The Hollow. Агата Кристи

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СКАЧАТЬ thought, John had not been so angry.

      It had startled her, that anger. It had told her something about him that he did not, she thought, know himself.

      He had said flatly: ‘You can’t exhibit that!’

      And she had said, as flatly, ‘I shall.’

      She went slowly back to Nausicaa. There was nothing there, she thought, that she couldn’t put right. She sprayed it and wrapped it up in the damp cloths. It would have to stand over until Monday or Tuesday. There was no hurry now. The urgency had gone—all the essential planes were there. It only needed patience.

      Ahead of her were three happy days with Lucy and Henry and Midge—and John!

      She yawned, stretched herself like a cat stretches itself with relish and abandon, pulling out each muscle to its fullest extent. She knew suddenly how very tired she was.

      She had a hot bath and went to bed. She lay on her back staring at a star or two through the skylight. Then from there her eyes went to the one light always left on, the small bulb that illuminated the glass mask that had been one of her earliest bits of work. Rather an obvious piece, she thought now. Conventional in its suggestion.

      Lucky, thought Henrietta, that one outgrew oneself…

      And now, sleep! The strong black coffee that she had drunk did not bring wakefulness in its train unless she wished it to do so. Long ago she had taught herself the essential rhythm that could bring oblivion at call.

      You took thoughts, choosing them out of your store, and then, not dwelling on them, you let them slip through the fingers of your mind, never clutching at them, never dwelling on them, no concentration…just letting them drift gently past.

      Outside in the Mews a car was being revved up—somewhere there was hoarse shouting and laughing. She took the sounds into the stream of her semi-consciousness.

      The car, she thought, was a tiger roaring…yellow and black…striped like the striped leaves—leaves and shadows—a hot jungle…and then down the river—a wide tropical river…to the sea and the liner starting…and hoarse voices calling goodbye—and John beside her on the deck…she and John starting—blue sea and down into the dining-saloon—smiling at him across the table—like dinner at the Maison Dorée—poor John, so angry!…out into the night air—and the car, the feeling of sliding in the gears—effortless, smooth, racing out of London…up over Shovel Down…the trees…tree worship… The Hollow… Lucy… John… John… Ridgeway’s Disease…dear John…

      Passing into unconsciousness now, into a happy beatitude.

      And then some sharp discomfort, some haunting sense of guilt pulling her back. Something she ought to have done. Something that she had shirked.

      Nausicaa?

      Slowly, unwillingly, Henrietta got out of bed. She switched on the lights, went across to the stand and unwrapped the cloths.

      She took a deep breath.

      Not Nausicaa—Doris Saunders!

      A pang went through Henrietta. She was pleading with herself, ‘I can get it right—I can get it right…’

      ‘Stupid,’ she said to herself. ‘You know quite well what you’ve got to do.’

      Because if she didn’t do it now, at once—tomorrow she wouldn’t have the courage. It was like destroying your flesh and blood. It hurt—yes, it hurt.

      Perhaps, thought Henrietta, cats feel like this when one of their kittens has something wrong with it and they kill it.

      She took a quick, sharp breath, then she seized the clay, twisting it off the armature, carrying it, a large heavy lump, to dump it in the clay bin.

      She stood there breathing deeply, looking down at her clay-smeared hands, still feeling the wrench to her physical and mental self. She cleaned the clay off her hands slowly.

      She went back to bed feeling a curious emptiness, yet a sense of peace.

      Nausicaa, she thought sadly, would not come again. She had been born, had been contaminated and had died.

      ‘Queer,’ thought Henrietta, ‘how things can seep into you without your knowing it.’

      She hadn’t been listening—not really listening—and yet knowledge of Doris’s cheap, spiteful little mind had seeped into her mind and had, unconsciously, influenced her hands.

      And now the thing that had been Nausicaa—Doris—was only clay—just the raw material that would, soon, be fashioned into something else.

      Henrietta thought dreamily, ‘Is that, then, what death is? Is what we call personality just the shaping of it—the impress of somebody’s thought? Whose thought? God’s?’

      That was the idea, wasn’t it, of Peer Gynt? Back into the Button Moulder’s ladle.

      ‘Where am I myself, the whole man, the true man? Where am I with God’s mark upon my brow?’

      Did John feel like that? He had been so tired the other night—so disheartened. Ridgeway’s Disease… Not one of those books told you who Ridgeway was! Stupid, she thought, she would like to know… Ridgeway’s Disease.

       CHAPTER 3

      John Christow sat in his consulting-room, seeing his last patient but one for that morning. His eyes, sympathetic and encouraging, watched her as she described—explained—went into details. Now and then he nodded his head, understandingly. He asked questions, gave directions. A gentle glow pervaded the sufferer. Dr Christow was really wonderful! He was so interested—so truly concerned. Even talking to him made one feel stronger.

      John Christow drew a sheet of paper towards him and began to write. Better give her a laxative, he supposed. That new American proprietary—nicely put up in cellophane and attractively coated in an unusual shade of salmon pink. Very expensive, too, and difficult to get—not every chemist stocked it. She’d probably have to go to that little place in Wardour Street. That would be all to the good—probably buck her up no end for a month or two, then he’d have to think of something else. There was nothing he could do for her. Poor physique and nothing to be done about it! Nothing to get your teeth into. Not like old mother Crabtree…

      A boring morning. Profitable financially—but nothing else. God, he was tired! Tired of sickly women and their ailments. Palliation, alleviation—nothing to it but that. Sometimes he wondered if it was worth it. But always then he remembered St Christopher’s, and the long row of beds in the Margaret Russell Ward, and Mrs Crabtree grinning up at him with her toothless smile.

      He and she understood each other! She was a fighter, not like that limp slug of a woman in the next bed. She was on his side, she wanted to live—though God knew why, considering the slum she lived in, with a husband who drank and a brood of unruly children, and she herself obliged to work day in day out, scrubbing endless floors of endless offices. Hard unremitting drudgery and few pleasures! But she wanted to live—she enjoyed life—just as he, John Christow, enjoyed life! It wasn’t the circumstances of life they enjoyed, it СКАЧАТЬ