A Daughter's a Daughter

by Agatha Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott

  ‘A quiet lady. Yes, Mother was quiet. Gerry said so too. Funny how she’s altered completely in the last three years. Do you think she’s changed a lot, Edith?’

  ‘Sometimes I’d say she wasn’t the same lady.’

  ‘She used to be quite different … She used to be –’ Sarah broke off, thinking. Then she went on: ‘Do you think mothers always go on being fond of their children, Edith?’

  ‘Of course they do, Miss Sarah. It wouldn’t be natural if they didn’t.’

  ‘But is it really natural to go on caring about your young once they’re grown up and out in the world? Animals don’t.’

  Edith was scandalized. She said sharply:

  ‘Animals indeed! We’re Christian men and women. Don’t you talk nonsense, Miss Sarah. Remember the saying: A son’s a son till he gets him a wife. But A Daughter’s a Daughter all your life.’

  Sarah laughed.

  ‘I know heaps of mothers who hate their daughters like poison, and daughters who’ve got no use for their mothers, either.’

  ‘Well, all I can say is, Miss Sarah, that I don’t think that’s at all nice.’

  ‘But much, much healthier, Edith – or so our psychologists say.’

  ‘Nasty minds they’ve got, then.’

  Sarah said thoughtfully:

  ‘I’ve always been frightfully fond of Mother – as a person – not as a mother.’

  ‘And your mother’s devoted to you, Miss Sarah.’

  Sarah did not answer for some seconds. Then she said thoughtfully: ‘I wonder …’

  Edith sniffed.

  ‘If you knew the state she was in when you had the pneumonia when you were fourteen –’

  ‘Oh, yes, then. But now …’

  They both heard the sound of the latch-key. Edith said:

  ‘Here she is now.’

  Ann came in breathlessly, pulling off a gay little hat of multi-coloured feathers.

  ‘Sarah? What a nice surprise. Oh dear, this hat has been hurting my head. What’s the time? I’m terribly late. I’m meeting the Ladesburys at Chaliano’s at eight. Come into my room while I change.’

  Sarah followed her obediently along the passage, and into her bedroom.

  ‘How’s Lawrence?’ Ann asked.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Good. It’s ages since I’ve seen him – or you either for that matter. We must have a party sometime. That new revue at the Coronation sounds quite good –’

  ‘Mother. I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Yes, darling?’

  ‘Can’t you stop doing things to your face and just listen to me?’

  Ann looked surprised.

  ‘Dear me, Sarah. You seem very much on edge.’

  ‘I want to talk to you. It’s serious. It’s – Gerry.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ann’s hands fell to her sides. She looked thoughtful. ‘Gerry?’

  Sarah said baldly:

  ‘He wants me to leave Lawrence and go to Canada with him.’

  Ann breathed in once or twice. Then she said lightly:

  ‘What absolute nonsense! Poor old Gerry. He really is too stupid for words.’

  Sarah said sharply:

  ‘Gerry’s all right.’

  Ann said: ‘I know you’ve always stuck up for him, darling. But seriously, don’t you find you’ve rather outgrown him now that you see him again?’

  ‘You’re not helping me much, Mother,’ said Sarah. Her voice shook a little. ‘I want to be – serious about it.’

  Ann said sharply:

  ‘You’re not taking this ridiculous nonsense seriously?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  Ann said angrily: ‘Then you’re being stupid, Sarah.’ Sarah said obstinately: ‘I’ve always cared for Gerry and he for me.’

  Ann laughed.

  ‘Oh, my dear child!’

  ‘I ought never to have married Lawrence. It was the greatest mistake I ever made.’

  ‘You’ll settle down,’ said Ann comfortably.

  Sarah got up and prowled up and down restlessly.

  ‘I shan’t. I shan’t. My life’s hell – pure hell.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate, Sarah.’ Ann’s voice was acid.

  ‘He’s a beast – an inhuman beast.’

  ‘He’s devoted to you, Sarah,’ said Ann reproachfully.

  ‘Why did I do it? Why? I never really wanted to marry him.’ She whirled round suddenly on Ann. ‘I shouldn’t have married him if it hadn’t been for you.’

  ‘Me?’ Ann flushed angrily. ‘I had nothing to do with it!’

  ‘You did – you did!’

  ‘I told you at the time you must make up your own mind.’

  ‘You persuaded me it would be all right.’

  ‘What wicked nonsense! Why, I told you he had a bad reputation, that you were taking a risk –’

  ‘I know. But it was the way you said it. As though it didn’t matter. Oh, the whole thing! I don’t care what words you used. The words were all right. But you wanted me to marry him. You did, Mother. I know you did! Why? Because you wanted to get rid of me?’

  Ann faced her daughter angrily.

  ‘Really, Sarah, this is the most extraordinary attack.’

  Sarah came up close to her mother. Her eyes, enormous and dark in her white face, stared into Ann’s face as though she were looking there for the truth.

  ‘I know what I’m saying is true. You wanted me to marry Lawrence. And now it’s turned out all wrong, now that I’m hellishly unhappy, you don’t care. Sometimes – I’ve even thought you were pleased …’

  ‘Sarah!’

  ‘Yes, pleased.’ Her eyes were still searching. Ann was restless under that stare. ‘You are pleased … You want me to be unhappy …’

  Ann turned brusquely away. She was trembling. She walked away towards the door. Sarah followed her.

  ‘Why? Why, Mother?’

  Ann said, forcing the words through stiff lips:

  ‘You don’t know what you are saying.’

  Sarah persisted:

  ‘I want to know why you wanted me to be unhappy.’

  ‘I never wanted you to be unhappy! Don’t be absurd!’

  ‘Mother …’ Timidly, like a child, Sarah touched her mother’s arm. ‘Mother … I’m your daughter … You ought to be fond of me.’

  ‘Of course I’m fond of you! What next?’

  ‘No,’ said Sarah. ‘I don’t think that you are. I don’t think that you’ve been fond of me for a long time … You’ve gone right away from me … somewhere where I can’t get at you …’

  Ann made an effort to pull herself together. She said in a matter-of-fact voice:

  ‘However much you care for your children, there comes a time when they have to learn to stand on their own feet. Mothers mustn’t be possessive.’

  ‘No, of course not. But I think that when one is in trouble, one ought to be able to come to one’s mother.’

  ‘But what do you want me to do, Sarah?’

  ‘I want you to tell me whether I shall go away with Gerry or stay with Lawrence.’

  ‘Stay with your husband, of course.’

  ‘You sound very positive.’

  ‘My dear child, what other answer can you expect from a woman of my generation? I was brought up to observe certain standards of behaviour.’

  ‘Morally right to stay with a husband, morally wrong to go away with a lover! Is that it?’

  ‘Exactly. Of course, I daresay your modern friends would take quite a different view. But you asked me for mine.’

  Sarah sighed and shook her head.

  ‘It isn’t nearly as simple as you make it sound. It’s all mixed up. Actually, it’s the nastiest Me that would like to stay with Lawrence – the Me that’s afraid to risk poverty and difficulties – the Me that likes soft living – the Me that has depraved tastes and is a slave to sensation … The other Me, the Me that wants to go with Gerry isn’t just an amorous little slut – it’s a Me that believes in Gerry and wants to help him.
You see, Mother, I’ve got just that something that Gerry hasn’t got. There’s a moment when he sits down and pities himself and it’s just then that he needs me to give him a terrific kick in the pants! Gerry could be a really fine sort of person – he’s got it in him. He just wants someone to laugh at him, and goad him and – oh, he – he just wants me …’

  Sarah stopped and looked imploringly at Ann. Ann’s face was set like flint.

  ‘It’s no good my pretending to be impressed, Sarah. You married Lawrence of your own free will, no matter what you pretend, and you ought to stick to him.’

  ‘Perhaps …’

  Ann pressed her advantage.

  ‘And you know, darling,’ her tone was affectionate, ‘I don’t feel that you’re really cut out for a life of roughing it. It sounds all right just talking about it, but I’m sure you’d hate it when it came to the point, especially –’ this, she felt, was a good touch – ‘especially if you felt you were hampering Gerry instead of helping him.’

  But almost at once she realized that she had made a false step.

  Sarah’s face hardened. She moved to the dressing-table and took and lighted a cigarette. Then she said, lightly:

  ‘You’re quite the devil’s advocate, aren’t you, Mother?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Ann was bewildered.

  Sarah came back and stood squarely in front of her mother. Her face was suspicious and hard.

  ‘What’s the real reason you don’t want me to go off with Gerry, Mother?’

  ‘I’ve told you –’

  ‘The real reason …’ Very deliberately, her eyes boring into Ann’s, Sarah said: ‘You’re afraid, aren’t you, that I might be happy with Gerry?’

  ‘I’m afraid you might be very unhappy!’

  ‘No, you’re not.’ Sarah shot the words out bitterly. ‘You wouldn’t care if I was unhappy. It’s my happiness you don’t want. You don’t like me. It’s more than that. For some reason or other you hate me … That’s it, isn’t it? You hate me. You hate me like hell!’

  ‘Sarah, are you mad?’

  ‘No, I’m not mad. I’m getting at the truth at last. You’ve hated me for a long time – for years. Why?’

  ‘It’s not true …’

  ‘It is true. But why? It’s not that you’re jealous of me because I’m young. Some mothers are like that with their daughters, but not you. You were always sweet to me … Why do you hate me, Mother? I’ve got to know!’

  ‘I don’t hate you!’

  Sarah cried: ‘Oh, do stop telling lies! Come out into the open. What have I ever done to make you hate me? I’ve always adored you. I’ve always tried to be nice to you – and do things for you.’

  Ann turned on her. She spoke bitterly and with significance in her voice.

  ‘You speak,’ she said, ‘as though the sacrifices had been all on your side!’

  Sarah stared at her, bewildered.

  ‘Sacrifices? What sacrifices?’

  Ann’s voice trembled. She pressed her hands together.

  ‘I’ve given up my life for you – given up everything I cared for – and you don’t even remember it!’

  Still bewildered, Sarah said: ‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘No, you don’t. You didn’t even remember Richard Cauldfield’s name. “Richard Cauldfield?” you said. “Who’s he?”’

  A dawning comprehension showed in Sarah’s eyes. A faint dismay rose in her.

  ‘Richard Cauldfield?’

  ‘Yes, Richard Cauldfield.’ Ann was openly accusing now. ‘You disliked him. But I loved him! I cared for him very much. I wanted to marry him. But because of you I had to give him up.’

  ‘Mother …’

  Sarah was appalled.

  Ann said defiantly: ‘I’d a right to my happiness.’

  ‘I didn’t know – you really cared,’ Sarah stammered.

  ‘You didn’t want to know. You shut your eyes to it. You did everything you could to stop the marriage. That’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s true …’ Sarah’s mind went back over the past. She felt just a little sick as she remembered her glib childish assurance. ‘I – I didn’t think he’d make you happy …’

  ‘What right had you to think for another person?’ Ann demanded fiercely.

  Gerry had said that to her. Gerry had been worried by what she had been trying to do. And she had been so pleased with herself, so triumphant in her victory over the hated ‘Cauliflower’. Such crude childish jealousy it had been – she saw that now! And because of it, her mother had suffered, had changed little by little into this nervy unhappy woman now confronting her with a reproach to which she had no answer.

  She could only say, in an uncertain whisper:

  ‘I didn’t know … Oh, Mother, I didn’t know …’

  Ann was back again in the past.

  ‘We could have been happy together,’ she said. ‘He was a lonely man. His first wife had died with the baby, and it had been a great shock and grief to him. He had faults, I know, he was inclined to be pompous and to lay down the law – the sort of things young people notice – but underneath it he was kind and simple and good. We would have grown old together and been happy. And instead I hurt him badly – I sent him away. Sent him to a hotel on the south coast where he met that silly little harpy who doesn’t even care for him.’

  Sarah drew away. Each word had hurt her. Yet she rallied to say what she could in her defence.

  ‘If you wanted to marry him so much,’ she said, ‘you should have gone ahead and done it.’

  Ann turned on her sharply.

  ‘Don’t you remember the eternal scenes – the rows? You were like cat and dog together, you two. You provoked him deliberately. It was part of your plan.’

  (Yes, it had been part of her plan …)

  ‘I couldn’t stand it, going on day after day. And then I was faced with an alternative. I had to choose – Richard put it like that – to choose between him and you. You were my daughter, my own flesh and blood. I chose you.’

  ‘And ever since then,’ said Sarah clear-sightedly, ‘you’ve hated me …’

  The pattern was completely clear to her now.

  She gathered up her furs and turned away towards the door.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘We know where we are now.’

  Her voice was hard and clear. From contemplating the ruin of Ann’s life, she had turned to the contemplation of the ruin of her own.

  In the doorway she turned and spoke to the woman with the ravaged face who had not denied that last accusation.

  ‘You hate me for spoiling your life, Mother,’ she said. ‘Well, I hate you for spoiling mine!’

  Ann said sharply: ‘I’ve had nothing to do with your life. You made your own choice.’

  ‘Oh, no, I didn’t. Don’t be a damned hypocrite, Mother. I came to you wanting you to help me not to marry Lawrence. You knew quite well that I was attracted by him, but that I wanted to get free of that attraction. You were quite clever about it. You knew just what to do and say.’

  ‘Nonsense. Why should I want you to marry Lawrence?’

  ‘I think – because you knew I wouldn’t be happy. You were unhappy – and you wanted me to be, too. Come now, Mother, spill the beans. Haven’t you had a certain kick out of knowing that I’m miserable in my married life?’

  In a sudden flash of passion Ann said:

  ‘Sometimes, yes, I’ve felt that it served you right!’

  Mother and daughter stared at each other implacably.

  Then Sarah laughed, a harsh unpleasant laugh.

  ‘So now we’ve got it! Good-bye Mother dear …’

  She went out of the door and along the passage. Ann heard the flat door close with a sharp sound of finality.

  She was alone.

  Trembling still, she reached her bed and flung herself down on it. Tears welled up in her eyes and flowed down her cheeks.

  Presently she was shaken b
y a tempest of weeping such as she had not known for years.

  She wept and she wept …

  How long she had been crying she did not know, but as her sobs at last began to die down, there was a chink of china and Edith entered with a tea-tray. She put it down on the table by the bed and sat down by her mistress, patting her shoulder gently.

  ‘There, there, my lamb, my pretty … Here’s a nice cup of tea and you’re going to drink it down whatever you say.’

  ‘Oh, Edith, Edith …’ Ann clung to her faithful servant and friend.

  ‘There, there, don’t you take on so. It will be all right.’

  ‘The things I said – the things I said –’

  ‘Never you mind. Sit up now. I’ll pour out your tea. Now you drink it.’

  Obediently Ann sat up and sipped the hot tea.

  ‘There now, you’ll feel better in a minute.’

  ‘Sarah – how could I –?’

  ‘Now don’t you worry –’

  ‘How could I say those things to her?’

  ‘Better to say them than to think them, if you ask me,’ said Edith. ‘It’s the things that you think and don’t say that turn bitter as bile in you – and that’s a fact.’

  ‘I was so cruel – so cruel –’

  ‘I’d say that what has been wrong with you for a long time was bottling things up. Have a good row and get it over, that’s what I say, instead of keeping it all to yourself and pretending there’s nothing there. We’ve all got bad thoughts, but we don’t always like to admit it.’

  ‘Have I really been hating Sarah? My little Sarah – how funny and sweet she used to be. And I’ve hated her?’

  ‘Of course you haven’t,’ said Edith robustly.

  ‘But I have. I wanted her to suffer – to be hurt – like I was hurt.’

  ‘Now don’t you go fancying a lot of nonsense. You’re devoted to Miss Sarah, and always have been.’

  Ann said:

  ‘All this time – all this time – running underneath in a dark current – hate … hate …’

  ‘Pity you didn’t set to and have it out sooner. A good row always clears the air.’

  Ann lay back weakly on her pillows.

  ‘But I don’t hate her now,’ she said wonderingly. ‘It’s all gone – yes, all gone …’

  Edith got up and patted Ann on the shoulder.

  ‘Don’t you fret, my pretty. Everything’s all right.’