My own marriage had been unbelievably happy and successful, and I am essentially an old-fashioned person, yet I was on the side of divorce - of cutting one's losses and starting afresh. Boyd Carrington, whose marriage had been unhappy, yet held for an indissoluble marriage bond. He had, he said, the utmost reverence for the institution of marriage. It was the foundation of the state.
Norton, with no ties and no personal angle, was of my way of thinking. Franklin, the modern scientific thinker, was, strangely enough, resolutely opposed to divorce. It offended, apparently, his ideal of clear-cut thinking and action. One assumed certain responsibilities. Those must be carried through and not shirked or set aside. A contract, he said, is a contract. One enters upon it of one's own free will, and must abide by it. Anything else resulted in what he called a mess. Loose ends, half-dissolved ties.
Leaning back in his chair, his long legs kicking vaguely at a table, he said:
"A man chooses his wife. She's his responsibility until she dies - or he does."
Norton said rather comically:
"And sometimes - oh, blessed death, eh?"
We laughed, and Boyd Carrington said:
"You needn't talk, my lad; you've never been married."
Shaking his head, Norton said:
"And now I've left it too late."
"Have you?" Boyd Carrington's glance was quizzical. "Sure of that?"
It was just at that moment that Elizabeth Cole joined us. She had been up with Mrs Franklin.
I wondered if it was my fancy, or did Boyd Carrington look meaningly from her to Norton, and was it possible that Norton blushed?
It put a new idea into my head and I looked searchingly at Elizabeth Cole. It was true that she was still a comparatively young woman. Moreover, she e one. In fact a very charming and sympathetic person who was capable of making any man happy. And she and Norton had spent a good deal of time together of late. In their hunts for wild flowers and birds, they had become friends; I remembered how she had spoken of Norton being such a kind person.
Well, if so, I was glad for her sake. Her starved and barren girlhood would not stand in the way of her ultimate happiness. The tragedy that had shattered her life would not have been enacted in vain. I thought, looking at her, that she certainly looked much happier and - yes, gayer, than when I had first come to Styles.
Elizabeth Cole and Norton - yes, it might be. And suddenly, from nowhere, a vague feeling of uneasiness and disquiet assailed me. It was not safe - it was not right - to plan happiness here. There was something malignant about the air of Styles. I felt it now - this minute. Felt suddenly old and tired - yes, and afraid.
A minute later the feeling had passed. Nobody had noticed it, I think, except Boyd Carrington. He said to me in an undertone a few minutes later:
"Anything the matter, Hastings?"
"No, why?"
"Well - you looked - I can't quite explain it."
"Just a feeling - apprehension."
"A premonition of evil?"
"Yes, if you like to put it that way. A feeling that - that something was going to happen."
"Funny. I've felt that once or twice. Any idea what?"
He was watching me narrowly.
I shook my head. For indeed I had had no definite apprehension of any particular thing. It had only been a wave of deep depression and fear.
Then Judith had come out of the house. She had come slowly, her head held high, her lips pressed together, her face grave and beautiful.
I thought how unlike she was to either me or Cinders. She looked like some young priestess. Norton felt something of that too. He said to her:
"You look like your namesake might have looked before she cut off the head of Holofernes."
Judith smiled and raised her eyebrows a little.
"I can't remember now why she wanted to."
"Oh, strictly on the highest moral grounds for the good of the community!"
The light banter in his tones annoyed Judith. She flushed and went past him to sit by Franklin. She said:
"Mrs Franklin is feeling much better. She wants us all to come up and have coffee with her this evening."
IV
Mrs Franklin was certainly a creature of moods I thought as we trooped upstairs after dinner. Having made everyone's life unbearable all day, she was now sweetness itself to everybody.
She was dressed in a negligee of pale eau-de-Nil and was lying on her chaise longue. Beside her was a small revolving bookcase-table with the coffee apparatus set out. Her fingers, deft and white, dealt with the ritual of coffee making with some slight aid from Nurse Craven. We were all there with the exception of Poirot, who always retired before dinner; Allerton, who had not returned from Ipswich; and Mrs and Colonel Luttrell, who had remained downstairs.
The aroma of coffee came to our noses - a delicious smell. The coffee at Styles was an uninteresting muddy fluid, so we all looked forward to Mrs Franklin's brew with freshly ground berries.
Franklin sat on the other side of the table handing the cups as she filled them. Boyd Carrington stood by the foot of the sofa. Elizabeth Cole and Norton were by the window. Nurse Craven had retired to the background by the head of the bed. I was sitting in an armchair wrestling with the Times crossword and reading out the clues.
"Even love - or third party risk?" I read out. "Eight letters."
"Probably an anagram," said Franklin.
We thought for a minute. I went on:
"The chaps between the hills are unkind."
"Tormentor," said Boyd Carrington quickly.
"Quotation: 'And Echo whate'er is asked her answers -' blank. Tennyson. Five letters."
"Where," suggested Mrs Franklin. "Surely that's right. 'And Echo answers where'?"
I was doubtful.
"It would make a word end in 'w.'"
"Well, lots of words end in 'w.' How and now and snow."
Elizabeth Cole said from the window:
