“I think you are being unnecessarily cruel to yourself,” I told her.
“Instead, whether we live or die is decided by genetics, which are entirely random,” she went on. “Arnold is a uniquely inspiring, talented man. Yet he is the one who is dying. I knew he would go first. I always knew, from the moment I first met and fell in love with him. He was recovering from an illness then. Since he was twenty years old, he has suffered from every constitutional weakness it is possible to suffer from. He was an ailing child, born weeks before he should have been. You find all of this hard to believe, I see. Oh, I understand why. When one meets Arnold, one notices only his vitality—the power of his mind and his character. He has no interest in the many disasters that might befall him. He wastes no time thinking about his own death, because he is so full of life.”
A sob burst from her. “And here am I, feeling hollowed out and barely alive, not even sure I want to be here any more. I shall live for another thirty years, I have no doubt, and every one of those years will be empty and miserable.”
I hovered ineffectually, not knowing what to do or say as Vivienne Laurier stood next to me, howling like a wounded animal.
“And that is only the suffering that awaits me after Arnold dies,” she erupted again. “Before he dies will be the worst part. He will move to St. Walstan’s—he is determined to do so—and... and... oh, he knows nothing of the danger he courts.”
“Unless Poirot catches the killer first,” I said.
“I do not believe he will,” said Vivienne.
“May I ask why not?”
“Believing that good things might happen has become impossible,” she said.
“Well, I have known Poirot for years. During that time, I have watched with astonishment as he solved case after case. I am certain he will catch Stanley Niven’s killer.”
“Cynthia thinks so too. Whyever would I doubt someone who has never failed, she wanted to know. But hope cannot take root in a heart that knows only despair, and my despair is like a poison spreading inside me. There is not much of anything else left. The tragedy is that emotional poisons have an insufficient effect upon the physical robustness of a person, which is entirely down to genetic inheritance. Dr. Osgood is always telling me and everybody elsein this house—he has told you, I dare say—that I have lost too much weight and am wasting away. If I could only believe him, that I will soon shrivel to nothing... But no, it is the likes of Arnold who are susceptible to that fate, not the likes of me. Do you not think it terribly cruel of Mother Nature to arrange things this way? Why not put a temperament and mind like Arnold’s into this indestructible body?” She pointed at herself. “I would not be surprised if my shattered heart has at least two decades left to beat.”
I could not think of a single thing to say. The thing about dealing with excessively melancholy people, I have noticed—those who carry clouds of gloom with them everywhere they go—is that one loses the will to cheer them up. In their orbit, one is robbed of the notion that one can do anything to improve one’s own situation or theirs.
“Your mother is much less tolerant of my despondency than you are,” Vivienne told me. “It is odd, perhaps, but I will forever be grateful to her for her refusal to submit to it or indulge it in any way. If she were not here at Frelly, I would spend all my time walking around like a ghost, through the corridors and halls of this house, which is itself a ghost. That is the sort of thing I would not get away with saying to Cynthia. She would shout at me.”
I hoped she was not suggesting that I ought to do the same.
“Only she is able to pull me away from the abyss for short stretches of time. It is her absolute intolerance of anything she dislikes that does it, and the sheer force ofher personality. The best I am capable of feeling, I feel in her presence.”
My eyebrows must have shot up at this. Then paranoia took hold of me. Had Mother inveigled her grateful friend into praising her fulsomely in my presence each time an opportunity arose? Had a bargain been struck?You do your best to persuade my unappreciative son that I am the best thing since bread was wrapped, and I shall bring Hercule Poirot here to make St. Walstan’s safe for Arnold?
The object of my suspicion was marching briskly toward me. “Edward!”
“Hello, Mother.”
“Have you finished all the Christmas trees yet? Is that one finished? It doesn’t look finished.”
“Almost. I just need to add the last few bits.”
“I don’t know why you’re chinwagging, then, with the job unfinished.”
“It is my fault,” Vivienne told her. “I’m afraid I have been—”
“Oh, Vivienne.” Mother looked cross. “You haven’t been spouting all your favorite tommyrot, have you? What has she been telling you, Edward? That she is doomed to live to be a hundred and ten, growing more desolate by the day? As I keep telling her: having some misery to contend with does not preclude joy. We must simply wrap up our unhappiness as we would a treasured possession—if we have lost a loved one, or suffered a betrayal—and carry it around with us carefully, taking it out and tending to it every now and then, and then putting it carefully back inits special place, once we have admired it sufficiently for the present moment.”
“What the devil are you talking about, Mother?”
“And neverevertelling it to go away, or that it has outlived its usefulness,” she went on. Vivienne was transfixed. No wonder Mother liked her. “And at the same time, one looks around for any little bits of joy that one can find. No, it is more than that,” she corrected herself. “One makes sure to create joy. The biggest misunderstanding of all is the assumption that we will stumble across joy by accident if we are lucky. No, no. It is something we must manufacture ourselves. As soon as you are ready to attempt it, Vivienne, I shall show you how. Now, Edward, hurry up and finish that tree. Vivienne, go to the kitchen. Have Enid take some tea and cakes to the library—that will be Edward’s reward, once he has completed his task.”
Vivienne moved swiftly, eager to obey her mistress’s instruction.
“Does Enid Surtees ever leave the kitchen?” I asked Mother once she and I were alone.
“Do not be facetious, Edward. You saw her in the dining room at dinner last night and at breakfast this morning.”
“Every time I have walked past the kitchen today, she has been in there.”
“Well, what do you expect? She is Frelly’s cook.”
