The Hollow - Agatha Christie [89]
He said stiffly:
‘Henrietta and I walked up here that first afternoon.’ They went on in silence.
They came at last to the top and sat on the fallen tree.
Midge thought: ‘He and Henrietta sat here, perhaps.’
She turned the ring on her finger round and round. The diamond flashed coldly at her. (‘Not emeralds,’ he had said.)
She said with a slight effort:
‘It will be lovely to be at Ainswick again for Christmas.’
He did not seem to hear her. He had gone far away.
She thought: ‘He is thinking of Henrietta and of John Christow.’
Sitting here he had said something to Henrietta or she had said something to him. Henrietta might know what she didn’t want, but he belonged to Henrietta still. He always would, Midge thought, belong to Henrietta…
Pain swooped down upon her. The happy bubble world in which she had lived for the last week quivered and broke.
She thought: ‘I can’t live like that–with Henrietta always there in his mind. I can’t face it. I can’t bear it.’
The wind sighed through the trees–the leaves were falling fast now–there was hardly any golden left, only brown.
She said: ‘Edward!’
The urgency of her voice aroused him. He turned his head.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry, Edward.’ Her lips were trembling but she forced her voice to be quiet and self-controlled. ‘I’ve got to tell you. It’s no use. I can’t marry you. It wouldn’t work, Edward.’
He said: ‘But, Midge–surely Ainswick–’
She interrupted:
‘I can’t marry you just for Ainswick, Edward. You–you must see that.’
He sighed then, a long gentle sigh. It was like an echo of the dead leaves slipping gently off the branches of the trees.
‘I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘Yes, I suppose you are right.’
‘It was dear of you to ask me, dear and sweet. But it wouldn’t do, Edward. It wouldn’t work.’
She had had a faint hope, perhaps, that he would argue with her, that he would try to persuade her, but he seemed, quite simply, to feel just as she did about it. Here, with the ghost of Henrietta close beside him, he too, apparently, saw that it couldn’t work.
‘No,’ he said, echoing her words, ‘it wouldn’t work.’
She slipped the ring off her finger and held it out to him.
She would always love Edward and Edward would always love Henrietta and life was just plain unadulterated hell.
She said with a little catch in her voice:
‘It’s a lovely ring, Edward.’
‘I wish you’d keep it, Midge. I’d like you to have it.’
She shook her head.
‘I couldn’t do that.’
He said with a faint, humorous twist of the lips:
‘I shan’t give it to anyone else, you know.’
It was all quite friendly. He didn’t know–he would never know–just what she was feeling. Heaven on a plate–and the plate was broken and heaven had slipped between her fingers or had, perhaps, never been there.
II
That afternoon, Poirot received his third visitor.
He had been visited by Henrietta Savernake and Veronica Cray. This time it was Lady Angkatell. She came floating up the path with her usual appearance of insubstantiality.
He opened the door and she stood smiling at him.
‘I have come to see you,’ she announced.
So might a fairy confer a favour on a mere mortal.
‘I am enchanted, Madame.’
He led the way into the sitting-room. She sat down on the sofa and once more she smiled.
Hercule Poirot thought: ‘She is old–her hair is grey–there are lines in her face. Yet she has magic–she will always have magic…’
Lady Angkatell said softly:
‘I want you to do something for me.’
‘Yes, Lady Angkatell?’
‘To begin with, I must talk to you–about John Christow.’
‘About Dr Christow?’
‘Yes. It seems to me that the only thing to do is to put a full stop to the whole thing. You understand what I mean, don’t you?’
‘I am not sure that I do know what you mean, Lady Angkatell.’
She gave him her lovely dazzling smile again and she put one long white hand on his sleeve.
‘Dear M. Poirot, you know perfectly. The police will have to hunt about for the owner of those fingerprints and they won’t find him, and they’ll have, in the end, to let the whole thing