沉睡的谋杀案3
时间：2026-01-29 07:37:07
（单词翻译:单击）
Two
WALLPAPER
I
A month had passed and Gwenda had moved into Hillside. Giles’s aunt’s
furniture had come out of store and was arranged round the house. It was
good quality old- fashioned stuff. One or two over- large wardrobes
Gwenda had sold, but the rest fitted in nicely and was in harmony with
the house. There were small gay papiermâché tables in the drawing room,
inlaid with mother-of-pearl and painted with castles and roses. There was
a prim little worktable with a gathered sack underneath of pure silk, there
was a rosewood bureau and a mahogany sofa table.
The so-called easy chairs Gwenda had relegated to various bedrooms
and had bought two large squashy wells of comfort for herself and Giles to
stand each side of the fireplace. The large chesterfield sofa was placed
near the windows. For curtains Gwenda had chosen old-fashioned chintz
of pale eggshell blue with prim urns of roses and yellow birds on them.
The room, she now considered, was exactly right.
She was hardly settled yet, since she had workmen in the house still.
They should have been out by now, but Gwenda rightly estimated that un-
til she herself came into residence, they would not go.
The kitchen alterations were finished, the new bathrooms nearly so. For
further decorating Gwenda was going to wait a while. She wanted time to
savour her new home and decide on the exact colour schemes she wanted
for the bedrooms. The house was really in very good order and there was
no need to do everything at once.
In the kitchen a Mrs. Cocker was now installed, a lady of condescending
graciousness, inclined to repulse Gwenda’s over-democratic friendliness,
but who, once Gwenda had been satisfactorily put in her place, was will-
ing to unbend.
On this particular morning, Mrs. Cocker deposited a breakfast tray on
Gwenda’s knees, as she sat up in bed.
“When there’s no gentleman in the house,” Mrs. Cocker affirmed, “a
lady prefers her breakfast in bed.” And Gwenda had bowed to this sup-
posedly English enactment.
“Scrambled this morning,” Mrs. Cocker observed, referring to the eggs.
“You said something about finnan haddock, but you wouldn’t like it in the
bedroom. It leaves a smell. I’m giving it to you for your supper, creamed
on toast.”
“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Cocker.”
Mrs. Cocker smiled graciously and prepared to withdraw.
Gwenda was not occupying the big double bedroom. That could wait un-
til Giles returned. She had chosen instead the end room, the one with the
rounded walls and the bow window. She felt thoroughly at home in it and
happy.
Looking round her now, she exclaimed impulsively: “I do like this
room.”
Mrs. Cocker looked round indulgently.
“It is quaite a naice room, madam, though small. By the bars on the win-
dow I should say it had been the nursery at one time.”
“I never thought of that. Perhaps it has.”
“Ah, well,” said Mrs. Cocker, with implication in her voice, and with-
drew.
“Once we have a gentleman in the house,” she seemed to be saying,
“who knows? A nursery may be needed.”
Gwenda blushed. She looked round the room. A nursery? Yes, it would
be a nice nursery. She began furnishing it in her mind. A big dolls’ house
there against the wall. And low cupboards with toys in them. A fire burn-
ing cheerfully in the grate and a tall guard round it with things airing on
the rail. But not this hideous mustard wall. No, she would have a gay wall-
paper. Something bright and cheerful. Little bunches of poppies alternat-
ing with bunches of cornflowers … Yes, that would be lovely. She’d try and
find a wallpaper like that. She felt sure she had seen one somewhere.
One didn’t need much furniture in the room. There were two built-in
cupboards, but one of them, a corner one, was locked and the key lost. In-
deed the whole thing had been painted over, so that it could not have been
opened for many years. She must get the men to open it up before they
left. As it was, she hadn’t got room for all her clothes.
She felt more at home every day in Hillside. Hearing a throat being pon-
derously cleared and a short dry cough through the open window, she
hurried over her breakfast. Foster, the temperamental jobbing gardener,
who was not always reliable in his promises, must be here today as he had
said he would be.
Gwenda bathed, dressed, put on a tweed skirt and a sweater and hur-
ried out into the garden. Foster was at work outside the drawing room
window. Gwenda’s first action had been to get a path made down through
the rockery at this point. Foster had been recalcitrant, pointing out that
the forsythia would have to go and the weigela, and them there lilacs, but
Gwenda had been adamant, and he was now almost enthusiastic about his
task.
He greeted her with a chuckle.
“Looks like you’re going back to old times, miss.” (He persisted in calling
Gwenda “miss.”)
“Old times? How?”
Foster tapped with his spade.
“I come on the old steps—see, that’s where they went—just as you want
’em now. Then someone planted them over and covered them up.”
“It was very stupid of them,” said Gwenda. “You want a vista down to
the lawn and the sea from the drawing room window.”
Foster was somewhat hazy about a vista—but he gave a cautious and
grudging assent.
“I don’t say, mind you, that it won’t be an improvement … Gives you a
view—and them shrubs made it dark in the drawing room. Still they was
growing a treat—never seen a healthier lot of forsythia. Lilacs isn’t much,
but them wiglers costs money—and mind you—they’re too old to replant.”
“Oh, I know. But this is much, much nicer.”
“Well.” Foster scratched his head. “Maybe it is.”
“It’s right,” said Gwenda, nodding her head. She asked suddenly, “Who
lived here before the Hengraves? They weren’t here very long, were
they?”
“Matter of six years or so. Didn’t belong. Afore them? The Miss El-
worthys. Very churchy folk. Low church. Missions to the heathen. Once
had a black clergyman staying here, they did. Four of ’em there was, and
their brother—but he didn’t get much of a look-in with all those women.
Before them—now let me see, it was Mrs. Findeyson—ah! she was the real
gentry, she was. She belonged. Was living here afore I was born.”
“Did she die here?” asked Gwenda.
“Died out in Egypt or some such place. But they brought her home. She’s
buried up to churchyard. She planted that magnolia and those labi-
urnams. And those pittispores. Fond of shrubs, she was.”
Foster continued: “Weren’t none of those new houses built up along the
hill then. Countrified, it was. No cinema then. And none of them new
shops. Or that there parade on the front!” His tone held the disapproval of
the aged for all innovations. “Changes,” he said with a snort. “Nothing but
changes.”
“I suppose things are bound to change,” said Gwenda. “And after all
there are lots of improvements nowadays, aren’t there?”
“So they say. I ain’t noticed them. Changes!” He gestured towards the
macrocarpa hedge on the left through which the gleam of a building
showed. “Used to be the cottage hospital, that used,” he said. “Nice place
and handy. Then they goes and builds a great place near to a mile out of
town. Twenty minutes’ walk if you want to get there on a visiting day—or
threepence on the bus.” He gestured once more towards the hedge … “It’s
a girls’ school now. Moved in ten years ago. Changes all the time. People
takes a house nowadays and lives in it ten or twelve years and then off
they goes. Restless. What’s the good of that? You can’t do any proper plant-
ing unless you can look well ahead.”
Gwenda looked affectionately at the magnolia.
“Like Mrs. Findeyson,” she said.
“Ah. She was the proper kind. Come here as a bride, she did. Brought up
her children and married them, buried her husband, had her grandchil-
dren down in the summers, and took off in the end when she was nigh on
eighty.”
Foster’s tone held warm approval.
Gwenda went back into the house smiling a little.
She interviewed the workmen, and then returned to the drawing room
where she sat down at the desk and wrote some letters. Amongst the cor-
respondence that remained to be answered was a letter from some cous-
ins of Giles who lived in London. Anytime she wanted to come to London
they begged her to come and stay with them at their house in Chelsea.
Raymond West was a well-known (rather than popular) novelist and his
wife Joan, Gwenda knew, was a painter. It would be fun to go and stay
with them, though probably they would think she was a most terrible Phil-
istine. Neither Giles nor I are a bit highbrow, reflected Gwenda.
A sonorous gong boomed pontifically from the hall. Surrounded by a
great deal of carved and tortured black wood, the gong had been one of
Giles’s aunt’s prized possessions. Mrs. Cocker herself appeared to derive
distinct pleasure from sounding it and always gave full measure. Gwenda
put her hands to her ears and got up.
She walked quickly across the drawing room to the wall by the far win-
dow and then brought herself up short with an exclamation of annoyance.
It was the third time she’d done that. She always seemed to expect to be
able to walk through solid wall into the dining room next door.
She went back across the room and out into the front hall and then
round the angle of the drawing room wall and so along to the dining
room. It was a long way round, and it would be annoying in winter, for
the front hall was draughty and the only central heating was in the draw-
ing room and dining room and two bedrooms upstairs.
I don’t see, thought Gwenda to herself as she sat down at the charming
Sheration dining table which she had just bought at vast expense in lieu of
Aunt Lavender’s massive square mahogany one, I don’t see why I
shouldn’t have a doorway made through from the drawing room to the
dining room. I’ll talk to Mr. Sims about it when he comes this afternoon.
Mr. Sims was the builder and decorator, a persuasive middle-aged man
with a husky voice and a little notebook which he always held at the
ready, to jot down any expensive idea that might occur to his patrons.
Mr. Sims, when consulted, was keenly appreciative.
“Simplest thing in the world, Mrs. Reed—and a great improvement, if I
may say so.”
“Would it be very expensive?” Gwenda was by now a little doubtful of
Mr. Sims’s assents and enthusiasms. There had been a little unpleasant-
ness over various extras not included in Mr. Sims’s original estimate.
“A mere trifle,” said Mr. Sims, his husky voice indulgent and reassuring.
Gwenda looked more doubtful than ever. It was Mr. Sims’s trifles that she
had learnt to distrust. His straightforward estimates were studiously mod-
erate.
“I’ll tell you what, Mrs. Reed,” said Mr. Sims coaxingly, “I’ll get Taylor to
have a look when he’s finished with the dressing room this afternoon, and
then I can give you an exact idea. Depends what the wall’s like.”
Gwenda assented. She wrote to Joan West thanking her for her invita-
tion, but saying that she would not be leaving Dillmouth at present since
she wanted to keep an eye on the workmen. Then she went out for a walk
along the front and enjoyed the sea breeze. She came back into the draw-
ing room, and Taylor, Mr. Sims’s leading workman, straightened up from
the corner and greeted her with a grin.
“Won’t be no difficulty about this, Mrs. Reed,” he said. “Been a door here
before, there has. Somebody as didn’t want it has just had it plastered
over.”
Gwenda was agreeably surprised. How extraordinary, she thought, that
I’ve always seemed to feel there was a door there. She remembered the
confident way she had walked to it at lunchtime. And remembering it,
quite suddenly, she felt a tiny shiver of uneasiness. When you came to
think of it, it was really rather odd … Why should she have felt so sure that
there was a door there? There was no sign of it on the outside wall. How
had she guessed—known—that there was a door just there? Of course it
would be convenient to have a door through to the dining room, but why
had she always gone so unerringly to that one particular spot? Anywhere
on the dividing wall would have done equally well, but she had always
gone automatically, thinking of other things, to the one place where a door
had actually been.
I hope, thought Gwenda uneasily, that I’m not clairvoyant or anything….
There had never been anything in the least psychic about her. She
wasn’t that kind of person. Or was she? That path outside from the terrace
down through the shrubbery to the lawn. Had she in some way known it
was there when she was so insistent on having it made in that particular
place?
Perhaps I am a bit psychic, thought Gwenda uneasily. Or is it something
to do with the house?
Why had she asked Mrs. Hengrave that day if the house was haunted?
It wasn’t haunted! It was a darling house! There couldn’t be anything
wrong with the house. Why, Mrs. Hengrave had seemed quite surprised
by the idea.
Or had there been a trace of reserve, of wariness, in her manner?
Good Heavens, I’m beginning to imagine things, thought Gwenda.
She brought her mind back with an effort to her discussion with Taylor.
“There’s one other thing,” she added. “One of the cupboards in my room
upstairs is stuck. I want to get it opened.”
The man came up with her and examined the door.
“It’s been painted over more than once,” he said. “I’ll get the men to get
it open for you tomorrow if that will do.”
Gwenda acquiesced and Taylor went away.
That evening Gwenda felt jumpy and nervous. Sitting in the drawing
room and trying to read, she was aware of every creak of the furniture.
Once or twice she looked over her shoulder and shivered. She told herself
repeatedly that there was nothing in the incident of the door and the path.
They were just coincidences. In any case they were the result of plain
common sense.
Without admitting it to herself, she felt nervous of going up to bed.
When she finally got up and turned off the lights and opened the door into
the hall, she found herself dreading to go up the stairs. She almost ran up
them in her haste, hurried along the passage and opened the door of her
room. Once inside she at once felt her fears calmed and appeased. She
looked round the room affectionately. She felt safe in here, safe and
happy. Yes, now she was here, she was safe. (Safe from what, you idiot?
she asked herself.) She looked at her pyjamas spread out on the bed and
her bedroom slippers below them.
Really, Gwenda, you might be six years old! You ought to have bunny
shoes, with rabbits on them.
She got into bed with a sense of relief and was soon asleep.
The next morning she had various matters to see to in the town. When
she came back it was lunchtime.
“The men have got the cupboard open in your bedroom, madam,” said
Mrs. Cocker as she brought in the delicately fried sole, the mashed pota-
toes and the creamed carrots.
“Oh good,” said Gwenda.
She was hungry and enjoyed her lunch. After having coffee in the draw-
ing room, she went upstairs to her bedroom. Crossing the room she pulled
open the door of the corner cupboard.
Then she uttered a sudden frightened little cry and stood staring.
The inside of the cupboard revealed the original papering of the wall,
which elsewhere had been done over in the yellowish wall paint. The
room had once been gaily papered in a floral design, a design of little
bunches of scarlet poppies alternating with bunches of blue corn-
flowers….
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