The Moving Finger. Agatha Christie
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do when she gets a hole in her stocking?’
‘I rather think,’ I said reluctantly, ‘that she throws them away and buys another pair.’
‘Very sensible,’ said Megan. ‘But I can’t do that. I get an allowance now—forty pounds a year. You can’t do much on that.’
I agreed.
‘If only I wore black stockings, I could ink my legs,’ said Megan sadly. ‘That’s what I always did at school. Miss Batworthy, the mistress who looked after our mending was like her name—blind as a bat. It was awfully useful.’
‘It must have been,’ I said.
We were silent while I smoked my pipe. It was quite a companionable silence.
Megan broke it by saying suddenly and violently:
‘I suppose you think I’m awful, like everyone else?’
I was so startled that my pipe fell out of my mouth. It was a meerschaum, just colouring nicely, and it broke. I said angrily to Megan:
‘Now, see what you’ve done.’
That most unaccountable of children, instead of being upset, merely grinned broadly.
‘I do like you,’ she said.
It was a most warming remark. It is the remark that one fancies perhaps erroneously that one’s dog would say if he could talk. It occurred to me that Megan, for all she looked like a horse, had the disposition of a dog. She was certainly not quite human.
‘What did you say before the catastrophe?’ I asked, carefully picking up the fragments of my cherished pipe.
‘I said I supposed you thought me awful,’ said Megan, but not at all in the same tone she had said it before.
‘Why should I?’
Megan said gravely:
‘Because I am.’
I said sharply:
‘Don’t be stupid.’
Megan shook her head.
‘That’s just it. I’m not really stupid. People think I am. They don’t know that inside I know just what they’re like, and that all the time I’m hating them.’
‘Hating them?’
‘Yes,’ said Megan.
Her eyes, those melancholy, unchildlike eyes, stared straight into mine, without blinking. It was a long mournful gaze.
‘You would hate people if you were like me,’ she said. ‘If you weren’t wanted.’
‘Don’t you think you’re being rather morbid?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said Megan. ‘That’s what people always say when you’re saying the truth. And it is true. I’m not wanted and I can quite see why. Mummie doesn’t like me a bit. I remind her, I think, of my father, who was cruel to her and pretty dreadful from all I can hear. Only mothers can’t say they don’t want their children and just go away. Or eat them. Cats eat the kittens they don’t like. Awfully sensible, I think. No waste or mess. But human mothers have to keep their children, and look after them. It hasn’t been so bad while I could be sent away to school—but you see, what Mummie would really like is to be just herself and my stepfather and the boys.’
I said slowly:
‘I still think you’re morbid, Megan, but accepting some of what you say as true, why don’t you go away and have a life of your own?’
She gave me an unchildlike smile.
‘You mean take up a career. Earn my living?’
‘Yes.’
‘What at?’
‘You could train for something, I suppose. Shorthand typing—book-keeping.’
‘I don’t believe I could. I am stupid about doing things. And besides—’
‘Well?’
She had turned her face away, now she turned it slowly back again. It was crimson and there were tears in her eyes. She spoke now with all the childishness back in her voice.
‘Why should I go away? And be made to go away? They don’t want me, but I’ll stay. I’ll stay and make everyone sorry. I’ll make them all sorry. Hateful pigs! I hate everyone here in Lymstock. They all think I’m stupid and ugly. I’ll show them. I’ll show them. I’ll—’
It was a childish, oddly pathetic rage.
I heard a step on the gravel round the corner of the house.
‘Get up,’ I said savagely. ‘Go into the house through the drawing-room. Go up to the first floor to the bathroom. End of the passage. Wash your face. Quick.’
She sprang awkwardly to her feet and darted through the window as Joanna came round the corner of the house.
‘Gosh, I’m hot,’ she called out. She sat down beside me and fanned her face with the Tyrolean scarf that had been round her head. ‘Still I think I’m educating these damned brogues now. I’ve walked miles. I’ve learnt one thing, you shouldn’t have these fancy holes in your brogues. The gorse prickles go through. Do you know, Jerry, I think we ought to have a dog?’
‘So do I,’ I said. ‘By the way, Megan is coming to lunch.’
‘Is she? Good.’
‘You like her?’ I asked.
‘I think she’s a changeling,’ said Joanna. ‘Something left on a doorstep, you know, while the fairies take the right one away. It’s very interesting to meet a changeling. Oof, I must go up and wash.’
‘You can’t yet,’ I said, ‘Megan is washing.’
‘Oh, she’s been foot-slogging too, has she?’
Joanna took out her mirror and looked at her face long and earnestly. ‘I don’t think I like this lipstick,’ she announced presently.
Megan came out through the window. She was composed, moderately clean, and showed no signs of the recent storm. She looked doubtfully at Joanna.
‘Hallo,’ said Joanna, still preoccupied by her face. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come to lunch. Good gracious, I’ve got a freckle on my nose. I must do something about it. Freckles are so earnest and Scottish.’
Partridge came out and said coldly that luncheon was served.
‘Come on,’ said Joanna, getting up. ‘I’m starving.’
She put her arm through Megan’s and they went into the house together.
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