‘Jane,’ said Mrs Serrocold.
‘Dear Carrie Louise.’
Yes, unmistakably Carrie Louise. Strangely unchanged, strangely youthful still, although, unlike her sister, she used no cosmetics or artificial aids to youth.
Her hair was grey, but it had always been of a silvery fairness and the colour had changed very little. Her skin had still a rose leaf pink and white appearance, though now it was a crumpled rose leaf. Her eyes had still their starry innocent glance. She had the slender youthful figure of a girl and her head kept its eager birdlike tilt.
‘I do blame myself,’ said Carrie Louise in her sweet voice, ‘for letting it be so long. Years since I saw you, Jane dear. It’s just lovely that you’ve come at last to pay us a visit here.’ From the end of the terrace Gina called: ‘You ought to come in, Grandam. It’s getting cold and Jolly will be furious.’ Carrie Louise gave her little silvery laugh.
‘They all fuss about me so,’ she said. ‘They rub it in that I’m an old woman.’ ‘And you don’t feel like one.’ ‘No, I don’t, Jane. In spite of all my aches and pains and I’ve got plenty. Inside I go on feeling just a chit like Gina. Perhaps everyone does. The glass shows them how old they are and they just don’t believe it. It seems only a few months ago that we were at Florence. Do you remember Fraulein Schweich and her boots?’ The two elderly women laughed together at events that had happened nearly half a century ago.
They walked together to a side door. In the doorway a gaunt elderly lady met them. She had an arrogant nose, a short haircut and wore stout well-cut tweeds.
She said fiercely: ‘It’s absolutely crazy of you, Cara, to stay out so late.
You’re absolutely incapable of taking care of yourself.
What will Mr Serrocold say?’
‘Don’t scold me, Jolly,’ said Carrie Louise pleadingly.
She introduced Miss Believer to Miss Marple.
‘This is Miss Bellever, who is simply everything to me.
Nurse, dragon, watchdog, secretary, housekeeper and very faithful friend.’ Juliet Bellever sniffed, and the end of her big nose turned rather pink, a sign of emotion.
‘I do what I can,’ she said gruffly. ‘This is a crazy household. You simply can’t arrange any kind of planned routine.’ ‘Darling Jolly, of course you can’t. I wonder why you ever try. Where are you putting Miss Marple?’ ‘In the Blue Room. Shall I take her up?’ asked Miss Believer.
‘Yes, please do, Jolly. And then bring her down to tea.
It’s in the library today, I think.’ The Blue Room had heavy curtains of a rich faded blue brocade that must have been, Miss Marple thought, about fifty years old. The furniture was mahogany, big and solid, and the bed was a vast mahogany fourposter.
Miss Bellever opened a door into a connecting bathroom.
This was unexpectedly modern, orchid in colouring and with much dazzling chromium.
She observed grimly: ‘John Restarick had ten bathrooms put into the house when he married Cara. The plumbing is about the only thing that’s ever been modernized. He wouldn’t hear of the rest being altered – said the whole place was a perfect Period Piece. Did you ever know him at all?’ ‘No, I never met him. Mrs Serrocold and I have met very seldom though we have always corresponded.’ ‘He was an agreeable fellow,’ said Miss Believer. ‘No good, of course! A complete rotter. But pleasant to have about the house. Great charm. Women liked him far too much. That was his undoing in the end. Not really Cara’s type.’
She added with a brusque resumption of her practical manner:
‘The housemaid will unpack for you. Do you want a wash before tea?’
Receiving an affirmative answer, she said that Miss Marple would find her waiting at the top of the stairs.
Miss Marple went into the bathroom and washed her hands and dried them a little nervously on a very beautiful orchid-coloured face towel. Then she removed her hat and patted her soft white hair into place.
Opening her door, she found Miss Bellever waiting for her, and was conducted down the big gloomy staircase and across a vast dark hall and into a room where bookshelves went up to the ceiling and a big window looked out over an artificial lake.