The Hollow - Agatha Christie [98]
‘So you are going to get well,’ said Henrietta.
The little shrewd eyes clouded for a moment.
‘I’m not so sure about that, ducks. I’ve got that mealy-mouthed young fellow with the spectacles now. Quite different to Dr Christow. Never a laugh! ’E was a one, Dr Christow was–always up to his jokes! Given me some norful times, ’e ’as, with this treatment of ’is. “I carn’t stand any more of in, Doctor,” I’d say to him, and “Yes, you can, Mrs Crabtree,” ’e’d say to me. “You’re tough, you are. You can take it. Going to make medical ’istory, you and I are.” And he’d jolly you along like. Do anything for the doctor, I would ’ave! Expected a lot of you, ’e did, but you felt you couldn’t let him down, if you know what I mean.’
‘I know,’ said Henrietta.
The little sharp eyes peered at her.
‘Excuse me, dearie, you’re not the doctor’s wife by any chance?’
‘No,’ said Henrietta, ‘I’m just a friend.’
‘I see,’ said Mrs Crabtree.
Henrietta thought that she did see.
‘What made you come along if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘The doctor used to talk to me a lot about you–and about his new treatment. I wanted to see how you were.’
‘I’m slipping back–that’s what I’m doing.’
Henrietta cried:
‘But you mustn’t slip back! You’ve got to get well.’
Mrs Crabtree grinned.
‘I don’t want to peg out, don’t you think it!’
‘Well, fight then! Dr Christow said you were a fighter.’
‘Did ’e now?’ Mrs Crabtree lay still a minute, then she said slowly:
‘Ooever shot ’im it’s a wicked shame! There aren’t many of ’is sort.’
We shall not see his like again. The words passed through Henrietta’s mind. Mrs Crabtree was regarding her keenly.
‘Keep your pecker up, dearie,’ she said. She added: ‘’E ’ad a nice funeral, I ’ope.’
‘He had a lovely funeral,’ said Henrietta obligingly.
‘Ar! I wish I could of gorn to it!’
Mrs Crabtree sighed.
‘Be going to me own funeral next, I expect.’
‘No,’ cried Henrietta. ‘You mustn’t let go. You said just now that Dr Christow told you that you and he were going to make medical history. Well, you’ve got to carry on by yourself. The treatment’s just the same. You’ve got to have the guts for two–you’ve got to make medical history by yourself–for him.’
Mrs Crabtree looked at her for a moment or two.
‘Sounds a bit grand! I’ll do my best, ducks. Carn’t say more than that.’
Henrietta got up and took her hand.
‘Goodbye. I’ll come and see you again if I may.’
‘Yes, do. It’ll do me good to talk about the doctor a bit.’ The bawdy twinkle came into her eye again. ‘Proper man in every kind of way, Dr Christow.’
‘Yes,’ said Henrietta. ‘He was.’
The old woman said:
‘Don’t fret, ducks–what’s gorn’s gorn. You can’t ’ave it back.’
Mrs Crabtree and Hercule Poirot, Henrietta thought, expressed the same idea in different language.
She drove back to Chelsea, put away the car in the garage and walked slowly to the studio.
‘Now,’ she thought, ‘it has come. The moment I have been dreading–the moment when I am alone.
‘Now I can put it off no longer. Now grief is here with me.’
What had she said to Edward? ‘I should like to grieve for John.’
She dropped down on a chair and pushed back the hair from her face.
Alone–empty–destitute. This awful emptiness.
The tears pricked at her eyes, flowed slowly down her cheeks.
Grief, she thought, grief for John. Oh, John–John.
Remembering, remembering–his voice, sharp with pain:
‘If I were dead, the first thing you’d do, with the tears streaming down your face, would be to start modelling some damn’ mourning woman or some figure of grief.’
She stirred uneasily. Why had that thought come into her head?
Grief–Grief…A veiled figure–its outline barely perceptible–its head cowled.
Alabaster.
She could see the lines of it–tall, elongated, its sorrow hidden, revealed only by the long, mournful lines of the drapery.
Sorrow, emerging from clear, transparent alabaster.
‘If I were dead…’
And suddenly bitterness came over her full tide!
She thought: ‘That’s what I am! John was right. I cannot love–I cannot mourn–not with the whole of me.
‘It’s Midge, it’s people