They Do It With Mirrors (5 page)

“‘What a lovely little girl,' people used to say to Mamma. They never noticed
me.
And it was Pippa that Papa used to joke and play with. Someone ought to have seen how hard it was on
me.
All the
notice and attention going to her. I wasn't old enough to realise that it's
character
that matters.”

Her lips trembled, then hardened again.

“And it was unfair—really unfair—I was their own child. Pippa was only adopted. I was the daughter of the house. She was—nobody.”

“Probably they were extra indulgent to her on that account,” said Miss Marple.

“They liked her best,” said Mildred Strete. And added: “A child whose own parents didn't want her—or more probably illegitimate.”

She went on:

“It's come out in Gina. There's bad blood there. Blood will tell. Lewis can have what theories he likes about environment. Bad blood does tell. Look at Gina.”

“Gina is a very lovely girl,” said Miss Marple.

“Hardly in behaviour,” said Mrs. Strete. “Everyone but Mother notices how she is carrying on with Stephen Restarick. Quite disgusting, I call it. Admittedly she made a very unfortunate marriage, but marriage is marriage and one should be prepared to abide by it. After all, she chose to marry that dreadful young man.”

“Is he so dreadful?”

“Oh dear, Aunt Jane! He really looks to me quite like a gangster. And so surly and rude. He hardly opens his mouth. And he always looks so dirty and uncouth.”

“He is unhappy, I think,” said Miss Marple mildly.

“I really don't know why he should be—apart from Gina's behaviour, I mean. Everything has been done for him here. Lewis has suggested several ways in which he could try to make himself useful—but he prefers to skulk about doing nothing.” She burst
out, “Oh this whole place is impossible—quite impossible. Lewis thinks of nothing but these horrible young criminals. And Mother thinks of nothing but him. Everything Lewis does is right. Look at the state of the garden—the weeds—the overgrowth. And the house—nothing properly done. Oh, I know a domestic staff is difficult nowadays, but it can be got. It's not as though there were any shortage of money. It's just that nobody
cares.
If it were
my
house—” She stopped.

“I'm afraid,” said Miss Marple, “that we have all to face the fact that conditions are different. These large establishments are a great problem. It must be sad for you, in a way, to come back here and find everything so different. Do you really prefer living here to—well—somewhere of your own?”

Mildred Strete flushed.

“After all, it's my home,” she said. “It was my father's house. Nothing can alter that. I've a right to be here if I choose. And I do choose. If only Mother were not so impossible! She won't even buy herself proper clothes. It worries Jolly a lot.”

“I was going to ask you about Miss Bellever.”

“Such a comfort having her here. She adores Mother. She's been with her a long time now—she came in John Restarick's time. And was wonderful, I believe, during the whole sad business. I expect you heard that he ran away with a dreadful Yugoslavian woman—a most abandoned creature. She's had any amount of lovers, I believe. Mother was very fine and dignified about it all. Divorced him as quietly as possible. Even went so far as to have the Restarick boys for their holidays—quite unnecessary, really, other arrangements could have been made. It would have been unthinkable, of course, to have let them go to their father and that woman. Anyway, Mother had
them here … And Miss Bellever stood by all through things and was a tower of strength. I sometimes think she makes Mother even more vague than she need be, by doing all the practical things herself. But I really don't know what Mother would do without her.”

She paused and then remarked in a tone of surprise:

“Here is Lewis. How odd. He seldom comes out in the garden.”

Mr. Serrocold came towards them in the same single-minded way that he did everything. He appeared not to notice Mildred, because it was only Miss Marple who was in his mind.

“I'm so sorry,” he said. “I wanted to take you round our institution and show you everything. Caroline asked me to. Unfortunately I have to go off to Liverpool. The case of that boy and the railways parcels office. But Maverick will take you. He'll be here in a few minutes. I shan't be back until the day after tomorrow. It will be splendid if we can get them not to prosecute.”

Mildred Strete got up and walked away. Lewis Serrocold did not notice her go. His earnest eyes gazed at Miss Marple through thick glasses.

“You see,” he said, “the Magistrates nearly always take the wrong view. Sometimes they're too severe, but sometimes they're too lenient. If these boys get a sentence of a few months it's no deterrent—they get a kind of a kick out of it, even. Boast about it to their girlfriends. But a severe sentence often sobers them. They realise that the game isn't worth it. Or else it's better not to serve a prison sentence at all. Corrective training—constructional training like we have here.”

Miss Marple burst firmly into speech.

“Mr. Serrocold,” she said. “Are you quite satisfied about young Mr. Lawson? Is he—is he quite normal?”

A disturbed expression appeared on Lewis Serrocold's face.

“I do hope he's not relapsing. What has he been saying?”

“He told me that he was Winston Churchill's son—”

“Of course—of course. The usual statements. He's illegitimate, as you've probably guessed, poor lad, and of very humble beginnings. He was a case recommended to me by a society in London. He'd assaulted a man in the street who he said was spying on him. All very typical—Dr. Maverick will tell you. I went into his case history. Mother was of a poor class but a respectable family in Plymouth. Father a sailor—she didn't even know his name … child brought up in difficult circumstances. Started romancing about his father and later about himself. Wore uniform and decorations he wasn't entitled to—all quite typical. But Maverick considers the prognosis hopeful. If we can give him confidence in himself. I've given him responsibility here, tried to make him appreciate that it's not a man's birth that matters, but what he
is.
I've tried to give him confidence in his own ability. The improvement was marked. I was very happy about him. And now you say—”

He shook his head.

“Mightn't he be dangerous, Mr. Serrocold?”

“Dangerous? I don't think he has shown any suicidal tendencies.”

“I wasn't thinking of suicide. He talked to me of enemies—of persecution. Isn't that, forgive me—a dangerous sign?”

“I don't really think it has reached such a pitch. But I'll speak to Maverick. So far, he has been hopeful—very hopeful.”

He looked at his watch.

“I must go. Ah, here is our dear Jolly. She will take charge of you.”

Miss Bellever, arriving briskly, said, “The car is at the door,
Mr. Serrocold. Dr. Maverick rang through from the Institute. I said I would bring Miss Marple over. He will meet us at the gates.”

“Thank you. I must go. My briefcase?”

“In the car, Mr. Serrocold.”

Lewis Serrocold hurried away. Looking after him, Miss Bellever said:

“Someday that man will drop down dead in his tracks. It's against human nature never to relax or rest. He only sleeps four hours a night.”

“He is very devoted to this cause,” said Miss Marple.

“Never thinks of anything else,” said Miss Bellever grimly. “Never dreams of looking after his wife or considering her in any way. She's a sweet creature, as you know, Miss Marple, and she ought to have love and attention. But nothing's thought of or considered here except a lot of whining boys and young men who want to live easily and dishonestly and don't care about the idea of doing a little hard work. What about the decent boys from decent homes? Why isn't something done for them? Honesty just isn't interesting to cranks like Mr. Serrocold and Dr. Maverick and all the bunch of half-baked sentimentalists we've got here. I and my brothers were brought up the hard way, Miss Marple, and we weren't encouraged to whine. Soft, that's what the world is nowadays!”

They had crossed the garden and passed through a palisaded gate and had come to the entrance gate which Eric Gulbrandsen had erected as an entrance to his College, a sturdily built, hideous, red brick building.

Dr. Maverick, looking, Miss Marple decided, distinctly abnormal himself, came out to meet them.

“Thank you, Miss Bellever,” he said. “Now, Miss—er—oh yes,
Miss Marple—I'm sure you're going to be interested in what we're doing here. In our splendid approach to this great problem. Mr. Serrocold is a man of great insight—great vision. And we've got Sir John Stillwell behind us—my old chief. He was at the Home Office until he retired, and his influence turned the scales in getting this started. It's a
medical
problem—that's what we've got to get the legal authorities to understand. Psychiatry came into its own in the war. The one positive good that did come out of it—Now first of all I want you to see our initial approach to the problem. Look up—”

Miss Marple looked up at the words carved over the large arched doorway.

 

RECOVER HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE

 

“Isn't that splendid? Isn't that just the right note to strike? You don't want to scold these lads—or punish them. That's what they're hankering after half the time, punishment. We want to make them feel what fine fellows they are.”

“Like Edgar Lawson?” said Miss Marple.

“Interesting case, that. Have you been talking to him?”

“He has been talking to me,” said Miss Marple. She added apologetically, “I wondered if, perhaps, he isn't a little
mad?
”

Dr. Maverick laughed cheerfully.

“We're all mad, dear lady,” he said as he ushered her in through the door. “That's the secret of existence. We're all a little mad.”

O
n the whole it was rather an exhausting day. Enthusiasm in itself can be extremely wearing, Miss Marple thought. She felt vaguely dissatisfied with herself and her own reactions. There was a pattern here—perhaps several patterns, and yet she herself could obtain no clear glimpse of it or them. Any vague disquietude she felt centered round the pathetic but inconspicuous personality of Edgar Lawson. If she could only find in her memory the right parallel.

Painstakingly she rejected the curious behaviour of Mr. Selkirk's delivery van—the absentminded postman—the gardener who worked on Whitmonday—and that very curious affair of the summer weight combinations.

Something that she could not quite put her finger on was wrong about Edgar Lawson—something that went beyond the observed and admitted facts. But for the life of her, Miss Marple did not see how that wrongness, whatever it was, affected her friend Carrie Lou
ise. In the confused patterns of life at Stonygates, people's troubles and desires impinged on each other. But none of them (again as far as she could see) impinged on Carrie Louise.

Carrie Louise … Suddenly Miss Marple realised that it was she alone, except for the absent Ruth, who used that name. To her husband, she was Caroline. To Miss Bellever, Cara. Stephen Restarick usually addressed her as Madonna. To Wally she was formally Mrs. Serrocold, and Gina elected to address her as Grandam—a mixture, she had explained, of Grande Dame and Grandmamma.

Was there some significance, perhaps, in the various names that were found for Caroline Louise Serrocold? Was she to all of them a symbol and not quite a real person?

When on the following morning Carrie Louise, dragging her feet a little as she walked, came and sat down on the garden seat beside her friend and asked her what she was thinking about, Miss Marple replied promptly:

“You, Carrie Louise.”

“What about me?”

“Tell me honestly—is there anything here that worries you?”

“Worries me?” The other woman raised wondering, clear blue eyes. “But, Jane, what should worry me?”

“Well, most of us have worries.” Miss Marple's eyes twinkled a little. “I have. Slugs, you know—and the difficulty of getting linen properly darned—and not being able to get sugar candy for making my damson gin. Oh, lots of little things—it seems unnatural that you shouldn't have any worries at all.”

“I suppose I must have really,” said Mrs. Serrocold vaguely. “Lewis works too hard, and Stephen forgets his meals slaving at the
theatre and Gina is very jumpy—but I've never been able to alter people—I don't see how you can. So it wouldn't be any good worrying, would it?”

“Mildred's not very happy, either, is she?”

“Oh no,” said Carrie Louise. “Mildred never is happy. She wasn't as a child. Quite unlike Pippa who was always radiant.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Miss Marple, “Mildred has cause not to be happy?”

Carrie Louise said quietly:

“Because of being jealous? Yes, I daresay. But people don't really need a cause for feeling what they do feel. They're just made that way. Don't you think so, Jane?”

Miss Marple thought briefly of Miss Moncrieff, a slave to a tyrannical invalid mother. Poor Miss Moncrieff who longed for travel and to see the world. And of how St. Mary Mead in a decorous way had rejoiced when Mrs. Moncrieff was laid in the churchyard and Miss Moncrieff, with a nice little income, was free at last. And of how Miss Moncrieff, starting on her travels, had got no further than Hayéres where, calling to see one of “mother's oldest friends,” she had been so moved by the plight of an elderly hypochondriac that she had cancelled her travel reservations and taken up her abode in the villa to be bullied, overworked, and to long, wistfully, once more, for the joys of a wider horizon.

Miss Marple said:

“I expect you're right, Carrie Louise.”

“Of course, my being so free from cares is partly due to Jolly. Dear Jolly. She came to me when Johnnie and I were just married and was wonderful from the first. She takes care of me as though I were a baby and quite helpless. She'd do anything for me. I feel quite
ashamed sometimes. I really believe Jolly would murder someone for me, Jane. Isn't that an awful thing to say?”

“She's certainly very devoted,” agreed Miss Marple.

“She gets so indignant.” Mrs. Serrocold's silvery laugh rang out. “She'd like me to be always ordering wonderful clothes, and surrounding myself with luxuries, and she thinks everybody ought to put me first and to dance attendance on me. She's the one person who's absolutely unimpressed by Lewis' enthusiasm. All our poor boys are, in her view, pampered young criminals and not worth taking trouble over. She thinks this place is damp and bad for my rheumatism, and that I ought to go to Egypt or somewhere warm and dry.”

“Do you suffer much from rheumatism?”

“It's got much worse lately. I find it difficult to walk. Horrid cramps in my legs. Oh well”—again there came that bewitching elfin smile, “age must tell.”

Miss Bellever came out of the French windows and hurried across to them.

“A telegram, Cara, just came over the telephone.
Arriving this afternoon, Christian Gulbrandsen.
”

“Christian?” Carrie Louise looked very surprised. “I'd no idea he was in England.”

“The Oak Suite, I suppose?”

“Yes, please, Jolly. Then there will be no stairs.”

Miss Bellever nodded and turned back to the house.

“Christian Gulbrandsen is my stepson,” said Carrie Louise. “Eric's eldest son. Actually he's two years older than I am. Her's one of the trustees of the Institute—the principal trustee. How very annoying that Lewis is away. Christian hardly ever stays longer than
one night. He's an immensely busy man. And there are sure to be so many things they would want to discuss.”

Christian Gulbrandsen arrived that afternoon in time for tea. He was a big heavy featured man, with a slow methodical way of talking. He greeted Carrie Louise with every sign of affection.

“And how is our little Carrie Louise? You do not look a day older. Not a day.”

His hands on her shoulders—he stood smiling down at her. A hand tugged his sleeve.

“Christian!”

“Ah”—he turned—“it is Mildred? How are you, Mildred?”

“I've not really been at all well lately.”

“That is bad. That is bad.”

There was a strong resemblance between Christian Gulbrandsen and his half sister Mildred. There was nearly thirty years of difference in age and they might easily have been taken for father and daughter. Mildred herself seemed particularly pleased by his arrival. She was flushed and talkative, and had talked repeatedly during the day of “my brother,” “my brother Christian,” “my brother, Mr. Gulbrandsen.”

“And how is little Gina?” said Gulbrandsen, turning to that young woman. “You and your husband are still here, then?”

“Yes. We've quite settled down, haven't we, Wally?”

“Looks like it,” said Wally.

Gulbrandsen's small shrewd eyes seemed to sum up Wally quickly. Wally, as usual, looked sullen and unfriendly.

“So here I am with all the family again,” said Gulbrandsen.

His voice displayed a rather determined geniality—but in actual fact, Miss Marple thought, he was not feeling particularly ge
nial. There was a grim set to his lips and a certain preoccupation in his manner.

Introduced to Miss Marple he swept a keen look over her as though measuring and appraising this newcomer.

“We'd no idea you were in England, Christian,” said Mrs. Serrocold.

“No, I came over rather unexpectedly.”

“It is too bad that Lewis is away. How long can you stay?”

“I meant to go tomorrow. When will Lewis be back?”

“Tomorrow afternoon or evening.”

“It seems, then, that I must stay another night.”

“If you'd only let us know—”

“My dear Carrie Louise, my arrangements, they were made very suddenly.”

“You will stay to see Lewis?”

“Yes, it is necessary that I see Lewis.”

Miss Bellever said to Miss Marple, “Mr. Gulbrandsen and Mr. Serrocold are both trustees of the Gulbrandsen Institute. The others are the Bishop of Cromer and Mr. Gilroy.”

Presumably, then, it was on business concerned with the Gulbrandsen Institute that Christian Gulbrandsen had come to Stonygates. It seemed to be assumed so by Miss Bellever and everyone else. And yet Miss Marple wondered.

Once or twice the old man cast a thoughtful puzzled look at Carrie Louise when she was not aware of it—a look that puzzled Carrie Louise's watching friend. From Carrie Louise he shifted his gaze to the others, examining them one and all with a kind of covert appraisal that seemed distinctly odd.

After tea Miss Marple withdrew tactfully from the others to
the library, but rather to her surprise when she had settled herself with her knitting, Christian Gulbrandsen came in and sat down beside her.

“You are a very old friend, I think, of our dear Carrie Louise?” he said.

“We were at school together in Italy, Mr. Gulbrandsen. Many many years ago.”

“Ah yes. And you are fond of her?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Miss Marple warmly.

“So, I think, is everyone. Yes, I truly think that. It should be so. For she is a very dear and enchanting person. Always, since my father married her, I and my brothers have loved her very much. She has been to us like a very dear sister. She was a faithful wife to my father and loyal to all his ideas. She has never thought of herself, but put the welfare of others first.”

“She has always been an idealist,” said Miss Marple.

“An idealist? Yes. Yes, that is so. And therefore it may be that she does not truly appreciate the evil that there is in the world.”

Miss Marple looked at him, surprised. His face was very stern.

“Tell me,” he said. “How is her health?”

Again Miss Marple felt surprised.

“She seems to me very well—apart from arthritis—or rheumatism.”

“Rheumatism? Yes. And her heart? Her heart is good?”

“As far as I know.” Miss Marple was still more surprised. “But until yesterday I had not seen her for many years. If you want to know the state of her health, you should ask somebody in the house here. Miss Bellever, for instance.”

“Miss Bellever—Yes, Miss Bellever. Or Mildred?”

“Or, as you say, Mildred.”

Miss Marple was faintly embarrassed.

Christian Gulbrandsen was staring at her very hard.

“There is not between the mother and daughter, a very great sympathy, would you say?”

“No, I don't think there is.”

“I agree. It is a pity—her only child, but there it is. Now this Miss Bellever, you think, is really attached to her?”

“Very much so.”

“And Carrie Louise leans on this Miss Bellever?”

“I think so.”

Christian Gulbrandsen was frowning. He spoke as though more to himself than to Miss Marple.

“There is the little Gina—but she is so young. It is difficult—” He broke off. “Sometimes,” he said simply, “it is hard to know what is best to be done. I wish very much to act for the best. I am particularly anxious that no harm and no unhappiness should come to that dear lady. But it is not easy—not easy at all.”

Mrs. Strete came into the room at that moment.

“Oh there you are, Christian. We were wondering where you were. Dr. Maverick wants to know if you would like to go over anything with him.”

“That is the new young doctor here? No—no, I will wait until Lewis returns.”

“He's waiting in Lewis' study. Shall I tell him—”

“I will have a word with him myself.”

Gulbrandsen hurried out. Mildred Strete stared after him and then stared at Miss Marple.

“I wonder if anything is wrong. Christian is very unlike himself … Did he say anything—”

“He only asked me about your mother's health.”

“Her health? Why should he ask you about that?”

Mildred spoke sharply, her large square face flushing unbecomingly.

“I really don't know.”

“Mother's health is perfectly good. Surprisingly so for a woman of her age. Much better than mine as far as that goes.” She paused a moment before saying, “I hope you told him so?”

“I don't really know anything about it,” said Miss Marple. “He asked me about her heart.”

“Her
heart?
”

“Yes.”

“There's nothing wrong with Mother's heart. Nothing at all!”

“I'm delighted to hear you say so, my dear.”

“What on earth put all these queer ideas into Christian's head?”

“I've no idea,” said Miss Marple.