A Daughter's a Daughter

by Agatha Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott

  ‘Well, everyone knows that! Did I see some letters in the hall?’ Sarah went out and returned holding a letter with a South African stamp.

  Ann said:

  ‘Laura seems to think that I ought to put a stop to it.’

  Sarah was staring down at the letter. She said absently: ‘What?’

  ‘Laura thinks I ought to put a stop to you and Lawrence going out together.’

  Sarah said cheerfully:

  ‘Darling, what could you do?’

  ‘That’s what I told her,’ said Ann triumphantly. ‘Mothers are quite helpless nowadays.’

  Sarah sat down on the arm of a chair and opened her letter. She spread out the two pages and began to read.

  Ann went on:

  ‘One really forgets that Laura is the age she is! She’s getting so old that she’s really completely out of touch with modern ideas. Of course, to be honest, I have been rather worried about your going out with Larry Steene so much – but I decided that if I said anything to you, it would make it much worse. I know that I can trust you not to do anything really foolish –’

  She paused. Sarah, intent on her letter, murmured:

  ‘Of course, darling.’

  ‘But you must feel free to choose your own friends. I do think that sometimes a lot of friction arises because –’

  The telephone rang.

  ‘Oh dear, that telephone!’ cried Ann. She moved gladly across to it, and picked up the receiver expectantly.

  ‘Hullo … Yes, Mrs Prentice speaking … Yes … Who? I can’t quite catch the name … Cornford, did you say?… Oh, C – A – U – L – D … Oh! … Oh! … how stupid of me … Is it you, Richard? … Yes, such a long time … Well, that’s very sweet of you … No, of course not … No, I’m delighted … Really, I mean it … I’ve often wondered … What have you been doing with yourself? … What? … Really? … I’m so glad. My best congratulations … I’m sure she’s charming … That’s very nice of you … I should love to meet her …’

  Sarah got up from the arm of the chair where she had been sitting. She went slowly towards the door, her eyes blank and unseeing. The letter she had been reading was crushed up in her hand.

  Ann continued: ‘No, I couldn’t tomorrow – no – just wait a moment. I’ll get my little book …’ She called urgently: ‘Sarah!’

  Sarah turned in the doorway.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where’s my little book?’

  ‘Your book? I’ve no idea.’

  Sarah was miles away. Ann said irritably:

  ‘Well, do look for it. It must be somewhere. Beside my bed, perhaps. Darling, do hurry.’

  Sarah went out of the room and returned a moment later with Ann’s engagement book.

  ‘Here you are, Mother.’

  Ann ruffled its pages.

  ‘Are you there, Richard? No, lunch isn’t any good. I suppose you couldn’t come round for drinks on Thursday? … Oh, I see. I’m sorry. And lunch no good either? … Well, must you go by a morning train? … Where are you staying? … Oh, but that’s just round the corner. I know, can’t you both come round straight away and have a quick drink? … No, I was going out – but I’ve heaps of time … That will be delightful. Come right away.’

  She replaced the receiver and stood absent-mindedly staring into space.

  Sarah said without much interest: ‘Who was that?’ Then she added with an effort: ‘Mother, I’ve heard from Gerry …’

  Ann roused herself suddenly.

  ‘Tell Edith to bring the best glasses in and some ice. Quickly. They’re coming round for a drink.’

  Sarah moved obediently.

  ‘Who is?’ she asked, still without much interest.

  Ann said: ‘Richard – Richard Cauldfield!’

  ‘Who’s he?’ asked Sarah.

  Ann looked at her sharply, but Sarah’s face was quite blank. She went and called to Edith. When she returned Ann said with emphasis:

  ‘It was Richard Cauldfield.’

  ‘Who’s Richard Cauldfield?’ Sarah looked puzzled.

  Ann pressed her hands together. Her anger was so intense that she had to pause a minute to steady her voice.

  ‘So – you don’t even remember his name?’

  Sarah’s eyes had gone once more to the letter she was holding. She said quite naturally: ‘Did I know him? Tell me something about him.’

  Ann’s voice was hoarse as she said, this time with a biting emphasis that could not be missed:

  ‘Richard Cauldfield.’

  Sarah looked up startled. Suddenly comprehension came to her.

  ‘What! Not Cauliflower?’

  ‘Yes.’

  To Sarah it was a huge joke.

  ‘Fancy his turning up again,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Is he still after you, Mother?’

  Ann said shortly: ‘No, he’s married.’

  ‘That’s a good job,’ said Sarah. ‘I wonder what she’s like?’

  ‘He’s bringing her here for a drink. They’ll be here almost at once. They’re at the Langport. Tidy up these books, Sarah. Put your things in the hall. And your gloves.’

  Opening her bag, Ann surveyed her face anxiously in the small mirror. As Sarah returned she said:

  ‘Do I look all right?’

  ‘Yes, lovely.’ Sarah’s reply was perfunctory.

  She was frowning to herself. Ann shut her bag and moved restlessly about the room, altering the position of a chair, rearranging a cushion.

  ‘Mother, I’ve heard from Gerry.’

  ‘Have you?’

  The vase of bronze chrysanthemums would look better on the corner table.

  ‘He’s had awfully bad luck.’

  ‘Has he?’

  The cigarette box here, and the matches.

  ‘Yes, some sort of disease or something got into the oranges and then he and his partner got into debt and – and now they’ve had to sell up. The whole thing’s a wash-out.’

  ‘What a pity. But I can’t say I’m surprised.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Something like that always seems to happen to Gerry,’ said Ann vaguely.

  ‘Yes – yes, it does.’ Sarah was cast down. The generous indignation on Gerry’s behalf was not so spontaneous now as it had been. She said half-heartedly: ‘It isn’t his fault …’ But she was no longer as convinced as she would once have been.

  ‘Perhaps not.’ Ann spoke absently. ‘But I’m afraid he’ll always make a nonsense of things.’

  ‘Are you?’ Sarah sat down again on the arm of her chair. She said earnestly: ‘Mother, do you think – really – that Gerry never will get anywhere?’

  ‘It doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘And yet I know – I’m sure – there’s a lot in Gerry.’

  ‘He’s a charming boy,’ said Ann. ‘But I’m afraid he’s one of the world’s misfits.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Sarah sighed.

  ‘Where’s the sherry? Richard always used to prefer sherry to gin. Oh, there it is.’

  Sarah said: ‘Gerry says he’s going to Kenya – he and another pal of his. They’re going to sell cars – and run a garage.’

  ‘It’s extraordinary,’ commented Ann, ‘how many inefficients always end up running a garage.’

  ‘But Gerry was always a wizard with cars. He made that one he bought for ten pounds go wonderfully. And you know, Mother, it isn’t that Gerry is really lazy or won’t work. He does work – sometimes awfully hard. It’s just, I think,’ she puzzled it out, ‘that his judgment’s not very good.’

  For the first time, Ann gave her daughter her full attention. She spoke kindly but decisively.

  ‘You know, Sarah, if I were you, I should – well, put Gerry right out of your mind.’

  Sarah looked shaken. Her lips quivered.

  ‘Would you?’ she asked uncertainly.

  The electric bell rang, an insistent soulless summons.

  ‘Here they are,’ said Ann.

  She went and stood in a rather artificial a
ttitude by the mantelpiece.

  Chapter Four

  1

  Richard came into the room with that little extra air of confidence that he always assumed when he was embarrassed. If it hadn’t been for Doris he wouldn’t be doing this. But Doris had been curious. She’d gone on at him, pestered him, pouted, sulked. She was very pretty and young and, having married a man a good deal older than herself, she fully intended to see that she got her own way.

  Ann came forward to meet them, smiling charmingly. She felt like someone playing a part on the stage.

  ‘Richard – how nice to see you! And this is your wife?’

  Behind the cover of polite greetings and nondescript remarks thoughts were busy.

  Richard thought to himself:

  ‘How she’s changed … I’d hardly have known her …’

  And a kind of relief came to him as he thought:

  ‘She wouldn’t have done for me – not really. Too smart altogether … Fashionable. The gay kind. Not my sort.’

  And he felt a renewed affection for his wife, Doris. He was inclined to be besotted about Doris – she was so young. But there were times when he realized uneasily that that careful accent of hers was inclined to get on his nerves, and her continual archness was also a bit wearing. He did not admit that he had married out of his class – he had met her at a hotel on the south coast, and her people had plenty of money, her father was a retired builder – but there were times when her parents jarred on him. But less now than they had done a year ago. And he was coming to accept Doris’s friends as the friends they would naturally make. It was not, as he knew, what he had once wanted … Doris would never take the place of his long dead Aline. But she had given him a second spring of the senses and for the moment that was enough.

  Doris, who had been suspicious about this Mrs Prentice and inclined to be jealous, was favourably surprised by Ann’s appearance.

  ‘Why, she’s ever so old,’ she thought to herself with the cruel intolerance of youth.

  She was impressed with the room and the furnishings. The daughter, too, was awfully smart and really looked quite like something in Vogue. She was a little impressed that her Richard had once been engaged to this fashionable woman. It raised him in her estimation.

  To Ann, the sight of Richard had come as a shock. This man who was talking so confidently to her was a stranger. Not only was he a stranger to her, she was a stranger to him. They had moved, he and she, in opposite directions and there was now between them no common meeting ground. She had always been conscious in Richard of dual tendencies. There had always been a strain of pompousness there, the tendency to a closed mind. He had been a simple man with interesting possibilities. The door had been shut on those possibilities. The Richard Ann had loved was imprisoned inside this good-humoured, slightly pompous, commonplace British husband.

  He had met and married this common predatory child, with no qualities of heart and brain, only an assured pink and white prettiness and a youthful crude sex appeal.

  He had married this girl because she, Ann, had sent him away. Smarting with anger and resentment, he had fallen an easy prey to the first female creature who had laid herself out to attract him. Well, perhaps it was all for the best. She supposed he was happy …

  Sarah brought them drinks and talked politely. Her thoughts were quite uncomplicated, represented entirely by the phrase: ‘What a crashing bore these people are!’ She was aware of no undercurrents. At the back of her mind was still a dull ache connected with the word ‘Gerry’.

  ‘You’ve had all this done up, I see?’

  Richard was looking round.

  ‘It’s lovely, Mrs Prentice,’ said Doris. ‘All this Regency is the latest thing, isn’t it? What was it before?’

  ‘Old-fashioned rosy things,’ said Richard vaguely. He had a memory of the soft firelight and Ann and himself sitting on the old sofa that had been banished to make way for the Empire couch. ‘I liked them better than this.’

  ‘Men are such frightful sticks-in-the-mud, aren’t they, Mrs Prentice?’ simpered Doris.

  ‘My wife is determined to keep me up-to-date,’ said Richard.

  ‘Of course I am, darling. I’m not going to let you turn into an old fogy before your time,’ said Doris affectionately. ‘Don’t you think he looks years younger than when you saw him last, Mrs Prentice?’

  Ann avoided Richard’s eye. She said:

  ‘I think he looks splendid.’

  ‘I’ve taken up golf,’ said Richard.

  ‘We’ve found a house near Basing Heath. Isn’t it lucky? Quite a good train service for Richard to go up and down every day. And it’s such a wonderful golf course. Very crowded, of course, at week-ends.’

  ‘It’s enormous luck nowadays to get the house you’re looking for,’ said Ann.

  ‘Yes. It’s got an Aga cooker and all wired for power and absolutely newly built on the latest lines. Richard hankered after one of these terrible old falling down decayed period houses. But I put my foot down! We women are the practical ones, aren’t we?’

  Ann said politely:

  ‘I’m sure a modern house saves a lot of domestic bother these days. Have you got a garden?’

  Richard said: ‘Not really,’ just as Doris said: ‘Oh, yes.’

  His wife looked at Richard reproachfully.

  ‘How can you say that, darling, after all the bulbs we’ve put in.’

  ‘Quarter of an acre round the house,’ said Richard.

  For a moment his eyes met Ann’s. They had talked together sometimes of the garden they would have if they went to live in the country. A walled garden for fruit – and a lawn with trees …

  Richard turned hastily to Sarah:

  ‘Well, young woman, what do you do with yourself?’ His old nervousness of her revived and made him sound peculiarly and odiously facetious. ‘Lots of wild parties, I suppose?’

  Sarah laughed cheerfully, thinking to herself: ‘I’d forgotten how odious Cauliflower was. It’s a good thing for Mother I settled his hash.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘But I make it a rule not to end up in Vine Street more than twice a week.’

  ‘Girls drink far too much nowadays. Ruin their complexions – though I must say yours looks very good.’

  ‘You always were interested in cosmetics, I remember,’ said Sarah sweetly.

  She crossed to Doris who was talking to Ann.

  ‘Let me give you another drink.’

  ‘Oh, no, thanks, Miss Prentice – I couldn’t. Even this has gone to my head. What a lovely cocktail bar you’ve got. It’s all awfully smart, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s very convenient,’ said Ann.

  ‘Not married yet, Sarah?’ said Richard.

  ‘Oh, no. I have hopes, though.’

  ‘I suppose you go to Ascot and all those sort of things,’ said Doris enviously.

  ‘The rain this year ruined my best frock,’ said Sarah.

  ‘You know, Mrs Prentice,’ Doris turned again to Ann, ‘you’re not a bit like what I imagined.’

  ‘What did you imagine?’

  ‘But then men are so stupid at descriptions, aren’t they?’

  ‘How did Richard describe me?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. It wasn’t exactly what he said. It was the impression I got. I pictured you somehow as one of those quiet mousy little women,’ she laughed shrilly.

  ‘A quiet mousy little woman? How dreary that sounds!’

  ‘Oh, no, Richard admired you enormously. He really did. Sometimes, you know, I’ve been quite jealous.’

  ‘That sounds most absurd.’

  ‘Oh, well, you know how one goes on. Sometimes when Richard is very quiet in the evening and won’t talk I tease him by telling him he’s thinking about you.’

  (Do you think of me, Richard? Do you? I don’t believe you do. You try not to think of me – just as I try never to think of you.)

  ‘If you’re ever Basing Heath way, you must come and see us, Mrs Prentice.’


  ‘That’s very kind of you. I should love to.’

  ‘Of course, like everybody else, the domestic problem is our great trouble. Only dailies to be had – and so often unreliable.’

  Richard, turning away from his heavy-handed conversation with Sarah, said:

  ‘You’ve still got your old Edith, I see, Ann?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. We’d be lost without her.’

  ‘Jolly good cook she was. Very nice little dinners she used to turn out.’

  There was a moment’s awkwardness.

  One of Edith’s little dinners – the firelight – the chintzes with their sprigs of rosebuds … Ann with her soft voice and her leaf-brown hair … Talking – making plans … the happy future … A daughter coming home from Switzerland – but he hadn’t dreamt that that would ever matter …

  Ann was watching him. Just for a moment she saw the real Richard – her Richard – looking at her out of sad remembering eyes.

  The real Richard? Wasn’t Doris’s Richard as real as Ann’s Richard?

  But now her Richard had gone again. It was Doris’s Richard who was saying good-bye. More talk, more proffers of hospitality – would they never go? That nasty greedy little girl with her affected mincing voice. Poor Richard – Oh, poor Richard! – and it was her doing. She had sent him to that hotel lounge where Doris was waiting.

  But was it really poor Richard? He had a young pretty wife. He was probably very happy.

  At last! They had gone! Sarah, politely seeing them out, came back into the room, uttering a terrific ‘Whoof!’

  ‘Thank goodness that’s over! You know, Mother, you did have an escape.’

  ‘I suppose I did.’ Ann spoke like someone in a dream.

  ‘Well, I ask you, would you like to marry him now?’

  ‘No,’ said Ann. ‘I wouldn’t like to marry him now.’

  (We’ve gone away from that meeting point there was in our lives. You’ve gone one way, Richard, and I’ve gone another. I’m not the woman who walked with you in St James’s Park, and you’re not the man I was going to grow old with … We’re two different people – strangers. You didn’t much care for the look of me today – and I found you dull and pompous …)

  ‘You’d be bored to death, you know you would,’ said Sarah’s positive young voice.