“Cynthia is a treasure,” Vivienne went on. Had Mother given her a script to commit to memory? “No one listens to me properly apart from her. The rest of them all get angry or impatient, or try to correct me, or else they tell me I have lost my mind. Before Cynthia arrived, I heard nothing all day long apart from how wrong I am about everything. Your mother is a godsend, Edward.”
It was incredible to me that a rational being could hold this opinion.
“She is the only one willing to do anything that might actually help. It was her brilliant idea to involve Hercule Poirot.”
Of course it was.
“When did she arrive?” I asked.
“Three days ago.”
Goodness, but Mother worked quickly. I had assumed she had been here for at least two weeks. Did she not make a remark, in Poirot’s drawing room, about endlessly staring out of her window at the sea? That must have been her impatience talking.
“She was due to arrive the day after tomorrow, but then... well, the truth is, three days ago I woke up and found that, despite feeling perfectly well physically, I could not get out of bed. My misery had glued me to the sheets, or it might as well have done. I don’t suppose you have ever felt as bad as that. Probably most people have not. The only thing that got me out of bed was Cynthia’s voice in my head saying, ‘Vivienne, stop being so feeble. You must get up at once and take action.’ I realized that I needed her to be here, rather urgently: Cynthia is mainlymine, you see, though she is a friend of Arnold’s as well, and is on friendly terms with Douglas and Jonathan. They are my two sons.”
I nodded.
“The thing about Cynthia is that she always knows what to do in a crisis. And no one else was sorting it out. Stanley Niven’s murder was—is—still unsolved, and... well, you’ve seen how determined my husband is to take himself off to that wretched hospital where people are bludgeoned in their beds. I couldn’t bear it any longer, not without help or support. I telephoned Cynthia, and she agreed to drop everything and come straight away.”
She must have been beside herself with glee. Mother loved nothing more than a drama, and one involving a murder would have suited her perfectly. Did she spot, instantly, the opportunity to tamper with Poirot’s and my Christmas plans? Three days after arriving at the Lauriers,” she had set off to London to rope us both into her scheme.
“Tell me, does Monsieur Poirot believe that he can solve Stanley Niven’s murder?” Vivienne asked. “Cynthia says that he will do so quickly, before Arnold takes up residence at St. Walstan’s. Do you agree with her? Does he always succeed, once he applies himself to a... problem of this kind?”
“So you have not given up, then,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“In the study, earlier, you told your husband that you had given up.”
“Trying to talk him round—yes, that I have sworn off. I don’t want Arnold to expend what little energy he has left trying to persuade me why he is right and I am wrong. Since Stanley Niven was killed, I have tried and failed hundreds of times to change his mind about going to St. Walstan’s. By far the best thing would be for him to stay at Frelly.” A tear had escaped from the corner of her eye. She did not wipe it away. “I could keep trying, but it wouldn’t work, not unless all four children agreed, and they never will.”
“You have four children?” I had heard only about the two sons.
“I think of them all as my children,” she said. “Douglasand Jonathan, and Maddie and Janet, my two daughters-in-law. Enid and Terence have become family too—how could they not, when both of their girls are married to my two boys? That is not merely an in-law relationship, is it, when we are all tied together as closely as we are?”
I made a non-committal gesture. Not everyone in Vivienne Laurier’s position would invite their Enid and Terence Surtees equivalents to live in their home. Had the two lodgers, Dr. Osgood and Felix Rawcliffe, also been designated as honorary Lauriers? How many nights could one safely spend at Frellingsloe House without being reclassified as a member of the family?
“Your sons and their wives agree with your husband, then, that he should go to St. Walstan’s?”
“Everyone agrees with him, apart from Cynthia and me,” Vivienne said sadly. “Dr. Osgood says Arnold should be in a hospital where he can receive the proper medical attention he needs. He has persuaded Felix—Felix Rawcliffe, the curate—to take the same view, though Felix was initially sympathetic to my concerns. Douglas says, ‘Why not let Pa try and solve a murder if it would make him happy?’ and of course Maddie thinks it’s a marvelous idea. She seems to believe that Arnold might succeed in his quest. There is no hope of that, I am afraid. If you could only hear his ludicrous theory about the disgruntled woman from the post office... Really, I cannot bear it.”
Had I not been ordered from the study by Poirot, I might have known all about the much-advertised “two leads” by now. Was the woman from the post office one of them?Poirot was probably having a high old time in that comfortable leather armchair, listening to a variety of delectably implausible hypotheses.
“Maddie and Douglas are determined, always, to say the opposite of what any sensible person would say.” Vivienne’s voice ached with despair. “And Maddie is adamant that it would be better formeif I were to be relieved of the burden of Arnold’s day-to-day care, which is quite untrue. Does she ask me what I think is best for me? Of course not. And Enid and Terence are no help. I don’t know what they think about it all; they will not be drawn on the subject. Jonathan and Janet are adamant—as is Arnold—that a decline followed by a death cannot be permitted to happen here at Frelly. They have even persuaded our parish priest, Father Peter, to take their side. That was what changed Felix’s mind. He was hardly going to go against Father Peter, was he? Everybody except Cynthia seems to agree that on no account must this wonderful, perfect house be sullied by the mortality of its inhabitants!”
This last outburst seemed to shock her, as if she had not known herself to be capable of such biting sarcasm. When she next spoke, her tone was more doubtful. “Frelly is a happy place, of course. It has been in Arnold’s family for three generations. We have enjoyed many wonderful times here, but the way everyone talks about it now, what they all believe... it is nothing more than superstition! What rule, invented by whom, dictates that if something sad happens in a house, that sadness takes over the whole building, never leaves it and changes the entire characterof the place? Yes, it will be devastating for us all if Arnold dies here at home, but it will be equally unbearable if he dies at the hospital. The tragedy is that he won’t be with us any more, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Frelly, which...”
She stopped and looked over her shoulder. Turning to face me again, she lowered her voice and said, “Jonathan would have my guts for garters if he heard me say this: no house is anything more, really, than a collection of bricks held together by... lime putty, or whatever it is. The rest is people: their feelings and their memories. And the possibility of Arnold dying here is hardly the only problem that Frelly faces. They all carry on as if they are ignorant of the truth! You know about the house, I assume. Cynthia has told you?”
“The coastal problem?” I said, hoping I had phrased it with sufficient tact.
“The sea laying waste to our village, yes. In a few years, Frelly will no longer be here. There is no way to save it. But we are all determined not to acknowledge that. It’s funny: you accommodate a delusion for a short while, then a little longer, to spare the feelings of others... then suddenly you wake up a year later to find that you are as complicit as everybody else in the denial of reality. We all pretend that Frelly can be saved somehow, that it will last forever. It is madness!”
“Then why not speak the truth?” I said.
“I love my husband more than I care about truth,” said Vivienne. “If Arnold finds it consoling to believe that Frellycan survive, then I must pretend I believe it, for his sake. Besides, Jonathan and Janet are as convinced as Arnold is that the house can be saved. And if I spoke up, Douglas and Maddie would add their voices to my campaign for the truth, I have no doubt. It is for my sake and for no other reason that they silently collude in the fantasy that Frelly can be rescued. They know how I suffer when they are at odds with Jonathan and Janet. It causes me the most agonizing pain.”
She grimaced. “Family is everything, Edward. When Arnold and I met, I had nobody left. I was twenty-nine years old and completely alone in the world. Arnold became my family—my whole world. I will be utterly lost without him. He is the life force in me.” Pain blazed from her eyes. “Once Arnold and I are both gone, Douglas and Jonathan will need one another like never before. The girls too—Maddie and Janet. One does not realize until one loses a loved one how precious they are, how precious every moment is. Oh, I know what you are thinking.”
