While the Lights Last by Agatha Christie

Author:Agatha Christie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Deirdre was very silent during the drive home. Sheltering behind the fiction of a ‘touch of the sun’, she deliberated on her course of action. How should she tell him? How would he take it? A strange lassitude seemed to possess her, and a growing desire to postpone the revelation as long as might be. Tomorrow would be soon enough. There would be plenty of time before three o’clock.

The hotel was uncomfortable. Their room was on the ground floor, looking out on to an inner court. Deirdre stood that evening sniffing the stale air and glancing distastefully at the tawdry furniture. Her mind flew to the easy luxury of Monkton Court amidst the Surrey pinewoods. When her maid left her at last, she went slowly to her jewel case. In the palm of her hand the golden diamond returned her stare.

With an almost violent gesture she returned it to the case and slammed down the lid. Tomorrow morning she would tell George.

She slept badly. It was stifling beneath the heavy folds of the mosquito netting. The throbbing darkness was punctuated by the ubiquitous ping she had learnt to dread. She awoke white and listless. Impossible to start a scene so early in the day!

She lay in the small, close room all the morning, resting. Lunchtime came upon her with a sense of shock. As they sat drinking coffee, George Crozier proposed a drive to the Matopos.

‘Plenty of time if we start at once.’

Deirdre shook her head, pleading a headache, and she thought to herself: ‘That settles it. I can’t rush the thing. After all, what does a day more or less matter? I’ll explain to Tim.’

She waved goodbye to Crozier as he rattled off in the battered Ford. Then, glancing at her watch, she walked slowly to the meeting place.

The Café was deserted at this hour. They sat down at a little table and ordered the inevitable tea that South Africa drinks at all hours of the day and night. Neither of them said a word till the waitress brought it and withdrew to her fastness behind some pink curtains. Then Deirdre looked up and started as she met the intense watchfulness in his eyes.

‘Deirdre, have you told him?’

She shook her head, moistening her lips, seeking for words that would not come.

‘Why not?’

‘I haven’t had a chance; there hasn’t been time.’

Even to herself the words sounded halting and unconvincing.

‘It’s not that. There’s something else. I suspected it yesterday. I’m sure of it today. Deirdre, what is it?’

She shook her head dumbly.

‘There’s some reason why you don’t want to leave George Crozier, why you don’t want to come back to me. What is it?’

It was true. As he said it she knew it, knew it with sudden scorching shame, but knew it beyond any possibility of doubt. And still his eyes searched her.

‘It isn’t that you love him! You don’t. But there’s something.’

She thought: ‘In another moment he’ll see! Oh, God, don’t let him!’

Suddenly his face whitened.

‘Deirdre – is it – is it that there’s going to be a – child?’

In a flash she saw the chance he offered her.

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