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

Angkatells were always so far ahead that you didn't feel even in the same streetwith them. How she hated the Angkatells! It was good for John --John liked itthere. He came home less tired--and sometimes less irritable.)Dear John! she thought. John was wonderful. Everyone thought so! Such a cleverdoctor, so terribly kind to his patients. Wearing himself out--and the interest hetook in his hospital patients--all that side of his work that didn't pay at all. John was sodisinterested--so truly noble. She had always known, from the very first, thatJohn was brilliant and was going to get to the top of the tree. And he had chosenher, when he might have married somebody far more brilliant. He had not mindedher being slow and rather stupid and not very pretty. "I'll look after you," he hadsaid. Nicely, rather masterfully. "Don't worry about things, Gerda, I'll take care ofyou . . ." Just what a man ought to be. Wonderful ^ think John shouldhave chosen her. He had said, with that sudden, very at tractive, half pleading smile ofhis, "I like my own way, you know, Gerda." Well, that was all right. She had alwaystried to give in to him in everything. Even lately when he had been so difficult andnervy—when nothing seemed to please him. When, somehow, nothing she did was right.One couldn't blame him. He was so busy, so unselfish— Oh, dear, that mutton! Sheought to have sent it back! Still no sign of John . . . Why couldn't she, sometimes,decide right. Again those dark waves of misery swept over her. The mutton! Thisawful week-end with the Angkatells! She felt a sharp pain through both temples.Oh, dear, now she was goingto have one of her headaches. And it did so annoy John when she had headaches. Henever would give her anything for them, when surely it would be so easy, being adoctor. Instead, he always said, "Don't think about it. No use poisoning yourselfwith drugs. Take a brisk walk." The mutton! Staring at it, Gerda felt the wordsrepeating themselves in her aching head, "The mutton, the MUTTON, THEMUTTON. ..." Tears of self-pity sprang to her eyes. Why, she thought, does nothingever go right for me? Terence looked across the table at his mother and thenat the joint. He thought, Why can't we have our dinner? How stupid grown up peopleare. They haven't anysense! Aloud he said in a careful voice: "Nicholson Minor and I are going tomake nitro-glycerine in his father's shrubbery. They live in Streatham.""Are you, dear? That will be very nice," said Gerda. There was still time. If sherang the bell and told Lewis to take the joint down now-- Terence looked ather with faint curiosity. He had felt instinctively that the manufacture ofnitro-glycerine was not the kind of occupation that would be encouraged by parents.With base opportunism he had selected a moment when he felt tolerably certain thathe had a good chance of getting away with his statement. And his judgment had beenJustified. If, by any chance, there should be a fuss--if, that is, the properties ofnitroglycerine should manifest themselves too evidently, he would be able to say in aninjured voice, "I told Mother ..." All the same, he felt vaguely disappointed.