The Christie Affair(31)

‘Thank you, Mrs Leech,’ I said. ‘Would it be possible to take dinner in my room?’

‘Of course it would,’ she said. ‘I’ll send up a lovely tray for you.’

A woman who’d been approaching the stairs wearing a hotel dressing gown – likely just returning from a spa treatment – bustled over to the front desk. ‘Dinner in room!’ she said to Mrs Leech. ‘Why, that’s just the thing, isn’t it? We’ll do the same, if you please.’

‘Yes, Mrs Marston.’

The woman, Mrs Marston, turned to me. She was about Agatha’s age – perhaps a year or two older – with a round, jolly face. Roses in her cheeks. ‘We’re on our honeymoon, Mr Marston and I,’ she told me, looking right into my face without – I suspected – really registering me. ‘Have to keep our energy up, you know!’

Mrs Leech and I exchanged a quick glance to share our aversion to thinking further on that matter.

Morning came quickly and I knew I couldn’t stay in my room forever, so I headed down to breakfast. The Bellefort was a comfortable establishment but not a particularly posh one. It wouldn’t have done for a setting in one of Agatha’s novels. But E. M. Forster would have liked it – the chairs comfortable to sink into but worn about the arms. I made my way to the dining room, took a seat and asked the grandmotherly waitress for extra cream.

‘Mind if I join you?’ an American girl asked.

I looked up. She was my age or thereabouts, with bobbed blonde hair and an intent, intelligent face. There were other seats available at empty tables but instead of pointing this out I nodded. She sat across from me and smiled.

‘My name’s Lizzie Clarke,’ she said, louder than was necessary, typical American. ‘I’m here with my husband. He’s still asleep, the slugabed. The hot waters are knocking it right out of him.’ She laughed, again too loudly.

I glanced around the room to see if the other diners seemed bothered. Lizzie took this as a request to fill me in on our fellow guests. She pointed out a fantastically pretty woman, young enough to have been a child during the war, with hair so blonde it was nearly white.

‘Her name’s Mrs Race,’ Lizzie said.

Mrs Race sat alone, staring out the window forlornly.

‘How pretty she is,’ I said, warmly enough for Lizzie herself to take it as a compliment. ‘She can’t be here on her own. Can she?’

‘Oh no. She’s got a husband with her. They’re on honeymoon.’

‘I met another woman here on honeymoon.’

‘Yes,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’ve met that one too. Much more pleased about it than the one over there.’

I glanced again at the young bride. The poor thing’s lower lip trembled.

Lizzie said, ‘She and her new husband seem to do nothing but argue. So the old honeymooners are jolly, and the young ones are not. Pity anyone shouldn’t be jolly on their honeymoon. Isn’t it?’

I smiled. ‘You like people-watching, do you?’

‘It’s my favourite hobby,’ Lizzie admitted, with a self-deprecating laugh that made me feel fond of her.

Who should enter just then but the older honeymooners, Mr and Mrs Marston. They sat on the far side of the dining room and I indulged in a bit of people-watching myself. Mrs Marston had dark hair, just a few strands of grey and a broad, ample back. I stared over her shoulder, directly at her husband. Mr Marston was a jowly, red-faced fellow who didn’t seem to notice me, he had eyes only for his new wife. How sweet.

‘Say,’ Lizzie said, when we’d finished eating, ‘are you heading to the baths? Would you like a walk before? We could get good and chilly so the hot water will feel that much better.’

Lizzie was already on her feet. I pushed my chair back. We left the dining room together, then went to our rooms to collect warm clothes before meeting outside to venture down the frigid road, cold grey skies settling in around us. It was a good idea to get ourselves nice and cold before a soak back at the Bellefort Hotel, and cold we would get, despite our coats, hat and gloves.

‘What’s your husband like?’ I asked as we walked. If she could be direct, so could I.

‘He’s lovely,’ she said. ‘I recommend American men. They’re different from British. More emotional and expressive.’ Away from the gaze of our fellow guests she slipped her arm through mine as if we were old friends.

‘It’s nice,’ I said, ‘that you speak so kindly of him. Not all women do, of their husbands. They complain about them and malign them, and then they’re surprised when they run off with someone else.’

Lizzie laughed. She stopped and lit a cigarette, shading the flame of her match with gloved hands. ‘If the husband deserves his wife’s complaints, the person he runs off with will complain about him one day. Probably about the very same things. True?’

I patted my hat back into place. I’d taken pains to look respectable and put together. A proper married lady on holiday. Composed, running away from nothing, simply taking a little time for myself.

Lizzie’s gaze turned away from me, focused down the road. A young man came into view, walking towards us. He was tall, with a graceful step. Even at this distance, more than a hundred feet, he was clearly fixated, coming directly towards us as if he had something urgent to relay.