The Hollow - Agatha Christie [7]
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