A Daughter's a Daughter

by Agatha Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott

  ‘Oh, because –’ She stopped. Then she spoke truthfully and with sincerity. ‘I loved my husband very much. After he died I never fell in love with anyone else. And there was Sarah, of course.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cauldfield. ‘Yes – with you that is exactly what it would be.’

  Grant got up and suggested that they move into the restaurant. At the round table Ann sat next to her host with Major Massingham on her other side. She had no further opportunity of a tête-à-tête with Cauldfield, who was talking rather ponderously with Miss Graham.

  ‘Think they might do for each other, eh?’ murmured the colonel in her ear. ‘He needs a wife, you know.’

  For some reason the suggestion displeased Ann. Jennifer Graham, indeed, with her loud hearty voice and her neighing laugh! Not at all the sort of woman for a man like Cauldfield to marry.

  Oysters were brought and the party settled down to food and talk.

  ‘Sarah gone off this morning?’

  ‘Yes, James. I do hope they’ll have some good snow.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a bit doubtful this time of year. Anyway, I expect she’ll enjoy herself all right. Handsome girl, Sarah. By the way, hope young Lloyd isn’t one of the party?’

  ‘Oh no, he’s just gone into his uncle’s firm. He can’t go away.’

  ‘Good thing. You must nip all that in the bud, Ann.’

  ‘One can’t do much nipping in these days, James.’

  ‘Hm, suppose not. Still, you’ve got her away for a while.’

  ‘Yes. I thought it would be a good plan.’

  ‘Oh, you did? You’re no fool, Ann. Let’s hope she takes up with some other young fellow out there.’

  ‘Sarah’s very young still, James. I don’t think the Gerry Lloyd business was serious at all.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But she seemed very concerned about him when last I saw her.’

  ‘Being concerned is rather a thing of Sarah’s. She knows exactly what everyone ought to do and makes them do it. She’s very loyal to her friends.’

  ‘She’s a dear child. And a very attractive one. But she’ll never be as attractive as you, Ann, she’s a harder type – what do they call it nowadays – hard-boiled.’

  Ann smiled.

  ‘I don’t think Sarah’s very hard-boiled. It’s just the manner of her generation.’

  ‘Perhaps so … But some of these girls could take a lesson in charm from their mothers.’

  He was looking at her affectionately and Ann thought to herself with a sudden unusual warmth: ‘Dear James. How sweet he is to me. He really does think me perfect. Am I a fool not to accept what he offers? To be loved and cherished –’

  Unfortunately at that moment Colonel Grant started telling her the story of one of his subalterns and a major’s wife in India. It was a long story and she had heard it three times before.

  The affectionate warmth died down. Across the table she watched Richard Cauldfield, appraising him. A little too confident of himself, too dogmatic – no, she corrected herself, not really … That was only a defensive armour he put up against a strange and possibly hostile world.

  It was a sad face, really. A lonely face …

  He had a lot of good qualities, she thought. He would be kind and honest and strictly fair. Obstinate, probably, and occasionally prejudiced. A man unused to laughing at things or being laughed at. The kind of man who would blossom out if he felt himself truly loved

  ‘– and would you believe it?’ the colonel came to a triumphant end to his story ‘– the Sayce had known about it all the time!’

  With a shock Ann came back to her immediate duties and laughed with all the proper appreciation.

  Chapter Three

  1

  Ann woke on the following morning and for a moment wondered where she was. Surely, that dim outline of the window should have been on the right, not the left … The door, the wardrobe …

  Then she realized. She had been dreaming; dreaming that she was back, a girl, in her old home at Apple-stream. She had come there full of excitement, to be welcomed by her mother, by a younger Edith. She had run round the garden, exclaiming at this and that and had finally entered the house. All was as it had been, the rather dark hall, the chintz-covered drawing-room opening off it. And then, surprisingly, her mother had said: ‘We’re having tea in here today,’ and had led her through a further door into a new and unfamiliar room. An attractive room, with gay chintz covers and flowers, and sunlight; and someone was saying to her: ‘You never knew that these rooms were here, did you? We found them last year!’ There had been more new rooms and a small staircase and more rooms upstairs. It had all been very exciting and thrilling.

  Now that she was awake she was still partly in the dream. She was Ann the girl, a creature standing at the beginning of life. Those undiscovered rooms! Fancy never knowing about them all these years! When had they been found? Lately? Or years ago?

  Reality seeped slowly through the confused pleasurable dream state. All a dream, a very happy dream. Shot through now with a slight ache, the ache of nostalgia. Because one couldn’t go back. And how odd that a dream of discovering additional ordinary rooms in a house should engender such a queer ecstatic pleasure. She felt quite sad to think that these rooms had never actually existed.

  Ann lay in bed watching the outline of the window grow clearer. It must be quite late, nine o’clock at least. The mornings were so dark now. Sarah would be waking to sunshine and snow in Switzerland.

  But somehow Sarah hardly seemed real at this moment. Sarah was far away, remote, indistinct …

  What was real was the house in Cumberland, the chintzes, the sunlight, the flowers – her mother. And Edith, standing respectfully to attention, looking, in spite of her young smooth unlined face, definitely disapproving as usual.

  Ann smiled and called: ‘Edith!’

  Edith entered and pulled the curtains back.

  ‘Well,’ she said approvingly. ‘You’ve had a nice lay in. I wasn’t going to wake you. It’s not much of a day. Fog coming on, I’d say.’

  The outlook from the window was a heavy yellow. It was not an attractive prospect, but Ann’s sense of well-being was not shaken. She lay there smiling to herself.

  ‘Your breakfast’s all ready. I’ll fetch it in.’

  Edith paused as she left the room, looking curiously at her mistress.

  ‘Looking pleased with yourself this morning, I must say. You must have enjoyed yourself last night.’

  ‘Last night?’ Ann was vague for a moment. ‘Oh, yes, yes. I enjoyed myself very much. Edith, when I woke up I’d been dreaming I was at home again. You were there and it was summer and there were new rooms in the house that we’d never known about.’

  ‘Good job we didn’t, I’d say,’ said Edith. ‘Quite enough rooms as it was. Great rambling old place. And that kitchen! When I think of what that range must have ate in coal! Lucky it was cheap then.’

  ‘You were quite young again, Edith, and so was I.’

  ‘Ah, we can’t put the clock back, can we? Not for all we may want to. Those times are dead and gone for ever.’

  ‘Dead and gone for ever,’ repeated Ann softly.

  ‘Not as I’m not quite satisfied as I am. I’ve got my health and strength, though they do say it’s at middle life you’re most liable to get one of these internal growths. I’ve thought of that once or twice lately.’

  ‘I’m sure you haven’t got anything of the kind, Edith.’

  ‘Ah, but you don’t know yourself. Not until the moment when they cart you off to hospital and cuts you up and by then it’s usually too late.’ And Edith left the room with gloomy relish.

  She returned a few minutes later with Ann’s breakfast tray of coffee and toast.

  ‘There you are, ma’am. Sit up and I’ll tuck the pillow behind your back.’

  Ann looked up at her and said impulsively:

  ‘How good you are to me, Edith.’

  Edith flushed a fiery red with embarrassment.
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  ‘I know the way things should be done, that’s all. And anyway, someone’s got to look after you. You’re not one of these strong-minded ladies. That Dame Laura now – the Pope of Rome himself couldn’t stand up to her.’

  ‘Dame Laura is a great personality, Edith.’

  ‘I know. I’ve heard her on the radio. Why, just by the look of her you’d always know she was somebody. Managed to get married too, by what I’ve heard. Was it divorce or death that parted them?’

  ‘Oh, he died.’

  ‘Best thing for him, I daresay. She’s not the kind any gentleman would find it comfortable to live with – although I won’t deny as there’s some men as actually prefer their wives to wear the trousers.’

  Edith moved towards the door, observing as she did so:

  ‘Now don’t you hurry up, my dear. You just have a nice rest and lay-a-bed and think your pretty thoughts and enjoy your holiday.’

  ‘Holiday,’ thought Ann, amused. ‘Is that what she calls it?’

  And yet in a way it was true enough. It was an interregnum in the patterned fabric of her life. Living with a child that you loved, there was always a faint clawing anxiety at the back of your mind. ‘Is she happy?’ ‘Are A or B or C good friends for her?’ ‘Something must have gone wrong at that dance last night. I wonder what it was?’

  She had never interfered or asked questions. Sarah, she realized, must feel free to be silent or to talk – must learn her own lessons from life, must choose her own friends. Yet, because you loved her, you could not banish her problems from your mind. And at any moment you might be needed. If Sarah were to turn to her mother for sympathy or for practical help, her mother must be there, ready …

  Sometimes Ann had said to herself: ‘I must be prepared one day to see Sarah unhappy, and even then I must not speak unless she wants me to.’

  The thing that had worried her lately was that bitter and querulous young man, Gerald Lloyd, and Sarah’s increasing absorption in him. That fact lay at the back of her relief that Sarah was separated from him for at least three weeks and would be meeting plenty of other young men.

  Yes, with Sarah in Switzerland, she could dismiss her happily from her mind and relax. Relax here in her comfortable bed and think about what she should do today. She’d enjoyed herself very much at the party last night. Dear James – so kind – and yet such a bore, too, poor darling! Those endless stories of his! Really, men, when they got to forty-five, should make a vow not to tell any stories or anecdotes at all. Did they even imagine how their friends’ spirits sank when they began: ‘Don’t know whether I ever told you, but rather a curious thing happened once to –’ and so on.

  One could say, of course: ‘Yes, James, you’ve told me three times already.’ And then the poor darling would look so hurt. No, one couldn’t do that to James.

  That other man, Richard Cauldfield. He was much younger, of course, but probably he would take to repeating long boring stories over and over again one day …

  She considered … perhaps … but she didn’t think so. No, he was more likely to lay down the law, to become didactic. He would have prejudices, preconceived ideas. He would have to be teased, gently teased … He might be a little absurd sometimes, but he was a dear really – a lonely man – a very lonely man … She felt sorry for him. He was so adrift in this modern frustrated life of London. She wondered what sort of job he would get … It wasn’t so easy nowadays. He would probably buy his farm or his market garden and settle down in the country.

  She wondered whether she would meet him again. She would be asking James to dinner one evening soon. She might suggest he brought Richard Cauldfield with him. It would be a nice thing to do – he was clearly lonely. And she would ask another woman. They might go to a play.

  What a noise Edith was making. She was in the sitting-room next door and it sounded as though there were an army of removal men at work. Bangs, bumps, the occasional high whine of the vacuum cleaner. Edith must be enjoying herself.

  Presently Edith peeped round the door. Her head was tied up in a duster and she wore the exalted rapt look of a priestess performing a ritual orgy.

  ‘You wouldn’t be out to lunch, I suppose? I was wrong about the fog. It’s going to be a proper nice day. I don’t mean as I’ve forgotten that bit of plaice. I haven’t. But if it’s kept till now, it’ll keep till this evening. No denying, these fridges do keep things – but it takes the goodness out of them all the same. That’s what I say.’

  Ann looked at Edith and laughed.

  ‘All right, all right, I’ll go out to lunch.’

  ‘Please yourself, of course, I don’t mind.’

  ‘Yes, Edith, but don’t kill yourself. Why not get Mrs Hopper in to help you, if you must clean the place from top to toe.’

  ‘Mrs Hopper, Mrs Hopper! I’ll Hopper her! I let her clean that nice brass fender of your ma’s last time she came. Left it all smeary. Wash down the linoleum, that’s all these women are good for, and anybody can do that. Remember that cut-steel fender and grate we had at Applestream? That took a bit of keeping. I took a pride in that, I can tell you. Ah, well, you’ve some nice pieces of furniture here and they polish up something beautiful. Pity there’s so much built-in stuff.’

  ‘It makes less work.’

  ‘Too much like a hotel for my liking. So you’ll be going out? Good. I can get all the rugs up.’

  ‘Can I come here tonight? Or would you like me to go to a hotel?’

  ‘Now then, Miss Ann, none of your jokes. By the way, that double saucepan you brought home from the Stores isn’t a mite of good. It’s too big for one thing and it’s a bad shape for stirring inside. I want one like my old one.’

  ‘I’m afraid they don’t make them any more, Edith.’

  ‘This government,’ said Edith in disgust. ‘What about those china soufflé dishes I asked about? Miss Sarah likes a soufflé served that way.’

  ‘I forgot you’d asked me to get them. I daresay I could find some of them all right.’

  ‘There you are, then. That’s something for you to do.’

  ‘Really, Edith,’ cried Ann, exasperated. ‘I might be a little girl you’re telling to go out and have a nice bowl of her hoop.’

  ‘Miss Sarah being away makes you seem younger, I must admit. But I was only suggesting, ma’am –’ Edith drew herself up to her full height and spoke with sour primness – ‘if you should happen to be in the neighbourhood of the Army and Navy Stores, or maybe John Barker’s –’

  ‘All right, Edith. Go and bowl your own hoop in the sitting-room.’

  ‘Well, really,’ said Edith, outraged, and withdrew.

  The bangs and bumps recommenced and presently another sound was added to them, the thin tuneless sound of Edith’s voice upraised in a particularly gloomy hymn tune:

  ‘This is a land of pain and woe

  No joy, no sun, no light.

  Oh lave, Oh lave us in Thy blood

  That we may mourn aright.’

  2

  Ann enjoyed herself in the china department of the Army and Navy Stores. She thought that nowadays when so many things were shoddily and badly made, it was a relief to see what good china and glass and pottery this country could turn out still.

  The forbidding notices ‘For Export Only’ did not spoil her appreciation of the wares displayed in their shining rows. She passed on to the tables displaying the export rejects where there were always women shoppers hovering with keen glances to pounce on some attractive piece.

  Today, Ann herself was fortunate. There was actually a nearly complete breakfast set, with nice wide round cups in an agreeable brown glazed and patterned pottery. The price was not unreasonable and she purchased it just in time. Another woman came along just as the address was being taken and said excitedly: ‘I’ll have that.’

  ‘Sorry, madam, I’m afraid it’s sold.’

  Ann said insincerely: ‘I’m so sorry,’ and walked away buoyed up with the delight of successful achievement. She ha
d also found some very pleasant soufflé dishes of the right size, but in glass, not china, which she hoped Edith would accept without grumbling too much.

  From the china department she went across the street into the gardening department. The window-box outside the flat window was crumbling into disintegration and she wanted to order another.

  She was talking to the salesman about it when a voice behind her said:

  ‘Why, good morning, Mrs Prentice.’

  She turned to find Richard Cauldfield. His pleasure at their meeting was so evident that Ann could not help feeling flattered.

  ‘Fancy meeting you here like this. It really is a wonderful coincidence. I was just thinking about you as a matter of fact. You know, last night, I wanted to ask you where you lived and if I might, perhaps, come and see you? But then I thought that perhaps you would think it was rather an impertinence on my part. You must have so many friends, and –’

  Ann interrupted him.

  ‘Of course you must come and see me. Actually I was thinking of asking Colonel Grant to dinner and suggesting that he might bring you with him.’

  ‘Were you? Were you really?’

  His eagerness and pleasure were so evident that Ann felt a pang of sympathy. Poor man, he must be lonely. That happy smile of his was really quite boyish.

  She said: ‘I’ve been ordering myself a new window-box. That’s the nearest we can get in a flat to having a garden.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve been looking at incubators –’

  ‘Still hankering after chickens.’

  ‘In a way. I’ve been looking at all the latest poultry equipment. I understand this electrical stunt is the latest thing.’

  They moved together towards the exit. Richard Cauldfield said in a sudden rush:

  ‘I wonder – of course perhaps you’re engaged – whether you’d care to lunch with me – that is if you’re not doing anything else.’

  ‘Thank you. I’d like to very much. As a matter of fact Edith, my maid, is indulging in an orgy of spring cleaning and has told me very firmly not to come home to lunch.’