Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot, #18)

by Agatha Christie

Wadi

bucolic

a frock that looked (but only looked) simple.

autocratic

Blague.

épris!!

“You know, Linnet, I really do envy you. You’ve simply got everything. Here you are at twenty, your own mistress, with any amount of money, looks, superb health. You’ve even got brains!

“I don’t know. I don’t really want to marry anyone yet.” “Darling, how right you are! It’s never quite the same afterwards, is it?”

“Darling,” she drawled, “won’t that be rather tiresome? If any misfortunes happen to my friends I always drop them at once! It sounds heartless, but it saves such a lot of trouble later! They always want to borrow money off you, or else they start a dressmaking business and you have to get the most terrible clothes from them. Or they paint lampshades, or do batik scarves.”

I only like successful people. And you’ll find that’s true of nearly everybody—only most people won’t admit it. They just say that really they can’t put up with Mary or Emily or Pamela anymore! ‘Her troubles have made her so bitter and peculiar, poor dear!’”

“Enemies, my sweet. You’re so devastatingly efficient. And you’re so frightfully good at doing the right thing.” Linnet laughed. “Why, I haven’t got an enemy in the world.”

“It’s—even frightening sometimes! Simon and I were made for each other. I shall never care for anyone else.

“No, I can’t wait, Linnet. I’m too excited. I must get back and tell Simon. I know I’m mad, darling, but I can’t help it. Marriage will cure me, I expect. It always seems to have a very sobering effect on people.”

modish

apposite

prerogative

fulsome

empressement.

Women, however charming, have this disadvantage: They distract the mind from food!

maître d’hotel,

“How true is the saying that man was forced to invent work in order to escape the strain of having to think.”

adjuncts

How absurd to call youth the time of happiness—youth, the time of greatest vulnerability!

amen

There was something else beside laughter in her eyes. Hercule Poirot shook his head doubtfully. “She cares too much, that little one,” he said to himself. “It is not safe. No, it is not safe.”

He said, his voice slightly indistinct: “We’ll see it together, Jackie . . . together. Won’t it be marvellous?” “I wonder. Will it be as marvellous to you as it is to me? Do you really care—as much as I do?”

“Une qui aime et un qui se laisse aimer.

“Ah, but people don’t run true to form in love affairs.”

“Do the people who live in them like going?” “Most of them are delighted. One or two are being rather stupid about it—really tiresome in fact. They don’t seem to realize how vastly improved their living conditions will be!”

high-handed

Compulsory benefit.”

“You think I’m selfish?” “No—just irresistible. The combined effect of money and charm. Everything goes down before you. What you can’t buy with cash you buy with a smile.

blasé

An alien note had sounded, disturbing her complete satisfaction with life.

She, Linnet Ridgeway, wouldn’t exist any longer. She would be Countess of Windlesham, bringing a fine dowry to Charltonbury and its master. She would be queen consort, not queen any longer.

By imparting an expression of pinched severity to her mouth every time she looked at her son, she sought to disguise the fact of her intense affection for him.

He was a tall, thin young man, with dark hair and a rather narrow chest. His mouth had a very sweet expression: His eyes were sad and his chin was indecisive. He had long delicate hands.

He was popularly supposed “to write,” but it was understood among his friends that inquiries as to literary output were not encouraged.

It was some other feeling hard to define—perhaps an unacknowledged jealousy in the unfeigned pleasure Tim always seemed to take in Joanna’s society. He and his mother were such perfect companions that the sight of him absorbed and interested in another woman always startled Mrs. Allerton slightly.

snaffling

Vide

Any woman’s a fool who goes prancing into the sea in December, pretending the water’s quite warm just because the sun happens to be shining rather brightly at the moment.

He added, almost below his breath, “There’s only one woman in the world I’ve got a real respect and admiration for, and I think, Mrs. Allerton, you know very well who that woman is.” His mother blushed and looked quite confused. Tim said gravely: “There aren’t very many really nice women in the world. You happen to be one of them.”

Fayum.

Luxor

Khar...

beatific

Bakshish?

I’m just a jealous cat—but that’s what I feel like. She’s so horribly successful and poised and assured.” Hercule Poirot looked a little astonished by the outburst. He took her by the arm and gave her a friendly little shake. “Tenez—you will feel better for having said that!” “I just hate her! I’ve never hated anyone so much at first sight.” “Magnificent!”

We—we understood that she was going on to Palestine.

viva

“But—but it is maddening! It is intolerable that I should have to put up with this!” Poirot said dryly: “I must sympathize with you, Madame—especially as I imagine that you have not often had to put up with things.”