复仇女神19
时间：2026-01-29 07:12:33
（单词翻译:单击）
Ten
“OH! FOND, OH! FAIR, THE DAYS THAT WERE”
I
At half past eight the next morning there was a smart tap on the door, and
in answer to Miss Marple’s “Come in” the door was opened and an elderly
woman entered, bearing a tray with a teapot, a cup and a milk jug and a
small plate of bread and butter.
“Early morning tea, ma’am,” she said cheerfully. “It’s a nice day, it is. I
see you’ve got your curtains drawn back already. You’ve slept well then?”
“Very well indeed,” said Miss Marple, laying aside a small devotional
book which she had been reading.
“Well, it’s a lovely day, it is. They’ll have it nice for going to the Bonaven-
ture Rocks. It’s just as well you’re not doing it. It’s cruel hard on the legs, it
is.”
“I’m really very happy to be here,” said Miss Marple. “So kind of Miss
Bradbury-Scott and Mrs. Glynne to issue this invitation.”
“Ah well, it’s nice for them too. It cheers them up to have a bit of com-
pany come to the house. Ah, it’s a sad place nowadays, so it is.”
She pulled the curtains at the window rather more fully, pushed back a
chair and deposited a can of hot water in the china basin.
“There’s a bathroom on the next floor,” she said, “but we think it’s better
always for someone elderly to have their hot water here, so they don’t
have to climb the stairs.”
“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure—you know this house well?”
“I was here as a girl—I was the housemaid then. Three servants they
had—a cook, a housemaid—a parlourmaid—kitchen maid too at one time.
That was in the old Colonel’s time. Horses he kept too, and a groom. Ah,
those were the days. Sad it is when things happen the way they do. He lost
his wife young, the Colonel did. His son was killed in the war and his only
daughter went away to live on the other side of the world. Married a New
Zealander she did. Died having a baby and the baby died too. He was a sad
man living alone here, and he let the house go—it wasn’t kept up as it
should have been. When he died he left the place to his niece Miss Clotilde
and her two sisters, and she and Miss Anthea came here to live—and later
Miss Lavinia lost her husband and came to join them—” she sighed and
shook her head. “They never did much to the house—couldn’t afford it—
and they let the garden go as well—”
“It all seems a great pity,” said Miss Marple.
“And such nice ladies as they all are, too—Miss Anthea is the scatty one,
but Miss Clotilde went to university and is very brainy—she talks three
languages — and Mrs. Glynne, she’s a very nice lady indeed. I thought
when she came to join them as things might go better. But you never
know, do you, what the future holds? I feel sometimes, as though there
was a doom on this house.”
Miss Marple looked enquiring.
“First one thing and then another. The dreadful plane accident — in
Spain it was—and everybody killed. Nasty things, aeroplanes—I’d never
go in one of them. Miss Clotilde’s friends were both killed, they were hus-
band and wife—the daughter was still at school, luckily, and escaped, but
Miss Clotilde brought her here to live and did everything for her. Took her
abroad for trips—to Italy and France, treated her like a daughter. She was
such a happy girl—and a very sweet nature. You’d never dream that such
an awful thing could happen.”
“An awful thing. What was it? Did it happen here?”
“No, not here, thank God. Though in a way you might say it did happen
here. It was here that she met him. He was in the neighbourhood—and the
ladies knew his father, who was a very rich man, so he came here to visit
—that was the beginning—”
“They fell in love?”
“Yes, she fell in love with him right away. He was an attractive-looking
boy, with a nice way of talking and passing the time of day. You’d never
think—you’d never think for one moment—” she broke off.
“There was a love affair? And it went wrong? And the girl committed
suicide?”
“Suicide?” The old woman stared at Miss Marple with startled eyes.
“Whoever now told you that? Murder it was, barefaced murder.
Strangled and her head beaten to pulp. Miss Clotilde had to go and identify
her—she’s never been quite the same since. They found her body a good
thirty miles from here—in the scrub of a disused quarry. And it’s believed
that it wasn’t the first murder he’d done. There had been other girls. Six
months she’d been missing. And the police searching far and wide. Oh! A
wicked devil he was—a bad lot from the day he was born or so it seems.
They say nowadays as there are those as can’t help what they do—not
right in the head, and they can’t be held responsible. I don’t believe a
word of it! Killers are killers. And they won’t even hang them nowadays. I
know as there’s often madness as runs in old families — there was the
Derwents over at Brassington—every second generation one or other of
them died in the loony bin—and there was old Mrs. Paulett; walked about
the lanes in her diamond tiara saying she was Marie Antoinette until they
shut her up. But there wasn’t anything really wrong with her—just silly
like. But this boy. Yes, he was a devil right enough.”
“What did they do to him?”
“They’d abolished hanging by then—or else he was too young. I can’t re-
member it all now. They found him guilty. It may have been Bostol or
Broadsand—one of those places beginning with ‘B’ as they sent him to.”
“What was the name of the boy?”
“Michael — can’t remember his last name. It’s ten years ago that it
happened—one forgets. Italian sort of name—like a picture. Someone who
paints pictures—Raffle, that’s it—”
“Michael Rafiel?”
“That’s right! There was a rumour as went about that his father being so
rich got him wangled out of prison. An escape like the Bank Robbers. But I
think as that was just talk—”
So it had not been suicide. It had been murder. “Love!” Elizabeth
Temple had named as the cause of a girl’s death. In a way she was right. A
young girl had fallen in love with a killer—and for love of him had gone
unsuspecting to an ugly death.
Miss Marple gave a little shudder. On her way along the village street
yesterday she had passed a newspaper placard:
EPSOM DOWNS MURDER, SECOND GIRL’S BODY DISCOVERED,
YOUTH ASKED TO ASSIST POLICE.
So history repeated itself. An old pattern—an ugly pattern. Some lines of
forgotten verse came haltingly into her brain:
Rose white youth, passionate, pale,
A singing stream in a silent vale,
A fairy prince in a prosy tale,
Oh there’s nothing in life so finely frail
As Rose White Youth.
Who was there to guard Youth from Pain and Death? Youth who could
not, who had never been able to, guard itself. Did they know too little? Or
was it that they knew too much? And therefore thought they knew it all.
©2005-2010英文阅读网