Agatha Christie The Hollow Chapter I At 6:13 a.m. ... - bzelbublive.info

Mrs. Crabtree looked at her for a moment or two. "Sounds a bit grand! I'll domy best, ducky. Carn't say more than that." Henrietta got up and took her hand."Good-bye. I'll come and see you again if I may." "Yes, do. It'll do me good to talkabout the doctor a bit." The bawdy twinkle came into her eye again. "Proper manin every kind of way. Dr. Christow." "Yes," said Henrietta. "He was ..." Theold woman said: "Don't fret, ducky--what's gorn's gorn. You can't 'ave it back ..."Mrs. Crabtree and Hercule Poirot, Henrietta thought, expressed the same idea indifferent language.She drove back to Chelsea, put away the car in the garage and walked slowly to thestudio. Now, she thought, it has come. The moment I have been dreading--themoment when I am alone . . . Now I can put it off no longer . . . Now grief ishere 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:/// were dead, the first thing you'd do, with the tears streaming down your face, wouldbe to start modelling some damned 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, emergingfrom clear transparentalabaster. If I were dead . . . And suddenly bitterness came over her fulltide! She thought, Thafs what I am! John was right. I cannot love—I cannotmourn—not with the whole of me ... It's Midge, it's people like Midge who are thesalt of the earth. Midge and Edward at Ainswick . . . That wasreality—strength—warmth . . . But I, she thought, am not a whole person. I belongnot to myself, but to something outside me. . . . I cannot grieve for my dead . . .Instead I must take my grief and make it into a figure of alabaster . . ."Exhibit N. 58 Grief, Alabaster. Miss Henrietta Savernake." She said under herbreath: "John, forgive me ... forgive me ... for what I can't help doing ..."