Unfinished Portrait. Агата Кристи

were éclairs. She had been allowed only one éclair. Cyril had had three. Cyril was her brother. He was a big boy—eleven years old. He wanted another, but her mother said, ‘That’s enough, Cyril.’

      The usual kind of conversation then happened. Cyril saying ‘Why?’ interminably.

      A little red spider, a microscopic thing, ran across the white tablecloth.

      ‘Look,’ said his mother, ‘that’s a lucky spider. He’s going to Celia because it’s her birthday. That means great good luck.’

      Celia felt excited and important. Cyril brought his questioning mind to another point.

      ‘Why are spiders lucky, Mum?’

      Then at last Cyril went away, and Celia was left with her mother. She had her mother all to herself. Her mother was smiling at her across the table—a nice smile—not the smile that thought you were a funny little girl.

      ‘Mummy,’ said Celia, ‘tell me a story.’

      She adored her mother’s stories—they weren’t like other people’s stories. Other people, when asked, told you about Cinderella, and Jack and the Beanstalk, and Red Riding Hood. Nannie told you about Joseph and his brothers, and Moses in the bulrushes. (Bulrushes were always visualized by Celia as wooden sheds containing massed bulls.) Occasionally she told you about Captain Stretton’s little children in India. But Mummy!

      To begin with, you never knew, not in the least, what the story was going to be about. It might be about mice—or about children—or about princesses. It might be anything … The only drawbacks about Mummy’s stories were that she never told them a second time. She said (most incomprehensible to Celia) that she couldn’t remember.

      ‘Very well,’ said Mummy. ‘What shall it be?’

      Celia held her breath.

      ‘About Bright Eyes,’ she suggested. ‘And Long Tail and the cheese.’

      ‘Oh! I’ve forgotten all about them. No—we’ll have a new story.’ She gazed across the table, unseeing for the moment, her bright hazel eyes dancing, the long delicate oval of her face very serious, her small arched nose held high. All of her tense in the effort of concentration.

      ‘I know—’ She came back from afar suddenly. ‘The story is called the Curious Candle …’

      ‘Oh!’ Celia drew an enraptured breath. Already she was intrigued—spellbound … The Curious Candle!

      Celia was a serious little girl. She thought a great deal about God and being good and holy. When she pulled a wishbone, she always wished to be good. She was, alas! undoubtedly a prig, but at least she kept her priggishness to herself.

      At times she had a horrible fear that she was ‘worldly’ (perturbing mysterious word!). This especially when she was all dressed in her starched muslin and big golden-yellow sash to go down to dessert. But on the whole she was complacently satisfied with herself. She was of the elect. She was saved.

      But her family caused her horrible qualms. It was terrible—but she was not quite sure about her mother. Supposing Mummy should not go to Heaven? Agonizing, tormenting thought.

      The laws were so very clearly laid down. To play croquet on Sunday was wicked. So was playing the piano (unless it was hymns). Celia would have died, a willing martyr, sooner than have touched a croquet mallet on the ‘Lord’s Day’, though to be allowed to hit balls at random about the lawn on other days was her chief delight.

      But her mother played croquet on Sunday and so did her father. And her father played the piano and sang songs about ‘He called on Mrs C and took a cup of tea when Mr C had gone to town.’ Clearly not a holy song!

      It worried Celia terribly. She questioned Nannie anxiously. Nannie, good earnest woman, was in something of a quandary.

      ‘Your father and mother are your father and mother,’ said Nannie. ‘And everything they do is right and proper, and you mustn’t think otherwise.’

      ‘But playing croquet on Sunday is wrong,’ said Celia.

      ‘Yes, dear. It’s not keeping the Sabbath holy.’

      ‘But then—but then—’

      ‘It’s not for you to worry about these things, my dear. You just go on doing your duty.’

      So Celia went on shaking her head when offered a mallet ‘as a treat’.

      ‘Why on earth—?’ said her father.

      And her mother murmured:

      ‘It’s Nurse. She’s told her it’s wrong.’

      And then to Celia:

      ‘It’s all right, darling, don’t play if you don’t want to.’

      But sometimes she would say gently:

      ‘You know, darling. God has made us a lovely world, and He wants us to be happy. His own day is a very special day—a day we can have special treats on—only we mustn’t make work for other people—the servants, for instance. But it’s quite all right to enjoy yourself.’

      But, strangely enough, deeply as she loved her mother, Celia’s opinions were not swayed by her. A thing was so because Nannie knew it was.

      Still, she ceased to worry about her mother. Her mother had a picture of St Francis on her wall, and a little book called The Imitation of Christ by her bedside. God, Celia felt, might conceivably overlook croquet playing on a Sunday.

      But her father caused her grave misgivings. He frequently joked about sacred matters. At lunch one day he told a funny story about a curate and a bishop. It was not funny to Celia—it was merely terrible.

      At last, one day, she burst out crying and sobbed her horrible fears into her mother’s ear.

      ‘But, darling, your father is a very good man. And a very religious man. He kneels down and says his prayers every night just like a child. He’s one of the best men in the world.’

      ‘He laughs at clergymen,’ said Celia. ‘And he plays games on Sundays, and he sings songs—worldly songs. And I’m so afraid he’ll go to Hell Fire.’

      ‘What do you know about a thing like Hell Fire?’ said her mother, and her voice sounded angry.

      ‘It’s where you go if you’re wicked,’ said Celia.

      ‘Who has been frightening you with things like that?’

      ‘I’m not frightened,’ said Celia, surprised. ‘I’m not going there. I’m going to be always good and go to Heaven. But’—her lips trembled—‘I want Daddy to be in Heaven too.’

      And then her mother talked a great deal—about God’s love and goodness, and how He would never be so unkind as to burn people eternally.

      But Celia was not in the least convinced. There was Hell and there was Heaven, and there were sheep and goats. If only—if only she were quite sure Daddy was not a goat!

      Of course there was Hell as well as Heaven. It was one of the immovable facts of life, as real as rice pudding or washing behind the ears or saying, Yes, please, and No, thank you.

      Celia dreamt a good deal. Some of her dreams were just funny and queer—things that had happened all mixed up. But some dreams were specially nice. Those dreams were about places she knew which were, in the dreams, different.

      Strange to explain why this should be so thrilling, but somehow (in the dream) it was.

      There was the valley down by the station. In real life the railway line ran along it, but in the good dreams there was a river there, and primroses all up the banks and into the wood. And each time she would say in delighted surprise: ‘Why, I never knew—I always thought it was a railway here.’ And instead there was the lovely green valley and the shining stream.

      Then