Taken At The Flood. Агата Кристи

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       CHAPTER 4

      Aunt Kathie’s parties were always much the same. They had a rather breathless amateurish quality about them characteristic of the hostess. Dr Cloade had an air of holding irritability in check with difficulty. He was invariably courteous to his guests—but they were conscious of his courtesy being an effort.

      In appearance Lionel Cloade was not unlike his brother Jeremy. He was spare and grey-haired—but he had not the lawyer’s imperturbability. His manner was brusque and impatient—and his nervous irritability had affronted many of his patients and blinded them to his actual skill and kindliness. His real interests lay in research and his hobby was the use of medicinal herbs throughout history. He had a precise intellect and found it hard to be patient with his wife’s vagaries.

      Though Lynn and Rowley always called Mrs Jeremy Cloade ‘Frances,’ Mrs Lionel Cloade was invariably ‘Aunt Kathie.’ They were fond of her but found her rather ridiculous.

      This ‘party’, arranged ostensibly to celebrate Lynn’s home-coming, was merely a family affair.

      Aunt Kathie greeted her niece affectionately:

      ‘So nice and brown you look, my dear. Egypt, I suppose. Did you read the book on the Pyramid prophecies I sent you? So interesting. Really explains everything, don’t you think?’

      Lynn was saved from replying by the entrance of Mrs Gordon Cloade and her brother David.

      ‘This is my niece, Lynn Marchmont, Rosaleen.’

      Lynn looked at Gordon Cloade’s widow with decorously veiled curiosity.

      Yes, she was lovely, this girl who had married old Gordon Cloade for his money. And it was true what Rowley had said, that she had an air of innocence. Black hair, set in loose waves, Irish blue eyes put in with the smutty finger—half-parted lips.

      The rest of her was predominantly expensive. Dress, jewels, manicured hands, fur cape. Quite a good figure, but she didn’t, really, know how to wear expensive clothes. Didn’t wear them as Lynn Marchmont could have worn them, given half a chance! (But you never will have a chance, said a voice in her brain.)

      ‘How do you do,’ said Rosaleen Cloade.

      She turned hesitatingly to the man behind her.

      She said: ‘This—this is my brother.’

      ‘How do you do,’ said David Hunter.

      He was a thin young man with dark hair and dark eyes. His face was unhappy and defiant and slightly insolent.

      Lynn saw at once why all the Cloades disliked him so much. She had met men of that stamp abroad. Men who were reckless and slightly dangerous. Men whom you couldn’t depend upon. Men who made their own laws and flouted the universe. Men who were worth their weight in gold in a push—and who drove their C.O.s to distraction out of the firing line!

      Lynn said conversationally to Rosaleen:

      ‘And how do you like living at Furrowbank?’

      ‘I think it’s a wonderful house,’ said Rosaleen.

      David Hunter gave a faint sneering laugh.

      ‘Poor old Gordon did himself well,’ he said. ‘No expense spared.’

      It was literally the truth. When Gordon had decided to settle down in Warmsley Vale—or rather had decided to spend a small portion of his busy life there, he had chosen to build. He was too much of an individualist to care for a house that was impregnated with other people’s history.

      He had employed a young modern architect and given him a free hand. Half Warmsley Vale thought Furrowbank a dreadful house, disliking its white squareness, its built-in furnishing, its sliding doors, and glass tables and chairs. The only part of it they really admired wholeheartedly were the bathrooms.

      There had been awe in Rosaleen’s, ‘It’s a wonderful house.’ David’s laugh made her flush.

      ‘You’re the returned Wren, aren’t you?’ said David to Lynn.

      ‘Yes.’

      His eyes swept over her appraisingly—and for some reason she flushed.

      Aunt Katherine appeared again suddenly. She had a trick of seeming to materialize out of space. Perhaps she had caught the trick of it from many of the spiritualistic séances she attended.

      ‘Supper,’ she said, rather breathlessly, and added, parentheticaly, ‘I think it’s better than calling it dinner. People don’t expect so much. Everything’s very difficult, isn’t it? Mary Lewis tells me she slips the fishman ten shillings every other week. I think that’s immoral.’

      Dr Lionel Cloade was giving his irritable nervous laugh as he talked to Frances Cloade. ‘Oh, come, Frances,’ he said. ‘You can’t expect me to believe you really think that—let’s go in.’

      They СКАЧАТЬ