‘Yes,’ said Tommy, the worried look receding from his f’qce.
‘Murray’s a first class chap. Kind, patient. If anything was · ‘d going wrong he let us know.’ ‘So I don’t think you need worry about it,’ said Tuppehce.
‘How old is she by now?’ ‘Eighty-two,’ said Tommy. ‘No – no. I think ,i.t’s ei..ty. three,’ he added. ‘It must be rather awful when you we outlied everybody.’ ‘That’s only what we feel,’ said Tuppence. ‘They don’t feel it.’ ‘You can’t really tell.’ ‘Well, your Aunt Ada doesn’t. Don’t you remember the glee with which she told us the number of her old friends that She,d Morgan, Ive heard she won t six months. She always used to say I was so delicate and now it’s practically a cert-inty that I shall outlive,h-er. Ou?ive her hy a good many years too.” Triumphant, that s what she was at the prospect.’ ‘All the same -‘ said Tommy.
‘I know,’ said Tuppence, ‘I know. All the same you feel it’s your duty and so you’ve got to go.’ ‘Don’t you think I’m right?’ ‘Unfortunately,’ said Tuppence, ‘I do think you’re right.
Absolutely right. And I’ll come too,’ she added, with a slight note of heroism in her voice.
‘No,’ said Tommy. ‘Why should you? She’s not your aunt, No, I’ll go.’ ‘Not at all,’ said Mrs Beresford. ‘I like to suffer too. We’ll suffer together. You won’t enjoy it and I shan’t enjoy it and I don’t think for one moment that Aunt Ada will enjoy it. But I quite see it is one of those things that has got to be done.’ ‘No, I don’t want you to go. After all, the last time, remember how frightfully rude she was to you?
‘Oh, I didn’t mind that,’ said Tuppence. ‘It’s probably the only bit of the visit that the poor old girl enjoyed. I don’t grudge it to her, not for a moment.’ ‘You’ve always been nice to her,’ said Tommy, ‘even though you don’t like her very much’.
‘Nobody could like Aunt Ada,’ said Tuppence. ‘If you ask me I don’t think anyone ever has.’ ‘One can’t help feeling sorry for people when they get old,’ said Tommy.
‘I can,’ said Tuppence. ‘I haven’t got as nice a nature as you have.’ ‘Being a woman you’re more ruthless,’ said Tommy.
‘I suppose that might be it. After all, women haven’t really got time to be anything but realistic over things. I mean I’m very sorry for people if they’re old or sick or anything, if they’re nice people. But if they’re not nice people, well, it’s different, you must admit. If you’ re pretty nasty when you’ re twenty and just as nasty when you’re forty ava nastier still when you’re sixty, and a perfect devil by the time you’re eighty – well, really, I don’t see why one should be particularly sorry for people, just because they’re old. You can’t change yourself really. I know some absolute ducks who are seventy and eighty. Old Mrs Beauchamp, and Mary Carr and the baker’s grandmother, dear old Mrs Poplett, who used to come in and clean for us. The3 were all dears and sweet and I’d do anything I could for them.
‘All right, all right,’ said Tommy, ‘be realistic. But if yot really want to be noble and come with me ‘ ‘I want to come with you,’ said Tuppence. ‘After all, married you for better or for worse and Aunt Ada is decidedly the worse. So I shall go with you hand in hand. And we’ll take her a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates with soft centre., and perhaps a magazine or two. You might write to Mis,, What’s-her-name and say we’re coming.’ ‘One day next week? I could manage Tuesday,’ sale Tommy, ‘if that’s all right for you.’ ‘Tuesday it is,’ said Tuppence. ‘What’s the name of woman? I can’t remember – the matron or the superintenden or whoever she is. Begins with a P.’ ‘Miss Packard.’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘Perhaps it’ll be different this time,’ said Tommy.
‘Different? In what way?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know. Something interesting might happen.’ ‘We might be in a railway accident on the way there,’ sale Tuppence, brightening up a little.