Diana Glass
The Help
‘I have been thinking, Jane,’ Mrs Bantry says at breakfast. ‘I must get out of this place, if only for a couple of hours. Don’t you feel it too … the oppression of it? It’s rather like being … oh, inside a snow globe held in the grip of an angry giant.’
Miss Marple’s fine eyebrows rise at this unusually poetic description from her friend. ‘Yes, but Dolly—’
‘Oh, I know, I know. We’re stuck here until the snow stops, until they can clear the tunnel …
but I thought that we could still have a little outing.
I’ve arranged with the concierge that we go on a little excursion in the horse-drawn sleigh.
Apparently there is a charming route into the trees.
It’s funny … there was a little confusion over the arrangement of it, but it is all ironed out now. ’
‘What do you mean, Dolly?’ Miss Marple asks.
‘Oh, it’s silly really.’ For a moment Mrs Bantry looks oddly upset, and I see Miss Marple watching her in concern.
‘Let’s not dwell on it – it’s all too boring to bother explaining.
Only … only that I am becoming so forgetful these days.
But no matter … it seems a very good idea.
Don’t you agree, Jane? Let us just enjoy a charming outing in the snow!
It is exactly the sort of thing I imagined us doing before all of this awfulness happened.
If it sets your mind at ease, I will ask for our sleigh driver to be the burliest man of the mountains they have available.
And the snow has grown a little lighter so we won’t be absolutely covered.
Look!’ She gestures through the window. It’s true: the falling snow now appears like lightly sieved icing sugar, rather than shaken goose-down.
‘And I have been assured we will be well wrapped up in furs and sheepskins.’
‘All right,’ Miss Marple says, ‘if that’s what you would like to do, Dolly.’
‘Diana,’ Mrs Bantry turns to me, ‘will you come with us? It isn’t a three-line whip, however.’
‘If you would like me to come, of course …’ I say. ‘But I suppose it would make things more comfortable for the two of you,’ I say, ‘more room in the sleigh, you know …’
‘I don’t need you there,’ Mrs Bantry says, benevolently, ‘if you would rather not.’
‘Then I shall stay here,’ I say. ‘Take a nap perhaps. I’m feeling rather tired.’
I did not sleep well last night.