Agatha Christie - The Moving Finger

I

W hen at last I was taken out of the plaster, and the doctors had pulled me about to their hearts content, and nurses had wheedled me into cautiously using my limbs, and I had been nauseated by their practically using baby talk to me, Marcus Kent told me I was to go and live in the country.

Good air, quiet life, nothing to dothats the prescription for you. That sister of yours will look after you. Eat, sleep and imitate the vegetable kingdom as far as possible.

I didnt ask him if Id ever be able to fly again. There are questions that you dont ask because youre afraid of the answers to them. In the same way during the last five months Id never asked if I was going to be condemned to lie on my back all my life. I was afraid of a bright hypocritical reassurance from Sister. Come now, what a question to ask! We dont let our patients go talking in that way!

So I hadnt askedand it had been all right. I wasnt to be a helpless cripple. I could move my legs, stand on them, finally walk a few stepsand if I did feel rather like an adventurous baby learning to toddle, with wobbly knees and cotton wool soles to my feetwell, that was only weakness and disuse and would pass.

Marcus Kent, who is the right kind of doctor, answered what I hadnt said.

Youre going to recover completely, he said. We werent sure until last Tuesday when you had that final overhaul, but I can tell you so authoritatively now. Butits going to be a long business. A long and, if I may so, a wearisome business. When its a question of healing nerves and muscles, the brain must help the body. Any impatience, any fretting, will throw you back. And whatever you do, dont will yourself to get well quickly. Anything of that kind and youll find yourself back in a nursing home. Youve got to take life slowly and easily, the tempo is marked Legato. Not only has your body got to recover, but your nerves have been weakened by the necessity of keeping you under drugs for so long.

Thats why I say, go down to the country, take a house, get interested in local politics, in local scandal, in village gossip. Take an inquisitive and violent interest in your neighbours. If I may make a suggestion, go to a part of the world where you havent got any friends scattered about.

I nodded. I had already, I said, thought of that.

I could think of nothing more insufferable than members of ones own gang dropping in full of sympathy and their own affairs.

But Jerry, youre looking marvellousisnt he? Absolutely. Darling, I must tell youWhat do you think Buster has done now?

No, none of that for me. Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.

So it came about that Joanna and I, sorting wildly through houseagents glowing eulogies of properties all over the British Isles, selected Little Furze, Lymstock, as one of the possibles to be viewed, mainly because we had never been to Lymstock, and knew no one in that neighbourhood.

And when Joanna saw Little Furze she decided at once that it was just the house we wanted.

It lay about half a mile out of Lymstock on the road leading up to the moors. It was a prim low white house, with a sloping Victorian veranda painted a faded green. It had a pleasant view over a slope of heather-covered land with the church spire of Lymstock down below to the left.

It had belonged to a family of maiden ladies, the Misses Barton, of whom only one was left, the youngest, Miss Emily.

Miss Emily Barton was a charming little old lady who matched her house in an incredible way. In a soft apologetic voice she explained to Joanna that she had never let her house before, indeed would never have thought of doing so, but you see, my dear, things are so different nowadays taxation, of course, and then my stocks and shares, so safe, as I always imagined, and indeed the bank manager himself recommended some of them, but they seem to be paying nothing at all these days foreign, of course! And really it makes it all so difficult. One does not (Im sure you will understand me, my dear, and not take offence, you look so kind) like the idea of letting ones house to strangersbut something must be done, and really, having seen you, I shall be quite glad to think of you being hereit needs, you know, young life. And I must confess I did shrink from the idea of having Men here!

At this point, Joanna had to break the news of me. Miss Emily rallied well.

Oh dear, I see. How sad! A flying accident? So brave, these young men. Still, your brother will be practically an invalid

The thought seemed to soothe the gentle little lady. Presumably I should not be indulging in those grosser masculine activities which Emily Barton feared. She inquired diffidently if I smoked.

Like a chimney, said Joanna. But then, she pointed out, so do I.

Of course, of course. So stupid of me. Im afraid, you know, I havent moved with the times. My sisters were all older than myself, and my dear mother lived to be ninety-sevenjust fancy!and was most particular. Yes, yes, everyone smokes now. The only thing is, there are no ashtrays in the house.

Joanna said that we would bring lots of ashtrays, and she added with a smile, We wont put down cigarette ends on your nice furniture, that I do promise you. Nothing makes me so mad myself as to see people do that.

So it was settled and we took Little Furze for a period of six months, with an option of another three, and Emily Barton explained to Joanna that she herself was going to be very comfortable because she was going into rooms kept by an old parlourmaid, my faithful Florence, who had married after being with us for fifteen years. Such a nice girl, and her husband is in the building trade. They have a nice house in the High Street and two beautiful rooms on the top floor where I shall be most comfortable, and Florence so pleased to have me.

So everything seemed to be most satisfactory, and the agreement was signed and in due course Joanna and I arrived and settled in, and Miss Emily Bartons maid Partridge having consented to remain, we were well looked after with the assistance of a girl who came in every morning and who seemed to be half-witted but amiable.

Partridge, a gaunt dour female of middle age, cooked admirably, and though disapproving of late dinner (it having been Miss Emilys custom to dine lightly off a boiled egg) nevertheless accommodated herself to our ways and went so far as to admit that she could see I needed my strength building up.

When we had settled in and been at Little Furze a week Miss Emily Barton came solemnly and left cards. Her example was followed by Mrs. Symmington, the lawyers wife, Miss Griffith, the doctors sister, Mrs. Dane Calthrop, the vicars wife, and Mr. Pye of Priors End.

Joanna was very much impressed.

I didnt know, she said in an awestruck voice, that people really called with cards.

That is because, my child, I said, you know nothing about the country.

Nonsense. Ive stayed away for heaps of weekends with people.

That is not at all the same thing, I said.

I am five years older than Joanna. I can remember as a child the big white shabby untidy house we had with the fields running down to the river. I can remember creeping under the nets of raspberry canes unseen by the gardener, and the smell of white dust in the stable yard and an orange cat crossing it, and the sound of horse hoofs kicking something in the stables.

But when I was seven and Joanna two, we went to live in London with an aunt, and thereafter our Christmas and Easter holidays were spent there with pantomimes and theatres and cinemas and excursions to Kensington Gardens with boats, and later to skating rinks. In August we were taken to an hotel by the seaside somewhere.