Free Endless Night by Agatha Christie Page B

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 was Mr. Andrew P. Lippincott. He was an elderly man, dry and precise in appearance. He was long and lean with suave and courteous manners. He was a Bostonian and from his voice I wouldn’t have known he was an American. By arrangement through the telephone he called upon us in our suite at 12 o’clock. Ellie was nervous, I could tell, although she concealed it very well.
    Mr. Lippincott kissed Ellie and extended a hand and a pleasant smile to me.
    “Well, Ellie my dear, you are looking very well. Blooming, I might say.”
    “How are you, Uncle Andrew? How did you come? Did you fly?”
    “No, I had a very pleasant trip across on the Queen Mary. And this is your husband?”
    “This is Mike, yes.”
    I played up, or thought I did. “How are you, sir?” I said. Then I asked him if he’d have a drink, which he refused pleasantly. He sat down in an upright chair with gilt arms to it and looked, still smiling, from Ellie to me.
    “Well,” he said, “you young people have been giving us shocks. All very romantic, eh?”
    “I’m sorry,” said Ellie, “I really am sorry.”
    “Are you?” said Mr. Lippincott, rather dryly.
    “I thought it was the best way,” said Ellie.
    “I am not altogether of your opinion there, my dear.”
    “Uncle Andrew,” Ellie said, “you know perfectly well that if I’d done it any other way there would have been the most frightful fuss.”
    “Why should there have been such a frightful fuss?”
    “You know what they’d have been like,” said Ellie. “You too,” she added accusingly. She added, “I’ve had two letters from Cora. One yesterday and one this morning.”
    “You must discount a certain amount of agitation, my dear. It’s only natural under the circumstances, don’t you think?”
    “It’s my business who I get married to and how and where.”
    “You may think so, but you will find that the women of any family would rarely agree as to that.”
    “Really, I’ve saved everyone a lot