The Hollow

Inactivity at last became too much for her.

She got up, slipped on her dressing gown and taking a flashlight, she opened her door and came out into the passage.

It was quite dark, no lights had been switched on. Midge turned to the left and came to the head of the staircase. Below all was dark too. She ran down the stairs and after a moment's hesitation switched on the light in the hall. Everything was silent. The front door was closed and locked. She tried the side door but that too was locked.

Edward, then, had not gone out. Where could he be?

And suddenly she raised her head and sniffed.

A whiff-a very faint whiff of gas.

The baize door to the kitchen quarters was just ajar. She went through it-a faint light was shining from the open kitchen door. The smell of gas ^as much stronger.

Midge ran along the passage and into the kitchen. Edward was lying on the floor with his head inside the gas oven which was turned on full- Midge was a quick practical girl. Her first act was to swing open the shutters. She could not unlatch the window and winding a glass cloth round her arm, she smashed it. Then, holding her breath, she stooped down and tugged and pulled Edward out of the gas oven and switched off the taps.

He was unconscious and breathing queerly, but she knew that he could not have been unconscious long. He could only just have gone under. The wind sweeping through from the window to the open door was fast dispelling the gas fumes. Midge dragged Edward to a spot near the window where the air would have full play. She sat down and gathered him into her strong young arms.

She said his name, first softly, then with increasing desperation:

"Edward, Edward, Edward, Edward. …"

He stirred, groaned, opened his eyes and looked up at her.

He said very faintly, "Gas oven…" and his eyes went round to the gas stove.

"I know, darling, but why-why?"

He was shivering now, his hands were cold and lifeless.

He said, "Midge?"

There was a kind of wondering surprise and pleasure in his voice.

She said, "I heard you pass my door…

I didn't know… I came down."

He sighed-a very long sigh as though from very far away.

"Best way out," he said. And then, inexplicably, until she remembered Lucy's conversation on the night of the tragedy, "News of the World."

"But, Edward, why-why?"

He looked up at her and the blank, cold darkness of his stare frightened her.

"Because I know now I've never been any good. Always a failure. Always ineffectual.

It's men like Christow who do things. They get there and women admire them. I'm nothing-I'm not even quite alive. I inherited Ainswick and I've enough to live on-otherwise I'd have gone under. No good at a career-never much good as a writer. Henrietta didn't want me. No one wanted me.

That day-at the Berkeley-I thought-but it was the same story. You couldn't care either, Midge. Even for Ainswick you couldn't put up with me… So I thought better get out altogether."

Her words came with a rush.

"Darling, darling. You don't understand.

It was because of Henrietta-because I thought you still loved Henrietta so much."

"Henrietta?" He murmured it vaguely, as though speaking of someone infinitely remote.

"Yes, I loved her very much."

And from even farther away she heard him murmur:

"It's so cold…"

"Edward-my darling."

Her arms closed round him firmly. He smiled at her, murmuring:

"You're so warm. Midge-you're so warm…"

Yes, she thought, that was what despair was. A cold thing-a thing of infinite coldness and loneliness. She'd never understood until now that despair was a cold thing. She had thought of it as something hot and passionate, something violent, a hot-blooded desperation. But that was not so. This was despair-this utter outer darkness of coldness and loneliness. And the sin of despair, that priests talked of, was a cold sin, the sin of cutting oneself off from all warm and living human contacts…

Edward said again, "You're so warm, Midge." And suddenly, with a glad proud confidence, she thought. But that's what he wants-that's what I can give him! They were all cold, the Angkatells; even Henrietta had something in her of the will-o'the-wisp, of the elusive fairy coldness in the Angkatell blood. Let Edward love Henrietta as an intangible and unpossessable dream. It was warmth, permanence, stability that was his real need. It was daily companionship and love and laughter at Ainswick.

She thought. What Edward needs is someone to light a fire on his hearth-and / am the person to do that.

Edward looked up. He saw Midge's face bending over him, the warm colouring of the skin, the generous mouth, the steady eyes and the dark hair that lay back from her forehead like two wings.