along, but I knew that not even bird-song could cheer me up.
But I thought Juliet could cheer me—she usually does. I’d not stay long and bother her writing, but maybe she would ask me in for a cup of coffee. Sidney had left this morning, so maybe she’d be feeling bereft too. I hurried down the road to her house.
I found Juliet at home, papers awhirl on her desk, but she wasn’t doing anything, just sitting there, staring out the window.
“Isola!” she said. “Just when I’ve been wanting company!” She started to get up when she saw my mops and pails. “Have you come to clean my house? Forget that and come have some coffee with me.”
Then, she got a good look at my face and said, “Whatever is the matter? Are you ill? Come sit down.”
The kindness was too much for my broken spirits, and I—I admit it—I started to bawl. I said, “No, no, I’m not sick. I have failed—failed in my mission. And now Dawsey will stay unhappy.”
Juliet took me over to her sofa. She patted my hand. I always get the hiccups when I cry, so she ran and got me a glass of water for her fail-safe cure—you pinch your nose shut with your two thumbs, and plug up both ears with your fingers, while a friend pours a glass of water down your throat without let. You stomp your foot when you are close to drowning, and your friend takes the glass away. It works every time—a miracle—no more hiccups.
“Now tell me, what was your mission? And why do you think you failed?”
So I told her all about it—my idea that Dawsey was in love with Remy, and how I’d cleaned his house, looking for proof. If I’d have found any I’d have told Remy he loved her, and then she’d want to stay—maybe even confess her love for him first, to soothe the way.
“He is so shy, Juliet. He always has been—I don’t think anybody’s ever been in love with him, or him with anybody before, so he’d not know the right thing to do about it. It’d be just like him to hide away mementos and never say a word. I despair for him, I do.”
Juliet said, “A lot of men don’t keep mementos, Isola. Don’t want keepsakes. That doesn’t necessarily mean a thing. What on earth were you looking
“Evidence, like Miss Marple does. But no, not even a picture of her. There’s lots of pictures of you and Kit, and several of you by yourself. One of you wrapped up in that lace curtain, being a Dead Bride. He’s kept all your letters, tied up in that blue hair ribbon—the one you thought you’d lost. I know he wrote Remy at the hospice, and she must have written him back—but no, nary a letter from Remy. Not even her handkerchief—oh, he found one of yours. You might want it back, it’s a pretty thing.”
She got up and went over to her desk. She stood there awhile, then she picked up that crystal thing with Latin,
“I suppose so,” I said, “if you like being goaded by a bit of rock.”
Juliet did surprise me then—she turned around to me and gave me that grin she has, the one that made me first like her so much. “Where is Dawsey? Up at the Big House, isn’t he?”
At my nodding, she bounded out the door, and raced up the drive to the Big House.
Oh wonderful Juliet! She was going to give Dawsey a piece of her mind for shirking his feelings for Remy.
Miss Marple never runs anywhere, she follows after slowly, like the old lady she is. So I did too. Juliet was inside the house by the time I got there.
I went on tippy-toes to the terrace and pressed myself into the wall by the library. The French windows were open.
I heard Juliet open the door to the library. “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said. I could hear Teddy Heckwith (he’s a plasterer) and Chester (he’s a joiner) say, “Good morning, Miss Ashton.”
Dawsey said, “Hello, Juliet.” He was on top of the big stepladder. I found that out later when he made so much noise coming down it.
Juliet said she would like a word with Dawsey, if the gentlemen could give her a minute.
They said certainly, and left the room. Dawsey said, “Is something wrong, Juliet? Is Kit all right?”
“Kit’s fine. It’s me—I want to ask you something.”
Oh, I thought, she’s going to tell him not to be a sissy. Tell him he must stir himself up and go propose to Remy at once.
But she didn’t. What she said was, “Would you like to marry me?”
I liked to die where I stood.
There was quiet—complete quiet. Nothing! And on and on it went, not a word, not a sound.
But, Juliet went on undisturbed. Her voice steady—and me, I could not get so much as a breath of air into my chest.
“I’m in love with you, so I thought I’d ask.”
And then, Dawsey, dear Dawsey, swore. He took the Lord’s name in vain. “My God, yes,” he cried, and clattered down that stepladder, only his heels hit the rungs, which is how he sprained his ankle.
I kept to my scruples and did not look inside the room, tempted though I was. I waited. It was quiet in there, so I came on home to think.
What good was training my eyes if I could not see things rightly? I had got everything wrong. Everything. It came out Happy, so happy, in the end, but no thanks to me. I don’t have Miss Marple’s insight into the cavities of the human mind. That is sad, but best to admit it now.
Sir William told me there were Motorcycle Races in England—silver cups given for speed, rough riding, and not falling off. Perhaps I should train for that—I already have my bike. All I’d need would be a helmet—maybe goggles.
