They turned in through some imposing gates where a Commissionaire was standing on duty in a military manner and drove up a drive flanked with rhododen-drons.
The drive was badly kept and the grounds seemed neglected.
Interpreting her companion's glance, Gina said, 'No gardeners during the war, and since we haven't bothered.
But it does look rather terrible.'
They came round a curve and Stonygates appeared in its full gloryl It was, as Gina had said, a vast edifice of Victorian Gothic - a kind of temple to Plutocracy.
Philanthropy had added to it in various wings and out-buildings which, while not positively dissimilar in style, had robbed the structure as a whole of any cohesion or purpose.
'Hideous, isn't it?' said Gina affectionately. 'There's Grandam on the terrace. I'll stop here and you can go and meet her.'
Miss Marple advanced along the terrace towards her old friend.
From a distance, the slim little figure looked curiously girlish in spite of the stick on which she leaned and her slow and obviously rather painful progress. It was as though a young girl was giving an exaggerated imitation of old age.
'Jane,' said Mrs Serrocold.
'Dear Carrie Louise.'
Yes, unmistakably Carrie Louise. Strangely unchanged, strangely youthful still, although, unlike her sister, she used no cosmetics or artificial aids to youth.
Her hair was grey, but it had always been of a silvery fairness and the colour had changed very little. Her skin had still a rose leaf pink and white appearance, though now it was a crumpled rose leaf. Her eyes had still their starry innocent glance. She had the slender youthful figure of a girl and her head kept its eager birdlike tilt.
'I do blame myself,' said Carrie Louise in her sweet voice, 'for letting it be so long. Years since I saw you, Jane dear. It's just lovely that you've come at last to pay us a visit here.' From the end of the terrace Gina called: 'You ought to come in, Grandam. It's getting cold and Jolly will be furious.' Carrie Louise gave her little silvery laugh.
'They all fuss about me so,' she said. 'They rub it in that I'm an old woman.' 'And you don't feel like one.' 'No, I don't, Jane. In spite of all my aches and pains and I've got plenty. Inside I go on feeling just a chit like Gina. Perhaps everyone does. The glass shows them how old they are and they just don't believe it. It seems only a few months ago that we were at Florence. Do you remember Fraulein Schweich and her boots?' The two elderly women laughed together at events that had happened nearly half a century ago.
They walked together to a side door. In the doorway a gaunt elderly lady met them. She had an arrogant nose, a short haircut and wore stout well-cut tweeds.
She said fiercely: 'It's absolutely crazy of you, Cara, to stay out so late.
You're absolutely incapable of taking care of yourself.
What will Mr Serrocold say?'
'Don't scold me, Jolly,' said Carrie Louise pleadingly.
She introduced Miss Believer to Miss Marple.
'This is Miss Bellever, who is simply everything to me.
Nurse, dragon, watchdog, secretary, housekeeper and very faithful friend.' Juliet Bellever sniffed, and the end of her big nose turned rather pink, a sign of emotion.
'I do what I can,' she said gruffly. 'This is a crazy household. You simply can't arrange any kind of planned routine.' 'Darling Jolly, of course you can't. I wonder why you ever try. Where are you putting Miss Marple?' 'In the Blue Room. Shall I take her up?' asked Miss Believer.
'Yes, please do, Jolly. And then bring her down to tea.
It's in the library today, I think.' The Blue Room had heavy curtains of a rich faded blue brocade that must have been, Miss Marple thought, about fifty years old. The furniture was mahogany, big and solid, and the bed was a vast mahogany fourposter.
Miss Bellever opened a door into a connecting bathroom.
This was unexpectedly modern, orchid in colouring and with much dazzling chromium.
She observed grimly: 'John Restarick had ten bathrooms put into the house when he married Cara. The plumbing is about the only thing that's ever been modernized. He wouldn't hear of the rest being altered - said the whole place was a perfect Period Piece. Did you ever know him at all?' 'No, I never met him. Mrs Serrocold and I have met very seldom though we have always corresponded.' 'He was an agreeable fellow,' said Miss Believer. 'No good, of course! A complete rotter. But pleasant to have about the house. Great charm. Women liked him far too much. That was his undoing in the end. Not really Cara's type.'
She added with a brusque resumption of her practical manner:
'The housemaid will unpack for you. Do you want a wash before tea?'
Receiving an affirmative answer, she said that Miss Marple would find her waiting at the top of the stairs.
Miss Marple went into the bathroom and washed her hands and dried them a little nervously on a very beautiful orchid-coloured face towel. Then she removed her hat and patted her soft white hair into place.
Opening her door, she found Miss Bellever waiting for her, and was conducted down the big gloomy staircase and across a vast dark hall and into a room where bookshelves went up to the ceiling and a big window looked out over an artificial lake.
Carrie Louise was standing by the window and Miss Marple joined her.
'What a very imposing house this is,' said Miss Marple. 'I feel quite lost in it.'
'Yes, I know. It's ridiculous, really. It was built by a prosperous iron master - or something of that kind. He went bankrupt not long after. I don't wonder really.
There were about fourteen living-rooms - all enormous.
I've never seen what people can want with more than one sitting-room. And all those huge bedrooms. Such a lot of unnecessary space. Mine is terribly overpowering - and quite a long way to walk from the bed to the dressing table. And great heavy dark crimson curtains.'
'You haven't had it modernized and redecorated?' Carrie Louise looked vaguely surprised.
'No. On the whole it's very much as it was when I first lived here with Eric. It's been repainted, of course, but they always do it the same colour. Those things don't really matter, do they? I mean I shouldn't have felt justified in spending a lot of money on that kind of thing when there are so many things that are so much more important.'
'Have there been no changes at all in the house?, 'Oh - yes - heaps of them. We've just kept a kind of block in the middle of the house as it was - the Great Hall and the rooms off and over. They're the best ones and Johnnie - my second husband - was lyrical over them and said they should never be touched or altered - and of course he was an artist and a designer and he knew about these things. But the East and West wings have been completely remodelled. All the rooms partitioned off and divided up, so that we have offices, and bedrooms for the teaching staff, and all that. The boys are all in the College building - you can see it from here.'
Miss Marple looked out towards where large red brick buildings showed through a belt of sheltered trees. Then her eyes fell on something nearer at hand, and she smiled a little.
'What a very beautiful girl Gina is,' she said.
Carrie Louise's face lit up.
'Yes, isn't she?' she said softly. 'It's so lovely to have her back here again. I sent her to America at the beginning of the war - to Ruth. Did Ruth talk about her at all?'
'No. At least she did just mention her.'
Carrie Louise sighed.
'Poor Ruth! She was frightfully upset over Gina's marriage. But I've told her again and again that I don't blame her in the least. Ruth doesn't realize, as I do, that the old barriers and class shibboleths are gone - or at any rate are going.
'Gina was doing her war work- and she met this young man. He was a Marine and had a very good war record.
And a week later they were married. It was all far too quick, of course, no time to find out if they were really suited to each other - but that's the way of things nowadays. Young people belong to their generation. We may think they're unwise in many of their doings, but we have to accept their decisions. Ruth, though, was terribly upset.'
'She didn't consider the young man suitable?'
'She kept saying that one didn't know anything about him. He came from the Middle West and he hadn't any money - and naturally no profession. There are hundreds of boys like that everywhere - but it wasn't Ruth's idea of what was right for Gina. However, the thing was done. I was so glad when Gina accepted my invitation to come over here with her husband. There's so much going on here - jobs of every kind, and if Walter wants to specialize in medicine or get a degree or anything he could do it in this country. After all, this is Gina's home. It's delightful to have her back, to have someone so warm and gay and alive in the house.'
Miss Marple nodded and looked out of the window again at the two young people standing near the lake.
'They're a remarkably handsome couple, tOO,' she said.
'I don't wonder Gina fell in love with him!'
'Oh, but that - that isn't Wally.' There was, quite suddenly, a touch of embarrassment, or restraint, in Mrs Serrocold's voice. 'That's Steve - the younger of Johnnie Restarick's two boys. When Johnnie - when he went away, he'd no place for the boys in the holidays, so I always had them here. They look on this as their home.
And Steve's here permanently now. He runs our dramatic branch. We have a theatre, you know, and plays we encourage all the artistic instincts. Lewis says that so much of this juvenile crime is due to exhibitionism, most of the boys have had such a thwarted unhappy home life, and these hold-ups and burglaries make them feel heroes.
We urge them to write their own plays and act in them and design and paint their own scenery. Steve is in charge of the theatre. He's so keen and enthusiastic. It's wonderful what life he's put into the whole thing.' 'I see,' said Miss Marple slowly.
Her long-distance sight was good (as many of her neighbours knew to their cost in the village of St Mary Mead) and she saw very clearly the dark handsome face of Stephen Restarick as he stood facing Gina, talking eagerly. Gina's face she could not see, since the girl had her back to them, but there was no mistaking the expression in Stephen Restarick's face.
'It isn't any business of mine,' said Miss Marple, 'but I suppose you realize, Carrie Louise, that he's in love with her.' 'Oh no -' Carrie Louise looked troubled. 'Oh no, I do hope not.' 'You were always up in the clouds, Carrie Louise.
There's not the least doubt about it.'
Chapter 4
Before Mrs Serrocold could say anything, her husband came in from the hall carrying some open letters in his hand.
Lewis Serrocold was a short man, not particularly impressive in appearance, but with a personality that immediately marked him out. Ruth had once said of him that he was more like a dynamo than a human being. He usually concentrated entirely on what was immediately occupying his attention and paid no attention to the objects or persons who were surrounding them.
'A bad blow, dearest,' he said. 'That boy, Jackie Flint.
Back at his tricks again. And I really did think he meant to go straight this time if he got a proper chance. He was most earnest about it. You know we found he'd always been keen on railways - and both Maverick and I thought that if he got a job on the railways he'd stick to it and make good. But it's the same story. Petty thieving from the parcels office. Not even stuff he could want or sell. That shows that it must be psychological. We haven't really got to the root of the trouble. But I'm not giving up.' 'Lewis - this is my old friend, Jane Marple.' 'Oh how d'you do,' said Mr Serrocold absently. 'So glad - they'll prosecute, of course. A nice lad, too, not too many brains, but a really nice boy. Unspeakable home he came from. I ' He suddenly broke off, and the dynamo was switched on to the guest.
'Why, Miss Marple, I'm so delighted you've come to stay with us for a while. It will make such a great difference to Caroline to have a friend of old days with whom she can exchange memories. She has in many ways a grim time here - so much sadness in the stories of these poor children. We do hope you'll stay with us a very long time.' Miss Marple felt the magnetism and realized how attractive it would have been to her friend. That Lewis Serrocold was a man who would always put causes before people she did not doubt for a moment. It might have irritated some women, but not Carrie Louise.
Lewis Serrocold sorted out another letter.
'At any rate we've some good news. This is from the Wiltshire and Somerset Bank. Young Morris is doing extremely well. They're thoroughly satisfied with him and in fact are promoting him next month. I always knew that all he needed was responsibility - that, and a thorough grasp of the handling of money and what it means.' He turned to Miss Marple.
'Half these boys don't know what money is. It represents to them going to the pictures or to the dogs, or buying cigarettes - and they're clever with figures and find it exciting to juggle them round. Well, I believe in what shall I say? - rubbing their noses in the stuff- train them in accountancy, in figures - show them the whole inner romance of money, so to speak. Give them skill and then responsibility - let them handle it officially. Our greatest successes have been that way - only two out of thirty-eight have let us down. One's head cashier in a firm of druggists - a really responsible position ' He broke off to say: 'Tea's in, dearest,' to his Wife.
'I thought we were having it here. I told Jolly.' 'No, it's in the Hall. The others are there.' 'I thought they were all going to be out.'
Carrie Louise linked her arm through Miss Marple's and they went into the Great Hall. Tea seemed a rather incongruous meal in its surroundings. The tea things were piled haphazard on a tray - white utility cups mixed with the remnants of what had been Rockingham and Spode tea services. There was a loaf of bread, two pots of jam, and some cheap and unwholesome-looking cakes.
A plump middle-aged woman with grey hair sat behind the tea table and Mrs Serrocold said:
'This is Mildred, Jane. My daughter Mildred. You haven't seen her since she was a tiny girl.'
Mildred Strete was the person most in tune with the house that Miss Marple had so far seen. She looked prosperous and dignified. She had married late in her thirties a Canon of the Church of England and was now a widow. She looked exactly like a Canon's widow, respectable and slightly dull. She was a plain woman with a large unexpressive face and dull eyes. She had been, Miss Marple reflected, a very plain little girl.
'And this is Wally Hudd - Gina's husband.'
Wally was a big young man with hair brushed up on his head and a sulky expression. He nodded awkwardly and went on cramming cake into his mouth.
Presently Gina came in with Stephen Restarick. They were both very animated.
'Gina's got a wonderful idea for that backcloth,' said Stephen. 'You know, Gina, you've got a very definite flair for theatrical designing.'
Gina laughed and looked pleased. Edgar Lawson came in and sat down by Lewis Serrocold. When Gina spoke to him, he made a pretence of not answering.
Miss Marple found it all a little bewildering and was glad to go to her room and lie down after tea.
There were more people still at dinner, a young Dr Maverick who was either a psychiatrist or a psychologist - Miss Marple was rather hazy about the difference - and whose conversation, dealing almost entirely with the jargon of his trade, was practically unintelligible to her.