The Hollow Read Free Page B

Nausicaa remembered, not seen….
    â€œWell,” said Miss Saunders doubtfully, “I suppose it’ll look better when you’ve got on with it a bit…And you really don’t want me anymore?”
    â€œNo, thank you,” said Henrietta (“And thank God I don’t!” said her inner mind). “You’ve been simply splendid. I’m very grateful.”
    She got rid of Doris expertly and returned to make herself some black coffee. She was tired—she was horribly tired. But happy—happy and at peace.
    â€œThank goodness,” she thought, “now I can be a human being again.”
    And at once her thoughts went to John.
    â€œJohn,” she thought. Warmth crept into her cheeks, a sudden quick lifting of the heart made her spirits soar.
    â€œTomorrow,” she thought, “I’m going to The Hollow…I shall see John….”
    She sat quite still, sprawled back on the divan, drinking down the hot, strong liquid. She drank three cups of it. She felt vitality surging back.
    It was nice, she thought, to be a human being again…and not that other thing. Nice to have stopped feeling restless and miserable and driven. Nice to be able to stop walking about the streets unhappily, looking for something, and feeling irritable and impatient because, really, you didn’t know what you were looking for! Now, thank goodness, there would be only hard work—and who minded hard work?
    She put down the empty cup and got up and strolled back to Nausicaa. She looked at it for some time, and slowly a little frown crept between her brows.
    It wasn’t—it wasn’t quite—
    What was it that was wrong?…
    Blind eyes.
    Blind eyes that were more beautiful than any eyes that could see…Blind eyes that tore at your heart because they were blind…Had she got that or hadn’t she?
    She’d got it, yes—but she’d got something else as well. Something that she hadn’t meant or thought about…The structure was all right—yes, surely. But where did it come from—that faint, insidious suggestion?….
    The suggestion, somewhere, of a common spiteful mind.
    She hadn’t been listening, not really listening. Yet somehow, in through her ears and out at her fingers, it had worked its way into the clay.
    And she wouldn’t, she knew she wouldn’t, be able to get it out again….
    Henrietta turned away sharply. Perhaps it was fancy. Yes, surely it was fancy. She would feel quite differently about it in the morning. She thought with dismay:
    â€œHow vulnerable one is….”
    She walked, frowning, up to the end of the studio. She stopped in front of her figure of The Worshipper.
    That was all right—a lovely bit of pearwood, graining just right. She’d saved it up for ages, hoarding it.
    She looked at it critically. Yes, it was good. No doubt about that. The best thing she had done for a long time—it was for the International Group. Yes, quite a worthy exhibit.
    She’d got it all right: the humility, the strength in the neck muscles, the bowed shoulders, the slightly upraised face—a featureless face, since worship drives out personality.
    Yes, submission, adoration—and that final devotion that is beyond, not this side, idolatry….
    Henrietta sighed. If only, she thought, John had not been so angry.
    It had startled her, that anger. It had told her something about him that he did not, she thought, know himself.
    He had said flatly: “You can’t exhibit that!”
    And she had said, as flatly: “I shall.”
    She went slowly back to Nausicaa. There was nothing there, she thought, that she couldn’t put right. She sprayed it and wrapped it up in the damp cloths. It would have to stand over until Monday or Tuesday. There was no hurry now. The urgency had gone—all the essential planes were there. It only needed patience.
    Ahead of her were three happy days with