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

For God's sake, stop!" She looked at him curiously. "Didn't you know I'd feel likethis? Whatdid you think? That I'd sit gently crying into a nice little pocket handkerchief whileyou held my hand. That it would all be a great shock but that presently I'd beginto get over it. And that you'd comfort me very nicely. You are nice, Edward.You're very nice, but you're so--so inadequate." He drew back. His face stiffened.He said in a dry voice: "Yes, I've always known that." She went on fiercely:"What do you think it's been like all the evening, sitting round, with John dead andnobody caring but me and Gerda! With you glad, and David embarrassed and Midgedistressed and Lucy delicately enjoying the News of the World come from print intoreal life! Can't you see how like a fantastic nightmareit all is?" Edward said nothing. He stepped back a pace, into shadows.Looking at him, Henrietta said: "Tonight--nothing seems real to me, nobody isreal--but John!" Edward said quietly, "I know ... I am not very real. ...""What a brute I am, Edward! But I can't help it. I can't help resenting that John whowas so alive is dead." "And that I who am half dead am alive . . ." "I didn'tmean that, Edward." "I think you did, Henrietta ... I think, perhaps, you are right."But she was saying, thoughtfully, harking back to an earlier thought:"But it is not grief. Perhaps I cannot feel grief . . . Perhaps I never shall . . . Andyet--I would like to grieve for John ..." Her words seemed to him fantastic. Yet hewas even more startled when she added, suddenly, in an almost businesslike voice:"I must go to the swimming pool." She glided away through the trees. Walkingstiffly, Edward went through the open window. Midge looked up as Edward camethrough the window with unseeing eyes. His face was grey and pinched. It lookedbloodless. He did not hear the little gasp that Midge stifled immediately.Almost mechanically he walked to a chair and sat down. Aware of something expectedof him, he said:"It's cold ..." "Are you very cold, Edward? Shall we— shall I—light a fire?""What?" Midge took a box of matches from the mantelpiece. She knelt down andset a match to the fire. She looked cautiously sideways at Edward. He was quiteoblivious, she thought, of everything. She said, "A fire is nice. It warms one . .." How cold he looks, she thought. But it can't be as cold as that outside. It'sHenrietta! What has she said to him? "Bring your chair nearer, Edward. Comeclose to the fire." "What?""Your chair. To the fire." She was talking to him now, loudly and slowly, asthough to a deaf person. And suddenly, so suddenly that her heart turned overwith relief, Edward, the real Edward, was there again. Smiling at her gently."Have you been talking to me. Midge? I'm sorry. I'm afraid I was--thinking ofsomething." "Oh, it was nothing. Just the fire." The sticks were crackling andsome fir cones were burning with a bright clear flame. Edward looked at them. Hesaid: "Ifs a nice fire." He stretched out his long thin hands to the blaze, aware