VERITY1
I“V erity,” said Miss Marple.
Elizabeth Margaret Temple had died the evening before. It had been a peaceful death. Miss Marple, sitting oncemore amidst the faded chintz of the drawing room in The Old Manor2 House, had laid aside the baby’s pink coat whichshe had previously3 been engaged in knitting and had substituted a crocheted4 purple scarf. This half-mourning touchwent with Miss Marple’s early Victorian ideas of tactfulness in face of tragedy.
An inquest was to be held on the following day. The vicar had been approached and had agreed to hold a briefmemorial service in the church as soon as arrangements could be made. Undertakers suitably attired5, with propermourning faces, took general charge of things in liaison6 with the police. The inquest was to take place on thefollowing morning at 11 o’clock. Members of the coach tour had agreed to attend the inquest. And several of them hadchosen to remain on so as to attend the church service also.
Mrs. Glynne had come to the Golden Boar and urged Miss Marple to return to The Old Manor House until shefinally returned to the tour.
“You will get away from all the reporters.”
Miss Marple had thanked all three sisters warmly and had accepted.
The coach tour would be resumed after the memorial service, driving first to South Bedestone, thirty-five milesaway, where there was a good class hotel which had been originally chosen for a stopping place. After that the tourwould go on as usual.
There were, however, as Miss Marple had considered likely, certain persons who were disengaging themselves andreturning home, or were going in other directions and not continuing on the tour. There was something to be said infavour of either decision. To leave what would become a journey of painful memories, or to continue with thesightseeing that had already been paid for and which had been interrupted only by one of those painful accidents thatmay happen on any sightseeing expedition. A lot would depend, Miss Marple thought, on the outcome of the inquest.
Miss Marple, after exchanging various conventional remarks proper to the occasion with her three hostesses, haddevoted herself to her purple wool and had sat considering her next line of investigation7. And so it was that with herfingers still busy, she had uttered the one word, “Verity.” Throwing it as one throws a pebble8 into a stream, solely9 toobserve what the result—if any—would be. Would it mean something to her hostesses? It might or it might not.
Otherwise, when she joined the members of the tour at their hotel meal this evening, which had been arranged, shewould try the effect of it there. It had been, she thought to herself, the last word or almost the last word that ElizabethTemple had spoken. So therefore, thought Miss Marple (her fingers still busy because she did not need to look at hercrocheting, she could read a book or conduct a conversation while her fingers, though slightly crippled withrheumatism, would proceed correctly through their appointed movements). So therefore, “Verity.”
Like a stone into a pool, causing ripples10, a splash, something? Or nothing. Surely there would be a reaction of onesort or another. Yes, she had not been mistaken. Although her face registered nothing, the keen eyes behind herglasses had watched three people in a simultaneous manner as she had trained herself to do for many years now, whenwishing to observe her neighbours either in church, mothers’ meetings, or at other public functions in St. Mary Meadwhen she had been on the track of some interesting piece of news or gossip.
Mrs. Glynne had dropped the book she was holding and had looked across towards Miss Marple with slightsurprise. Surprise, it seemed, at the particular word coming from Miss Marple, but not surprised really to hear it.
Clotilde reacted differently. Her head shot up, she leant forward a little, then she looked not at Miss Marple butacross the room in the direction of the window. Her hands clenched11 themselves, she kept very still. Miss Marple,although dropping her head slightly as though she was not looking any more, noted12 that her eyes were filling withtears. Clotilde sat quite still and let the tears roll down her cheeks. She made no attempt to take out a handkerchief, sheuttered no word. Miss Marple was impressed by the aura of grief that came from her.
Anthea’s reaction was different. It was quick, excited, almost pleasurable.
“Verity? Verity, did you say? Did you know her? I’d no idea. It is Verity Hunt you mean?”
Lavinia Glynne said, “It’s a Christian13 name?”
“I never knew anyone of that name,” said Miss Marple, “but I did mean a Christian name. Yes. It is rather unusual,I think. Verity.” She repeated it thoughtfully.
She let her purple wool ball fall and looked round with the slightly apologetic and embarrassed look of one whorealizes she has made a serious faux pas, but not sure why.
“I—I am so sorry. Have I said something I shouldn’t? It was only because….”
“No, of course not,” said Mrs. Glynne. “It was just that it is—it is a name we know, a name with which we have—associations.”
“It just came into my mind,” said Miss Marple, still apologetic, “because, you know, it was poor Miss Temple whosaid it. I went to see her, you know, yesterday afternoon. Professor Wanstead took me. He seemed to think that I mightbe able to—to—I don’t know if it’s the proper word—to rouse her, in some way. She was in a coma14 and they thought—not that I was a friend of hers at any time, but we had chatted together on the tour and we often sat beside eachother, as you know, on some of the days and we had talked. And he thought perhaps I might be of some use. I’m afraidI wasn’t though. Not at all. I just sat there and waited and then she did say one or two words, but they didn’t seem tomean anything. But finally, just when it was time for me to go, she did open her eyes and looked at me—I don’t knowif she was mistaking me for someone—but she did say that word. Verity! And, well of course it stuck in my mind,especially with her passing away yesterday evening. It must have been someone or something that she had in hermind. But of course it might just mean—well, of course it might just mean Truth. That’s what verity means, doesn’tit?”
She looked from Clotilde to Lavinia to Anthea.
“It was the Christian name of a girl we knew,” said Lavinia Glynne. “That is why it startled us.”
“Especially because of the awful way she died,” said Anthea.
Clotilde said in her deep voice, “Anthea! there’s no need to go into these details.”
“But after all, everyone knows quite well about her,” said Anthea. She looked towards Miss Marple. “I thoughtperhaps you might have known about her because you knew Mr. Rafiel, didn’t you? Well, I mean, he wrote to usabout you so you must have known him. And I thought perhaps—well, he’d mentioned the whole thing to you.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Miss Marple, “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you’re talking about.”
“They found her body in a ditch,” said Anthea.
There was never any holding Anthea, Miss Marple thought, not once she got going. But she thought that Anthea’svociferous talk was putting additional strain on Clotilde. She had taken out a handkerchief now in a quiet,noncommittal way. She brushed tears from her eyes and then sat upright, her back very straight, her eyes deep andtragic.
“Verity,” she said, “was a girl we cared for very much. She lived here for a while. I was very fond of her—”
“And she was very fond of you,” said Lavinia.
“Her parents were friends of mine,” said Clotilde. “They were killed in a plane accident.”
“She was at school at Fallowfield,” explained Lavinia. “I suppose that was how Miss Temple came to rememberher.”
“Oh I see,” said Miss Marple. “Where Miss Temple was Headmistress, is that it? I have heard of Fallowfield often,of course. It’s a very fine school, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Clotilde. “Verity was a pupil there. After her parents died she came to stay with us for a time while shecould decide what she wanted to do with her future. She was eighteen or nineteen. A very sweet girl and a veryaffectionate and loving one. She thought perhaps of training for nursing, but she had very good brains and MissTemple was very insistent15 that she ought to go to university. So she was studying and having coaching for that when—when this terrible thing happened.”
She turned her face away.
“I—do you mind if we don’t talk about it any more just now?”
“Oh, of course not,” said Miss Marple. “I’m so sorry to have impinged on some tragedy. I didn’t know. I—Ihaven’t heard … I thought—well I mean …” She became more and more incoherent.
II
That evening she heard a little more. Mrs. Glynne came to her bedroom when she was changing her dress to go outand join the others at the hotel.
“I thought I ought to come and explain a little to you,” said Mrs. Glynne, “about—about the girl Verity Hunt. Ofcourse you couldn’t know that our sister Clotilde was particularly fond of her and that her really horrible death was aterrible shock. We never mention her if we can help it, but—I think it would be easier if I told you the factscompletely and you will understand. Apparently16 Verity had, without our knowledge, made friends with an undesirable—a more than undesirable—it turned out to be a dangerous—young man who already had a criminal record. He camehere to visit us when he was passing through once. We knew his father very well.” She paused. “I think I’d better tellyou the whole truth if you don’t know, and you don’t seem to. He was actually Mr. Rafiel’s son, Michael—”
“Oh dear,” said Miss Marple, “not—not—I can’t remember his name but I do remember hearing that there was ason—and, that he hadn’t been very satisfactory.”
“A little more than that,” said Mrs. Glynne. “He’d always given trouble. He’d been had up in court once or twicefor various things. Once assaulting a teenager — other things of that type. Of course I consider myself that themagistrates are too lenient17 with that kind of thing. They don’t want to upset a young man’s university career. And sothey let them off with a—I forget what they call it—a suspended sentence, something of that kind. If these boys weresent to gaol18 at once it would perhaps warn them off that type of life. He was a thief, too. He had forged cheques, hepinched things. He was a thoroughly19 bad lot. We were friends of his mother’s. It was lucky for her, I think, that shedied young before she had time to be upset by the way her son was turning out. Mr. Rafiel did all he could, I think.
Tried to find suitable jobs for the boy, paid fines for him and things like that. But I think it was a great blow to him,though he pretended to be more or less indifferent and to write it off as one of those things that happen. We had, asprobably people here in the village will tell you, we had a bad outbreak of murders and violence in this district. Notonly here. They were in different parts of the country, twenty miles away, sometimes fifty miles away. One or two, it’ssuspected by the police, were nearly a hundred miles away. But they seemed to centre more or less on this part of theworld. Anyway, Verity one day went out to visit a friend and—well, she didn’t come back. We went to the policeabout it, the police sought for her, searched the whole countryside but they couldn’t find any trace of her. Weadvertised, they advertised, and they suggested that she’d gone off with a boyfriend. Then word began to get roundthat she had been seen with Michael Rafiel. By now the police had their eye on Michael as a possibility for certaincrimes that had occurred, although they couldn’t find any direct evidence. Verity was said to have been seen,described by her clothing and other things, with a young man of Michael’s appearance and in a car that correspondedto a description of his car. But there was no further evidence until her body was discovered six months later, thirtymiles from here in a rather wild part of wooded country, in a ditch covered with stones and piled earth. Clotilde had togo to identify it—it was Verity all right. She’d been strangled and her head beaten in. Clotilde has never quite got overthe shock. There were certain marks, a mole20 and an old scar and of course her clothes and the contents of her handbag.
Miss Temple was very fond of Verity. She must have thought of her just before she died.”
“I’m sorry,” said Miss Marple. “I’m really very, very sorry. Please tell your sister that I didn’t know. I had noidea.”
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1
verity
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| n.真实性 | |
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manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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crocheted
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| v.用钩针编织( crochet的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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liaison
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| n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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pebble
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| n.卵石，小圆石 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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14
coma
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| n.昏迷，昏迷状态 | |
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insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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lenient
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| adj.宽大的，仁慈的 | |
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gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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mole
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| n.胎块；痣；克分子 | |
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