Agatha Christie - The Hollow

Whilst she was busy on the eyes, let the girl talk. She would ask her to keep silent when she got to the mouth. Funny when you came to think of it, that that thin stream of spite should come out through those perfect curves.

"Oh, damn," thought Henrietta with sudden frenzy, "I'm ruining that eyebrow arch! What the hell's the matter with it? I've over-emphasized the bone-it's sharp, not thick…"

She stood back again, frowning from the clay to the flesh and blood sitting on the platform.

Doris Sanders went on:

" 'Well,' I said, 'I really don't see why your husband shouldn't give me a present if he likes, and I don't think,' I said, 'you ought to make insinuations of that kind.' It was ever such a nice bracelet. Miss Savernake, reely quite lovely-and, of course, I daresay the poor fellow couldn't really afford it, but I do think it was nice of him, and I certainly wasn't going to give it back!"

"No, no," murmured Henrietta.

"And it's not as though there was anything between us-anything nasty, I mean-there was nothing of that kind."

"No," said Henrietta, "I'm sure there wouldn't be."

Her brow cleared. For the next half hour she worked in a kind of fury. Clay smeared itself on her forehead, clung to her hair, as she pushed an impatient hand through it.

Her eyes had a blind intense ferocity. It was coming… she was getting it…

Now, in a few hours, she would be out of her agony-the agony that had been growing upon her for the last ten days.

Nausicaa-she had been haunted by Nausicaa, she had got up with Nausicaa and had breakfasted with Nausicaa and had gone out with Nausicaa. She had tramped the streets in a nervous, excitable restlessness, unable to fix her mind on anything but a beautiful blind face somewhere just beyond her mind's eye-hovering there just not able to be clearly seen. She had interviewed models, hesitated over Greek types, felt profoundly dissatisfied…

She wanted something-something to give her the start-something that would bring her own already partially realized vision alive. She had walked long distances, getting physically tired out and welcoming the fact. And driving her, harrying her, was that urgent incessant longing-to see-There was a blind look in her own eyes as she walked. She saw nothing of what was around her. She was straining-straining the whole time to make that face come nearer … She felt sick, ill, miserable…

And then, suddenly, her vision had cleared and with normal human eyes she had seen opposite her in the bus which she had boarded absentmindedly and with no interest in its destination-she had seen-yes! Nausicaa!

A foreshortened childish face, half parted lips and eyes-lovely, vacant, blind eyes.

The girl rang the bell and got out; Henrietta followed her.

She was now quite calm and businesslike.

She had got what she wanted-the agony of baffled search was over.

"Excuse me for speaking to you. I'm a professional sculptor and, to put it frankly, your head is just what I have been looking for."

She was friendly, charming and compelling, as she knew how to be when she wanted something.

Doris Sanders had been doubtful, alarmed, flattered.

"Well, I don't know, I'm sure. If it's just the head. Of course, I've never done that sort of thing!"

Suitable hesitations, delicate financial inquiry.

"Of course, I should insist on your accepting the proper professional fee."

And so here was Nausicaa, sitting on the platform, enjoying the idea of her attractions being immortalized (though not liking very much the examples of Henrietta's work which she could see in the studio!) and enjoying also the revelation of her personality to a listener whose sympathy and attention seemed to be so complete.

On the table beside the model were her spectacles-the spectacles that she put on as seldom as possible, owing to vanity, preferring to feel her way almost blindly sometimes, since she admitted to Henrietta that without them she was so short-sighted that she could hardly see a yard in front of her.

Henrietta had nodded comprehendingly.

She understood now the physical reason for that blank and lovely stare.

Time went on. Henrietta suddenly laid down her modelling tools and stretched her arms widely.

"All right," she said, "I've finished. I hope you're not too tired?"

"Oh, no, thank you, Miss Savernake. It's been very interesting, I'm sure. Do you mean it's really done-so soon?"

Henrietta laughed.

"Oh, no, it's not actually finished. I shall have to work on it quite a bit. But it's finished as far as you're concerned. I've got what I wanted-built up the planes."

The girl came down slowly from the platform.

She put on her spectacles and at once the blind innocence and vague confiding charm of the face vanished. There remained now an easy and cheap prettiness.

She came to stand by Henrietta and look at the clay model.

"Oh," she said doubtfully, disappointment in her voice, "it's not very like me, is it?"

Henrietta smiled.

"Oh, no, it's not a portrait."

There was, indeed, hardly a likeness at all. It was the setting of the eyes-the line of the cheekbone-that Henrietta had seen as the essential keynote of her conception of Nausicaa. This was not Doris Sanders; it was a blind girl about whom a poem could be made. The lips were parted as Doris's were parted, but they were not Doris's lips. They were lips that would speak another language and would utter thoughts that were not Doris's thoughts-None of the features were clearly defined.

It was Nausicaa remembered, not seen…

"Well," said Miss Sanders doubtfully, "I suppose it'll look better when you've got on with it a bit… And you reely don't want me any more?"

"No, thank you," said Henrietta. ("And thank God I don't!" said her inner mind.) "You've been simply splendid. I'm very grateful."

She got rid of Doris expertly and returned to make herself some black coffee. She was tired-she was horribly tired… But happy-happy and at peace.

"Thank goodness," she thought, "now I can be a human being again."

And at once her thoughts went to John…

John, she thought. Warmth crept into her cheeks, a sudden quick lifting of the heart made her spirits soar.

Tomorrow, she thought, I'm going to The Hollow… I shall see John…

She sat quite still, sprawled back on the divan, drinking down the hot strong liquid.

She drank three cups of it… She felt vitality surging back…

It was nice, she thought, to be a human being again-and not that other thing. Nice to have stopped feeling restless and miserable and driven. Nice to be able to stop walking about the streets unhappily, looking for something, and feeling irritable and impatient because, really, you didn't know what you were looking for! Now, thank goodness, there would be only hard work-and who minded hard work?

She put down the empty cup and got up and strolled back to Nausicaa. She looked at the face for some time, and slowly a little frown crept between her brows.

It wasn't-it wasn't quite-What was it that was wrong…

Blind eyes…

Blind eyes that were more beautiful than any eyes that could see… Blind eyes that tore at your heart because they were blind … Had she got that or hadn't she?

She'd got it, yes-but she'd got something else as well. Something that she hadn't meant or thought about… The structure was all right-yes, surely. But where did it come from-that faint insidious suggestion…

The suggestion, somewhere, of a common spiteful mind…

She hadn't been listening, not really listening.

Yet, somehow, in through her ears and out at her fingers, it had worked its way into the clay.

And she wouldn't, she knew she wouldn't, be able to get it out again…

Henrietta turned away sharply. Perhaps it was fancy. Yes, surely it was fancy. She would feel quite differently about it in the morning. She thought with dismay, how vulnerable one is.