The Hollow

"Sometimes I think Lucy really is a bit touched," said Midge, as she and Edward strolled over from the house and up towards the woods.

The partridges and the souffle surprise had been excellent and with the inquest over a weight had lifted from the atmosphere.

Edward said thoughtfully:

"I always think Lucy has a brilliant mind that expresses itself like a missing word competition.

To mix metaphors-the hammer jumps from nail to nail and never fails to hit each one squarely on the head."

"All the same," Midge said soberly, "Lucy frightens me sometimes." She added, with a tiny shiver, "This place has frightened me lately."

"The Hollow?"

Edward turned an astonished face to her.

"It always reminds me a little of Ainswick," he said. "It's not, of course, the real thing-"

Midge interrupted:

"That's just it, Edward-I'm frightened of things that aren't the real thing… You don't know, you see, what's behind them…

It's like-oh, it's like a mask."

"You mustn't be fanciful, little Midge."

It was the old tone, the indulgent tone he had used years ago. She had liked it then, but now it disturbed her. She struggled to make her meaning clearer-to show him that behind what he called fancy, was some shape of dimly apprehended reality.

"I got away from it in London, but now I get back here it all comes over me again.

I feel that everyone knows who killed John Christow… That the only person who doesn't know-is me."

Edward said irritably:

"Must we think and talk about John

Christow? He's dead. Dead and gone."

Midge murmured:

"He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone;

At his head a grass-green turf

At his heels a stone."

She put her hand on Edward's arm. "Who did kill him, Edward? We thought it was Gerda-but it wasn't Gerda. Then who was it? Tell me what you think? Was it someone we've never heard of?"

He said irritably:

"All this speculation seems to me quite unprofitable. If the police can't find out, or can't get sufficient evidence, then the whole thing will have to be allowed to drop-and we shall be rid of it."

"Yes-but it's the not knowing-"

"Why should we want to know? What has

John Christow to do with us?"

With us, she thought, with Edward and me? Nothing! Comforting thought-she and Edward, linked, a dual entity. And yet- and yet-John Christow, for all that he had been laid in his grave and the words of the burial service read over him, was not buried deep enough. He is dead and gone, lady…

But John Christow was not dead and gone -for all that Edward wished him to be…

John Christow was still here at The Hollow.

Edward said, "Where are we going?"

Something in his tone surprised her. She said:

"Let's walk up onto the top of the ridge.

Shall we?"

"If you like."

For some reason, he was unwilling. She wondered why. It was usually his favourite walk. He and Henrietta used nearly always - Her thought snapped and broke off…

He and Henrietta- She said, "Have you been this way yet this Autumn?"

He said stiffly:

"Henrietta and I walked up here that first afternoon."

They went on in silence.

They came at last to the top and sat on the fallen tree.

Midge thought: "He and Henrietta sat here, perhaps…"

She turned the ring on her finger round and round. The diamond flashed coldly at her… ("Not emeralds," he had said.) She said with a slight effort:

"It will be lovely to be at Ainswick again for Christmas."

He did not seem to hear her. He had gone far away.

She thought. He is thinking of Henrietta and of John Christow.

Sitting here he had said something to Henrietta or she had said something to him…

Henrietta might know what she didn't want but he belonged to Henrietta still. He always would. Midge thought, belong to Henrietta. …

Pain swooped down upon her. The happy bubble world in which she had lived for the last week quivered and broke.

She thought, I can't live like that-with Henrietta always there in his mind. I can't face it. I can't bear it…

The wind sighed through the trees-the leaves were falling fast now-there were hardly any gold ones left, only brown.

She said, "Edward!"

The urgency of her voice aroused him. He turned his head.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry, Edward." Her lips were trembling but she forced her voice to be quiet and self-controlled. "I've got to tell you. It's no use. I can't marry you. It wouldn't work, Edward."

He said, "But, Midge-surely Ainswick-"

She interrupted:

"I can't marry you just for Ainswick, Edward.

You-you must see that."

He sighed then, a long, gentle sigh. It was like an echo of the dead leaves slipping gently off the branches of the trees.

"I see what you mean," he said. "Yes, I suppose you are right."

"It was dear of you to ask me, dear and sweet. But it wouldn't do, Edward. It wouldn't work."

She had had a faint hope, perhaps, that he would argue with her, that he would try to persuade her-but he seemed, quite simply, to feel just as she did about it. Here, with the ghost of Henrietta close beside him, he, too, apparently, saw that it couldn't work…

"No," he said, echoing her words, "it wouldn't work."

She slipped the ring off her finger and held it out to him.