The Hollow - Agatha Christie [30]
‘Dozens of boxes, I expect, darling. But we mustn’t be uncharitable. And it was a lovely performance!’
Doors were shutting all down the corridor, voices were murmuring goodnights. Sir Henry said: ‘I’ll leave the window for Christow.’ His own door shut.
Henrietta said to Gerda: ‘What fun actresses are. They make such marvellous entrances and exits!’ She yawned and added: ‘I’m frightfully sleepy.’
Veronica Cray moved swiftly along the narrow path through the chestnut woods.
She came out from the woods to the open space by the swimming pool. There was a small pavilion here where the Angkatells sat on days that were sunny but when there was a cold wind.
Veronica Cray stood still. She turned and faced John Christow.
Then she laughed. With her hand she gestured towards the leaf-strewn surface of the swimming pool.
‘Not quite like the Mediterranean, is it, John?’ she said.
He knew then what he had been waiting for–knew that in all those fifteen years of separation from Veronica she had still been with him. The blue sea, the scent of mimosa, the hot dust–pushed down, thrust out of sight, but never really forgotten. They all meant one thing–Veronica. He was a young man of twenty-four, desperately and agonizingly in love, and this time he was not going to run away.
Chapter 9
John Christow came out from the chestnut woods on to the green slope by the house. There was a moon and the house basked in the moonlight with a strange innocence in its curtained windows. He looked down at the wrist-watch he wore.
It was three o’clock. He drew a deep breath and his face was anxious. He was no longer, even remotely, a young man of twenty-four in love. He was a shrewd, practical man of just on forty, and his mind was clear and level-headed.
He’d been a fool, of course, a complete damned fool, but he didn’t regret that! For he was, he now realized, completely master of himself. It was as though, for years, he had dragged a weight upon his leg–and now the weight was gone. He was free.
He was free and himself, John Christow–and he knew that to John Christow, successful Harley Street specialist, Veronica Cray meant nothing whatsoever. All that had been in the past–and because that conflict had never been resolved, because he had always suffered humiliatingly from the fear that he had, in plain language, ‘run away’, so Veronica’s image had never completely left him. She had come to him tonight out of a dream, and he had accepted the dream, and now, thank God, he was delivered from it for ever. He was back in the present–and it was 3 am, and it was just possible that he had mucked up things rather badly.
He’d been with Veronica for three hours. She had sailed in like a frigate, and cut him out of the circle and carried him off as her prize, and he wondered now what on earth everybody had thought about it.
What, for instance, would Gerda think?
And Henrietta? (But he didn’t care quite so much about Henrietta. He could, he felt, at a pinch explain to Henrietta. He could never explain to Gerda.)
And he didn’t, definitely he didn’t want to lose anything.
All his life he had been a man who took a justifiable number of risks. Risks with patients, risks with treatment, risks with investments. Never a fantastic risk–only the kind of risk that was just beyond the margin of safety.
If Gerda guessed–if Gerda had the least suspicion…
But would she have? How much did he really know about Gerda? Normally, Gerda would believe white was black if he told her so. But over a thing like this…
What had he looked like when he followed Veronica’s tall, triumphant figure out of that window? What had he shown in his face? Had they seen a boy’s dazed, lovesick face? Or had they only observed a man doing a polite duty? He didn’t know. He hadn’t the least idea.
But he was afraid–afraid for the ease and order and safety of his life. He’d been mad–quite mad, he thought with exasperation–and then took comfort in that very thought. Nobody would believe, surely, he could have been as mad as that?
Everybody was in bed and asleep,