复仇女神21
时间：2026-01-29 07:12:35
（单词翻译:单击）
III
Miss Marple retraced her steps to The Old Manor House, walking rather
slowly because she was by now tired. She could not really feel that her
morning had been productive in any way. So far The Old Manor House
had given her no distinctive ideas of any kind, a tale of a past tragedy told
by Janet, but there were always past tragedies treasured in the memories
of domestic workers and which were remembered quite as clearly as all
the happy events such as spectacular weddings, big entertainments and
successful operations or accidents from which people had recovered in a
miraculous manner.
As she drew near the gate she saw two female figures standing there.
One of them detached itself and came to meet her. It was Mrs. Glynne.
“Oh, there you are,” she said. “We wondered, you know. I thought you
must have gone out for a walk somewhere and I did so hope you wouldn’t
overtire yourself. If I had known you had come downstairs and gone out, I
would have come with you to show anything there is to show. Not that
there is very much.”
“Oh, I just wandered around,” said Miss Marple. “The churchyard, you
know, and the church. I’m always very interested in churches. Sometimes
there are very curious epitaphs. Things like that. I make quite a collection
of them. I suppose the church here was restored in Victorian times?”
“Yes, they did put in some rather ugly pews, I think. You know, good
quality wood, and strong and all that, but not very artistic.”
“I hope they didn’t take away anything of particular interest.”
“No, I don’t think so. It’s not really a very old church.”
“There did not seem to be many tablets or brasses or anything of that
kind,” agreed Miss Marple.
“You are quite interested in ecclesiastical architecture?”
“Oh, I don’t make a study of it or anything like that, but of course in my
own village, St. Mary Mead, things do rather revolve round the church. I
mean, they always have. In my young days, that was so. Nowadays of
course it’s rather different. Were you brought up in this neighbourhood?”
“Oh, not really. We lived not very far away, about thirty miles or so. At
Little Herdsley. My father was a retired serviceman—a Major in the Artil-
lery. We came over here occasionally to see my uncle—indeed to see my
great-uncle before him. No. I’ve not even been here very much of late
years. My other two sisters moved in after my uncle’s death, but at that
time I was still abroad with my husband. He only died about four or five
years ago.”
“Oh, I see.”
“They were anxious I should come and join them here and really, it
seemed the best thing to do. We had lived in India for some years. My hus-
band was still stationed there at the time of his death. It is very difficult
nowadays to know where one would wish to—should I say, put one’s roots
down.”
“Yes, indeed. I can quite see that. And you felt, of course, that you had
roots here since your family had been here for a long time.”
“Yes. Yes, one did feel that. Of course, I’d always kept up with my sisters,
had been to visit them. But things are always very different from what one
thinks they will be. I have bought a small cottage near London, near
Hampton Court, where I spend a good deal of my time, and I do a little oc-
casional work for one or two charities in London.”
“So your time is fully occupied. How wise of you.”
“I have felt of late that I should spend more time here, perhaps. I’ve
been a little worried about my sisters.”
“Their health?” suggested Miss Marple. “One is rather worried
nowadays, especially as there is not really anyone competent whom one
can employ to look after people as they become rather feebler or have cer-
tain ailments. So much rheumatism and arthritis about. One is always so
afraid of people falling down in the bath or an accident coming down
stairs. Something of that kind.”
“Clotilde has always been very strong,” said Mrs. Glynne. “Tough, I
should describe her. But I am rather worried sometimes about Anthea.
She is vague, you know, very vague indeed. And she wanders off some-
times—and doesn’t seem to know where she is.”
“Yes, it is sad when people worry. There is so much to worry one.”
“I don’t really think there is much to worry Anthea.”
“She worries about income tax, perhaps, money affairs,” suggested Miss
Marple.
“No, no, not that so much but — oh, she worries so much about the
garden. She remembers the garden as it used to be, and she’s very
anxious, you know, to—well, to spend money in putting things right again.
Clotilde has had to tell her that really one can’t afford that nowadays. But
she keeps talking of the hothouses, the peaches that used to be there. The
grapes—and all that.”
“And the Cherry Pie on the walls?” suggested Miss Marple, remembering
a remark.
“Fancy your remembering that. Yes. Yes, it’s one of the things one does
remember. Such a charming smell, heliotrope. And such a nice name for
it, Cherry Pie. One always remembers that. And the grapevine. The little,
small, early sweet grapes. Ah well, one must not remember the past too
much.”
“And the flower borders too, I suppose,” said Miss Marple.
“Yes. Yes, Anthea would like to have a big well kept herbaceous border
again. Really not feasible now. It is as much as one can do to get local
people who will come and mow the lawns every fortnight. Every year one
seems to employ a different firm. And Anthea would like pampas grass
planted again. And the Mrs. Simpkin pinks. White, you know. All along the
stone edge border. And a fig tree that grew just outside the greenhouse.
She remembers all these and talks about them.”
“It must be difficult for you.”
“Well, yes. Arguments, you see, hardly appeal in any way. Clotilde, of
course, is very downright about things. She just refuses point-blank and
says she doesn’t want to hear another word about it.”
“It is difficult,” said Miss Marple, “to know how to take things. Whether
one should be firm. Rather authoritative. Perhaps, even, well, just a little—
a little fierce, you know, or whether one should be sympathetic. Listen to
things and perhaps hold out hopes which one knows are not justified. Yes,
it’s difficult.”
“But it’s easier for me because you see I go away again, and then come
back now and then to stay. So it’s easy for me to pretend things may be
easier soon and that something may be done. But really, the other day
when I came home and I found that Anthea had tried to engage a most ex-
pensive firm of landscape gardeners to renovate the garden, to build up
the greenhouse again — which is quite absurd because even if you put
vines in they would not bear for another two or three years. Clotilde knew
nothing about it and she was extremely angry when she discovered the es-
timate for this work on Anthea’s desk. She was really quite unkind.”
“So many things are difficult,” said Miss Marple.
It was a useful phrase which she used often.
“I shall have to go rather early tomorrow morning. I think,” said Miss
Marple. “I was making enquiries at the Golden Boar where I understand
the coach party assembles tomorrow morning. They are making quite an
early start. Nine o’clock, I understand.”
“Oh dear. I hope you will not find it too fatiguing.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I gather we are going to a place called—now wait a
minute, what was it called?—Stirling St. Mary. Something like that. And it
does not seem to be very far away. There’s an interesting church to see on
the way and a castle. In the afternoon there is a quite pleasant garden, not
too many acres; but some special flowers. I feel sure that after this very
nice rest that I have had here, I shall be quite all right. I understand now
that I would have been very tired if I had had these days of climbing up
cliffsides and all the rest of it.”
“Well, you must rest this afternoon, so as to be fresh for tomorrow,” said
Mrs. Glynne, as they went into the house. “Miss Marple has been to visit
the church,” said Mrs. Glynne to Clotilde.
“I’m afraid there is not very much to see,” said Clotilde. “Victorian glass
of a most hideous kind, I think myself. No expense spared. I’m afraid my
uncle was partly to blame. He was very pleased with those rather crude
reds and blues.”
“Very crude. Very vulgar, I always think,” said Lavinia Glynne.
Miss Marple settled down after lunch to have a nap, and she did not join
her hostesses until nearly dinnertime. After dinner a good deal of chat
went on until it was bedtime. Miss Marple set the tone in remembrances
… Remembrances of her own youth, her early days, places she had visited,
travels or tours she had made, occasional people she had known.
She went to bed tired, with a sense of failure. She had learned nothing
more, possibly because there was nothing more to learn. A fishing expedi-
tion where the fish did not rise — possibly because there were no fish
there. Or it could be that she did not know the right bait to use?
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