They Do It With Mirrors

CHAPTER 4

Before Mrs Serrocold could say anything, her husband came in from the hall carrying some open letters in his hand.

Lewis Serrocold was a short man, not particularly impressive in appearance, but with a personality that immediately marked him out. Ruth had once said of him that he was more like a dynamo than a human being. He usually concentrated entirely on what was immediately occupying his attention and paid no attention to the objects or persons who were surrounding them.

‘A bad blow, dearest,’ he said. ‘That boy, Jackie Flint. Back at his tricks again. And I really did think he meant to go straight this time if he got a proper chance. He was most earnest about it. You know we found he’d always been keen on railways—and both Maverick and I thought that if he got a job on the railways he’d stick to it and make good. But it’s the same story. Petty thieving from the parcels office. Not even stuff he could want or sell. That shows that it must be psychological. We haven’t really got to the root of the trouble. But I’m not giving up.’

‘Lewis—this is my old friend, Jane Marple.’

‘Oh how d’you do,’ said Mr Serrocold absently. ‘So glad—they’ll prosecute, of course. A nice lad, too, not too many brains, but a really nice boy. Unspeakable home he came from. I—’

He suddenly broke off, and the dynamo was switched on to the guest.

‘Why, Miss Marple, I’m so delighted you’ve come to stay with us for a while. It will make such a great difference to Caroline to have a friend of old days with whom she can exchange memories. She has in many ways a grim time here—so much sadness in the stories of these poor children. We do hope you’ll stay with us a very long time.’

Miss Marple felt the magnetism and realized how attractive it would have been to her friend. That Lewis Serrocold was a man who would always put causes before people she did not doubt for a moment. It might have irritated some women, but not Carrie Louise.

Lewis Serrocold sorted out another letter.

‘At any rate we’ve some good news. This is from the Wiltshire and Somerset Bank. Young Morris is doing extremely well. They’re thoroughly satisfied with him and in fact are promoting him next month. I always knew that all he needed was responsibility—that, and a thorough grasp of the handling of money and what it means.’

He turned to Miss Marple.

‘Half these boys don’t know what money is. It represents to them going to the pictures or to the dogs, or buying cigarettes—and they’re clever with figures and find it exciting to juggle them round. Well, I believe in—what shall I say?—rubbing their noses in the stuff—train them in accountancy, in figures—show them the whole inner romance of money, so to speak. Give them skill and then responsibility—let them handle it officially. Our greatest successes have been that way—only two out of thirty-eight have let us down. One’s head cashier in a firm of druggists—a really responsible position—’

He broke off to say: ‘Tea’s in, dearest,’ to his wife.

‘I thought we were having it here. I told Jolly.’

‘No, it’s in the Hall. The others are there.’

‘I thought they were all going to be out.’

Carrie Louise linked her arm through Miss Marple’s and they went into the Great Hall. Tea seemed a rather incongruous meal in its surroundings. The tea things were piled haphazard on a tray—white utility cups mixed with the remnants of what had been Rockingham and Spode tea services. There was a loaf of bread, two pots of jam, and some cheap and unwholesome-looking cakes.

A plump middle-aged woman with grey hair sat behind the tea table and Mrs Serrocold said:

‘This is Mildred, Jane. My daughter Mildred. You haven’t seen her since she was a tiny girl.’

Mildred Strete was the person most in tune with the house that Miss Marple had so far seen. She looked prosperous and dignified. She had married late in her thirties a Canon of the Church of England and was now a widow. She looked exactly like a Canon’s widow, respectable and slightly dull. She was a plain woman with a large unexpressive face and dull eyes. She had been, Miss Marple reflected, a very plain little girl.

‘And this is Wally Hudd—Gina’s husband.’

Wally was a big young man with hair brushed up on his head and a sulky expression. He nodded awkwardly and went on cramming cake into his mouth.

Presently Gina came in with Stephen Restarick. They were both very animated.

‘Gina’s got a wonderful idea for that backcloth,’ said Stephen. ‘You know, Gina, you’ve got a very definite flair for theatrical designing.’

Gina laughed and looked pleased. Edgar Lawson came in and sat down by Lewis Serrocold. When Gina spoke to him, he made a pretence of not answering.

Miss Marple found it all a little bewildering and was glad to go to her room and lie down after tea.

There were more people still at dinner, a young Dr Maverick who was either a psychiatrist or a psychologist—Miss Marple was rather hazy about the difference—and whose conversation, dealing almost entirely with the jargon of his trade, was practically unintelligible to her. There were also two spectacled young men who held posts on the teaching side, and a Mr Baumgarten, who was an occupational therapist, and three intensely bashful youths who were doing their ‘house guest’ week. One of them, a fair–haired lad with very blue eyes was, Gina informed her in a whisper, the expert with the ‘cosh’.

The meal was not a particularly appetizing one. It was indifferently cooked and indifferently served. A variety of costumes were worn. Miss Bellever wore a high black dress, Mildred Strete wore evening dress and a woollen cardigan over it. Carrie Louise had on a short dress of grey wool—Gina was resplendent in a kind of peasant get up. Wally had not changed, nor had Stephen Restarick, Edgar Lawson had on a neat dark blue suit. Lewis Serrocold wore the conventional dinner jacket. He ate very little and hardly seemed to notice what was on his plate.

After dinner Lewis Serrocold and Dr Maverick went away to the latter’s office. The occupational therapist and the schoolmasters went away to some lair of their own. The three ‘cases’ went back to the college. Gina and Stephen went to the theatre to discuss Gina’s idea for a set. Mildred knitted an indeterminate garment and Miss Bellever darned socks. Wally sat in a chair gently tilted backwards and stared into space. Carrie Louise and Miss Marple talked about old days. The conversation seemed strangely unreal.

Edgar Lawson alone seemed unable to find a niche. He sat down and then got up restlessly.

‘I wonder if I ought to go to Mr Serrocold,’ he said rather loudly. ‘He may need me.’

Carrie Louise said gently, ‘Oh I don’t think so. He was going to talk over one or two points with Dr Maverick this evening.’

‘Then I certainly won’t butt in! I shouldn’t dream of going where I wasn’t wanted. I’ve already wasted time today going down to the station when Mrs Hudd meant to go herself.’

‘She ought to have told you,’ said Carrie Louise. ‘But I think she just decided at the last moment.’

‘You do realize, Mrs Serrocold, that she made me look a complete fool! A complete fool!’

‘No, no,’ said Carrie Louise, smiling. ‘You mustn’t have these ideas.’

‘I know I’m not needed or wanted … I’m perfectly aware of that. If things had been different—if I’d had my proper place in life it would be very different. Very different indeed. It’s no fault of mine that I haven’t got my proper place in life.’

‘Now, Edgar,’ said Carrie Louise. ‘Don’t work yourself up about nothing. Jane thinks it was very kind of you to meet her. Gina always has these sudden impulses—she didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘Oh yes, she did. It was done on purpose—to humiliate me—’

‘Oh Edgar—’

‘You don’t know half of what’s going on, Mrs Serrocold. Well, I won’t say any more now except goodnight.’

Edgar went out, shutting the door with a slam behind him.

Miss Bellever snorted:

‘Atrocious manners.’

‘He’s so sensitive,’ said Carrie Louise vaguely.

Mildred Strete clicked her needles and said sharply:

‘He really is a most odious young man. You shouldn’t put up with such behaviour, Mother.’

‘Lewis says he can’t help it.’

Mildred said sharply:

‘Everyone can help behaving rudely. Of course I blame Gina very much. She’s so completely scatter-brained in everything she undertakes. She does nothing but make trouble. One day she encourages the young man and the next day she snubs him. What can you expect?’

Wally Hudd spoke for the first time that evening.

He said:

‘That guy’s crackers. That’s all there is to it! Crackers!’

In her bedroom that night Miss Marple tried to review the pattern of Stonygates, but it was as yet too confused. There were currents and cross-currents here—but whether they could account for Ruth Van Rydock’s uneasiness it was impossible to tell. It did not seem to Miss Marple that Carrie Louise was affected in any way by what was going on round her. Stephen was in love with Gina. Gina might or might not be in love with Stephen. Walter Hudd was clearly not enjoying himself. These were incidents that might and did occur in all places and at most times. There was, unfortunately, nothing exceptional about them. They ended in the divorce court and everybody hopefully started again—when fresh tangles were created. Mildred Strete was clearly jealous of Gina and disliked her. That, Miss Marple thought, was very natural.

She thought over what Ruth Van Rydock had told her. Carrie Louise’s disappointment at not having a child—the adoption of little Pippa—and then the discovery that, after all, a child was on the way.

‘Often happens like that,’ Miss Marple’s doctor had told her. Relief of tension, maybe, and then Nature can do its work.

He had added that it was usually hard lines on the adopted child.

But that had not been so in this case. Both Gulbrandsen and his wife had adored little Pippa. She had made her place too firmly in their hearts to be lightly set aside. Gulbrandsen was already a father. Paternity meant nothing new to him. Carrie Louise’s maternal yearnings had been assuaged by Pippa. Her pregnancy had been uncomfortable and the actual birth difficult and prolonged. Possibly Carrie Louise, who had never cared for reality, did not enjoy her first brush with it.

There remained two little girls growing up, one pretty and amusing, the other plain and dull. Which again, Miss Marple thought, was quite natural. For when people adopt a baby girl, they choose a pretty one. And though Mildred might have been lucky and taken after the Martins who had produced handsome Ruth and dainty Carrie Louise, Nature elected that she should take after the Gulbrandsens, who were large and stolid and uncompromisingly plain.

Moreover, Carrie Louise was determined that the adopted child should never feel her position, and in making sure of this she was over-indulgent to Pippa and sometimes less than fair to Mildred.

Pippa had married and gone away to Italy, and Mildred for a time had been the only daughter of the house. But then Pippa had died and Carrie Louise had brought Pippa’s baby back to Stonygates, and once more Mildred had been out of it. There had been the new marriage—the Restarick boys. In 1934 Mildred had married Canon Strete, a scholarly antiquarian about fifteen years her senior and had gone away to live in the South of England. Presumably she had been happy—but one did not really know. There had been no children. And now here she was, back again in the same house where she had been brought up. And once again, Miss Marple thought, not particularly happy in it.

Gina, Stephen, Wally, Mildred, Miss Bellever who liked an ordered routine and was unable to enforce it. Lewis Serrocold who was clearly blissfully and whole-heartedly happy; an idealist able to translate his ideals into practical measures. In none of these personalities did Miss Marple find what Ruth’s words had led her to believe she might find. Carrie Louise seemed secure, remote at the heart of the whirlpool—as she had been all her life. What then, in that atmosphere, had Ruth felt to be wrong …? Did she, Jane Marple, feel it also?

What of the outer personalities of the whirlpool—the occupational therapists, the schoolmasters, earnest, harmless young men, confident young Dr Maverick, the three pink-faced innocent-eyed young delinquents—Edgar Lawson …

And here, just before she fell asleep, Miss Marple’s thoughts stopped and revolved speculatively round the figure of Edgar Lawson. Edgar Lawson reminded her of someone or something. There was something a little wrong about Edgar Lawson—perhaps more than a little. Edgar Lawson was maladjusted—that was the phrase, wasn’t it? But surely that didn’t, and couldn’t touch Carrie Louise?’

Mentally, Miss Marple shook her head.

What worried her was something more than that.