The Hollow

‘Veronica,’ he thought. ‘Veronica!’ And then, ‘What a fool I am! Veronica doesn’t mean a thing to me now.’

‘And this is under your feet and you have power over it—the Queen of Clubs.’

Gerda hurried into the room.

‘I’m quite ready now, John.’

‘Oh, wait, Mother, wait, I’m telling Daddy’s fortune. Just the last card, Daddy—the most important of all. The one that covers you.’

Zena’s small sticky fingers turned it over. She gave a gasp.

‘Oh—it’s the Ace of Spades! That’s usually a death—but—’

‘Your mother,’ said John, ‘is going to run over someone on the way out of London. Come on, Gerda. Goodbye, you two. Try and behave.’

CHAPTER 6 (#ue4f54643-8678-5c1a-94bc-947cbe91ae18)

Midge Hardcastle came downstairs about eleven on Saturday morning. She had had breakfast in bed and had read a book and dozed a little and then got up.

It was nice lazing this way. About time she had a holiday! No doubt about it, Madame Alfrege’s got on your nerves.

She came out of the front door into the pleasant autumn sunshine. Sir Henry Angkatell was sitting on a rustic seat reading The Times. He looked up and smiled. He was fond of Midge.

‘Hallo, my dear.’

‘Am I very late?’

‘You haven’t missed lunch,’ said Sir Henry, smiling.

Midge sat down beside him and said with a sigh:

‘It’s nice being here.’

‘You’re looking rather peaked.’

‘Oh, I’m all right. How delightful to be somewhere where no fat women are trying to get into clothes several sizes too small for them!’

‘Must be dreadful!’ Sir Henry paused and then said, glancing down at his wrist-watch: ‘Edward’s arriving by the 12.15.’

‘Is he?’ Midge paused, then said, ‘I haven’t seen Edward for a long time.’

‘He’s just the same,’ said Sir Henry. ‘Hardly ever comes up from Ainswick.’

‘Ainswick,’ thought Midge. ‘Ainswick!’ Her heart gave a sick pang. Those lovely days at Ainswick. Visits looked forward to for months! ‘I’m going to Ainswick.’ Lying awake for nights beforehand thinking about it. And at last—the day! The little country station at which the train—the big London express—had to stop if you gave notice to the guard! The Daimler waiting outside. The drive—the final turn in through the gate and up through the woods till you came out into the open and there the house was—big and white and welcoming. Old Uncle Geoffrey in his patchwork tweed coat.

‘Now then, youngsters—enjoy yourselves.’ And they had enjoyed themselves. Henrietta over from Ireland. Edward, home from Eton. She herself, from the North-country grimness of a manufacturing town. How like heaven it had been.

But always centring about Edward. Edward, tall and gentle and diffident and always kind. But never, of course, noticing her very much because Henrietta was there.

Edward, always so retiring, so very much of a visitor so that she had been startled one day when Tremlet, the head gardener, had said:

‘The place will be Mr Edward’s some day.’

‘But why, Tremlet? He’s not Uncle Geoffrey’s son.’

‘He’s the heir, Miss Midge. Entailed, that’s what they call it. Miss Lucy, she’s Mr Geoffrey’s only child, but she can’t inherit because she’s a female, and Mr Henry, as she married, he’s only a second cousin. Not so near as Mr Edward.’

And now Edward lived at Ainswick. Lived there alone and very seldom came away. Midge wondered, sometimes, if Lucy minded. Lucy always looked as though she never minded about anything.

Yet Ainswick had been her home, and Edward was only her first cousin once removed, and over twenty years younger than she was. Her father, old Geoffrey Angkatell, had been a great ‘character’ in the country. He had had considerable wealth as well, most of which had come to Lucy, so that Edward was a comparatively poor man, with enough to keep the place up, but not much over when that was done.

Not that Edward had expensive tastes. He had been in the diplomatic service for a time, but when he inherited Ainswick he had resigned and come to live on his property. He was of a bookish turn of mind, collected first editions, and occasionally wrote rather hesitating ironical little articles for obscure reviews. He had asked his second cousin, Henrietta Savernake, three times to marry him.

Midge sat in the autumn sunshine thinking of these things. She could not make up her mind whether she was glad she was going to see Edward or not. It was not as though she were what is called ‘getting over it’. One simply did not get over any one like Edward. Edward of Ainswick was just as real to her as Edward rising to greet her from a restaurant table in London. She had loved Edward ever since she could remember…

Sir Henry’s voice recalled her.

‘How do you think Lucy is looking?’

‘Very well. She’s just the same as ever.’ Midge smiled a little. ‘More so.’

‘Ye—es.’ Sir Henry drew on his pipe. He said unexpectedly:

‘Sometimes, you know, Midge, I get worried about Lucy.’

‘Worried?’ Midge looked at him in surprise. ‘Why?’

Sir Henry shook his head.

‘Lucy,’ he said, ‘doesn’t realize that there are things that she can’t do.’

Midge stared. He went on:

‘She gets away with things. She always has.’ He smiled. ‘She’s flouted the traditions of Government House—she’s played merry hell with precedence at dinner parties (and that, Midge, is a black crime!). She’s put deadly enemies next to each other at the dinner table, and run riot over the colour question! And instead of raising one big almighty row and setting everyone at loggerheads and bringing disgrace on the British Raj—I’m damned if she hasn’t got away with it! That trick of hers—smiling at people and looking as though she couldn’t help it! Servants are the same—she gives them any amount of trouble and they adore her.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Midge thoughtfully. ‘Things that you wouldn’t stand from anyone else, you feel are all right if Lucy does them. What is it, I wonder? Charm? Magnetism?’

Sir Henry shrugged his shoulders.

‘She’s always been the same from a girl—only sometimes I feel it’s growing on her. I mean that she doesn’t realize that there are limits. Why, I really believe, Midge,’ he said, amused, ‘that Lucy would feel she could get away with murder!’

Henrietta got the Delage out from the garage in the Mews and, after a wholly technical conversation with her friend Albert, who looked after the Delage’s health, she started off.

‘Running a treat, miss,’ said Albert.

Henrietta smiled. She shot away down the Mews, savouring the unfailing pleasure she always felt when setting off in the car alone. She much preferred to be alone when driving. In that way she could realize to the full the intimate personal enjoyment that driving a car brought to her.

She enjoyed her own skill in traffic, she enjoyed nosing out new short-cuts out of London. She had routes of her own and when driving in London itself had as intimate a knowledge of its streets as any taxi-driver.