The Hollow hp-24 Read online

  It had been an upsetting vision-he had felt for a moment that he had lost something-something that was a precious part of Ainswick.

  And he had said impulsively, speaking out of that suddenly aroused feeling, "I wish I saw you more often. Midge my dear…"

  Standing outside in the moonlight, speaking to a Henrietta who was no longer, suddenly, the familiar Henrietta he had loved for so long-he had known sudden panic.

  And he had come in to a further disturbance of the set pattern which was his life. Little Midge was also a part of Ainswick-and this was no longer Little Midge-but a courageous and sad-eyed adult whom he did not know.

  Ever since then he had been troubled in his mind, and had indulged in a good deal of self-reproach for the unthinking way in which he had never bothered about Midge's happiness or comfort. The idea of her uncongenial job at Madame Alfrege's had worried him more and more, and he had determined at last to see for himself just what this dress shop of hers was like.

  Edward peered suspiciously into the show window at a little black dress with a narrow gold belt, some rakish-looking, skimpy jumper suits, and an evening gown of rather tawdry coloured lace.

  Edward knew nothing about women's clothes except by instinct but had a shrewd idea that all these exhibits were somehow of a meretricious order. No, he thought, this place was not worthy of her. Someone-Lady Angkatell, perhaps-must do something about it.

  Overcoming his shyness with an effort, Edward straightened his slightly stooping shoulders and walked in.

  He was instantly paralyzed with embarrassment.

  Two platinum blonde little minxes with shrill voices were examining dresses in a show-case, with a dark saleswoman in attendance.

  At the back of the shop a small woman with a thick nose, henna-red hair and a disagreeable voice was arguing with a stout and bewildered customer over some alterations to an evening gown. From an adjacent cubicle a woman's fretful voice was raised.

  "Frightful-perfectly frightful-can't you bring me anything decent to try?"

  In response he heard the soft murmur of Midge's voice-a deferential persuasive voice:

  "This wine model is really very smart.

  And I think it would suit you. If you'd just slip it on-"

  "I'm not going to waste my time trying on things that I can see are no good. Do take a little trouble. I've told you I don't want reds. If you'd just listen to what you are told-"

  The colour surged up into Edward's neck.

  He hoped Midge would throw the dress in the odious woman's face. Instead she murmured:

  "I'll have another look. You wouldn't care for green, I suppose. Madam? Or this peach?"

  "Dreadful-perfectly dreadful! No, I won't see anything more. Sheer waste of time-"

  But now Madame Alfrege, detaching herself from the stout customer, had come down to Edward, and was looking at him inquiringly.

  He pulled himself together.

  "Is-could I speak-is Miss Hardcastle here?"

  Madame Alfrege's eyebrows went up-but she took in the Savile Row cut of Edward's clothes, and she produced a smile whose graciousness was rather more unpleasant than her bad temper would have been.

  From inside the cubicle the fretful voice rose sharply:

  "Do be careful! How clumsy you are. You've torn my hair net."

  And Midge, her voice unsteady:

  "I'm very sorry. Madam."

  "Stupid clumsiness." (The voice disappeared, muffled.) "No, I'll do it myself. My belt, please."

  "Miss Hardcastle will be free in a minute," said Madame Alfrege. Her smile was now a leer.

  A sandy-haired, bad-tempered-looking woman emerged from the cubicle, carrying several parcels, and went out into the street.

  Midge, in a severe black dress, opened the door for her. She looked pale and unhappy.

  "I've come to take you out to lunch," said Edward without preamble.

  Midge gave a harried glance up at the clock.

  "I don't get off until quarter past one," she began.

  It was ten past one.

  Madame Alfrege said graciously:

  "You can go off now if you like. Miss Hardcastle, as your friend has called for you."

  Midge murmured, "Oh, thank you, Madame Alfrege," and to Edward, "I'll be ready in a minute," and disappeared into the back of the shop.

  Edward, who had winced under the impact of Madame Alfrege's heavy emphasis on friend, stood helplessly waiting. Madame Alfrege was just about to enter into arch conversation with him when the door opened and an opulent-looking woman with a Pekingese came in and Madame Alfrege's business instincts took her forward to the newcomer.

  Midge reappeared with her coat on and, taking her by the elbow, Edward steered her out of the shop into the street.

  "My God," he said, "is that the sort of thing you have to put up with? I heard that damned woman talking to you behind the curtain. How can you stick it, Midge? Why didn't you throw the damned frocks at her head?"

  "I'd soon lose my job if I did things like that."

  "But don't you want to fling things at a woman of that kind?"

  Midge drew a deep breath.

  "Of course I do. And there are times, especially at the end of a hot week during the summer sales, when I am afraid that one day I shall let go and just tell everyone exactly where they get off-instead of 'Yes, Madam, no, Madam-I'll see if we have anything else, Madam.'"

  "Midge, dear little Midge, you can't put up with all this!"

  Midge laughed a little shakily.

  "Don't be so upset, Edward. Why on earth did you have to come here? Why not ring up?"

  "I wanted to see for myself. I've been worried …" He paused and then broke out. "Why, Lucy wouldn't talk to a scullery maid the way that woman talked to you. It's all wrong that you should have to put up with insolence and rudeness. Good God, Midge, I'd like to take you right out of it all down to Ainswick. I'd like to hail a taxi, bundle you into it, and take you down to Ainswick now by the 2:15."

  Midge stopped. Her assumed nonchalance fell from her. She had had a long, tiring morning with trying customers and Madame at her most bullying. She turned on Edward with a sudden flare of resentment.

  "Well, then, why don't you? There are plenty of taxis!"

  He stared at her, taken aback by her sudden fury. She went on, her anger flaming up: "Why do you have to come along and say these things? You don't mean them. Do you think it makes it any easier after I've had the hell of a morning to be reminded that there, are places like Ainswick? Do you think I'm grateful to you for standing there and babbling about how much you'd like to take me out of it all? All very sweet and insincere.

  You don't really mean a word of it. Don't you know that I'd sell my soul to catch the 2:15 to Ainswick and get away from everything?

  I can't bear even to think of Ainswick, do you understand? You mean well, Edward, but you're cruel! Saying things-just saying things…"

  They faced each other, seriously incommoding the lunchtime crowd in Shaftesbury Avenue. Yet they were conscious of nothing but each other. Edward was staring at her like a man suddenly aroused from sleep.

  He said, "All right then, damn it. You're coming to Ainswick by the 2:15!"

  He raised his stick and hailed a passing taxi. It drew into the curb. Edward opened the door and Midge, slightly dazed, got in.

  Edward said "Paddington Station" to the driver and followed her in.

  They sat in silence. Midge's lips were set together. Her eyes were defiant and mutinous.

  Edward stared straight ahead of him.

  As they waited for the traffic lights in Oxford Street, Midge said disagreeably:

  "I seem to have called your bluff."

  Edward said shortly:

  "It wasn't bluff."

  The taxi started forward again with a jerk.

  It was not until the taxi turned left in Edgware Road into Cambridge Terrace that Edward suddenly regained his normal attitude to life.

  He said, "We can't catch th
e 2:15," and tapping on the glass he said to the driver, "Go to the Berkeley."

  Midge said coldly, "Why can't we catch the 2:15? It's only twenty-five past one now."

  Edward smiled at her.

  "You haven't got any luggage, little Midge. No nightgowns or toothbrushes or country shoes. There's a 4:15, you know.

  We'll have some lunch now and talk things over."

  Midge sighed.

  "That's so like you, Edward. To remember the practical side. Impulse doesn't carry you very far, does it? Oh, well, it was a nice dream while it lasted."

  She slipped her hand into his and gave him her old smile.

  "I'm sorry I stood on the pavement and abused you like a fishwife," she said. "But you know, Edward, you were irritating."

  "Yes," he said, "I must have been."

  They went into the Berkeley happily side by side. They got a table by the window and Edward ordered an excellent lunch.

  As they finished their chicken. Midge sighed and said, "I ought to hurry back to the shop. My time's up."

  "You're going to take decent time over your lunch today, even if I have to go back and buy half the clothes in the shop!"

  "Dear Edward, you are really sweet."

  They ate crepes suzette and then waiter brought them coffee. Edward stirred his sugar in with his spoon.

  He said gently: "You really do love Ainswick, don't you?"

  "Must we talk about Ainswick? I've sirvived not catching the 2:15-and I quite realize that there isn't any question of the 4:15-but don't rub it in."

  Edward smiled.

  "No, I'm not proposing that we catch the 4:15. But I am suggesting that you come to Ainswick, Midge. I'm suggesting that you come there for good-that is, if you can put up with me."

  She stared at him over the rim of her coffee cup-put it down with a hand that she managed to keep steady.

  "What do you really mean, Edward?"

  "I'm suggesting that you should marry me. Midge. I don't suppose that I'm a very romantic proposition. I'm a dull dog, I know that, and not much good at anything-I just read books and potter around. But although I'm not a very exciting person, we've known each other a long time and I think that Ainswick itself would-well, would compensate I think you'd be happy at Ainswick, Midge. Will you come?"

  Midge swallowed once or twice-then she said:

  "But I thought-Henrietta-" and stopped.

  Edward said, his voice level and unemotional:

  "Yes, I've asked Henrietta three times to marry me. Each time she has refused. Henrietta knows what she doesn't want."

  There was a silence, and then Edward said:

  "Well, Midge dear, what about it?"

  Midge looked up at him. There was a catch in her voice. She said:

  "It seems so extraordinary-to be offered heaven on a plate as it were, at the Berkeley!"

  His face lighted up. He laid his hand over hers for a brief moment.

  "Heaven on a plate," he said. "So you feel like that about Ainswick… Oh, Midge, I'm glad."

  They sat there happily. Edward paid the bill and added an enormous tip.

  The people in the restaurant were thinning out. Midge said with an effort:

  "We'll have to go…I suppose I'd better go back to Madame Alfrege. After all, she's counting on me. I can't just walk out."

  "No, I suppose you'll have to go back and resign, or hand in your notice, or whatever you call it. You're not to go on working there, though. I won't have it. But first I thought we'd better go to one of those shops in Bond Street where they sell rings."

  "Rings?"

  "It's usual, isn't it?"

  Midge laughed.

  In the dimmed lighting of the jeweller's shop. Midge and Edward bent over trays of sparkling engagement rings, whilst a discreet salesman watched them benignantly.

  Edward said, pushing away a velvet-covered tray:

  "Not emeralds."

  Henrietta in green tweeds-Henrietta in an evening dress like Chinese jade…

  No, not emeralds…

  Midge pushed away the tiny stabbing pain at her heart.

  "Choose for me," she said to Edward.

  He bent over the tray before them. He picked out a ring with a single diamond. Not a very large stone, but a stone of beautiful colour and fire.

  "I like this."

  Midge nodded. She loved this display of Edward's unerring and fastidious taste.

  She slipped it on her finger as Edward and the shopman drew aside.

  Edward wrote out a check for three hundred and forty-two pounds and came back to Midge smiling.

  He said, "Let's go and be rude to Madame Alfrege…"

  Chapter XXV

  "But, darlings, I am so delighted!"

  Lady Angkatell stretched out a fragile hand to Edward and touched Midge softly with the other.

  "You did quite right, Edward, to make her leave that horrid shop and to bring her right down here. She'll stay here, of course, and be married from here-St. George's, you know, three miles by the road, though only a mile through the woods, but then one doesn't go to a wedding through woods. And I suppose it will have to be the Vicar-poor man, he has such dreadful colds in the head every Autumn-the Curate, now, has one of those high Anglican voices, and the whole thing would be far more impressive-and more religious, too, if you know what I mean. It is so hard to keep one's mind reverent when somebody is saying things through the nose."

  It was, Midge decided, a very Lucyish reception. It made her want to both laugh and cry.

  "I'd love to be married from here, Lucy," she said.

  "Then that's settled, darling. Off-white satin, I think, and an ivory prayer book- not a bouquet. Bridesmaids?"

  "No. I don't want a fuss. Just a very quiet wedding."

  "I know what you mean, darling-and I think perhaps you are right. With an Autumn wedding it's nearly always chrysanthemums-such an uninspiring flower, I always think. And unless one takes a lot of time to choose them carefully, bridesmaids never match properly and there's nearly always one terribly plain one who ruins the whole effect-but one has to have her because she's usually the bridegroom's sister. But, of course-" Lady Angkatell beamed. "Edward hasn't got any sisters."

  "That seems to be one point in my favour," said Edward, smiling.

  "But children are really the worst at weddings," went on Lady Angkatell, happily pursuing her own train of thought. "Everyone says 'How sweet!' but, my dear, the anxiety! They step on the train, or else they howl for Nannie, and quite often they're sick. I always wonder how a girl can go up the aisle in a proper frame of mind, while she's so uncertain about what is happening behind her."

  "There needn't be anything behind me," said Midge cheerfully. "Not even a train. I can be married in a coat and skirt."

  "Oh, no. Midge, that's so like a widow. No, off-white satin and not from Madame Alfrege's."

  "Certainly not from Madame Alfrege's," said Edward.

  "I shall take you to Mireille," said Lady Angkatell.

  "My dear Lucy, I can't possibly afford Mireille."

  "Nonsense, Midge. Henry and I are going to give you your trousseau. And Henry, of course, will give you away. I do hope the band of his trousers won't be too tight. It's nearly two years since he last went to a wedding. And I shall wear-"

  Lady Angkatell paused and closed her eyes.

  "Yes, Lucy?"

  "Hydrangea blue," announced Lady Angkatell in a rapt voice. "I suppose, Edward, you will have one of your own friends for best man; otherwise, of course, there is David. I cannot help feeling it would be frightfully good for David. It would give him poise, you know, and he would feel we all liked him. That, I am sure is very important with David. It must be so disheartening, you know, to feel you are clever and intellectual and yet nobody likes you any the better for it! But, of course, it would be rather a risk.

  He would probably lose the ring, or drop it at the last minute. I expect it would worry Edward too much. But it would be nice in a way to keep it to the
same people we've had here for the murder."

  Lady Angkatell uttered the last few words in the most conversational of tones.

  "Lady Angkatell has been entertaining a few friends for a murder this Autumn," Midge could not help saying.

  "Yes," said Lucy meditatively. "I suppose it did sound like that. A party for the shooting… You know, when you come to think of it, that's just what it has been!"

  Midge gave a faint shiver and said:

  "Well, at any rate, it's over now."

  "It's not exactly over-the inquest was only adjourned. And that nice Inspector Grange has got men all over the place simply crashing through the chestnut woods and startling all the pheasants, and springing up like jacks-in-the-box in the most unlikely places."

  "What are they looking for?" asked Edward.

  "The revolver that Christow was shot with?"

  "I imagine that must be it. They even came to the house with a search warrant-the Inspector was most apologetic about it, quite shy-but, of course, I told him we should be delighted. It was really most interesting.

  They looked absolutely everywhere. I followed them round, you know, and I suggested one or two places which even they hadn't thought of. But they didn't find anything. It was most disappointing. Poor Inspector Grange, he is growing quite thin and he pulls and pulls at that moustache of his. His wife ought to give him specially nourishing meals with all this worry he is having-but I have a vague idea that she must be one of those women who care more about having the linoleum really well-polished than in cooking a tasty little meal.

  Which reminds me, I must go and see Mrs. Medway. Funny how servants cannot bear the police. Her cheese souffle last night was quite uneatable. Souffles and pastry always show if one is off balance. If it weren't for Gudgeon keeping them all together, I really believe half the servants would leave. Why don't you two go and have a nice walk and help the police look for the revolver?"

  Hercule Poirot sat on the bench overlooking the chestnut groves above the pool. He had no sense of trespassing since Lady Angkatell had very sweetly begged him to wander where he would at any time. It was Lady Angkatell's sweetness which Hercule Poirot was considering at this moment.