Free Endless Night by Agatha Christie Page A

don't I?”
    “You don't want to write it on a placard and pin it on yourself.”
    “I' don't know the right clothes to wear,” I said bitterly. “I don't know the right way to talk about things and I don't know anything really about pictures or art or music. I'm only just learning who to tip and how much to give.”
    “Don't you think, Mike, that that makes it all much more exciting for you? I think so.”
    “Anyway,” I said, “you're not to drag my mother into your family party.”
    “I wasn't proposing to drag anyone into anything, but I think, Mike, I ought to go and see your mother when we go back to England.”
    “No,” I said explosively.
    She looked at me rather startled.
    “Why not, Mike, though. I mean, apart from anything else, I mean it's just very rude not to. Have you told her you're married?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Why not?”
    I didn't answer.
    “Wouldn't the simplest way be to tell her you're married and take me to see her when we get back to England?”
    “No,” I said again. It was not so explosive this time but it was still fairly well underlined.
    “You don't want me to meet her,” said Ellie, slowly.
    I didn't, of course. I suppose it was obvious enough but the last thing I could do was to explain. I didn't see how could explain.
    “It wouldn't be the right thing to do,” I said slowly. “You must see that. I'm sure it would lead to trouble.”
    “You think she wouldn't like me?”
    “Nobody could help liking you, but it wouldn't - oh I don't know how to put it. But she might be upset and confused. After all, well, I mean I've married out of my station. That's the old-fashioned term. She wouldn't like that.”
    Ellie shook her head slowly.
    “Does anybody really think like that nowadays?”
    “Of course they do. They do in your country too.”
    “Yes,” she said, “in a way that's true but - if anyone makes good there -”
    “You mean if a man makes a lot of money.”
    “Well, not only money.”
    “Yes,” I said, “it's money. If a man makes a lot of money he's admired and looked up to and it doesn't matter where he was born.”
    “Well, that's the same everywhere,” said Ellie.
    “Please, Ellie,” I said. “Please don't go and see my mother.”
    “I still think it's unkind.”
    “No it isn't. Can't you let me know what's best for my own mother? She'd be upset. I tell you she would.”
    “But you must tell her you've got married.”
    “All right,” I said. “I'll do that.”
    It occurred to me it would be easier to write to my mother from abroad. That evening when Ellie was writing to Uncle Andrew and Uncle Frank and her stepmother Cora van Stuyvesant, I, too, was writing my own letter. It was quite short.
    “Dear Mum,” I wrote. “I ought to have told you before but I felt a bit awkward. I got married three weeks ago. It was all rather sudden. She's a very pretty girl and very sweet. She's got a lot of money which makes things a bit awkward sometimes. We're going to build ourselves a house somewhere in the country. Just at present we're travelling around Europe. All the best, Yours, Mike.”
    The results of our evening's correspondence were somewhat varied. My mother let a week elapse before she sent a letter remarkably typical of her.
    “Dear Mike. I was glad to get your letter. I hope you'll be very happy. Your affectionate mother.”
    As Ellie had prophesied, there was far more fuss on her side. We'd stirred up a regular hornet's nest of trouble. We were beset by reporters who wanted news of our romantic marriage, there were articles in the papers about the Guteman heiress and her romantic elopement, there were letters from bankers and lawyers. And finally official meetings were arranged. We met Santonix on the site of Gipsy's Acre and we looked at the plans there and discussed things, and then having seen things under way we came to London, took a suite at Claridge's and prepared as they say in old world books, to receive cavalry.
    The first to arrive