Free The Hollow by Agatha Christie

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,