But it ocurred to him suddenly that Terence, child though he was, might be interested in Ridgeway's Disease. He had liked the way that Terence had eyed him appraisingly before stating: "I think Father does mean it..."
Terence had been out of favour the last few days for breaking the Cona coffee machine - some nonsense about trying to make ammonia... Ammonia? Funny kid, why should he want to make ammonia? Interesting in a way...
Gerda was relieved at John's silence. She could cope with driving better if she were not distracted by conversation. Besides, if John was absorbed in thought, he was not so likely to notice that jarring noise of her occasional forced changes of gear. (She never changed down if she could help it.)
There were times, Gerda knew, when she changed gear quite well (though never with confidence), but it never happened if John were in the car. Her nervous determination to do it right this time was always disastrous, her hand fumbled, she accelerated too much or not enough, and then she pushed the gear lever quickly and clumsily so that it shrieked in protest.
"Stroke it in, Gerda, stroke it in," Henrietta had pleaded once, years ago. Henrietta had demonstrated. "Can't you feel the way it wants to go - it wants to slide in - keep your hand flat till you get the feeling of it - don't just push it anywhere - feel it."
But Gerda had never been able to feel anything about a gear lever. If she was pushing it more or less in the proper direction it ought to go in! Cars ought to be made so that you didn't have that horrible grinding noise.
On the whole, thought Gerda, as she began the ascent of Mersham Hill, this drive wasn't going too badly. John was still absorbed in thought - and he hadn't noticed rather a bad crashing of gears in Croydon. Optimistically, as the car gained speed, she changed up into third, and immediately the car slackened. John, as it were, woke up. "What on earth's the point of changing up just when you're coming to the steep bit?"
Gerda set her jaw. Not very much farther now. Not that she wanted to get there. No, indeed, she'd much rather drive on for hours and hours, even if John did lose his temper with her!
But now they were driving along Shovel Down - flaming Autumn woods all round them.
"Wonderful to get out of London into this," exclaimed John. "Think of it, Gerda, most afternoons we're stuck in that dingy drawing room having tea - sometimes with the light on."
The image of the somewhat dark drawing room of the flat rose up before Gerda's eyes with the tantalizing delight of a mirage. Oh! if only she could be sitting there now.
"The country looks lovely," she said heroically. Down the steep hill - no escape now... That vague hope that something, she didn't know what, might intervene to save her from the nightmare, was unrealized. They were there.
She was a little comforted, as she drove in, to see Henrietta sitting on a wall with Midge and a tall thin man. She felt a certain reliance on Henrietta who would sometimes unexpectedly come to the rescue if things were getting very bad.
John was glad to see Henrietta, too... It seemed to him exactly the fitting journey's end to that lovely panorama of Autumn, to drop down from the hilltop and find Henrietta waiting for him...
She had on the green tweed coat and skirt that he liked her in and which he thought suited her so much better than London clothes. Her long legs were stuck out in front of her, ending in well-polished brown brogues.
They exchanged a quick smile - a brief recognition of the fact that each was glad of the other's presence. John didn't want to talk to Henrietta now. He just enjoyed feeling that she was there - knowing that without her the weekend would be barren and empty.
Lady Angkatell came out from the house and greeted them. Her conscience made her more effusive to Gerda than she would have been normally to any guest.
"But how very nice to see you, Gerda! It's been such a long time. And John!"
The idea was clearly that Gerda was the eagerly awaited guest, and John the mere adjunct. It failed miserably of its object, making Gerda stiff and uncomfortable.
Lucy said, "You know Edward? Edward Angkatell?"
John nodded to Edward and said, "No, I don't think so."
The afternoon sun lighted up the gold of John's hair and the blue of his eyes. So might a Viking look who had just come ashore on a conquering mission. His voice, warm and resonant, charmed the ear, and the magnetism of his whole personality took charge of the scene.
That warmth and that objectiveness did no damage to Lucy. It set off, indeed, that curious elfin elusiveness of hers. It was Edward who seemed, suddenly, by contrast with the other man, bloodless - a shadowy figure, stooping a little...
Henrietta suggested to Gerda that they should go and look at the kitchen garden.
"Lucy is sure to insist on showing us the rock garden and the Autumn border," she said as she led the way, "but I always think kitchen gardens are nice and peaceful. One can sit on the cucumber frames, or go inside a greenhouse if it's cold, and nobody bothers one and sometimes there's something to eat."
They found, indeed, some late peas, which Henrietta ate raw, but which Gerda did not much care for. She was glad to have got away from Lucy Angkatell whom she had found more alarming than ever.
She began to talk to Henrietta with something like animation. The questions Henrietta asked always seemed to be questions to which Gerda knew the answers. After ten minutes Gerda felt very much better and began to think that perhaps the weekend wouldn't be so bad after all.
Zena was going to dancing class now and had just had a new frock. Gerda described it at length. Also, she had found a very nice new leathercraft shop. Henrietta asked whether it would be difficult to make herself a handbag; Gerda must show her.
It was really very easy, she thought, to make Gerda look happy, and what an enormous difference it made to her when she did look happy!
"She only wants to be allowed to curl up and purr," thought Henrietta.
They sat happily on the corner of the cucumber frames where the sun, now low in the sky, gave an illusion of a Summer day.
Then a silence fell. Gerda's face lost its expression of placidity. Her shoulders drooped. She sat there, the picture of misery. She jumped when Henrietta spoke.
"Why do you come," said Henrietta, "if you hate it so much?"
Gerda hurried into speech.
"Oh, I don't! I mean, I don't know why you should think -"
She paused, then went on: "It is really delightful to get out of London, and Lady Angkatell is so very kind -"
"Lucy? She's not a bit kind."
Gerda looked faintly shocked.
"Oh, but she is. She's so very nice to me always."
"Lucy has good manners and she can be gracious. But she is rather a cruel person. I think really because she isn't quite human - she doesn't know what it's like to feel and think like ordinary people. And you are hating being here, Gerda! You know you are. And why should you come if you feel like that?"
"Well, you see, John likes it -"
"Oh, John likes it all right. But you could let him come by himself."
"He wouldn't like that. He wouldn't enjoy it without me. John is so unselfish. He thinks it is good for me to get out into the country."
"The country is all right," said Henrietta, "but there's no need to throw in the Angkatells."
"I - I - don't want you to feel that I'm ungrateful."
"My dear Gerda, why should you like us? I always have thought the Angkatells were an odious family. We all like getting together and talking an extraordinary language of our own. I don't wonder outside people want to murder us."
Then she added:
"I expect it's about teatime. Let's go back." She was watching Gerda's face as the latter got up and started to walk towards the house. It's interesting, thought Henrietta, one portion of whose mind was always detached, to see exactly what a female Christian martyr's face looked like before she went into the Arena...
As they left the walled kitchen garden, they heard shots and Henrietta remarked:
"Sounds as though the massacre of the Angkatells had begun!"
It turned out to be Sir Henry and Edward discussing firearms and illustrating their discussion by firing revolvers. Henry Angkatell's hobby was firearms and he had quite a collection of them.
He had brought out several revolvers and some target cards and he and Edward were firing at them.
"Hullo, Henrietta. Want to try if you could kill a burglar?"
Henrietta took the revolver from him.
"That's right - yes, so, aim like this."
Bang!
"Missed him," said Sir Henry.
"You try, Gerda."
"Oh, I don't think I -"
"Come on, Mrs. Christow. It's quite simple."
Gerda fired the revolver, flinching, and shutting her eyes. The bullet went even wider than Henrietta's had done.
"Oo, I want to do it," said Midge, strolling up.
"It's more difficult than you'd think," she remarked after a couple of shots. "But it's rather fun."
Lucy came out from the house. Behind her came a tall, sulky young man with an Adam's apple.
"Here's David," she announced.
She took the revolver from Midge as her husband greeted David Angkatell, reloaded it and without a word put three holes close to the centre of the target.
"Well done, Lucy," exclaimed Midge. "I didn't know shooting was one of your accomplishments."
"Lucy," said Sir Henry gravely, "always kills her man!"
Then he added reminiscently, "Came in useful once. Do you remember, my dear, those thugs that set upon us that day on the Asian side of the Bosporus? I was rolling about with two of them on top of me, feeling for my throat."
"And what did Lucy do?" asked Midge.
"Fired two shots into the melee. I didn't even know she had the pistol with her. Got one bad man through the leg and the other in the shoulder. Nearest escape in the world I've ever had. I can't think how she didn't hit me."
Lady Angkatell smiled at him.
"I think one always has to take some risk," she said gently. "And one should do it quickly and not think too much about it."
"An admirable sentiment, my dear," said Sir Henry. "But I have always felt slightly aggrieved that I was the risk you took!"
Chapter 8
After tea John said to Henrietta, "Come for a walk," and Lady Angkatell said that she must show Gerda the rock garden though of course it was quite the wrong time of year.
Walking with John, thought Henrietta, was as unlike walking with Edward as anything could be.
With Edward one seldom did more than potter. Edward, she thought, was a born potterer. Walking with John, it was all she could do to keep up, and by the time they got up to Shovel Down she said breathlessly, "It's not a Marathon, John!"
He slowed down and laughed.
"Am I walking you off your feet?"
"I can do it - but is there any need? We haven't got a train to catch. Why do you have this ferocious energy? Are you running away from yourself?"
He stopped dead. "Why do you say that?"
Henrietta looked at him curiously.
"I didn't mean anything particular by it."
John went on again, but walking more slowly.
"As a matter of fact," he said, "I'm tired. I'm very tired."
She heard the lassitude in his voice.
"How's the Crabtree?"
"It's early days to say, but I think, Henrietta, that I've got the hang of things. If I'm right -" his footsteps began to quicken - "a lot of our ideas will be revolutionised - we'll have to reconsider the whole question of hormone secretion -"
"You mean that there will be a cure for Ridgeway's Disease? That people won't die?"
"That, incidentally."
What odd people doctors were, thought Henrietta. Incidentally!
"Scientifically, it opens up all sorts of possibilities!"
He drew a deep breath. "But it's good to get down here - good to get some air into your lungs - good to see you." He gave her one of his sudden quick smiles, "And it will do Gerda good."
"Gerda, of course, simply loves coming to The Hollow!"
"Of course she does. By the way, have I met Edward Angkatell before?"
"You've met him twice," said Henrietta dryly.
"I couldn't remember. He's one of those vague, indefinite people."
"Edward's a dear. I've always been very fond of him."
"Well, don't let's waste time on Edward! None of these people count."
Henrietta said in a low voice:
"Sometimes, John - I'm afraid for you!"
"Afraid for me - what do you mean?"
He turned an astonished face upon her.
"You are so oblivious - so - yes, blind."
"Blind?"
"You don't know - you don't see - you're curiously insensitive! You don't know what other people are feeling and thinking."
"I should have said just the opposite."
"You see what you're looking at, yes. You're - you're like a search-light. A powerful beam turned onto the one spot where your interest is, and behind it and each side of it, darkness!"
"Henrietta, my dear, what is all this?"
"It's dangerous, John. You assume that everyone likes you, that they mean well to you. People like Lucy, for instance."
"Doesn't Lucy like me?" he said, surprised. "I've always been extremely fond of her."
"And so you assume that she likes you. But I'm not sure... And Gerda and Edward - or and Midge and Henry? How do you know what they feel towards you?"
"And Henrietta? Do I know how she feels?" He caught her hand for a moment. "At least I'm sure of you."
She took her hand away.
"You can be sure of no one in this world, John."
His face had grown grave.
"No, I won't believe that. I'm sure of you and I'm sure of myself. At least -" His face changed.
