W hen I got back to the Vicarage I found that we were in the middle of a domestic crisis.
Griselda met me in the hall and with tears in her eyes dragged me into the drawing room. “She’s going.”
“Who’s going?”
“Mary. She’s given notice.”
I really could not take the announcement in a tragic1 spirit.
“Well,” I said, “we’ll have to get another servant.”
It seemed to me a perfectly2 reasonable thing to say. When one servant goes, you get another. I was at a loss tounderstand Griselda’s look of reproach.
“Len—you are absolutely heartless. You don’t care.”
I didn’t. In fact, I felt almost lighthearted at the prospect3 of no more burnt puddings and undercooked vegetables.
“I’ll have to look for a girl, and find one, and train her,” continued Griselda in a voice of acute self-pity.
“Is Mary trained?” I said.
“Of course she is.”
“I suppose,” I said, “that someone has heard her address us as sir or ma’am and has immediately wrested4 her fromus as a paragon5. All I can say is, they’ll be disappointed.”
“It isn’t that,” said Griselda. “Nobody else wants her. I don’t see how they could. It’s her feelings. They’re upsetbecause Lettice Protheroe said she didn’t dust properly.”
Griselda often comes out with surprising statements, but this seemed to me so surprising that I questioned it. Itseemed to me the most unlikely thing in the world that Lettice Protheroe should go out of her way to interfere6 in ourdomestic affairs and reprove our maid for slovenly7 housework. It was so completely unLettice-like, and I said so.
“I don’t see,” I said, “what our dust has to do with Lettice Protheroe.”
“Nothing at all,” said my wife. “That’s why it’s so unreasonable8. I wish you’d go and talk to Mary yourself. She’sin the kitchen.”
I had no wish to talk to Mary on the subject, but Griselda, who is very energetic and quick, fairly pushed methrough the baize door into the kitchen before I had time to rebel.
Mary was peeling potatoes at the sink.
“Er—good afternoon,” I said nervously9.
Mary looked up and snorted, but made no other response.
“Mrs. Clement10 tells me that you wish to leave us,” I said.
Mary condescended11 to reply to this.
“There’s some things,” she said darkly, “as no girl can be asked to put up with.”
“Will you tell me exactly what it is that has upset you?”
“Tell you that in two words, I can.” (Here, I may say, she vastly underestimated.) “People coming snooping roundhere when my back’s turned. Poking12 round. And what business of hers is it, how often the study is dusted or turnedout? If you and the missus don’t complain, it’s nobody else’s business. If I give satisfaction to you that’s all thatmatters, I say.”
Mary has never given satisfaction to me. I confess that I have a hankering after a room thoroughly13 dusted andtidied every morning. Mary’s practice of flicking14 off the more obvious deposit on the surface of low tables is to mythinking grossly inadequate15. However, I realized that at the moment it was no good to go into side issues.
“Had to go to that inquest, didn’t I? Standing16 up before twelve men, a respectable girl like me! And who knowswhat questions you may be asked. I’ll tell you this. I’ve never before been in a place where they had a murder in thehouse, and I never want to be again.”
“I hope you won’t,” I said. “On the law of averages, I should say it was very unlikely.”
“I don’t hold with the law. He was a magistrate17. Many a poor fellow sent to jail for potting at a rabbit—and himwith his pheasants and what not. And then, before he’s so much as decently buried, that daughter of his comes roundand says I don’t do my work properly.”
“Do you mean that Miss Protheroe has been here?”
“Found her here when I come back from the Blue Boar. In the study she was. And ‘Oh!’ she says. ‘I’m looking formy little yellow berry—a little yellow hat. I left it here the other day.’ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘I haven’t seen no hat. It wasn’there when I done the room on Thursday morning,’ I says. And ‘Oh!’ she says, ‘but I dare say you wouldn’t see it. Youdon’t spend much time doing a room, do you?’ And with that she draws her finger along the mantelshelf and looks atit. As though I had time on a morning like this to take off all them ornaments18 and put them back, with the police onlyunlocking the room the night before. ‘If the Vicar and his lady are satisfied that’s all that matters, I think, miss,’ I said.
And she laughs and goes out of the windows and says, ‘Oh! but are you sure they are?’”
“I see,” I said.
“And there it is! A girl has her feelings! I’m sure I’d work my fingers to the bone for you and the missus. And ifshe wants a new-fangled dish tried, I’m always ready to try it.”
“I’m sure you are,” I said soothingly19.
“But she must have heard something or she wouldn’t have said what she did. And if I don’t give satisfaction I’drather go. Not that I take any notice of what Miss Protheroe says. She’s not loved up at the Hall, I can tell you. Never aplease or a thank you, and everything scattered20 right and left. I wouldn’t set any store by Miss Lettice Protheroemyself for all that Mr. Dennis is so set upon her. But she’s the kind that can always twist a young gentleman round herlittle finger.”
During all this, Mary had been extracting eyes from potatoes with such energy that they had been flying round thekitchen like hailstones. At this moment one hit me in the eye and caused a momentary21 pause in the conversation.
“Don’t you think,” I said, as I dabbed22 my eye with my handkerchief, “that you have been rather too inclined to takeoffence where none is meant? You know, Mary, your mistress will be very sorry to lose you.”
“I’ve nothing against the mistress—or against you, sir, for that matter.”
“Well, then, don’t you think you’re being rather silly?”
Mary sniffed23.
“I was a bit upset like—after the inquest and all. And a girl has her feelings. But I wouldn’t like to cause themistress inconvenience.”
“Then that’s all right,” I said.
I left the kitchen to find Griselda and Dennis waiting for me in the hall. “Well?” exclaimed Griselda.
“She’s staying,” I said, and sighed.
“Len,” said my wife, “you have been clever.”
I felt rather inclined to disagree with her. I did not think I had been clever. It is my firm opinion that no servantcould be a worse one than Mary. Any change, I consider, would have been a change for the better.
But I like to please Griselda. I detailed24 the heads of Mary’s grievance25.
“How like Lettice,” said Dennis. “She couldn’t have left that yellow beret of hers here on Wednesday. She waswearing it for tennis on Thursday.”
“That seems to me highly probable,” I said.
“She never knows where she’s left anything,” said Dennis, with a kind of affectionate pride and admiration26 that Ifelt was entirely27 uncalled for. “She loses about a dozen things every day.”
“A remarkably28 attractive trait,” I observed.
Any sarcasm29 missed Dennis.
“She is attractive,” he said, with a deep sigh. “People are always proposing to her—she told me so.”
“They must be illicit30 proposals if they’re made to her down here,” I remarked. “We haven’t got a bachelor in theplace.”
“There’s Dr. Stone,” said Griselda, her eyes dancing.
“He asked her to come and see the barrow the other day,” I admitted.
“Of course he did,” said Griselda. “She is attractive, Len. Even baldheaded archaeologists feel it.”
“Lots of S.A.,” said Dennis sapiently31.
And yet Lawrence Redding is completely untouched by Lettice’s charm. Griselda, however, explained that with theair of one who knew she was right.
“Lawrence has got lots of S.A. himself. That kind always likes the—how shall I put it—the Quaker type. Veryrestrained and diffident. The kind of woman whom everybody calls cold. I think Anne is the only woman who couldever hold Lawrence. I don’t think they’ll ever tire of each other. All the same, I think he’s been rather stupid in oneway. He’s rather made use of Lettice, you know. I don’t think he ever dreamed she cared—he’s awfully32 modest insome ways—but I have a feeling she does.”
“She can’t bear him,” said Dennis positively33. “She told me so.”
I have never seen anything like the pitying silence with which Griselda received this remark.
I went into my study. There was, to my fancy, still a rather eerie34 feeling in the room. I knew that I must get overthis. Once give in to that feeling, and I should probably never use the study again. I walked thoughtfully over to thewriting table. Here Protheroe had sat, red-faced, hearty35, self-righteous, and here, in a moment of time, he had beenstruck down. Here, where I was standing, an enemy had stood….
And so—no more Protheroe….
Here was the pen his fingers had held.
On the floor was a faint dark stain—the rug had been sent to the cleaners, but the blood had soaked through.
I shivered.
“I can’t use this room,” I said aloud. “I can’t use it.”
Then my eye was caught by something—a mere36 speck37 of bright blue. I bent38 down. Between the floor and the desk Isaw a small object. I picked it up.
I was standing staring at it in the palm of my hand when Griselda came in.
“I forgot to tell you, Len. Miss Marple wants us to go over tonight after dinner. To amuse the nephew. She’s afraidof his being dull. I said we’d go.”
“Very well, my dear.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
I closed my hand, and looking at my wife, observed:
“If you don’t amuse Master Raymond West, my dear, he must be very hard to please.”
My wife said: “Don’t be ridiculous, Len,” and turned pink.
She went out again, and I unclosed my hand.
In the palm of my hand was a blue lapis lazuli earring39 set in seed pearls.
It was rather an unusual jewel, and I knew very well where I had seen it last.
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1
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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wrested
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| （用力）拧( wrest的过去式和过去分词 )； 费力取得； （从…）攫取； （ 从… ） 强行取去… | |
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paragon
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| n.模范，典型 | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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clement
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| adj.仁慈的；温和的 | |
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condescended
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| 屈尊，俯就( condescend的过去式和过去分词 )； 故意表示和蔼可亲 | |
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12
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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flicking
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的现在分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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dabbed
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| （用某物）轻触( dab的过去式和过去分词 )； 轻而快地擦掉（或抹掉）； 快速擦拭； （用某物）轻而快地涂上（或点上）… | |
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23
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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24
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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illicit
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| adj.非法的，禁止的，不正当的 | |
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sapiently
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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eerie
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| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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38
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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earring
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| n.耳环，耳饰 | |
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