{"id":2457,"date":"2026-01-03T22:30:46","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/the-mirror-crackd-from-side-to-side-christie-agatha\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T22:30:46","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:30:46","slug":"the-mirror-crackd-from-side-to-side-christie-agatha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/the-mirror-crackd-from-side-to-side-christie-agatha\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mirror Crack’d: from Side to Side – Christie, Agatha"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Book Preview<\/h3>\n
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One<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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I<\/span><\/p>\n

M<\/span><\/span>iss Jane Marple was sitting by her window. The window looked over her garden, once a source of pride to her. That was no longer so. Nowadays she looked out of the window and winced. Active gardening had been forbidden her for some time now. No stooping, no digging, no planting\u2014at most a little light pruning. Old Laycock who came three times a week, did his best, no doubt. But his best, such as it was (which was not much) was only the best according to his<\/span> lights, and not according to those of his employer. Miss Marple knew exactly what she wanted done, and when she wanted it done, and instructed him duly. Old Laycock then displayed his particular genius which was that of enthusiastic agreement and subsequent lack of performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right, missus. We\u2019ll have them mecosoapies there and the Canterburys along the wall and as you say it ought to be got on with first thing next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laycock\u2019s excuses were always reasonable, and strongly resembled those of Captain George\u2019s in Three Men in a Boat<\/span> for avoiding going to sea. In the captain\u2019s case the wind was always wrong, either blowing off shore or in shore, or coming from the unreliable west, or the even more treacherous east. Laycock\u2019s was the weather. Too dry\u2014too wet\u2014waterlogged\u2014a nip of frost in the air. Or else something of great importance had to come first (usually to do with cabbages or brussels sprouts of which he liked to grow inordinate quantities). Laycock\u2019s own principles of gardening were simple and no employer, however knowledgeable, could wean him from them.<\/p>\n

They consisted of a great many cups of tea, sweet and strong, as an encouragement to effort, a good deal of sweeping up of leaves in the autumn, and a certain amount of bedding out of his own favourite plants, mainly asters and salvias\u2014to \u201cmake a nice show,\u201d as he put it, in summer. He was all in favour of syringeing roses for green-fly, but was slow to get around to it, and a demand for deep trenching for sweet peas was usually countered by the remark that you ought to see his own sweet peas! A proper treat last year, and no fancy stuff done beforehand.<\/p>\n

To be fair, he was attached to his employers, humoured their fancies in horticulture (so far as no actual hard work was involved) but vegetables he knew to be the real stuff of life; a nice Savoy, or a bit of curly kale; flowers were fancy stuff such as ladies liked to go in for, having nothing better to do with their time. He showed his affection by producing presents of the aforementioned asters, salvias, lobelia edging, and summer chrysanthemums.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeen doing some work at them new houses over at the Development. Want their gardens laid out nice, they do. More plants than they needed so I brought along a few, and I\u2019ve put \u2019em in where them old-fashioned roses ain\u2019t looking so well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thinking of these things, Miss Marple averted her eyes from the garden, and picked up her knitting.<\/p>\n

One had to face the fact: St. Mary Mead was not<\/span> the place it had been. In a sense, of course, nothing was what it had been. You could blame the war (both the wars) or the younger generation, or women going out to work, or the atom bomb, or just the Government\u2014but what one really meant was the simple fact that one was growing old. Miss Marple, who was a very sensible lady, knew that quite well. It was just that, in a queer way, she felt it more in St. Mary Mead, because it had been her home for so long.<\/p>\n

St. Mary Mead, the old world core of it, was still there. The Blue Boar was there, and the church and the vicarage and the little nest of Queen Anne and Georgian houses, of which hers was one. Miss Hartnell\u2019s house was still there, and also Miss Hartnell, fighting progress to the last gasp. Miss Wetherby had passed on and her house was now inhabited by the bank manager and his family, having been given a face-lift by the painting of doors and windows a bright royal blue. There were new people in most of the other old houses, but the houses themselves were little changed in appearances since the people who had bought them had done so because they liked what the house agent called \u201cold world charm.\u201d They just added another bathroom, and spent a good deal of money on plumbing, electric cookers, and dishwashers.<\/p>\n

But though the houses looked much as before, the same could hardly be said of the village street. When shops changed hands there, it was with a view to immediate and intemperate modernization. The fishmonger was unrecognizable with new super windows behind which the refrigerated fish gleamed. The butcher had remained conservative\u2014good meat is good meat, if you have the money to pay for it. If not, you take the cheaper cuts and the tough joints and like it! Barnes, the grocer, was still there, unchanged, for which Miss Hartnell and Miss Marple and others daily thanked Heaven. So obliging,<\/span> comfortable chairs to sit in by the counter, and cosy discussions as to cuts of bacon, and varieties of cheese. At the end of the street, however, where Mr. Toms had once had his basket shop stood a glittering new supermarket\u2014anathema to the elderly ladies of St. Mary Mead.<\/p>\n

\u201cPackets of things one\u2019s never even heard<\/span> of,\u201d exclaimed Miss Hartnell. \u201cAll these great packets of breakfast cereal instead of cooking a child a proper breakfast of bacon and eggs. And<\/span> you\u2019re expected to take a basket yourself<\/span> and go round looking for things\u2014it takes a quarter of an hour sometimes to find all one wants\u2014and usually made up in inconvenient sizes, too much or too little. And then a long queue waiting to pay as you go out. Most tiring. Of course it\u2019s all very well for the people from the Development\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

At this point she stopped.<\/p>\n

Because, as was now usual, the sentence came to an end there. The Development, Period, as they would say in modern terms. It had an entity of its own, and a capital letter.<\/p>\n

II<\/span><\/p>\n

Miss Marple uttered a sharp exclamation of annoyance. She\u2019d dropped a stitch again. Not only that, she must have dropped it some time ago. Not until now, when she had to decrease for the neck and count the stitches, had she realized the fact. She took up a spare pin, held the knitting sideways to the light and peered anxiously. Even her new spectacles didn\u2019t seem to do any good. And that, she reflected, was because obviously there came a time when oculists, in spite of their luxurious waiting rooms, the up-to-date instruments, the bright lights they flashed into your eyes, and the very high fees they charged, couldn\u2019t do anything much more for you. Miss Marple reflected with some nostalgia on how good her eyesight had been a few (well, not perhaps a few<\/span>) years ago. From the vantage point of her garden, so admirably placed to see all that was going on in St. Mary Mead, how little had escaped her noticing eye! And with the help of her bird glasses\u2014(an interest in birds was so<\/span> useful!)\u2014she had been able to see\u2014She broke off there and let her thoughts run back over the past. Ann Protheroe in her summer frock going along to the Vicarage garden. And Colonel Protheroe\u2014poor man\u2014a very tiresome and unpleasant man, to be sure\u2014but to be murdered like that\u2014She shook her head and went on to thoughts of Griselda, the vicar\u2019s pretty young wife. Dear Griselda\u2014such a faithful friend\u2014a Christmas card every year. That attractive baby of hers was a strapping young man now, and with a very good job. Engineering, was it? He always had<\/span> enjoyed taking his mechanical trains to pieces. Beyond the Vicarage, there had been the stile and the field path with Farmer Giles\u2019s cattle beyond in the meadows where now\u2014now\u2026.<\/p>\n

The Development.<\/p>\n

And why not? Miss Marple asked herself sternly. These things had to be. The houses were necessary, and they were very well built, or so she had been told. \u201cPlanning,\u201d or whatever they called it. Though why everything had to be called a Close she couldn\u2019t imagine. Aubrey Close and Longwood Close, and Grandison Close and all the rest of them. Not really Closes at all. Miss Marple knew what a Close was perfectly. Her uncle had been a Canon of Chichester Cathedral. As a child she had gone to stay with him in the Close.<\/p>\n

It was like Cherry Baker who always called Miss Marple\u2019s oldworld overcrowded drawing room the \u201clounge.\u201d Miss Marple corrected her gently, \u201cIt\u2019s the drawing room, Cherry.\u201d And Cherry, because she was young and kind, endeavoured to remember, though it was obvious to her \u201cdrawing room\u201d was a very funny word to use\u2014and \u201clounge\u201d came slipping out. She had of late, however, compromised on \u201cliving-room.\u201d Miss Marple liked Cherry very much. Her name was Mrs. Baker and she came from the Development. She was one of the detachment of young wives who shopped at the supermarket and wheeled prams about the quiet streets of St. Mary Mead. They were all smart and well turned out. Their hair was crisp and curled. They laughed and talked and called to one another. They were like a happy flock of birds. Owing to the insidious snares of Hire Purchase, they were always in need of ready money, though their husbands all earned good wages; and so they came and did housework or cooking. Cherry was a quick and efficient cook, she was an intelligent girl, took telephone calls correctly and was quick to spot inaccuracies in the tradesmen\u2019s books. She was not much given to turning mattresses, and as far as washing up went Miss Marple always now passed the pantry door with her head turned away so as not to observe Cherry\u2019s method which was that of thrusting everything into the sink together and letting loose a snowstorm of detergent on it. Miss Marple had quietly removed her old Worcester tea set from daily circulation and put it in the corner cabinet whence it only emerged on special occasions. Instead she had purchased a modern service with a pattern of pale grey on white and no gilt on it whatsoever to be washed away in the sink.<\/p>\n

How different it had been in the past\u2026 Faithful Florence, for instance, that grenadier of a parlourmaid\u2014and there had been Amy and Clara and Alice, those \u201cnice little maids\u201d\u2014arriving from St. Faith\u2019s Orphanage, to be \u201ctrained,\u201d and then going on to betterpaid jobs elsewhere. Rather simple, some of them had been, and frequently adenoidal, and Amy distinctly moronic. They had gossiped and chattered with the other maids in the village and walked out with the fishmonger\u2019s assistant, or the undergardener at the Hall, or one of Mr. Barnes the grocer\u2019s numerous assistants. Miss Marple\u2019s mind went back over them affectionately thinking of all the little woolly coats she had knitted for their subsequent offspring. They had not been very good with the telephone, and no good at all at arithmetic. On the other hand, they knew how to wash up, and how to make a bed. They had had skills, rather than education. It was odd that nowadays it should be the educated girls who went in for all the domestic chores. Students from abroad, girls au pair,<\/span> university students in the vacation, young married women like Cherry Baker, who lived in spurious Closes on new building developments.<\/p>\n

There were still, of course, people like Miss Knight. This last thought came suddenly as Miss Knight\u2019s tread overhead made the lustres on the mantelpiece tinkle warningly. Miss Knight had obviously had her afternoon rest and would now go out for her afternoon walk. In a moment she would come to ask Miss Marple if she could get her anything in the town. The thought of Miss Knight brought the usual reaction to Miss Marple\u2019s mind. Of course, it was very generous of dear Raymond (her nephew) and nobody could be kinder than Miss Knight, and of course that attack of bronchitis had<\/span> left her very weak, and Dr. Haydock had said very firmly that she must not go on sleeping alone in the house with only someone coming in daily, but\u2014She stopped there. Because it was no use going on with the thought which was \u201cIf only it could have been someone other than Miss Knight.\u201d But there wasn\u2019t much choice for elderly ladies nowadays. Devoted maidservants had gone out of fashion. In real illness you could have a proper hospital nurse, at vast expense and procured with difficulty, or you could go to hospital. But after the critical phase of illness had passed, you were down to the Miss Knights.<\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t, Miss Marple reflected, anything wrong about the Miss Knights other than the fact that they were madly irritating. They were full of kindness, ready to feel affection towards their charges, to humour them, to be bright and cheerful with them and in general to treat them as slightly mentally afflicted children.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I,\u201d said Miss Marple to herself, \u201calthough I may be old, am not<\/span> a mentally retarded child.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this moment, breathing rather heavily, as was her custom, Miss Knight bounced brightly into the room. She was a big, rather flabby woman of fifty-six with yellowing grey hair very elaborately arranged, glasses, a long thin nose, and below it a good-natured mouth and a weak chin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere we are!\u201d she exclaimed with a kind of beaming boisterousness, meant to cheer and enliven the sad twilight of the aged. \u201cI hope we\u2019ve<\/span> had our little snooze?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI<\/span> have been knitting,\u201d Miss Marple replied, putting some emphasis on the pronoun, \u201cand,\u201d she went on, confessing her weakness with distaste and shame, \u201cI\u2019ve dropped a stitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh dear, dear,\u201d said Miss Knight. \u201cWell, we\u2019ll soon put that right, won\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou<\/span> will,\u201d said Miss Marple. \u201cI,<\/span> alas, am unable to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

The slight acerbity of her tone passed quite unnoticed. Miss Knight, as always, was eager to help.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere,\u201d she said after a few moments. \u201cThere you are, dear. Quite all right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Miss Marple was perfectly agreeable to be called \u201cdear\u201d (and even \u201cducks\u201d) by the woman at the greengrocer or the girl at the paper shop, it annoyed her intensely to be called \u201cdear\u201d by Miss Knight. Another of those things that elderly ladies have to bear. She thanked Miss Knight politely.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now I\u2019m just going out for my wee toddle,\u201d said Miss Knight humorously. \u201cShan\u2019t be long.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease don\u2019t dream of hurrying back,\u201d said Miss Marple politely and sincerely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I don\u2019t like to leave you too long on your own, dear, in case you get moped.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI assure you I am quite happy,\u201d said Miss Marple. \u201cI probably shall have\u201d (she closed her eyes) \u201ca little nap.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right, dear. Anything I can get you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Marple opened her eyes and considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might go into Longdon\u2019s and see if the curtains are ready. And perhaps another skein of the blue wool from Mrs. Wisley. And a box of black currant lozenges at the chemist\u2019s. And change my book at the library\u2014but don\u2019t let them give you anything that isn\u2019t on my list. This last one was too terrible. I couldn\u2019t read it.\u201d She held out The Spring Awakens<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh dear dear! Didn\u2019t you like it? I thought you\u2019d love it. Such a pretty story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if it isn\u2019t too far for you, perhaps you wouldn\u2019t mind going as far as Halletts and see if they have one of those up-and-down egg whisks\u2014not<\/span> the turn-the-handle kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

(She knew very well they had nothing of the kind, but Halletts was the farthest shop possible.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIf all this isn\u2019t too much\u2014\u201d she murmured.<\/p>\n

But Miss Knight replied with obvious sincerity.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot at all. I shall be delighted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Knight loved shopping. It was the breath of life to her. One met acquaintances, and had the chance of a chat, one gossiped with the assistants, and had the opportunity of examining various articles in the various shops. And one could spend quite a long time engaged in these pleasant occupations without any guilty feeling that it was one\u2019s duty to hurry back.<\/p>\n

So Miss Knight started off happily, after a last glance at the frail old lady resting so peacefully by the window.<\/p>\n

After waiting a few minutes in case Miss Knight should return for a shopping bag, or her purse, or a handkerchief (she was a great forgetter and returner), and also to recover from the slight mental fatigue induced by thinking of so many unwanted things to ask Miss Knight to get, Miss Marple rose briskly to her feet, cast aside her knitting and strode purposefully across the room and into the hall. She took down her summer coat from its peg, a stick from the hall stand and exchanged her bedroom slippers for a pair of stout walking shoes. Then she left the house by the side door.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will take her at least an hour and a half,\u201d Miss Marple estimated to herself. \u201cQuite that\u2014with all the people from the Development doing their shopping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Marple visualized Miss Knight at Longdon\u2019s making abortive inquiries re curtains. Her surmises were remarkably accurate. At this moment Miss Knight was exclaiming, \u201cOf course, I felt quite sure in my own mind they wouldn\u2019t be ready yet. But of course I said I\u2019d come along and see when the old lady spoke about it. Poor old dears, they\u2019ve got so little to look forward to. One must humour them. And she\u2019s a sweet old lady. Failing a little now, it\u2019s only to be expected\u2014their faculties get dimmed. Now that\u2019s a pretty material you\u2019ve got there. Do you have it in any other colours?\u201d<\/p>\n

A pleasant twenty minutes passed. When Miss Knight had finally departed, the senior assistant remarked with a sniff, \u201cFailing, is she? I\u2019ll believe that when I see it for myself. Old Miss Marple has always been as sharp as a needle, and I\u2019d say she still is.\u201d She then gave her attention to a young woman in tight trousers and a sailcloth jersey who wanted plastic material with crabs on it for bathroom curtains.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmily Waters, that\u2019s who she reminds me of,\u201d Miss Marple was saying to herself, with the satisfaction it always gave her to match up a human personality with one known in the past. \u201cJust the same bird brain. Let me see, what happened to Emily?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing much, was her conclusion. She had once nearly got engaged to a curate, but after an understanding of several years the affair had fizzled out. Miss Marple dismissed her nurse attendant from her mind and gave her attention to her surroundings. She had traversed the garden rapidly only observing as it were from the corner of her eye that Laycock had cut down the old-fashioned roses in a way more suitable to hybrid teas, but she did not allow this to distress her, or distract her from the delicious pleasure of having escaped for an outing entirely on her own. She had a happy feeling of adventure. She turned to the right, entered the Vicarage gate, took the path through the Vicarage garden and came out on the right of way. Where the stile had been there was now an iron swing gate giving on to a tarred asphalt path. This led to a neat little bridge over the stream and on the other side of the stream where once there had been meadows with cows, there was the Development.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Book Preview One I Miss Jane Marple was sitting by her window. The window looked over her garden, once a source of pride to her. That was no longer so. Nowadays she looked out of the window and winced. Active gardening had been forbidden her for some time now. No stooping, no digging, no planting\u2014at … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[142],"class_list":["post-2457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agatha-christie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}