复仇女神14
时间：2026-01-29 07:12:23
（单词翻译:单击）
Six
LOVE
The following morning they visited a small Queen Anne Manor House. The
drive there had not been very long or tiring. It was a very charming-look-
ing house and had an interesting history as well as a very beautiful and
unusually laid out garden.
Richard Jameson, the architect, was full of admiration for the structural
beauty of the house and being the kind of young man who is fond of hear-
ing his own voice, he slowed down in nearly every room that they went
through, pointing out every special moulding of fireplace, and giving his-
torical dates and references. Some of the group, appreciative at first,
began to get slightly restive, as the somewhat monotonous lecturing went
on. Some of them began to edge carefully away and fall behind the party.
The local caretaker, who was in charge, was not himself too pleased at
having his occupation usurped by one of the sightseers. He made a few ef-
forts to get matters back into his own hands but Mr. Jameson was unyield-
ing. The caretaker made a last try.
“In this room, ladies and gentlemen, the White Parlour, folks call it, is
where they found a body. A young man it was, stabbed with a dagger, ly-
ing on the hearthrug. Way back in seventeen hundred and something it
was. It was said that the Lady Moffat of that day had a lover. He came
through a small side door and up a steep staircase to this room through a
loose panel there was to the left of the fireplace. Sir Richard Moffat, her
husband, you see, was said to be across the seas in the Low Countries. But
he come home, and in he came unexpectedly and caught ’em there to-
gether.”
He paused proudly. He was pleased at the response from his audience,
glad of a respite from the architectural details which they had been hav-
ing forced down their throats.
“Why, isn’t that just too romantic, Henry?” said Mrs. Butler in her reson-
ant transatlantic tones. “Why, you know, there’s quite an atmosphere in
this room. I feel it. I certainly can feel it.”
“Mamie is very sensitive to atmospheres,” said her husband proudly to
those around him. “Why, once when we were in an old house down in
Louisiana….”
The narrative of Mamie’s special sensitivity got into its swing and Miss
Marple and one or two others seized their opportunity to edge gently out
of the room and down the exquisitely moulded staircase to the ground
floor.
“A friend of mine,” said Miss Marple to Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow
who were next to her, “had a most nerve-racking experience only a few
years ago. A dead body on their library floor one morning.”
“One of the family?” asked Miss Barrow. “An epileptic fit?”
“Oh no, it was a murder. A strange girl in evening dress. A blonde. But
her hair was dyed. She was really a brunette; and—oh …” Miss Marple
broke off, her eyes fixed on Miss Cooke’s yellow hair where it escaped
from her headscarf.
It had come to her suddenly. She knew why Miss Cooke’s face was famil-
iar and she knew where she had seen her before. But when she had seen
her then, Miss Cooke’s hair had been dark—almost black. And now it was
bright yellow.
Mrs. Riseley- Porter, coming down the stairs, spoke decisively as she
pushed past them and completed the staircase and turned into the hall.
“I really cannot go up and down anymore of those stairs,” she declared,
“and standing around in these rooms is very tiring. I believe the gardens
here, although not extensive, are quite celebrated in horticultural circles. I
suggest we go there without loss of time. It looks as though it might cloud
over before long. I think we shall get rain before morning is out.”
The authority with which Mrs. Riseley-Porter could enforce her remarks
had its usual result. All those near at hand or within hearing followed her
obediently out through french doors in the dining room into the garden.
The gardens had indeed all that Mrs. Riseley-Porter had claimed for them.
She herself took possession firmly of Colonel Walker and set off briskly.
Some of the others followed them, others took paths in the opposite direc-
tion.
Miss Marple herself made a determined beeline for a garden seat which
appeared to be of comfortable proportions as well as of artistic merit. She
sank down on it with relief, and a sigh matching her own was emitted by
Miss Elizabeth Temple as she followed Miss Marple and came to sit beside
her on the seat.
“Going over houses is always tiring,” said Miss Temple. “The most tiring
thing in the world. Especially if you have to listen to an exhaustive lecture
in each room.”
“Of course, all that we were told is very interesting,” said Miss Marple,
rather doubtfully.
“Oh, do you think so?” said Miss Temple. Her head turned slightly and
her eyes met those of Miss Marple. Something passed between the two wo-
men, a kind of rapport—of understanding tinged with mirth.
“Don’t you?” asked Miss Marple.
“No,” said Miss Temple.
This time the understanding was definitely established between them.
They sat there companionably in silence. Presently Elizabeth Temple
began to talk about gardens, and this garden in particular. “It was de-
signed by Holman,” she said, “somewhere about 1800 or 1798. He died
young. A pity. He had great genius.”
“It is so sad when anyone dies young,” said Miss Marple.
“I wonder,” said Elizabeth Temple.
She said it in a curious, meditative way.
“But they miss so much,” said Miss Marple. “So many things.”
“Or escape so much,” said Miss Temple.
“Being as old as I am now,” said Miss Marple, “I suppose I can’t help feel-
ing that early death means missing things.”
“And I,” said Elizabeth Temple, “having spent nearly all my life amongst
the young, look at life as a period in time complete in itself. What did T. S.
Eliot say: The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew tree are of equal
duration.”
Miss Marple said, “I see what you mean … A life of whatever length is a
complete experience. But don’t you—” she hesitated, “—ever feel that a
life could be incomplete because it has been cut unduly short?”
“Yes, that is so.”
Miss Marple said, looking at the flowers near her, “How beautiful peon-
ies are. That long border of them—so proud and yet so beautifully fragile.”
Elizabeth Temple turned her head towards her.
“Did you come on this trip to see the houses or to see gardens?” she
asked.
“I suppose really to see the houses,” said Miss Marple. “I shall enjoy the
gardens most, though, but the houses—they will be a new experience for
me. Their variety and their history, and the beautiful old furniture and the
pictures.” She added: “A kind friend gave me this trip as a gift. I am very
grateful. I have not seen very many big and famous houses in my life.”
“A kind thought,” said Miss Temple.
“Do you often go on these sightseeing tours?” asked Miss Marple.
“No. This is not for me exactly a sightseeing tour.”
Miss Marple looked at her with interest. She half opened her lips to
speak but refrained from putting a question. Miss Temple smiled at her.
“You wonder why I am here, what my motive is, my reason. Well, why
don’t you make a guess?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t like to do that,” said Miss Marple.
“Yes, do do so.” Elizabeth Temple was urgent. “It would interest me. Yes,
really interest me. Make a guess.”
Miss Marple was silent for quite a few moments. Her eyes looked at
Elizabeth Temple steadily, ranging over her thoughtfully in her appraise-
ment. She said,
“This is not from what I know about you or what I have been told about
you. I know that you are quite a famous person and that your school is a
very famous one. No. I am only making my guess from what you look like.
I should—write you down as a pilgrim. You have the look of one who is on
a pilgrimage.”
There was a silence and then Elizabeth said,
“That describes it very well. Yes. I am on a pilgrimage.”
Miss Marple said after a moment or two,
“The friend who sent me on this tour and paid all my expenses, is now
dead. He was a Mr. Rafiel, a very rich man. Did you by any chance know
him?”
“Jason Rafiel? I know him by name, of course. I never knew him person-
ally, or met him. He gave a large endowment once to an educational pro-
ject in which I was interested. I was very grateful. As you say, he was a
very wealthy man. I saw the notice of his death in the papers a few weeks
ago. So he was an old friend of yours?”
“No,” said Miss Marple. “I had met him just over a year ago abroad. In
the West Indies. I never knew much about him. His life or his family or
any personal friends that he had. He was a great financier but otherwise,
or so people always said, he was a man who was very reserved about him-
self. Did you know his family or anyone …?” Miss Marple paused. “I often
wondered, but one does not like to ask questions and seem inquisitive.”
Elizabeth was silent for a minute—then she said:
“I knew a girl once … A girl who had been a pupil of mine at Fallowfield,
my school. She was no actual relation to Mr. Rafiel, but she was at one
time engaged to marry Mr. Rafiel’s son.”
“But she didn’t marry him?” Miss Marple asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Miss Temple said,
“One might hope to say—like to say—because she had too much sense.
He was not the type of a young man one would want anyone one was fond
of to marry. She was a very lovely girl and a very sweet girl. I don’t know
why she didn’t marry him. Nobody has ever told me.” She sighed and then
said, “Anyway, she died….”
“Why did she die?” said Miss Marple.
Elizabeth Temple stared at the peonies for some minutes. When she
spoke she uttered one word. It echoed like the tone of a deep bell—so
much so that it was startling.
“Love!” she said.
Miss Marple queried the word sharply. “Love?”
“One of the most frightening words there is in the world,” said Elizabeth
Temple.
Again her voice was bitter and tragic.
“Love….”
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