Catherine Narracott
The Wife
I am sitting with the two elderly women at the bottom of the run, where they have set up several rows of deckchairs for spectators beneath a kind of marquee canopy to protect us from the snow.
Fur blankets have been provided. From here you can see the tobogganers on the final loop of the run before it ends in a straight chute and a run-off.
I am wearing the best version of mourning I could assemble in the circumstances: my black mink coat with its matching hat, trousers made from the finest black wool, and black boots upon my feet.
‘How are you, my dear?’ Mrs Bantry asks. ‘I know that it is not really the same, but I lost my own husband not so long ago, so I think I understand a little of what you must feel.’
‘It’s just such a shock,’ I say. ‘I keep expecting to wake up and for it all to have been a bad dream. And … it’s horrible being stuck here like this.
Horrible, having people staring and whispering about one.
’ I have always been a very private person, even with a politician for a husband.
I was brought up to have a horror of scandal.
Mummy always says a woman should appear in the paper only for her birth, marriage, the birth of her own children, and then for her death.
She made allowances for Anthony’s career, because she says it is my duty to support my spouse, though I think she always rather wished he were landed gentry, a general, or an ambassador in some grace and favour post where nothing really happens.
‘I suppose this toboggan event may seem in rather bad taste,’ Mrs Bantry says, ‘so soon after your husband’s death.’
‘I imagine there is a fear of the guests being idle,’ Miss Marple says. ‘Idleness breeds iniquity, in my experience.’
I say, ‘I do find it a little strange, but I have to keep telling myself that Anthony would have liked it, really. It is very much in his line. He would have been first to volunteer to compete. He was so courageous about such things … and something of a daredevil!’
‘I’m sure I read somewhere that he won the Victoria Cross,’ Mrs Bantry says.
I nod. ‘Yes, he did.’
‘May I ask how he won it?’ Miss Marple says. ‘If you don’t mind. Only, I know that sometimes it can be rather cathartic, to talk about a lost loved one’s achievements.’
‘It’s true,’ Mrs Bantry says. ‘These days I rather enjoy talking about Arthur and his pigs. I found them a little … well, tiresome, when he was alive.’
‘Well,’ I say, smiling apologetically, ‘he didn’t speak of it much. I’m not sure he could, you know. Such things are very hush-hush. But I know it was of course something very brave. And almost all the others had been killed.’
‘It was in the mountains?’ Miss Marple asks.
I stare at her. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Oh, it’s only a guess. Because Mr Crane was his wartime friend, I suppose. And they talked of climbing together “for old times’ sake”.’
I am wondering if there is more to this old dear than I had first thought.
‘Look!’ Mrs Bantry exclaims. The first rider has just shot out of the bottom of the run in a cloud of snow. He staggers to his feet.
‘Oh!’ I say. ‘How horrible!’ Because as he stands you can see the blood pouring from his face, spattering onto the snow in crimson spots.
But then he raises the hand not clamped over his mouth to give the spectators a thumbs up.
Finally, he removes the hand and grins …
and I let out a little gasp: the smile reveals several missing teeth.
A whiskery old English type – I think at first glance it’s Colonel Chapman but he’s nowhere to be seen – turns to his wife and says: ‘There’s normally at least one death every season. Could be today!’ He sounds cheered by the prospect.
‘Jane!’ Mrs Bantry says, turning to Miss Marple. ‘Should Diana really be doing this?’
‘It’s too late,’ says Miss Marple. ‘She’s already gone up. Besides, I have the idea that once Diana has set her mind on something very little will dissuade her from her chosen course.’