“Packets of things one’s never even heard of,” exclaimed Miss Hartnell. “All these great packets of breakfast cereal instead of cooking a child a proper breakfast of bacon and eggs. And you’re expected to take a basket yourself and go round looking for things—it takes a quarter of an hour sometimes to find all one wants—and usually made up in inconvenient sizes, too much or too little. And then a long queue waiting to pay as you go out. Most tiring. Of course it’s all very well for the people from the Development—”
At this point she stopped.
Because, as was now usual, the sentence came to an end there. The Development, Period, as they would say in modern terms. It had an entity of its own, and a capital letter.
II
Miss Marple uttered a sharp exclamation of annoyance. She’d dropped a stitch again. Not only that, she must have dropped it some time ago. Not until now, when she had to decrease for the neck and count the stitches, had she realized the fact. She took up a spare pin, held the knitting sideways to the light and peered anxiously. Even her new spectacles didn’t seem to do any good. And that, she reflected, was because obviously there came a time when oculists, in spite of their luxurious waiting rooms, the up-to-date instruments, the bright lights they flashed into your eyes, and the very high fees they charged, couldn’t do anything much more for you. Miss Marple reflected with some nostalgia on how good her eyesight had been a few (well, not perhaps a few) years ago. From the vantage point of her garden, so admirably placed to see all that was going on in St. Mary Mead, how little had escaped her noticing eye! And with the help of her bird glasses—(an interest in birds was so useful!)—she had been able to see—She broke off there and let her thoughts run back over the past. Ann Protheroe in her summer frock going along to the Vicarage garden. And Colonel Protheroe—poor man—a very tiresome and unpleasant man, to be sure—but to be murdered like that—She shook her head and went on to thoughts of Griselda, the vicar’s pretty young wife. Dear Griselda—such a faithful friend—a Christmas card every year. That attractive baby of hers was a strapping young man now, and with a very good job. Engineering, was it? He always had enjoyed taking his mechanical trains to pieces. Beyond the Vicarage, there had been the stile and the field path with Farmer Giles’s cattle beyond in the meadows where now—now….
The Development.
And why not? Miss Marple asked herself sternly. These things had to be. The houses were necessary, and they were very well built, or so she had been told. “Planning,” or whatever they called it. Though why everything had to be called a Close she couldn’t imagine. Aubrey Close and Longwood Close, and Grandison Close and all the rest of them. Not really Closes at all. Miss Marple knew what a Close was perfectly. Her uncle had been a Canon of Chichester Cathedral. As a child she had gone to stay with him in the Close.
It was like Cherry Baker who always called Miss Marple’s oldworld overcrowded drawing room the “lounge.” Miss Marple corrected her gently, “It’s the drawing room, Cherry.” And Cherry, because she was young and kind, endeavoured to remember, though it was obvious to her “drawing room” was a very funny word to use—and “lounge” came slipping out. She had of late, however, compromised on “living-room.” Miss Marple liked Cherry very much. Her name was Mrs. Baker and she came from the Development. She was one of the detachment of young wives who shopped at the supermarket and wheeled prams about the quiet streets of St. Mary Mead. They were all smart and well turned out. Their hair was crisp and curled. They laughed and talked and called to one another. They were like a happy flock of birds. Owing to the insidious snares of Hire Purchase, they were always in need of ready money, though their husbands all earned good wages; and so they came and did housework or cooking. Cherry was a quick and efficient cook, she was an intelligent girl, took telephone calls correctly and was quick to spot inaccuracies in the tradesmen’s books. She was not much given to turning mattresses, and as far as washing up went Miss Marple always now passed the pantry door with her head turned away so as not to observe Cherry’s method which was that of thrusting everything into the sink together and letting loose a snowstorm of detergent on it. Miss Marple had quietly removed her old Worcester tea set from daily circulation and put it in the corner cabinet whence it only emerged on special occasions. Instead she had purchased a modern service with a pattern of pale grey on white and no gilt on it whatsoever to be washed away in the sink.
How different it had been in the past… Faithful Florence, for instance, that grenadier of a parlourmaid—and there had been Amy and Clara and Alice, those “nice little maids”—arriving from St. Faith’s Orphanage, to be “trained,” and then going on to betterpaid jobs elsewhere. Rather simple, some of them had been, and frequently adenoidal, and Amy distinctly moronic. They had gossiped and chattered with the other maids in the village and walked out with the fishmonger’s assistant, or the undergardener at the Hall, or one of Mr. Barnes the grocer’s numerous assistants. Miss Marple’s mind went back over them affectionately thinking of all the little woolly coats she had knitted for their subsequent offspring. They had not been very good with the telephone, and no good at all at arithmetic. On the other hand, they knew how to wash up, and how to make a bed. They had had skills, rather than education. It was odd that nowadays it should be the educated girls who went in for all the domestic chores. Students from abroad, girls au pair, university students in the vacation, young married women like Cherry Baker, who lived in spurious Closes on new building developments.
There were still, of course, people like Miss Knight. This last thought came suddenly as Miss Knight’s tread overhead made the lustres on the mantelpiece tinkle warningly. Miss Knight had obviously had her afternoon rest and would now go out for her afternoon walk. In a moment she would come to ask Miss Marple if she could get her anything in the town. The thought of Miss Knight brought the usual reaction to Miss Marple’s mind. Of course, it was very generous of dear Raymond (her nephew) and nobody could be kinder than Miss Knight, and of course that attack of bronchitis had left her very weak, and Dr. Haydock had said very firmly that she must not go on sleeping alone in the house with only someone coming in daily, but—She stopped there. Because it was no use going on with the thought which was “If only it could have been someone other than Miss Knight.” But there wasn’t much choice for elderly ladies nowadays. Devoted maidservants had gone out of fashion. In real illness you could have a proper hospital nurse, at vast expense and procured with difficulty, or you could go to hospital. But after the critical phase of illness had passed, you were down to the Miss Knights.
There wasn’t, Miss Marple reflected, anything wrong about the Miss Knights other than the fact that they were madly irritating. They were full of kindness, ready to feel affection towards their charges, to humour them, to be bright and cheerful with them and in general to treat them as slightly mentally afflicted children.
“But I,” said Miss Marple to herself, “although I may be old, am not a mentally retarded child.”
At this moment, breathing rather heavily, as was her custom, Miss Knight bounced brightly into the room. She was a big, rather flabby woman of fifty-six with yellowing grey hair very elaborately arranged, glasses, a long thin nose, and below it a good-natured mouth and a weak chin.
“Here we are!” she exclaimed with a kind of beaming boisterousness, meant to cheer and enliven the sad twilight of the aged. “I hope we’ve had our little snooze?”
“I have been knitting,” Miss Marple replied, putting some emphasis on the pronoun, “and,” she went on, confessing her weakness with distaste and shame, “I’ve dropped a stitch.”
“Oh dear, dear,” said Miss Knight. “Well, we’ll soon put that right, won’t we?”
“You will,” said Miss Marple. “I, alas, am unable to do so.”
The slight acerbity of her tone passed quite unnoticed. Miss Knight, as always, was eager to help.
“There,” she said after a few moments. “There you are, dear. Quite all right now.”
>
Though Miss Marple was perfectly agreeable to be called “dear” (and even “ducks”) by the woman at the greengrocer or the girl at the paper shop, it annoyed her intensely to be called “dear” by Miss Knight. Another of those things that elderly ladies have to bear. She thanked Miss Knight politely.
“And now I’m just going out for my wee toddle,” said Miss Knight humorously. “Shan’t be long.”
“Please don’t dream of hurrying back,” said Miss Marple politely and sincerely.
“Well, I don’t like to leave you too long on your own, dear, in case you get moped.”
“I assure you I am quite happy,” said Miss Marple. “I probably shall have” (she closed her eyes) “a little nap.”
“That’s right, dear. Anything I can get you?”
Miss Marple opened her eyes and considered.
“You might go into Longdon’s and see if the curtains are ready. And perhaps another skein of the blue wool from Mrs. Wisley. And a box of black currant lozenges at the chemist’s. And change my book at the library—but don’t let them give you anything that isn’t on my list. This last one was too terrible. I couldn’t read it.” She held out The Spring Awakens.
“Oh dear dear! Didn’t you like it? I thought you’d love it. Such a pretty story.”
“And if it isn’t too far for you, perhaps you wouldn’t mind going as far as Halletts and see if they have one of those up-and-down egg whisks—not the turn-the-handle kind.”
(She knew very well they had nothing of the kind, but Halletts was the farthest shop possible.)
“If all this isn’t too much—” she murmured.
But Miss Knight replied with obvious sincerity.
“Not at all. I shall be delighted.”
Miss Knight loved shopping. It was the breath of life to her. One met acquaintances, and had the chance of a chat, one gossiped with the assistants, and had the opportunity of examining various articles in the various shops. And one could spend quite a long time engaged in these pleasant occupations without any guilty feeling that it was one’s duty to hurry back.
So Miss Knight started off happily, after a last glance at the frail old lady resting so peacefully by the window.
After waiting a few minutes in case Miss Knight should return for a shopping bag, or her purse, or a handkerchief (she was a great forgetter and returner), and also to recover from the slight mental fatigue induced by thinking of so many unwanted things to ask Miss Knight to get, Miss Marple rose briskly to her feet, cast aside her knitting and strode purposefully across the room and into the hall. She took down her summer coat from its peg, a stick from the hall stand and exchanged her bedroom slippers for a pair of stout walking shoes. Then she left the house by the side door.
“It will take her at least an hour and a half,” Miss Marple estimated to herself. “Quite that—with all the people from the Development doing their shopping.”
Miss Marple visualized Miss Knight at Longdon’s making abortive inquiries re curtains. Her surmises were remarkably accurate. At this moment Miss Knight was exclaiming, “Of course, I felt quite sure in my own mind they wouldn’t be ready yet. But of course I said I’d come along and see when the old lady spoke about it. Poor old dears, they’ve got so little to look forward to. One must humour them. And she’s a sweet old lady. Failing a little now, it’s only to be expected—their faculties get dimmed. Now that’s a pretty material you’ve got there. Do you have it in any other colours?”
A pleasant twenty minutes passed. When Miss Knight had finally departed, the senior assistant remarked with a sniff, “Failing, is she? I’ll believe that when I see it for myself. Old Miss Marple has always been as sharp as a needle, and I’d say she still is.” She then gave her attention to a young woman in tight trousers and a sailcloth jersey who wanted plastic material with crabs on it for bathroom curtains.
“Emily Waters, that’s who she reminds me of,” Miss Marple was saying to herself, with the satisfaction it always gave her to match up a human personality with one known in the past. “Just the same bird brain. Let me see, what happened to Emily?”
Nothing much, was her conclusion. She had once nearly got engaged to a curate, but after an understanding of several years the affair had fizzled out. Miss Marple dismissed her nurse attendant from her mind and gave her attention to her surroundings. She had traversed the garden rapidly only observing as it were from the corner of her eye that Laycock had cut down the old-fashioned roses in a way more suitable to hybrid teas, but she did not allow this to distress her, or distract her from the delicious pleasure of having escaped for an outing entirely on her own. She had a happy feeling of adventure. She turned to the right, entered the Vicarage gate, took the path through the Vicarage garden and came out on the right of way. Where the stile had been there was now an iron swing gate giving on to a tarred asphalt path. This led to a neat little bridge over the stream and on the other side of the stream where once there had been meadows with cows, there was the Development.
Two
With the feeling of Columbus setting out to discover a new world, Miss Marple passed over the bridge, continued on to the path and within four minutes was actually in Aubrey Close.
Of course Miss Marple had seen the Development from the Market Basing Road, that is, had seen from afar its Closes and rows of neat well-built houses, with their television masts and their blue and pink and yellow and green painted doors and windows. But until now it had only had the reality of a map, as it were. She had not been in it and of it. But now she was here, observing the brave new world that was springing up, the world that by all accounts was foreign to all she had known. It was like a neat model built with child’s bricks. It hardly seemed real to Miss Marple.
The people, too, looked unreal. The trousered young women, the rather sinister-looking young men and boys, the exuberant bosoms of the fifteen-year-old girls. Miss Marple couldn’t help thinking that it all looked terribly depraved. Nobody noticed her much as she trudged along. She turned out of Aubrey Close and was presently in Darlington Close. She went slowly and as she went she listened avidly to the snippets of conversation between mothers wheeling prams, to the girls addressing young men, to the sinister-looking Teds (she supposed they were Teds) exchanging dark remarks with each other. Mothers came out on doorsteps calling to their children who, as usual, were busy doing all the things they had been told not to do. Children, Miss Marple reflected gratefully, never changed. And presently she began to smile, and noted down in her mind her usual series of recognitions.
That woman is just like Carry Edwards—and the dark one is just like that Hooper girl—she’ll make a mess of her marriage just like Mary Hooper did. Those boys—the dark one is just like Edward Leeke, a lot of wild talk but no harm in him—a nice boy really—the fair one is Mrs. Bedwell’s Josh all over again. Nice boys, both of them. The one like Gregory Binns won’t do very well, I’m afraid. I expect he’s got the same sort of mother….
She turned a corner into Walsingham Close and her spirits rose every moment.
The new world was the same as the old. The houses were different, the streets were called Closes, the clothes were different, the voices were different, but the human beings were the same as they always had been. And though using slightly different phraseology, the subjects of conversation were the same.
By dint of turning corners in her exploration, Miss Marple had rather lost her sense of direction and had arrived at the edge of the housing estate again. She was now in Carrisbrook Close, half of which was still “under construction.” At the first floor window of a nearly finished house a young couple were standing. Their voices floated down as they discussed the amenities.
“You must admit it’s a nice position, Harry.”
“Other one was just as good.”
“This one’s got two more rooms.”
“And you’ve got to pay for them.”
“Well, I like this one.”
“You would!”
“Ow
, don’t be such a spoilsport. You know what Mum said.”
“Your Mum never stops saying.”
“Don’t you say nothing against Mum. Where’d I have been without her? And she might have cut up nastier than she did. She could have taken you to court.”
“Oh, come off it, Lily.”
“It’s a good view of the hills. You can almost see—” She leaned far out, twisting her body to the left. “You can almost see the reservoir—”
She leant farther still, not realizing that she was resting her weight on loose boards that had been laid across the sill. They slipped under the pressure of her body, sliding outwards, carrying her with them. She screamed, trying to regain her balance.
“Harry—”
The young man stood motionless—a foot or two behind her. He took one step backwards—
Desperately, clawing at the wall, the girl righted herself. “Oo!” She let out a frightened breath. “I near as nothing fell out. Why didn’t you get hold of me?”
“It was all so quick. Anyway you’re all right.”
“That’s all you know about it. I nearly went, I tell you. And look at the front of my jumper, it’s all mussed.”
Miss Marple went on a little way, then on impulse, she turned back.
Lily was outside in the road waiting for the young man to lock up the house.
Miss Marple went up to her and spoke rapidly in a low voice.
“If I were you, my dear, I shouldn’t marry that young man. You want someone whom you can rely upon if you’re in danger. You must excuse me for saying this to you—but I feel you ought to be warned.”
The Complete Miss Marple Collection Page 141
