Edgar Lawson alone seemed unable to find a niche. He sat down and then got up restlessly.
‘I wonder if I ought to go to Mr Serrocold,’ he said rather loudly. ‘He may need me.’ Carrie Louise said gently, ‘Oh I don’t think so. He was going to talk over one or two points with Dr Maverick this evening.’ ‘Then I certainly won’t butt in! I shouldn’t dream of going where I wasn’t wanted. I’ve already wasted time today going down to the station when Mrs Hudd meant to go herself.’ ‘She ought to have told you,’ said Carrie Louise. ‘But I think she just decided at the last moment.’ ‘You do realize, Mrs Serrocold, that she made me look a complete fool! A complete fool!’ ‘No, no,’ said Carrie Louise, smiling. ‘You mustn’t have these ideas.’ ‘I know I’m not needed or wanted… I’m perfectly aware of that. If things had been different – if I’d had my proper place in life it would be very different. Very different indeed. It’s no fault of mine that I haven’t got my proper place in life.’ ‘Now, Edgar,’ said Carrie Louise. ‘Don’t work yourself up about nothing. Jane thinks it was very kind of you to meet her. Gina always has these sudden impulses – she didn’t mean to upset you.’ ‘Oh yes, she did. It was done on purpose – to humiliate me ‘ ‘Oh Edgar ‘ ‘You don’t know half of what’s going on, Mrs Serrocold. Well, I won’t say any more now except goodnight.’
Edgar went out, shutting the door with a slam behind him.
Miss Bellever snorted:
‘Atrocious manners.’
‘He’s so sensitive,’ said Carrie Louise vaguely.
Mildred Strete clicked her needles and said sharply:
‘He really is a most odious young man. You shouldn’t put up with such behaviour, Mother.’ ‘Lewis says he can’t help it.’ Mildred said sharply:
‘Everyone can help behaving rudely. Of course I blame Gina very much. She’s so completely scatter-brained in everything she undertakes. She does nothing but make trouble. One day she encourages the young man and the next day she snubs him. What can you expect?’
Wally Hudd spoke for the first time that evening.
He said:
‘That guy’s crackers. That’s all there is to it! Crackers!’ II In her bedroom that night Miss Marple tried to review the pattern of Stonygates, but it was as yet too confused.
There were currents and cross-currents here – but whether they could account for Ruth Van Rydock’s uneasiness it was impossible to tell. It did not seem to Miss Marple that Carrie Louise was affected in any way by what was going on round her. Stephen was in love with Gina. Gina might or might not be in love with Stephen. Walter Hudd was clearly not enjoyinl himself.
These were incidents that might and did OCCur in all places and at most times. There was, unfortunately, nothing exceptional about them. They ended in the divorce court and everybody hopefully startecl again when fresh tangles were created. Mildred Strete was clearly jealous of Gina and disliked her. That, bliss Marple thought, was very natural.
She thought over what Ruth Van Rydock had told her.
Carrie Louise’s disappointment at not having a child the adoption of little Pippa – and then the discovery that, after all, a child was on the way.
‘Often happens like that,’ Miss Marple’s doctor had told her. Relief of tension, maybe, and then Nature can do its work.’ He had added that it was usually hard lines on the adopted child.
But that had not been so in this case. Both Glbrand- sen and his wife had adored little Pippa. She had made her place too firmly in their hearts to be lightly set aside.
Gulbrandsen was already a father. Paternity meant nothing new to him. Carrie Louise’s maternal Yearnings had been assuaged by Pippa. Her pregnancy had been uncomfortable and the actual birth difficult d prolonged.
Possibly Carrie Louise, who had never cared for reality, did not enjoy her first brush with it.
There remained two little girls growing up, One pretty and amusing, the other plain and dull. Which again, Miss Marple thought, was quite natural. For when people adopt a baby girl, they choose a pretty one. And though Mildred might have been lucky and taken after the Martins who had produced handsome Ruth ard dainty Carrie Louise, Nature elected that she should take after the Gulbrandsens, who were large and stolid and uncom-promisingly plain.