A Murder Is Announced (mm-5) by Agatha Christie

Author:Agatha Christie [Christie, Agatha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: det_classic
ISBN: ISBN-10: 1579126294
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Published: 2006-10-24T04:00:00+00:00

‘With Patrick, do you mean? Oh, I don’t-’

‘No, I meant a young man with spectacles. I’ve seen him about.’

‘Oh, of course, Edmund Swettenham. Sh! That’s his mother, Mrs Swettenham, over in the corner. I don’t know, I’m sure. You think he admires her? He’s such an odd young man-says the most disturbing things sometimes. He’s supposed to beclever, you know,’ said Miss Bunner with frank disapproval.

‘Cleverness isn’t everything,’ said Miss Marple, shaking her head. ‘Ah, here is our coffee.’

The sulky girl deposited it with a clatter. Miss Marple and Miss Bunner pressed cakes on each other.

‘I was so interested to hear you were at school with Miss Blacklock. Yours is indeed an old friendship.’

‘Yes, indeed.’ Miss Bunner sighed. ‘Very few people would be as loyal to their old friends as dear Miss Blacklock is. Oh, dear, those days seem a long time ago. Such a pretty girl and enjoyed life so much. It all seemed sosad.’

Miss Marple, though with no idea of what had seemed so sad, sighed and shook her head.

‘Life is indeed hard,’ she murmured.

‘And sad affliction bravely borne,’ murmured Miss Bunner, her eyes suffusing with tears. ‘I always think of that verse. True patience; true resignation. Such courage and patienceought to be rewarded, that is what I say. What I feel is thatnothing is too good for dear Miss Blacklock, and whatever good things come to her, she trulydeserves them.’

‘Money,’ said Miss Marple, ‘can do a lot to ease one’s path in life.’

She felt herself safe in this observation since she judged that it must be Miss Blacklock’s prospects of future affluence to which her friend referred.

The remark, however, started Miss Bunner on another train of thought.

‘Money!’ she exclaimed with bitterness. ‘I don’t believe, you know, that until one has really experienced it, one can know what money, or rather the lack of it,means.’

Miss Marple nodded her white head sympathetically.

Miss Bunner went on rapidly, working herself up, and speaking with a flushed face:

‘I’ve heard people say so often “I’d rather have flowers on the table than a meal without them.” But how many meals have those people ever missed? They don’t know what it is-nobody knows who hasn’t been through it-to be reallyhungry. Bread, you know, and a jar of meat paste, and a scrape of margarine. Day after day, and how one longs for a good plate of meat and two vegetables. And theshabbiness. Darning one’s clothes and hoping it won’t show. And applying for jobs and always being told you’re too old. And then perhaps getting a job and after all one isn’t strong enough. One faints. And you’re back again. It’s therent -always therent -that’sgot to be paid-otherwise you’re out in the street. And in these days it leaves so little over. One’s old age pension doesn’t go far-indeed it doesn’t.’

‘I know,’ said Miss Marple gently. She looked with compassion at Miss Bunner’s twitching face.

‘I wrote to Letty. I just happened to see her name in the paper. It was a luncheon in aid of Milchester Hospital.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.