While the Light Lasts - Agatha Christie [63]
She waved goodbye to Crozier as he rattled off in the battered Ford. Then, glancing at her watch, she walked slowly to the meeting place.
The Café was deserted at this hour. They sat down at a little table and ordered the inevitable tea that South Africa drinks at all hours of the day and night. Neither of them said a word till the waitress brought it and withdrew to her fastness behind some pink curtains. Then Deirdre looked up and started as she met the intense watchfulness in his eyes.
‘Deirdre, have you told him?’
She shook her head, moistening her lips, seeking for words that would not come.
‘Why not?’
‘I haven’t had a chance; there hasn’t been time.’
Even to herself the words sounded halting and unconvincing.
‘It’s not that. There’s something else. I suspected it yesterday. I’m sure of it today. Deirdre, what is it?’
She shook her head dumbly.
‘There’s some reason why you don’t want to leave George Crozier, why you don’t want to come back to me. What is it?’
It was true. As he said it she knew it, knew it with sudden scorching shame, but knew it beyond any possibility of doubt. And still his eyes searched her.
‘It isn’t that you love him! You don’t. But there’s something.’
She thought: ‘In another moment he’ll see! Oh, God, don’t let him!’
Suddenly his face whitened.
‘Deirdre–is it–is it that there’s going to be a–child?’
In a flash she saw the chance he offered her. A wonderful way! Slowly, almost without her own volition, she bowed her head.
She heard his quick breathing, then his voice, rather high and hard.
‘That–alters things. I didn’t know. We’ve got to find a different way out.’ He leant across the table and caught both her hands in his. ‘Deirdre, my darling, never think–never dream that you were in any way to blame. Whatever happens, remember that. I should have claimed you when I came back to England. I funked it, so it’s up to me to do what I can to put things straight now. You see? Whatever happens, don’t fret, darling. Nothing has been your fault.’
He lifted first one hand, then the other to his lips. Then she was alone, staring at the untasted tea. And, strangely enough, it was only one thing that she saw–a gaudily illuminated text hanging on a whitewashed wall. The words seemed to spring out from it and hurl themselves at her. ‘What shall it profit a man–’ She got up, paid for her tea and went out.
On his return George Crozier was met by a request that his wife might not be disturbed. Her headache, the maid said, was very bad.
It was nine o’clock the next morning when he entered her bedroom, his face rather grave. Deirdre was sitting up in bed. She looked white and haggard, but her eyes shone.
‘George, I’ve got something to tell you, something rather terrible–’
He interrupted her brusquely.
‘So you’ve heard. I was afraid it might upset you.’
‘Upset me?’
‘Yes. You talked to the poor young fellow that day.’
He saw her hand steal to her heart, her eyelids flicker, then she said in a low, quick voice that somehow frightened him:
‘I’ve heard nothing. Tell me quickly.’
‘I thought–’
‘Tell me!’
‘Out at that tobacco estate. Chap shot himself. Badly broken up in the War, nerves all to pieces, I suppose. There’s no other reason to account for it.’
‘He shot himself–in that dark shed where the tobacco was hanging.’ She spoke with certainty, her eyes like a sleep-walker’s as she saw before her in the odorous darkness a figure lying there, revolver in hand.
‘Why, to be sure; that’s where you were taken queer yesterday. Odd thing, that!’
Deirdre did not answer. She saw another picture–a table with tea things on it, and a woman bowing her head in acceptance of a lie.
‘Well, well, the War has a lot to answer for,’ said Crozier, and stretched out his hand for a match, lighting his pipe with careful puffs.
His wife’s cry startled him.
‘Ah! don’t, don’t! I can’t bear the smell!’
He stared at her in kindly astonishment.