it quite all right for Megan to stay on with us for a bit?” I asked. “It’s company for Joanna—she’s rather lonely sometimes with none of her own friends.”
“Oh—er— Megan? Oh yes, very good of you.”
I took a dislike to Symmington then which I never quite overcame. He had so obviously forgotten all about Megan. I wouldn’t have minded if he had actively disliked the girl—a man may sometimes be jealous of a first husband’s child—but he didn’t dislike her, he just hardly noticed her. He felt towards her much as a man who doesn’t care much for dogs would feel about a dog in the house. You notice it when you fall over it and swear at it, and you give it a vague pat sometimes when it presents itself to be patted. Symmington’s complete indifference to his stepdaughter annoyed me very much.
I said, “What are you planning to do with her?”
“With Megan?” He seemed rather startled. “Well, she’ll go on living at home. I mean, naturally, it is her home.”
My grandmother, of whom I had been very fond, used to sing old-fashioned songs to her guitar. One of them, I remembered, ended thus:
“Oh maid, most dear, I am not here
I have no place, no part,
No dwelling more, by sea nor shore,
But only in your heart.”
I went home humming it.
IV
Emily Barton came just after tea had been cleared away.
She wanted to talk about the garden. We talked garden for about half an hour. Then we turned back towards the house.
It was then that lowering her voice, she murmured:
“I do hope that that child—that she hasn’t been too much upset by all this dreadful business?”
“Her mother’s death, you mean?”
“That, of course. But I really meant, the—the unpleasantness behind it.”
I was curious. I wanted Miss Barton’s reaction.
“What do you think about that? Was it true?”
“Oh, no, no, surely not. I’m quite sure that Mrs. Symmington never—that he wasn’t”—little Emily Barton was pink and confused—“I mean it’s quite untrue—although of course it may have been a judgment.”
“A judgment?” I said, staring.
Emily Barton was very pink, very Dresden china shepherdess-like.
“I cannot help feeling that all these