Agatha Christie - The Hollow

Gerda had said to him one day:

"Henrietta has asked me to sit for her."

"What?" His astonishment had not, if he came to think of it, been flattering. "You?"

"Yes, I'm going over to the studio tomorrow."

"What on earth does she want you for?"

No, he hadn't been very polite about it.

But luckily Gerda hadn't realized that fact.

She had looked pleased about it. He suspected Henrietta of one of those insincere kindnesses of hers-Gerda, perhaps, had I hinted that she would like to be modelled.

Something of that kind.

Then, about ten days later, Gerda had shown him triumphantly a small plaster statuette.

It was a pretty thing-technically skilful like all of Henrietta's work. It idealized Gerda-and Gerda herself was clearly pleased about it.

"I really think it's rather charming, John."

"Is that Henrietta's work? It means nothing-nothing at all. I don't see how she came to do a thing like that."

"It's different, of course, from her abstract work-but I think it's good, John, I really do."

He had said no more-after all, he didn't want to spoil Gerda's pleasure. But he tackled Henrietta about it at the first opportunity.

"What did you want to make that silly thing of Gerda for? It's unworthy of you. After all, you usually turn out decent stuff."

Henrietta said slowly:

«I didn't think it was bad. Gerda seemed quite pleased." "Gerda was delighted. She would be. Gerda doesn't know art from a coloured photograph."

"It wasn't bad art, John. It was just a portrait statuette-quite harmless and not at all pretentious."

"You don't usually waste your time doing that kind of stuff-"

He broke off, staring at a wooden figure about five feet high.

"Hullo, what's this?"

"It's for the International Group. Pearwood. The Worshipper."

She watched him. He stared and then-suddenly, his neck swelled and he turned on her furiously.

"So that's what you wanted Gerda for? How dare you?"

"I wondered if you'd see…"

"See it? Of course I see it. It's here." He placed a finger on the broad, heavy neck muscles.

Henrietta nodded.

"Yes, it's the neck and shoulders I wanted-and that heavy forward slant-the submission-that bowed look. It's wonderful!"

"Wonderful? Look here, Henrietta, I won't have it. You're to leave Gerda alone."

"Gerda won't know. Nobody will know. You know Gerda would never recognize herself here-nobody else would either. And it isn't Gerda. It isn't anybody."

"I recognized it, didn't I?"

"You're different, John. You-see things."

"It's the damned cheek of it! I won't have it, Henrietta! I won't have it. Can't you see that it was an indefensible thing to do?"

"Was it?"

"Don't you know it was? Can't you feel it was? Where's your usual sensitiveness?"

Henrietta said slowly:

"You don't understand, John. I don't think I could ever make you understand … You don't know what it is to want something-to look at it day after day-that line of the neck-those muscles-the angle where the head goes forward-that heaviness round the jaw. I've been looking at them, wanting them-every time I saw Gerda… In the end I just had to have them!"

"Unscrupulous!"

"Yes, I suppose just that. But when you want things in that way you just have to take them."

"You mean you don't care a damn about anybody else. You don't care about Gerda-"

"Don't be stupid, John. That's why I made that statuette thing. To please Gerda and make her happy. I'm not inhuman!"

"Inhuman is exactly what you are."

"Do you think-honestly-that Gerda would ever recognize herself in this?"

John looked at it unwillingly. For the first time his anger and resentment became subordinated to his interest. A strange submissive figure - a figure offering up worship to an unseen deity-the face raised-blind, dumb, devoted- terribly strong, terribly fanatical. … He said:

"That's rather a terrifying thing that you have made, Henrietta!"

Henrietta shivered slightly.

She said: "Yes-I thought that…"

John said sharply:

"What's she looking at-who is it?-there in front of her?"

Henrietta hesitated. She said, and her voice had a queer note in it-"I don't know. But I think-she might be looking at you, John."

In the dining room the child Terence made another scientific statement.

"Lead salts are more soluble in cold water than in hot."

He looked expectantly at his mother but without any real hope. Parents, in the opinion of young Terence were sadly disappointing.

"Did you know that, Mother?"

"I don't know anything about chemistry, dear."

"You could read about it in a book," said Terence.

It was a simple statement of fact but there was a certain wistfulness behind it.

Gerda did not hear the wistfulness. She was caught in the trap of her anxious misery. Round and round and round… She had been miserable ever since she woke up this horning and realized that at last this longdreaded week-end with the Angkatells was upon her. Staying at The Hollow was always a nightmare to her. She always felt bewildered and forlorn. Lucy Angkatell with her sentences that were never finished, her swift inconsequences, and her obvious attempt at kindliness was the figure she dreaded most.

But the others were nearly as bad. For Gerda it was two days of sheer martyrdom-to be endured for John's sake.

For John, that morning, as he stretched himself, had remarked in tones of unmitigated pleasure:

"Splendid to think we'll be getting into the country this week-end. It will do you good, Gerda; just what you need."

She had smiled mechanically and had said with unselfish fortitude, "It will be delightful."

Her unhappy eyes had wandered round the bedroom. The wallpaper, cream striped with a black mark just by the wardrobe, the mahogany dressing table with the glass that swung too far forward, the cheerful, bright blue carpet, the water colours of the Lake district. All dear familiar things and she would not see them again until Monday.

Instead, tomorrow a housemaid who rustled would come into the strange bedroom and put down a little dainty tray of early tea by the bed and pull up the blinds and would then rearrange and fold Gerda's clothes-a thing which made Gerda feel hot and uncomfortable all over. She would lie miserably, enduring these things, trying to comfort herself by thinking. Only one morning more … Like being at school and counting the days.

Gerda had not been happy at school. At school there had been even less reassurance than elsewhere. Home had been better. But even home had not been very good. For they had all, of course, been quicker and more clever than she was. Their comments, quick, impatient, not quite unkind, had whistled about her ears like a hailstorm: "Oh, do be quick, Gerda." "Butterfingers, give it to me!" "Oh, don't let Gerda do it, she'll be ages." "Gerda never takes in anything…"

Hadn't they seen, all of them, that that was the way to make her slower and more stupid still? She'd got worse and worse, more clumsy with her fingers, more slowwitted, more inclined to stare vacantly when something was said to her. Until, suddenly, she had reached the point where she had found a way out… Almost accidentally, really, she found her weapon of defence.

She had grown slower still, her puzzled stare had become even more blank. But now, when they said impatiently, "Oh, Gerda, how stupid you are, don't you understand that?" she had been able, behind her blank expression, to hug herself a little in her secret knowledge… For she wasn't quite as stupid as they thought… Often, when she pretended not to understand, she did understand. And often, deliberately, she slowed down in her task of whatever it was, smiling to herself when someone's impatient fingers snatched it away from her.