The Hollow

by Agatha Christie

  “And you’re to be kind to Gerda.”

  “How I should hate Lucy if I were Gerda!”

  “And someone who solves crimes is coming to lunch tomorrow.”

  “We’re not going to play the Murder Game, are we?”

  “I don’t think so. I think it is just neighbourly hospitality.”

  Midge’s voice changed a little.

  “Here’s Edward coming out to meet us.”

  “Dear Edward,” thought Henrietta with a sudden rush of warm affection.

  Edward Angkatell was very tall and thin. He was smiling now as he came towards the two young women.

  “Hallo, Henrietta, I haven’t seen you for over a year.”

  “Hallo, Edward.”

  How nice Edward was! That gentle smile of his, the little creases at the corners of his eyes. And all his nice knobbly bones. “I believe it’s his bones I like so much,” thought Henrietta. The warmth of her affection for Edward startled her. She had forgotten that she liked Edward so much.

  IV

  After lunch Edward said: “Come for a walk, Henrietta.”

  It was Edward’s kind of walk—a stroll.

  They went up behind the house, taking a path that zigzagged up through the trees. Like the woods at Ainswick, thought Henrietta. Dear Ainswick, what fun they had had there! She began to talk to Edward about Ainswick. They revived old memories.

  “Do you remember our squirrel? The one with the broken paw. And we kept it in a cage and it got well?”

  “Of course. It had a ridiculous name—what was it now?”

  “Cholmondeley-Marjoribanks!”

  “That’s it.”

  The both laughed.

  “And old Mrs. Bondy, the housekeeper—she always said it would go up the chimney one day.”

  “And we were so indignant.”

  “And then it did.”

  “She made it,” said Henrietta positively. “She put the thought into the squirrel’s head.”

  She went on:

  “Is it all the same, Edward? Or is it changed? I always imagine it just the same.”

  “Why don’t you come and see, Henrietta? It’s a long long time since you’ve been there.”

  “I know.”

  Why, she thought, had she let so long a time go by? One got busy—interested—tangled up with people….

  “You know you’re always welcome there at any time.”

  “How sweet you are, Edward!”

  Dear Edward, she thought, with his nice bones.

  He said presently:

  “I’m glad you’re fond of Ainswick, Henrietta.”

  She said dreamily: “Ainswick is the loveliest place in the world.”

  A long-legged girl, with a mane of untidy brown hair…a happy girl with no idea at all of the things that life was going to do to her…a girl who loved trees….

  To have been so happy and not to have known it! “If I could go back,” she thought.

  And aloud she said suddenly:

  “Is Ygdrasil still there?”

  “It was struck by lightning.”

  “Oh, no, not Ygdrasil!”

  She was distressed. Ygdrasil—her own special name for the big oak tree. If the gods could strike down Ygdrasil, then nothing was safe! Better not go back.

  “Do you remember your special sign, the Ygdrasil sign?”

  “The funny tree like no tree that ever was I used to draw on bits of paper? I still do, Edward! On blotters, and on telephone books, and on bridge scores. I doodle it all the time. Give me a pencil.”

  He handed her a pencil and notebook, and laughing, she drew the ridiculous tree.

  “Yes,” he said, “that’s Ygdrasil.”

  They had come almost to the top of the path. Henrietta sat on a fallen tree trunk. Edward sat down beside her.

  She looked down through the trees.

  “It’s a little like Ainswick here—a kind of pocket Ainswick. I’ve sometimes wondered—Edward, do you think that that is why Lucy and Henry came here?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “One never knows,” said Henrietta slowly, “what goes on in Lucy’s head.” Then she asked: “What have you been doing with yourself, Edward, since I saw you last?”

  “Nothing, Henrietta.”

  “That sounds very peaceful.”

  “I’ve never been very good at—doing things.”

  She threw him a quick glance. There had been something in his tone. But he was smiling at her quietly.

  And again she felt that rush of deep affection.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “you are wise.”

  “Wise?”

  “Not to do things.”

  Edward said slowly, “That’s an odd thing for you to say, Henrietta. You, who’ve been so successful.”

  “Do you think of me as successful? How funny.”

  “But you are, my dear. You’re an artist. You must be proud of yourself; you can’t help being.”

  “I know,” said Henrietta. “A lot of people say that to me. They don’t understand—they don’t understand the first thing about it. You don’t, Edward. Sculpture isn’t a thing you set out to do and succeed in. It’s a thing that gets at you, that nags at you—and haunts you—so that you’ve got, sooner or later, to make terms with it. And then, for a bit, you get some peace—until the whole thing starts over again.”

  “Do you want to be peaceful, Henrietta?”

  “Sometimes I think I want to be peaceful more than anything in the world, Edward!”

  “You could be peaceful at Ainswick. I think you could be happy there. Even—even if you had to put up with me. What about it, Henrietta? Won’t you come to Ainswick and make it your home? It’s always been there, you know, waiting for you.”

  Henrietta turned her head slowly. She said in a low voice: “I wish I wasn’t so dreadfully fond of you, Edward. It makes it so very much harder to go on saying No.”

  “It is No, then?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve said No before—but this time—well, I thought it might be different. You’ve been happy this afternoon, Henrietta. You can’t deny that.”

  “I’ve been very happy.”

  “Your face even—it’s younger than it was this morning.”

  “I know.”

  “We’ve been happy together, talking about Ainswick, thinking about Ainswick. Don’t you see what that means, Henrietta?”

  “It’s you who don’t see what it means, Edward! We’ve been living all this afternoon in the past.”

  “The past is sometimes a very good place to live.”

  “One can’t go back. That’s the one thing one can’t do—go back.”

  He was silent for a minute or two. Then he said in a quiet, pleasant and quite unemotional voice:

  “What you really mean is that you won’t marry me because of John Christow?”

  Henrietta did not answer, and Edward went on:

  “That’s it, isn’t it? If there were no John Christow in the world you would marry me.”

  Henrietta said harshly, “I can’t imagine a world in which there was no John Christow! That’s what you’ve got to understand.”

  “If it’s like that, why on earth doesn’t the fellow get a divorce from his wife and then you could marry?”

  “John doesn’t want to get a divorce from his wife. And I don’t know that I should want to marry John if he did. It isn’t—it isn’t in the least like you think.”

  Edward said in a thoughtful, considering way:

  “John Christow. There are too many John Christows in this world.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Henrietta. “There are very few people like John.”

  “If that’s so—it’s a good thing! At least, that’s what I think!”

  He got up. “We’d better go back again.”

  Seven

  As they got into the car and Lewis shut the front door of the Harley Street house, Gerda felt the pang of exile go through her. That s
hut door was so final. She was barred out—this awful weekend was upon her. And there were things, quite a lot of things, that she ought to have done before leaving. Had she turned off that tap in the bathroom? And that note for the laundry—she’d put it—where had she put it? Would the children be all right with Mademoiselle? Mademoiselle was so—so—Would Terence, for instance, ever do anything that Mademoiselle told him to? French governesses never seemed to have any authority.

  She got into the driving seat, still bowed down by misery, and nervously pressed the starter. She pressed it again and again. John said: “The car will start better, Gerda, if you switch on the engine.”

  “Oh, dear, how stupid of me.” She shot a quick, alarmed glance at him. If John was going to become annoyed straightaway—But to her relief he was smiling.

  “That’s because,” thought Gerda, with one of her flashes of acumen, “he’s so pleased to be going to the Angkatells.”

  Poor John, he worked so hard! His life was so unselfish, so completely devoted to others. No wonder he looked forward to this long weekend. And, her mind harking back to the conversation at lunch, she said, as she let in the clutch rather too suddenly so that the car leapt forward from the kerb:

  “You know, John, you really shouldn’t make jokes about hating sick people. It’s wonderful of you to make light of all you do, and I understand. But the children don’t. Terry, in particular, has such a very literal mind.”

  “There are times,” said John Christow, “when Terry seems to me almost human—not like Zena! How long do girls go on being a mass of affectation?”

  Gerda gave a little quiet sweet laugh. John, she knew, was teasing her. She stuck to her point. Gerda had an adhesive mind.

  “I really think, John, that it’s good for children to realize the unselfishness and devotion of a doctor’s life.”

  “Oh God!” said Christow.

  Gerda was momentarily deflected. The traffic lights she was approaching had been green for a long time. They were almost sure, she thought, to change before she got to them. She began to slow down. Still green.

  John Christow forgot his resolutions of keeping silent about Gerda’s driving and said, “What are you stopping for?”

  “I thought the lights might change—”

  She pressed her foot on the accelerator, the car moved forward a little, just beyond the lights, then, unable to pick up, the engine stalled. The lights changed.

  The cross traffic hooted angrily.

  John said, but quite pleasantly:

  “You really are the worst driver in the world, Gerda!”

  “I always find traffic lights so worrying. One doesn’t know just when they are going to change.”

  John cast a quick sideways look at Gerda’s anxious unhappy face.

  “Everything worries Gerda,” he thought, and tried to imagine what it must feel like to live in that state. But since he was not a man of much imagination, he could not picture it at all.

  “You see,” Gerda stuck to her point, “I’ve always impressed on the children just what a doctor’s life is—the self-sacrifice, the dedication of oneself to helping pain and suffering—the desire to serve others. It’s such a noble life—and I’m so proud of the way you give your time and energy and never spare yourself—”

  John Christow interrupted her.

  “Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that I like doctoring—that it’s a pleasure, not a sacrifice!—Don’t you realize that the damned thing’s interesting!”

  But no, he thought, Gerda would never realize a thing like that! If he told her about Mrs. Crabtree and the Margaret Russell Ward she would only see him as a kind of angelic helper of the Poor with a capital P.

  “Drowning in treacle,” he said under his breath.

  “What?” Gerda leaned towards him.

  He shook his head.

  If he were to tell Gerda that he was trying to “find a cure for cancer,” she would respond—she could understand a plain sentimental statement. But she would never understand the peculiar fascination of the intricacies of Ridgeway’s Disease—he doubted if he could even make her understand what Ridgeway’s Disease actually was. (“Particularly,” he thought with a grin, “as we’re not really quite sure ourselves! We don’t really know why the cortex degenerates!”)

  But it occurred to him suddenly that Terence, child though he was, might be interested in Ridgeway’s Disease. He had liked the way that Terence had eyed him appraisingly before stating: “I think Father does mean it.”

  Terence had been out of favour the last few days for breaking the Cona coffee machine—some nonsense about trying to make ammonia. Ammonia? Funny kid, why should he want to make ammonia? Interesting in a way.

  Gerda was relieved at John’s silence. She could cope with driving better if she were not distracted by conversation. Besides, if John was absorbed in thought, he was not so likely to notice that jarring noise of her occasional forced changes of gear. (She never changed down if she could help it.)

  There were times, Gerda knew, when she changed gear quite well (though never with confidence), but it never happened if John were in the car. Her nervous determination to do it right this time was almost disastrous, her hand fumbled, she accelerated too much or not enough, and then she pushed the gear lever quickly and clumsily so that it shrieked in protest.

  “Stroke it in, Gerda, stroke it in,” Henrietta had pleaded once, years ago. Henrietta had demonstrated. “Can’t you feel the way it wants to go—it wants to slide in—keep your hand flat till you get the feeling of it—don’t just push it anywhere—feel it.”

  But Gerda had never been able to feel anything about a gear lever. If she was pushing it more or less in the proper direction it ought to go in! Cars ought to be made so that you didn’t have that horrible grinding noise.

  On the whole, thought Gerda, as she began the ascent of Mersham Hill, this drive wasn’t going too badly. John was still absorbed in thought—and he hadn’t noticed rather a bad crashing of gears in Croydon. Optimistically, as the car gained speed, she changed up into third, and immediately the car slackened. John, as it were, woke up.

  “What on earth’s the point of changing up just when you’re coming to a steep bit?”

  Gerda set her jaw. Not very much farther now. Not that she wanted to get there. No, indeed, she’d much rather drive on for hours and hours, even if John did lose his temper with her!

  But now they were driving along Shovel Down—flaming autumn woods all round them.

  “Wonderful to get out of London into this,” exclaimed John. “Think of it, Gerda, most afternoons we’re stuck in that dingy drawing room having tea—sometimes with the light on.”

  The image of the somewhat dark drawing room of the flat rose up before Gerda’s eyes with the tantalizing delight of a mirage. Oh, if only she could be sitting there now.

  “The country looks lovely,” she said heroically.

  Down the steep hill—no escape now. That vague hope that something, she didn’t know what, might intervene to save her from the nightmare, was unrealized. They were there.

  She was a little comforted as she drove in to see Henrietta sitting on a wall with Midge and a tall thin man. She felt a certain reliance on Henrietta, who would sometimes unexpectedly come to the rescue if things were getting very bad.

  John was glad to see Henrietta too. It seemed to him exactly the fitting journey’s end to that lovely panorama of autumn, to drop down from the hilltop and find Henrietta waiting for him.

  She had on the green tweed coat and the skirt he liked her in and which he thought suited her so much better than London clothes. Her long legs were stuck out in front of her, ending in well-polished brown brogues.

  They exchanged a quick smile—a brief recognition of the fact that each was glad of the other’s presence. John didn’t want to talk to Henrietta now. He just enjoyed feeling that she was there—knowing that without her the weekend would be barren and empty.

  Lady Angkatell came out from
the house and greeted them. Her conscience made her more effusive to Gerda than she would have been normally to any guest.

  “But how very nice to see you, Gerda! It’s been such a long time. And John!”

  The idea was clearly that Gerda was the eagerly awaited guest, and John the mere adjunct. It failed miserably of its object, making Gerda stiff and uncomfortable.

  Lucy said: “You know Edward? Edward Angkatell?”

  John nodded to Edward and said: “No, I don’t think so.”

  The afternoon sun lighted up the gold of John’s hair and the blue of his eyes. So might a Viking look who had just come ashore on a conquering mission. His voice, warm and resonant, charmed the ear, and the magnetism of his whole personality took charge of the scene.

  That warmth and that objectiveness did no damage to Lucy. It set off, indeed, that curious elfin elusiveness of hers. It was Edward who seemed, suddenly, by contrast with the other man, bloodless—a shadowy figure, stooping a little.

  Henrietta suggested to Gerda that they should go and look at the kitchen garden.

  “Lucy is sure to insist on showing us the rock garden and the autumn border,” she said as she led the way. “But I always think kitchen gardens are nice and peaceful. One can sit on the cucumber frames, or go inside a greenhouse if it’s cold, and nobody bothers one and sometimes there’s something to eat.”

  They found, indeed, some late peas, which Henrietta ate raw, but which Gerda did not much care for. She was glad to have got away from Lucy Angkatell, whom she had found more alarming than ever.

  She began to talk to Henrietta with something like animation. The questions Henrietta asked always seemed to be questions to which Gerda knew the answers. After ten minutes Gerda felt very much better and began to think that perhaps the weekend wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Zena was going to dancing class now and had just had a new frock. Gerda described it at length. Also she had found a very nice new leathercraft shop. Henrietta asked whether it would be difficult to make herself a handbag. Gerda must show her.

  It was really very easy, she thought, to make Gerda look happy, and what an enormous difference it made to her when she did look happy!