复仇女神28
时间：2026-01-29 07:22:06
（单词翻译:单击）
Fifteen
VERITY
I
“Verity,” said Miss Marple.
Elizabeth Margaret Temple had died the evening before. It had been a
peaceful death. Miss Marple, sitting once more amidst the faded chintz of
the drawing room in The Old Manor House, had laid aside the baby’s pink
coat which she had previously been engaged in knitting and had substitu-
ted a crocheted purple scarf. This half-mourning touch went with Miss
Marple’s early Victorian ideas of tactfulness in face of tragedy.
An inquest was to be held on the following day. The vicar had been ap-
proached and had agreed to hold a brief memorial service in the church
as soon as arrangements could be made. Undertakers suitably attired,
with proper mourning faces, took general charge of things in liaison with
the police. The inquest was to take place on the following morning at 11
o’clock. Members of the coach tour had agreed to attend the inquest. And
several of them had chosen to remain on so as to attend the church service
also.
Mrs. Glynne had come to the Golden Boar and urged Miss Marple to re-
turn to The Old Manor House until she finally returned to the tour.
“You will get away from all the reporters.”
Miss Marple had thanked all three sisters warmly and had accepted.
The coach tour would be resumed after the memorial service, driving
first to South Bedestone, thirty-five miles away, where there was a good
class hotel which had been originally chosen for a stopping place. After
that the tour would go on as usual.
There were, however, as Miss Marple had considered likely, certain per-
sons who were disengaging themselves and returning home, or were go-
ing in other directions and not continuing on the tour. There was some-
thing to be said in favour of either decision. To leave what would become
a journey of painful memories, or to continue with the sightseeing that
had already been paid for and which had been interrupted only by one of
those painful accidents that may happen on any sightseeing expedition. A
lot would depend, Miss Marple thought, on the outcome of the inquest.
Miss Marple, after exchanging various conventional remarks proper to
the occasion with her three hostesses, had devoted herself to her purple
wool and had sat considering her next line of investigation. And so it was
that with her fingers still busy, she had uttered the one word, “Verity.”
Throwing it as one throws a pebble into a stream, solely to observe what
the result—if any—would be. Would it mean something to her hostesses?
It might or it might not. Otherwise, when she joined the members of the
tour at their hotel meal this evening, which had been arranged, she would
try the effect of it there. It had been, she thought to herself, the last word
or almost the last word that Elizabeth Temple had spoken. So therefore,
thought Miss Marple (her fingers still busy because she did not need to
look at her crocheting, she could read a book or conduct a conversation
while her fingers, though slightly crippled with rheumatism, would pro-
ceed correctly through their appointed movements). So therefore, “Ver-
ity.”
Like a stone into a pool, causing ripples, a splash, something? Or noth-
ing. Surely there would be a reaction of one sort or another. Yes, she had
not been mistaken. Although her face registered nothing, the keen eyes be-
hind her glasses had watched three people in a simultaneous manner as
she had trained herself to do for many years now, when wishing to ob-
serve her neighbours either in church, mothers’ meetings, or at other pub-
lic functions in St. Mary Mead when she had been on the track of some in-
teresting piece of news or gossip.
Mrs. Glynne had dropped the book she was holding and had looked
across towards Miss Marple with slight surprise. Surprise, it seemed, at
the particular word coming from Miss Marple, but not surprised really to
hear it.
Clotilde reacted differently. Her head shot up, she leant forward a little,
then she looked not at Miss Marple but across the room in the direction of
the window. Her hands clenched themselves, she kept very still. Miss
Marple, although dropping her head slightly as though she was not look-
ing any more, noted that her eyes were filling with tears. Clotilde sat quite
still and let the tears roll down her cheeks. She made no attempt to take
out a handkerchief, she uttered no word. Miss Marple was impressed by
the aura of grief that came from her.
Anthea’s reaction was different. It was quick, excited, almost pleasur-
able.
“Verity? Verity, did you say? Did you know her? I’d no idea. It is Verity
Hunt you mean?”
Lavinia Glynne said, “It’s a Christian name?”
“I never knew anyone of that name,” said Miss Marple, “but I did mean a
Christian name. Yes. It is rather unusual, I think. Verity.” She repeated it
thoughtfully.
She let her purple wool ball fall and looked round with the slightly apo-
logetic and embarrassed look of one who realizes she has made a serious
faux pas, but not sure why.
“I—I am so sorry. Have I said something I shouldn’t? It was only be-
cause….”
“No, of course not,” said Mrs. Glynne. “It was just that it is—it is a name
we know, a name with which we have—associations.”
“It just came into my mind,” said Miss Marple, still apologetic, “because,
you know, it was poor Miss Temple who said it. I went to see her, you
know, yesterday afternoon. Professor Wanstead took me. He seemed to
think that I might be able to—to—I don’t know if it’s the proper word—to
rouse her, in some way. She was in a coma and they thought—not that I
was a friend of hers at any time, but we had chatted together on the tour
and we often sat beside each other, as you know, on some of the days and
we had talked. And he thought perhaps I might be of some use. I’m afraid
I wasn’t though. Not at all. I just sat there and waited and then she did say
one or two words, but they didn’t seem to mean anything. But finally, just
when it was time for me to go, she did open her eyes and looked at me—I
don’t know if she was mistaking me for someone—but she did say that
word. Verity! And, well of course it stuck in my mind, especially with her
passing away yesterday evening. It must have been someone or something
that she had in her mind. But of course it might just mean—well, of course
it might just mean Truth. That’s what verity means, doesn’t it?”
She looked from Clotilde to Lavinia to Anthea.
“It was the Christian name of a girl we knew,” said Lavinia Glynne.
“That is why it startled us.”
“Especially because of the awful way she died,” said Anthea.
Clotilde said in her deep voice, “Anthea! there’s no need to go into these
details.”
“But after all, everyone knows quite well about her,” said Anthea. She
looked towards Miss Marple. “I thought perhaps you might have known
about her because you knew Mr. Rafiel, didn’t you? Well, I mean, he wrote
to us about you so you must have known him. And I thought perhaps—
well, he’d mentioned the whole thing to you.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Miss Marple, “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand
what you’re talking about.”
“They found her body in a ditch,” said Anthea.
There was never any holding Anthea, Miss Marple thought, not once she
got going. But she thought that Anthea’s vociferous talk was putting addi-
tional strain on Clotilde. She had taken out a handkerchief now in a quiet,
noncommittal way. She brushed tears from her eyes and then sat upright,
her back very straight, her eyes deep and tragic.
“Verity,” she said, “was a girl we cared for very much. She lived here for
a while. I was very fond of her—”
“And she was very fond of you,” said Lavinia.
“Her parents were friends of mine,” said Clotilde. “They were killed in a
plane accident.”
“She was at school at Fallowfield,” explained Lavinia. “I suppose that
was how Miss Temple came to remember her.”
“Oh I see,” said Miss Marple. “Where Miss Temple was Headmistress, is
that it? I have heard of Fallowfield often, of course. It’s a very fine school,
isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Clotilde. “Verity was a pupil there. After her parents died she
came to stay with us for a time while she could decide what she wanted to
do with her future. She was eighteen or nineteen. A very sweet girl and a
very affectionate and loving one. She thought perhaps of training for nurs-
ing, but she had very good brains and Miss Temple was very insistent that
she ought to go to university. So she was studying and having coaching for
that when—when this terrible thing happened.”
She turned her face away.
“I—do you mind if we don’t talk about it any more just now?”
“Oh, of course not,” said Miss Marple. “I’m so sorry to have impinged on
some tragedy. I didn’t know. I—I haven’t heard … I thought—well I mean
…” She became more and more incoherent.
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