M ISS M ARPLE M AKES C OMPARISONS
II t was very gay that evening at the Golden Palm Hotel.
Seated at her little corner table, Miss Marple looked round her in an interested fashion. The dining room was alarge room open on three sides to the soft warm scented1 air of the West Indies. There were small table lamps, all softlycoloured. Most of the women were in evening dress: light cotton prints out of which bronzed shoulders and armsemerged. Miss Marple herself had been urged by her nephew’s wife, Joan, in the sweetest way possible, to accept “asmall cheque.”
“Because, Aunt Jane, it will be rather hot out there, and I don’t expect you have any very thin clothes.”
Jane Marple had thanked her and had accepted the cheque. She came of the age when it was natural for the old tosupport and finance the young, but also for the middle-aged2 to look after the old. She could not, however, force herselfto buy anything very thin! At her age she seldom felt more than pleasantly warm even in the hottest weather, and thetemperature of St. Honoré was not really what is referred to as “tropical heat.” This evening she was attired3 in the besttraditions of the provincial4 gentlewoman of England—grey lace.
Not that she was the only elderly person present. There were representatives of all ages in the room. There wereelderly tycoons5 with young third or fourth wives. There were middle-aged couples from the North of England. Therewas a gay family from Caracas complete with children. The various countries of South America were wellrepresented, all chattering6 loudly in Spanish or Portuguese7. There was a solid English background of two clergymen,one doctor and one retired8 judge. There was even a family of Chinese. The dining room service was mainly done bywomen, tall black girls of proud carriage, dressed in crisp white; but there was an experienced Italian head waiter incharge, and a French wine waiter, and there was the attentive9 eye of Tim Kendal watching over everything, pausinghere and there to have a social word with people at their tables. His wife seconded him ably. She was a good-lookinggirl. Her hair was a natural golden blonde and she had a wide generous mouth that laughed easily. It was very seldomthat Molly Kendal was out of temper. Her staff worked for her enthusiastically, and she adapted her manner carefullyto suit her different guests. With the elderly men she laughed and flirted10; she congratulated the younger women ontheir clothes.
“Oh, what a smashing dress you’ve got on tonight, Mrs. Dyson. I’m so jealous I could tear it off your back.” Butshe looked very well in her own dress, or so Miss Marple thought: a white sheath, with a pale green embroidered11 silkshawl thrown over her shoulders. Lucky was fingering the shawl. “Lovely colour! I’d like one like it.” “You can getthem at the shop here,” Molly told her and passed on. She did not pause by Miss Marple’s table. Elderly ladies sheusually left to her husband. “The old dears like a man much better,” she used to say.
Tim Kendal came and bent12 over Miss Marple.
“Nothing special you want, is there?” he asked. “Because you’ve only got to tell me—and I could get it speciallycooked for you. Hotel food, and semi-tropical at that, isn’t quite what you’re used to at home, I expect?”
Miss Marple smiled and said that that was one of the pleasures of coming abroad.
“That’s all right, then. But if there is anything—”
“Such as?”
“Well—” Tim Kendal looked a little doubtful—“Bread and butter pudding?” he hazarded.
Miss Marple smiled and said that she thought she could do without bread and butter pudding very nicely for thepresent.
She picked up her spoon and began to eat her passion fruit sundae with cheerful appreciation13.
Then the steel band began to play. The steel bands were one of the main attractions of the islands. Truth to tell,Miss Marple could have done very well without them. She considered that they made a hideous14 noise, unnecessarilyloud. The pleasure that everyone else took in them was undeniable, however, and Miss Marple, in the true spirit of heryouth, decided15 that as they had to be, she must manage somehow to learn to like them. She could hardly request TimKendal to conjure16 up from somewhere the muted strains of the “Blue Danube.” (So graceful17 — waltzing.) Mostpeculiar, the way people danced nowadays. Flinging themselves about, seeming quite contorted. Oh well, youngpeople must enjoy—Her thoughts were arrested. Because, now she came to think of it, very few of these people wereyoung. Dancing, lights, the music of a band (even a steel band), all that surely was for youth. But where was youth?
Studying, she supposed, at universities, or doing a job—with a fortnight’s holiday a year. A place like this was too faraway and too expensive. This gay and carefree life was all for the thirties and the forties—and the old men who weretrying to live up (or down) to their young wives. It seemed, somehow, a pity.
Miss Marple sighed for youth. There was Mrs. Kendal, of course. She wasn’t more than twenty-two or three,probably, and she seemed to be enjoying herself—but even so, it was a job she was doing.
At a table nearby Canon Prescott and his sister were sitting. They motioned to Miss Marple to join them for coffeeand she did so. Miss Prescott was a thin severe-looking woman, the Canon was a round, rubicund18 man, breathinggeniality.
Coffee was brought, and chairs were pushed a little way away from the tables. Miss Prescott opened a work bagand took out some frankly19 hideous table mats that she was hemming20. She told Miss Marple all about the day’s events.
They had visited a new Girls’ School in the morning. After an afternoon’s rest, they had walked through a caneplantation to have tea at a pension where some friends of theirs were staying.
Since the Prescotts had been at the Golden Palm longer than Miss Marple, they were able to enlighten her as tosome of her fellow guests.
That very old man, Mr. Rafiel. He came every year. Fantastically rich! Owned an enormous chain of supermarketsin the North of England. The young woman with him was his secretary, Esther Walters—a widow. (Quite all right, ofcourse. Nothing improper21. After all, he was nearly eighty!)Miss Marple accepted the propriety22 of the relationship with an understanding nod and the Canon remarked:
“A very nice young woman; her mother, I understand, is a widow and lives in Chichester.”
“Mr. Rafiel has a valet with him, too. Or rather a kind of Nurse Attendant—he’s a qualified23 masseur, I believe.
Jackson, his name is. Poor Mr. Rafiel is practically paralysed. So sad—with all that money, too.”
“A generous and cheerful giver,” said Canon Prescott approvingly.
People were regrouping themselves round about, some going farther from the steel band, others crowding up to it.
Major Palgrave had joined the Hillingdon-Dyson quartette.
“Now those people—” said Miss Prescott, lowering her voice quite unnecessarily since the steel band easilydrowned it.
“Yes, I was going to ask you about them.”
“They were here last year. They spend three months every year in the West Indies, going round the differentislands. The tall thin man is Colonel Hillingdon and the dark woman is his wife—they are botanists24. The other two,Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Dyson—they’re American. He writes on butterflies, I believe. And all of them are interested inbirds.”
“So nice for people to have open-air hobbies,” said Canon Prescott genially25.
“I don’t think they’d like to hear you call it hobbies, Jeremy,” said his sister. “They have articles printed in theNational Geographic26 and in the Royal Horticultural Journal. They take themselves very seriously.”
A loud outburst of laughter came from the table they had been observing. It was loud enough to overcome the steelband. Gregory Dyson was leaning back in his chair and thumping27 the table, his wife was protesting, and MajorPalgrave emptied his glass and seemed to be applauding.
They hardly qualified for the moment as people who took themselves seriously.
“Major Palgrave should not drink so much,” said Miss Prescott acidly. “He has blood pressure.”
A fresh supply of Planters Punches was brought to the table.
“It’s so nice to get people sorted out,” said Miss Marple. “When I met them this afternoon I wasn’t sure which wasmarried to which.”
There was a slight pause. Miss Prescott coughed a small dry cough, and said—“Well, as to that—”
“Joan,” said the Canon in an admonitory voice. “Perhaps it would be wise to say no more.”
“Really, Jeremy, I wasn’t going to say anything. Only that last year, for some reason or other—I really don’t knowwhy—we got the idea that Mrs. Dyson was Mrs. Hillingdon until someone told us she wasn’t.”
“It’s odd how one gets impressions, isn’t it?” said Miss Marple innocently. Her eyes met Miss Prescott’s for amoment. A flash of womanly understanding passed between them.
A more sensitive man than Canon Prescott might have felt that he was de trop.
Another signal passed between the women. It said as clearly as if the words had been spoken: “Some other time….”
“Mr. Dyson calls his wife ‘Lucky.’ Is that her real name or a nickname?” asked Miss Marple.
“It can hardly be her real name, I should think.”
“I happened to ask him,” said the Canon. “He said he called her Lucky because she was his good-luck piece. If helost her, he said, he’d lose his luck. Very nicely put, I thought.”
“He’s very fond of joking,” said Miss Prescott.
The Canon looked at his sister doubtfully.
The steel band outdid itself with a wild burst of cacophony28 and a troupe29 of dancers came racing30 on to the floor.
Miss Marple and the others turned their chairs to watch. Miss Marple enjoyed the dancing better than the music;she liked the shuffling31 feet and the rhythmic32 sway of the bodies. It seemed, she thought, very real. It had a kind ofpower of understatement.
Tonight, for the first time, she began to feel slightly at home in her new environment … Up to now, she had missedwhat she usually found so easy, points of resemblance in the people she met, to various people known to herpersonally. She had, possibly, been dazzled by the gay clothes and the exotic colouring; but soon, she felt, she wouldbe able to make some interesting comparisons.
Molly Kendal, for instance, was like that nice girl whose name she couldn’t remember, but who was a conductresson the Market Basing bus. Helped you in, and never rang the bus on until she was sure you’d sat down safely. TimKendal was just a little like the head waiter at the Royal George in Medchester. Self-confident, and yet, at the sametime, worried. (He had had an ulcer33, she remembered.) As for Major Palgrave, he was undistinguishable from GeneralLeroy, Captain Flemming, Admiral Wicklow and Commander Richardson. She went on to someone more interesting.
Greg for instance? Greg was difficult because he was American. A dash of Sir George Trollope, perhaps, always sofull of jokes at the Civil Defence meetings—or perhaps Mr. Murdoch the butcher. Mr. Murdoch had had rather a badreputation, but some people said it was just gossip, and that Mr. Murdoch himself liked to encourage the rumours34!
“Lucky” now? Well, that was easy—Marleen at the Three Crowns. Evelyn Hillingdon? She couldn’t fit Evelyn inprecisely. In appearance she fitted many roles—tall thin weather-beaten Englishwomen were plentiful35. Lady CarolineWolfe, Peter Wolfe’s first wife, who had committed suicide? Or there was Leslie James—that quiet woman whoseldom showed what she felt and who had sold up her house and left without ever telling anyone she was going.
Colonel Hillingdon? No immediate36 clue there. She’d have to get to know him a little first. One of those quiet men withgood manners. You never knew what they were thinking about. Sometimes they surprised you. Major Harper, sheremembered, had quietly cut his throat one day. Nobody had ever known why. Miss Marple thought that she did know—but she’d never been quite sure….
Her eyes strayed to Mr. Rafiel’s table. The principal thing known about Mr. Rafiel was that he was incredibly rich,he came every year to the West Indies, he was semi-paralysed and looked like a wrinkled old bird of prey37. His clotheshung loosely on his shrunken form. He might have been seventy or eighty, or even ninety. His eyes were shrewd andhe was frequently rude, but people seldom took offence, partly because he was so rich, and partly because of hisoverwhelming personality which hypnotized you into feeling that somehow, Mr. Rafiel had the right to be rude if hewanted to.
With him sat his secretary, Mrs. Walters. She had corn- coloured hair, and a pleasant face. Mr. Rafiel wasfrequently very rude to her, but she never seemed to notice it—She was not so much subservient38, as oblivious39. Shebehaved like a well-trained hospital nurse. Possibly, thought Miss Marple, she had been a hospital nurse.
A young man, tall and good-looking, in a white jacket, came to stand by Mr. Rafiel’s chair. The old man looked upat him, nodded, then motioned him to a chair. The young man sat down as bidden. “Mr. Jackson, I presume,” saidMiss Marple to herself—“His valet-attendant.”
She studied Mr. Jackson with some attention.
II
In the bar, Molly Kendal stretched her back, and slipped off her high-heeled shoes. Tim came in from the terrace tojoin her. They had the bar to themselves for the moment.
“Tired, darling?” he asked.
“Just a bit. I seem to be feeling my feet tonight.”
“Not too much for you, is it? All this? I know it’s hard work.” He looked at her anxiously.
She laughed. “Oh, Tim, don’t be ridiculous. I love it here. It’s gorgeous. The kind of dream I’ve always had, cometrue.”
“Yes, it would be all right—if one was just a guest. But running the show—that’s work.”
“Well, you can’t have anything for nothing, can you?” said Molly Kendal reasonably.
Tim Kendal frowned.
“You think it’s going all right? A success? We’re making a go of it?”
“Of course we are.”
“You don’t think people are saying, ‘It’s not the same as when the Sandersons were here.’”
“Of course someone will be saying that—they always do! But only some old stick-in-the-mud. I’m sure that we’refar better at the job than they were. We’re more glamorous40. You charm the old pussies41 and manage to look as thoughyou’d like to make love to the desperate forties and fifties, and I ogle42 the old gentlemen and make them feel sexy dogs—or play the sweet little daughter the sentimental43 ones would love to have had. Oh, we’ve got it all taped splendidly.”
Tim’s frown vanished.
“As long as you think so. I get scared. We’ve risked everything on making a job of this. I chucked my job—”
“And quite right to do so,” Molly put in quickly. “It was soul-destroying.”
He laughed and kissed the tip of her nose.
“I tell you we’ve got it taped,” she repeated. “Why do you always worry?”
“Made that way, I suppose. I’m always thinking—suppose something should go wrong.”
“What sort of thing—”
“Oh, I don’t know. Somebody might get drowned.”
“Not they. It’s one of the safest of all the beaches. And we’ve got that hulking Swede always on guard.”
“I’m a fool,” said Tim Kendal. He hesitated—and then said, “You—haven’t had any more of those dreams, haveyou?”
“That was shellfish,” said Molly, and laughed.
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1
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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tycoons
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| 大君( tycoon的名词复数 )； 将军； 企业巨头； 大亨 | |
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chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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flirted
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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13
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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14
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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conjure
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| v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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18
rubicund
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| adj.(脸色)红润的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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hemming
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| 卷边 | |
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improper
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| adj.不适当的，不合适的，不正确的，不合礼仪的 | |
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propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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botanists
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| n.植物学家，研究植物的人( botanist的名词复数 ) | |
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genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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geographic
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| adj.地理学的，地理的 | |
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27
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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28
cacophony
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| n.刺耳的声音 | |
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troupe
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| n.剧团，戏班；杂技团；马戏团 | |
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racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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32
rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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ulcer
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| n.溃疡，腐坏物 | |
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rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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subservient
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| adj.卑屈的，阿谀的 | |
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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glamorous
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| adj.富有魅力的；美丽动人的；令人向往的 | |
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41
pussies
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| n.（粗俚） 女阴( pussy的名词复数 )；（总称）（作为性对象的）女人；（主要北美使用，非正式）软弱的；小猫咪 | |
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42
ogle
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| v.看；送秋波；n.秋波，媚眼 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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