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

no need, actually, for her to earn her living. Lucy and Henry would gladly give hera home--they would with equal gladness have made her an allowance. Edwardwould also willingly have done the latter.But something in Midge rebelledagainst the acceptance of ease offered her by her well-to-do relations. To come onrare occasions and sink into the well-ordered luxury of Lucy's life was delightful.She could revel in that. But some sturdy independence of spirit held her back fromaccepting that life as a gift. The same feeling had prevented herfrom starting a business on her own with money borrowed from relations andfriends. She had seen too much of that. She would borrow no money--use noinfluence. She had found a job for herself at four pounds a week and if she hadactually been given the job because Madame Alfrege hoped that Midge wouldbring her "smart" friends to buy, Madame Alfrege was disappointed. Midge sternlydiscouraged any such notion on the part of her friends. She had no particularillusions about working. She disliked the shop, she disliked Madame Alfrege 3 shedisliked the eternal subservience to ill-tempered and impolite customers, but shedoubted very much whether she could obtain any other job which she would likebetter, since she hadnone of the necessary qualifications. Edward's assumption that a wide range ofchoice was open to her was simply unbearably irritating this morning. What right hadEdward to live in a world so divorced from reality? They were Angkatells, all ofthem! And she--was only half an Angkatelll And sometimes, like this morning, she didnot feel like an Angkatell at all! She was all her father's daughter. Shethought of her father with the usual pang of love and compunction, a greyhaired,middle-aged man with a tired face. A man who had struggled for years, running asmall family business that was bound, for all his care and efforts, to go slowly downthe hill. It was not incapacity on his part--it was the march of progress. Strangely enough, it was not to her brilliantAngkatell mother but to her quiet tired father that Midge's devotion had always beengiven. Each time, when she came back, from those visits to Ainswick, which were thewild delight other life, she would answer the faint deprecating question in herfather's tired f"^ ^\r fliniyinff her arms round his neck and saying, "I'm glad to behome--I'm glad to be home." Her mother had died when Midge was thirteen.Sometimes, Midge realized that she knew very little about her mother. She hadbeen vague, charming, gay. Had she regretted her marriage, the marriage that hadtaken her outside the circle of the Angkatell clan? Midge had no idea. Her father hadgrown greyer and quieter after his wife's death. His struggles against the extinctionof his business had grown more unavailing. He had died quietly and inconspicuouslywhen Midge was eighteen. Midge had stayed with various Angkatell relations, hadaccepted presents from the Angkatells, had had good times with the Angkatells, butshe had refused to be financially dependent on their good will. And much as sheloved them, there were times such as these, when she felt suddenly and violentlydivergent from them. She thought with rancour, they don't know anything!