Agatha Christie - The Hollow

"Dear Lucy!"

"But some of Henrietta's things I think are quite lovely. That Weeping Ash tree figure for instance."

"Henrietta has a touch of real genius, I think. And she is a very lovely and satisfying person as well," said Midge.

Lady Angkatell got up and drifted over to the window again. She played absentmindediy with the blind cord.

"Why acorns, I wonder?" she murmured.

"Acorns?"

"On the blind cord. Like pineapples on gates. I mean, there must be a reason. Because it might just as easily be a fir cone or a pear, but it's always an acorn. Mash, they call it in crosswords-you know, for pigs. So curious, I always think."

"Don't ramble off, Lucy. You came in here to talk about the week-end and I can't see why you are so anxious about it. If you manage to keep off round games, and try to be coherent when you're talking to Gerda, and put Henrietta on to tame the intellectual David, where is the difficulty?"

"Well, for one thing, darling, Edward is coming."

"Oh, Edward." Midge was silent for a moment after saying the name.

Then she asked quietly:

"What on earth made you ask Edward for this weekend?"

"I didn't, Midge. That's just it. He asked himself. Wired to know if we could have him. You know what Edward is. How sensitive.

If I'd wired back 'No,' he'd probably never have asked himself again. He's like that."

Midge nodded her head slowly.

Yes, she thought, Edward was like that.

For an instant she saw his face clearly, that very dearly loved face. A face with something of Lucy's insubstantial charm; gentle, diffident, ironic…

"Dear Edward," said Lucy, echoing the thought in Midge's mind.

She went on impatiently:

"If only Henrietta would make up her mind to marry him. She is really fond of him, I know she is. If they had been here some week-end without the Christows…

As it is, John Christow has always the most unfortunate effect on Edward. John, if you know what I mean, becomes so much more so and Edward becomes so much less so. You understand?"

Again Midge nodded.

"And I can't put the Christows off because this weekend was arranged long ago, but I do feel, Midge, that it is all going to be difficult, with David glowering and biting his nails, and with trying to keep Gerda from feeling out of it, and with John being so positive and dear Edward so negative-"

"The ingredients of the pudding are not promising," murmured Midge.

Lucy smiled at her.

"Sometimes," she said meditatively, "things arrange themselves quite simply.

I've asked the crime man to lunch on Sunday.

It will make a distraction, don't you think so?"

"Crime man?"

"Like an egg," said Lady Angkatell. "He was in Baghdad, solving something, when Henry was High Commissioner. Or perhaps it was afterwards? We had him to lunch with some other duty people. He had on a white duck suit, I remember, and a pink flower in his buttonhole, and black patent leather shoes. I don't remember much about it because I never think it's very interesting who killed who. I mean once they are dead it doesn't seem to matter why, and to make a fuss about it all seems so silly…"

"But have you any crimes down here, Lucy?"

"Oh, no, darling. He's in one of those funny new cottages-you know, beams that bump your head and a lot of very good plumbing and quite the wrong kind of garden.

London people like that sort of thing.

There's an actress in the other, I believe.

They don't live in them all the time like we do. Still," Lady Angkatell moved vaguely across the room, "I daresay it pleases them.

Midge darling, it's sweet of you to have been so helpful."

"I don't think I have been so very helpful."

"Oh, haven't you?" Lucy Angkatell looked surprised. "Well, have a nice sleep now and don't get up to breakfast, and when you do get up, do be as rude as ever you like."

"Rude?" Midge looked surprised. "Why? Oh!" she laughed. "I see! Penetrating of you, Lucy. Perhaps I'll take you at your word."

Lady Angkatell smiled and went out. As she passed the open bathroom door and saw the kettle and gas ring, an idea came to her.

People were fond of tea, she knew-and Midge wouldn't be called for hours. She would make Midge some tea. She put the kettle on and then went on down the passage.

She paused at her husband's door and turned the handle, but Sir Henry Angkatell, that able administrator, knew his Lucy. He was extremely fond of her but he liked his morning sleep undisturbed. The door was locked.

Lady Angkatell went on into her own room. She would have liked to have consulted Henry but later would do. She stood by her open window, looking out for a moment or two, then she yawned. She got into bed, laid her head on the pillow and in two minutes was sleeping like a child.

In the bathroom the kettle came to the boil and went on boiling…

"Another kettle gone, Mr. Gudgeon," said Simmons, the housemaid.

Gudgeon, the butler, shook his grey head.

He took the burnt-out kettle from Simmons and, going into the pantry, produced another kettle from the bottom of the plate cupboard where he had a stock of half a dozen.

'There you are, Miss Simmons. Her ladyship will never know."

"Does her ladyship often do this kind of thing?" asked Simmons.

Gudgeon sighed.

"Her ladyship," he said, "is at once kindhearted and very forgetful, if you know what I mean. But in this house," he continued, "I see to it that everything possible is done to spare her ladyship annoyance or worry."

Henrietta Savernake rolled up a little strip of clay and patted it into place. She was building up the clay head of a girl with swift practised skill.

In her ears, but penetrating only to the edge of her understanding, was the thin whine of a slightly common voice:

"And I do think. Miss Savernake, that I was quite right! 'Really,' I said, 'if that's the line you're going to take!' Because I do think. Miss Savernake, that a girl owes it to herself to make a stand about these sort of things-if you know what I mean. 'I'm not accustomed,' I said, 'to having things like that said to me, and I can only say that you must have a very nasty imagination!' One does hate unpleasantness, but I do think I was right to make a stand, don't you. Miss Savernake?"

"Oh, absolutely," said Henrietta with a fervour in her voice which might have led someone who knew her well to suspect that she had not been listening very closely.

"'And if your wife says things of that kind,' I said, 'well, I'm sure I can't help it!" I don't know how it is. Miss Savernake, but it seems to be trouble wherever I go, and I'm sure it's not my fault. I mean, men are so susceptible, aren't they?" The model gave a coquettish little giggle.

"Frightfully," said Henrietta, her eyes half closed.

"Lovely," she was thinking. "Lovely that plane just below the eyelid-and the other plane coming up to meet it. That angle by the jaw's wrong… I must scrape off there and build up again. It's tricky."

Aloud she said in her warm, sympathetic voice:

"It must have been most difficult for you."

"I do think jealousy's so unfair. Miss Savernake, and so narrow, if you know what I mean. It's just envy, if I may say so, because someone's better looking and younger than they are."

Henrietta, working on the jaw, said absently, "Yes, of course."

She had learned the trick, years ago, of shutting her mind into watertight compartments. She could play a game of bridge, conduct an intelligent conversation, write a clearly constructed letter, all without giving more than a fraction of her essential mind to the task. She was now completely intent on seeing the head of Nausicaa build itself up under her fingers, and the thin, spiteful stream of chatter issuing from those very lovely childish lips penetrated not at all into the deeper recesses of her mind. She kept the conversation going without effort. She was used to models who wanted to talk. Not so much the professional ones-it was the amateurs who, uneasy at their forced inactivity of limb, made up for it by bursting into garrulous self-revelation. So an inconspicuous part of Henrietta listened and replied, and, very far and remote, the real Henrietta commented: "Common, mean, spiteful little piece-but what eyes… Lovely, lovely, lovely eyes…"