By the Pricking of My Thumbs. Agatha Christie
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went in search of Miss Packard. Tommy explained that they would arrange for the desk and the small work-table to be called for and despatched to their own address and that he would arrange with the local auctioneers to dispose of the rest of the furniture. He would leave the choice of any societies willing to receive clothing to Miss Packard if she wouldn’t mind the trouble.
‘I don’t know if there’s anyone here who would like her sable stole,’ said Tuppence. ‘It’s a very nice one. One of her special friends, perhaps? Or perhaps one of the nurses who had done some special waiting on Aunt Ada?’
‘That is a very kind thought of yours, Mrs Beresford. I’m afraid Miss Fanshawe hadn’t any special friends among our visitors, but Miss O’Keefe, one of the nurses, did do a lot for her and was especially good and tactful, and I think she’d be pleased and honoured to have it.’
‘And there’s the picture over the mantelpiece,’ said Tuppence. ‘I’d like to have that—but perhaps the person whom it belonged to, and who gave it to her, would want to have it back. I think we ought to ask her—?’
Miss Packard interrupted. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs Beresford, I’m afraid we can’t do that. It was a Mrs Lancaster who gave it to Miss Fanshawe and she isn’t with us any longer.’
‘Isn’t with you?’ said Tuppence, surprised. ‘A Mrs Lancaster? The one I saw last time I was here—with white hair brushed back from her face. She was drinking milk in the sitting-room downstairs. She’s gone away, you say?’
‘Yes. It was all rather sudden. One of her relations, a Mrs Johnson, took her away about a week ago. Mrs Johnson had returned from Africa where she’s been living for the last four or five years—quite unexpectedly. She is now able to take care of Mrs Lancaster in her own home, since she and her husband are taking a house in England. I don’t think,’ said Miss Packard, ‘that Mrs Lancaster really wanted to leave us. She had become so—set in her ways here, and she got on very well with everyone and was happy. She was very disturbed, quite tearful about it—but what can one do? She hadn’t really very much say in the matter, because of course the Johnsons were paying for her stay here. I did suggest that as she had been here so long and settled down so well, it might be advisable to let her remain—’
‘How long had Mrs Lancaster been with you? asked Tuppence.
‘Oh, nearly six years, I think. Yes, that’s about it. That’s why, of course, she’d really come to feel that this was her home.’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence. ‘Yes, I can understand that.’ She frowned and gave a nervous glance at Tommy and then stuck a resolute chin into the air.
‘I’m sorry she’s left. I had a feeling when I was talking to her that I’d met her before—her face seemed familiar to me. And then afterwards it came back to me that I’d met her with an old friend of mine, a Mrs Blenkinsop. I thought when I came back here again to visit Aunt Ada, that I’d find out from her if that was so. But of course if she’s gone back to her own people, that’s different.’
‘I quite understand, Mrs Beresford. If any of our visitors can get in touch with some of their old friends or someone who knew their relations at one time, it makes a great difference to them. I can’t remember a Mrs Blenkinsop ever having been mentioned by her, but then I don’t suppose that would be likely to happen in any case.’
‘Can you tell me a little more about her, who her relations were, and how she came to come here?’
‘There’s really very little to tell. As I said, it was about six years ago that we had letters from Mrs Johnson inquiring about the Home, and then Mrs Johnson herself came here and inspected it. She said she’d had mentions of Sunny Ridge from a friend and she inquired the terms and all that and—then she went away. And about a week or a fortnight later we had a letter from a firm of solicitors in London making further inquiries, and finally they wrote saying that they would like us to accept Mrs Lancaster and that Mrs Johnson would bring her here in about a week’s time if we had a vacancy. As it happened, we had, and Mrs Johnson brought Mrs Lancaster here and Mrs Lancaster seemed to like the place and liked the room that we proposed to allot her. Mrs Johnson said that Mrs Lancaster would like to bring some of her own things. I quite agreed, because people usually do that and find they’re much happier. So it was all arranged very satisfactorily. Mrs Johnson explained that Mrs Lancaster was a relation of her husband’s, not a very near one, but that they felt worried about her because they themselves were going out to Africa—to Nigeria I think it was, her husband was taking up an appointment there and it was likely they’d be there for some years before they returned to England, so as they had no home to offer Mrs Lancaster, they wanted to make sure that she was accepted in a place where she would be really happy. They were quite sure from what they’d heard about this place that that was so. So it was all arranged very happily indeed and Mrs Lancaster settled down here very well.’
‘I see.’
‘Everyone here liked Mrs Lancaster very much. She was a little bit—well, you know what I mean—woolly in the head. I mean, she forgot things, confused things and couldn’t remember names and addresses sometimes.’
‘Did she get many letters?’ said Tuppence. ‘I mean letters from abroad and things?’
‘Well, I think Mrs Johnson—or Mr Johnson—wrote once or twice from Africa but not after the first year. People, I’m afraid, do forget, you know. Especially when they go to a new country and a different life, and I don’t think they’d been very closely in touch with her at any time. I think it was just a distant relation, and a family responsibility, and that was all it meant to them. All the financial arrangements were done through the lawyer, Mr Eccles, a very nice, reputable firm. Actually we’d had one or two dealings with that firm before so that we new about them, as they knew about us. But I think most of Mrs Lancaster’s friends and relations had passed over and so she didn’t hear much from anyone, and I think hardly anyone ever came to visit her. One very nice-looking man came about a year later, I think. I don’t think he knew her personally at all well but he was a friend of Mr Johnson’s and had also been in the Colonial service overseas. I think he just came to make sure she was well and happy.’
‘And after that,’ said Tuppence, ‘everyone forgot about her.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Miss Packard. ‘It’s sad, isn’t it? But it’s the usual rather than the unusual thing to happen. Fortunately, most visitors to us make their own friends here. They get friendly with someone who has their own tastes or certain memories in common, and so things settle down quite happily. I think most of them forget most of their past life.’
‘Some of them, I suppose,’ said Tommy, ‘are a little—’ he hesitated for a word ‘—a little—’ his hand went slowly to his forehead, but he drew it away. ‘I don’t mean—’ he said.
‘Oh, I know perfectly what you mean,’ said Miss Packard. ‘We don’t take mental patients, you know, but we do take what you might call borderline cases. I mean, people who are rather senile—can’t look after themselves properly, or who have certain fancies and imaginations. Sometimes they imagine themselves to be historical personages. Quite in a harmless way. We’ve had two Marie Antoinettes here, one of them was always talking about something called the Petit Trianon and drinking a lot of milk which she seemed to associate with the place. And we had one dear old soul who insisted that she was Madame Curie and that she had discovered radium. She used to read the papers with great interest, especially any news of atomic bombs or scientific discoveries. Then she always explained it was she and her husband who had first started experiments on these lines. Harmless delusions are things that manage to keep you very happy when you’re elderly. They don’t usually last all the time, you know. You’re not Marie Antoinette every day or even Madame Curie. Usually it comes on about once a fortnight. Then I suppose presumably one gets tired of keeping the play-acting up. And of course more often it’s just forgetfulness that people suffer from. They can’t quite remember who they are. Or they keep saying there’s something very important they’ve forgotten and if they could only remember it. That sort of thing.’