They Do It With Mirrors. Агата Кристи

       CHAPTER 2

      Before catching her train back to St Mary Mead (Wednesday special cheap day return), Miss Marple, in a precise and businesslike fashion, collected certain data.

      ‘Carrie Louise and I have corresponded after a fashion, but it has largely been a matter of Christmas cards or calendars. It’s just the facts I should like, Ruth dear—and also some idea as to whom exactly I shall encounter in the household at Stonygates.’

      ‘Well, you know about Carrie Louise’s marriage to Gulbrandsen. There were no children and Carrie Louise took that very much to heart. Gulbrandsen was a widower, and had three grown-up sons. Eventually they adopted a child. Pippa, they called her—a lovely little creature. She was just two years old when they got her.’

      ‘Where did she come from? What was her background?’

      ‘Really, now, Jane, I can’t remember—if I ever heard, that is. An Adoption Society, maybe? Or some unwanted child that Gulbrandsen had heard about. Why? Do you think it’s important?’

      ‘Well, one always likes to know the background, so to speak. But please go on.’

      ‘The next thing that happened was that Carrie Louise found that she was going to have a baby after all. I understand from doctors that that quite often happens.’

      Miss Marple nodded.

      ‘I believe so.’

      ‘Anyway, it did happen, and in a funny kind of way, Carrie Louise was almost disconcerted, if you can understand what I mean. Earlier, of course, she’d have been wild with joy. As it was, she’d given such a devoted love to Pippa that she felt quite apologetic to Pippa for putting her nose out of joint, so to speak. And then Mildred, when she arrived, was really a very unattractive child. Took after the Gulbrandsens—who were solid and worthy—but definitely homely. Carrie Louise was always so anxious to make no difference between the adopted child and her own child that I think she rather tended to overindulge Pippa and pass over Mildred. Sometimes I think that Mildred resented it. However I didn’t see them often. Pippa grew up a very beautiful girl and Mildred grew up a plain one. Eric Gulbrandsen died when Mildred was fifteen and Pippa eighteen. At twenty Pippa married an Italian, the Marchese di San Severiano—oh, quite a genuine Marchese—not an adventurer, or anything like that. She was by way of being an heiress (naturally, or San Severiano wouldn’t have married her—you know what Italians are!). Gulbrandsen left an equal sum in trust for both his own and his adopted daughter. Mildred married a Canon Strete—a nice man but given to colds in the head. About ten or fifteen years older than she was. Quite a happy marriage, I believe.

      ‘He died a year ago and Mildred has come back to Stonygates to live with her mother. But that’s getting on too fast, I’ve skipped a marriage or two. I’ll go back to them. Pippa married her Italian. Carrie Louise was quite pleased about the marriage. Guido had beautiful manners and was very handsome, and he was a fine sportsman. A year later Pippa had a daughter and died in childbirth. It was a terrible tragedy and Guido San Severiano was very cut up. Carrie Louise went to and fro between Italy and England a good deal, and it was in Rome that she met Johnnie Restarick and married him. The Marchese married again and he was quite willing for his little daughter to be brought up in England by her exceedingly wealthy grandmother. So they all settled down at Stonygates, Johnnie Restarick and Carrie Louise, and Johnnie’s two boys, Alexis and Stephen (Johnnie’s first wife was a Russian) and the baby Gina. Mildred married her Canon soon afterwards. Then came all this business of Johnnie and the Yugoslavian woman and the divorce. The boys still came to Stonygates for their holidays and were devoted to Carrie Louise, and then in 1938, I think it was, Carrie Louise married Lewis.’

      Mrs Van Rydock paused for breath.

      ‘You’ve not met Lewis?’

      Miss Marple shook her head.

      ‘No, I think I last saw Carrie Louise in 1928. She very sweetly took me to Covent Garden—to the Opera.’

      ‘Oh yes. Well, Lewis was a very suitable person for her to marry. He was the head of a very celebrated firm of chartered accountants. I think he met her first over some questions of the finances of the Gulbrandsen Trust and the College. He was well off, just about her own age, and a man of absolutely upright life. But he was a crank. He was absolutely rabid on the subject of the redemption of young criminals.’

      Ruth Van Rydock sighed.

      ‘As I said just now, Jane, there are fashions in philanthropy. In Gulbrandsen’s time it was education. Before that it was soup kitchens—’

      Miss Marple nodded.

      ‘Yes, indeed. Port wine jelly and calf’s head broth taken to the sick. My mother used to do it.’

      ‘That’s right. Feeding the body gave way to feeding the mind. Everyone went mad on educating the lower classes. Well, that’s passed. Soon, I expect, the fashionable thing to do will be not to educate your children, preserve their illiteracy carefully until they’re eighteen. Anyway the Gulbrandsen Trust and Education Fund was in some difficulties because the State was taking over its functions. Then Lewis came along with his passionate enthusiasm about constructive training for juvenile delinquents. His attention had been drawn to the subject first in the course of his profession—auditing accounts where ingenious young men had perpetrated frauds. He was more and more convinced that juvenile delinquents were not subnormal—that they had excellent brains and abilities and only needed right direction.’

      ‘There is something in that,’ said Miss Marple. ‘But it is not entirely true. I remember—’

      She broke off and glanced at her watch.

      ‘Oh dear—I mustn’t miss the 6.30.’

      Ruth Van Rydock said urgently:

      ‘And you will go to Stonygates?’

      Gathering up her shopping bag and her umbrella Miss Marple said:

      ‘If Carrie Louise asks me—’

      ‘She will ask you. You’ll go? Promise, Jane?’

      Jane Marple promised.