Absent in the Spring by Agatha writing as Mary Westmacott Christie Read Free Book Online Page B

Barbara and he had won the mixed doubles at the club.
    So it had really been quite natural for Joan to ask brightly about Major Reid – she had heard so much about him, she said, that she was really longing to see him.
    It was quite ludicrous the embarrassment her question had caused. Barbara had turned quite white, and William had gone red, and after a minute or two he had grunted out in a very odd voice:
    â€˜We don’t see anything of him now.’
    His manner had been so forbidding that she really hadn’t liked to say anything more. But afterwards when Barbara had gone to bed Joan reopened the subject, saying smilingly, that she seemed to have put her foot in it. She’d had an idea that Major Reid was quite an intimate friend.
    William got up and tapped his pipe against the fireplace.
    â€˜Oh, I dunno,’ he said vaguely. ‘We did a bit of shooting together and all that. But we haven’t seen anything of him for a long time now.’
    It wasn’t, Joan thought, very well done. She had smiled to herself, men were so transparent. She was a little amused at William’s old-fashioned reticence. He probably thought of her as a very prim, strait-laced woman – a regular mother-in-law.
    â€˜I see,’ she said. ‘Some scandal.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’ William had turned on her quite angrily.
    â€˜My dear boy!’ Joan smiled at him. ‘It’s quite obvious from your manner. I suppose you found out something about him and had to drop him. Oh, I shan’t ask questions. These things are very painful, I know.’
    William said slowly, ‘Yes – yes, you’re right. They are painful.’
    â€˜One takes people so much at their own valuation,’ said Joan. ‘And then, when one finds out that one has been mistaken in them, it’s all so awkward and unpleasant.’
    â€˜He’s cleared out of this country, that’s one good thing,’ said William. ‘Gone to East Africa.’
    And suddenly Joan remembered some scraps of conversation overheard one day at the Alwyah Club. Something about Nobby Reid going to Uganda.
    A woman had said, ‘Poor Nobby, it’s really not his fault that every little idiot in the place runs after him.’
    And another, older, woman had laughed spitefully and said, ‘He takes a lot of trouble with them. Dewy innocents – that’s what Nobby likes. The unsophisticated bride. And I must say he has a wonderful technique! He can be terribly attractive. The girl always thinks he’s passionately in love with her. That’s usually the moment when he’s just thinking of passing on to the next one.’
    â€˜Well,’ said the first woman. ‘ We shall all miss him. He’s so amusing.’
    The other laughed.
    â€˜There’s a husband or two who won’t be sorry to see him go! As a matter of fact very few men like him.’
    â€˜He’s certainly made this place too hot to hold him.’
    Then the second woman had said, ‘Hush,’ and lowered her voice and Joan hadn’t heard any more. She had hardly noticed the conversation at the time, but it came back to her now, and she felt curious.
    If William didn’t want to talk about it, perhaps Barbara might be less reticent.
    But instead of that Barbara had said quite clearly and rather disagreeably:
    â€˜I don’t want to talk about him, Mother, do you mind?’
    Barbara, Joan reflected, never did want to talk about anything. She had been quite incredibly reticent and touchy about her illness, and its cause. Some form of poisoning had started it all, and naturally Joan had taken it to be food poisoning of some kind. Ptomaine poisoning was very common in hot climates, so she believed. But both William and Barbara had been most unwilling to go into details – and even the doctor to whom she hadnaturally applied for information as Barbara’s mother, had been taciturn and