The Burden (21 page)

‘What about women? Will you, perhaps, go back home? Find your early love?'

‘The sentimental ending? Hardly. Besides,' he smiled, ‘Carol has been married for many years now. She has three children, and her husband is going ahead in real estate in a big way. Carol and I were never meant for each other. It was a boy and girl affair that never went deep.'

‘Has there been no other woman in all these years?'

‘No, thank God. If there had been, if I had met her then –'

He left the sentence unfinished, puzzling Wilding a little by so doing. Wilding could have no clue to the picture that sprang up before Llewellyn's mental vision – the wings of dark hair, the frail delicate temple-bones, the tragic eyes.

Some day, Llewellyn knew, he would meet her. She was as real as the office desk and the sanatorium had been. She existed. If he had met her during the time of his dedication he would have been forced to give her up. It would have been required of him. Could he have done it? He doubted himself. His dark lady was no Carol, no light affair born of the spring-time and a young man's quickened senses. But that sacrifice had not been demanded of him. Now he was free. When they met … He had no doubt that they would meet. Under what circumstances, in what place, at what moment of time – all that was unknown. A stone font in a church, tongues of fire, those were the only indications he had. Yet he had the feeling that he was coming very near, that it would not be long now.

The abruptness with which the door between the bookcases opened, startled him. Wilding turned his head, rose to his feet with a gesture of surprise.

‘Darling, I didn't expect –'

She was not wearing the Spanish shawl, or the high-necked black dress. She had on something diaphanous and floating in pale mauve, and it was the colour, perhaps, that made Llewellyn feel that she brought with her the old-fashioned scent of lavender. She stopped when she saw him; her eyes, wide and slightly glazed, stared at him, expressing such a complete lack of emotion that it was almost shocking.

‘Dearest, is your head better? This is Dr Knox. My wife.'

Llewellyn came forward, took her limp hand, said formally: ‘I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Wilding.'

The wide stare became human; it showed, very faintly, relief. She sat in the chair that Wilding pushed forward for her and began talking rapidly, with a staccato effect.

‘So you're Dr Knox? I've read about you, of course. How odd that you should come here – to the island. Why did you? I mean, what made you? People don't usually, do they, Richard?' She half turned her head, hurried on, inconsequently:

‘I mean they don't stay in the island. They come in on boats, and go out again. Where? I've often wondered. They buy fruit and those silly little dolls and the straw hats they make here, and then they go back with them to the boat, and the boat sails away. Where do they go back to? Manchester? Liverpool? Chichester, perhaps, and wear a plaited straw hat to church in the cathedral. That would be funny. Things are funny. People say: “I don't know whether I'm going or coming.” My old nurse used to say it. But it's true, isn't it? It's life. Is one going or coming? I don't know.'

She shook her head and suddenly laughed. She swayed a little as she sat. Llewellyn thought: ‘In a minute or two, she'll pass out. Does he know, I wonder?'

But a quick sideways glance at Wilding decided that for him. Wilding, that experienced man of the world, had no idea. He was leaning over his wife, his face alight with love and anxiety.

‘Darling, you're feverish. You shouldn't have got up.'

‘I felt better – all those pills I took; it's killed the pain, but it's made me dopey.' She gave a slight, uncertain laugh, her hands pushed the pale, shining hair back from her forehead. ‘Don't fuss about me, Richard. Give Dr Knox a drink.'

‘What about you? A spot of brandy? It would do you good.'

She made a quick grimace:

‘No, just lime and soda for me.'

She thanked him with a smile as he brought her glass to her.

‘You'll never die of drink,' he said.

For a moment her smile stiffened.

She said:

‘Who knows?'

‘I know. Knox, what about you? Soft drink? Whisky?'

‘Brandy and soda, if I may.'

Her eyes were on the glass as he held it.

She said suddenly: ‘We could go away. Shall we go away, Richard?'

‘Away from the villa? From the island?'

‘That's what I meant.'

Wilding poured his own whisky, came back to stand behind her chair.

‘We'll go anywhere you please, dearest. Anywhere and at any time. Tonight if you like.'

She sighed, a long, deep sigh.

‘You're so – good to me. Of course I don't want to leave here. Anyway, how could you? You've got the estate to run. You're making headway at last.'

‘Yes, but that doesn't really matter. You come first.'

‘I might go away – by myself – just for a little.'

‘No, we'll go together. I want you to feel looked after, someone beside you – always.'

‘You think I need a keeper?' She began to laugh. It was slightly uncontrolled laughter. She stopped suddenly, hand to her mouth.

‘I want you to feel – always – that I'm there,' said Wilding.

‘Oh, I do feel it – I do.'

‘We'll go to Italy. Or to England, if you like. Perhaps you're home-sick for England.'

‘No,' she said. ‘We won't go anywhere. We'll stay here. It would be the same wherever we went. Always the same.'

She slumped a little in her chair. Her eyes stared sombrely ahead of her. Then suddenly she looked up over her shoulder, up into Wilding's puzzled, worried face.

‘Dear Richard,' she said. ‘You are so wonderful to me. So patient always.'

He said softly: ‘So long as you understand that to me, nothing matters but you.'

‘I know that – oh, I do know it.'

He went on:

‘I hoped that you would be happy here, but I do realize that there's very little – distraction.'

‘There's Dr Knox,' she said.

Her head turned swiftly towards the guest, and a sudden gay, impish smile flashed at him. He thought: ‘What a gay, what an enchanting creature she could be – has been.'

She went on: ‘And as for the island and the villa, it's an earthly paradise. You said so once, and I believed you, and it's true. It
is
an earthly paradise.'

‘Ah!'

‘But I can't quite take it. Don't you think, Dr Knox,' – the slight staccato tempo returned – ‘that one has to be rather a strong character to stand up to paradise? Like those old Primitives, the blessed sitting in a row under the trees, wearing crowns – I always thought the crowns looked so heavy – casting down their golden crowns before the glassy sea – that's a hymn, isn't it? Perhaps God let them cast down the crowns because of the weight. It's heavy to wear a crown all the time. One can have too much of everything, can't one? I think –' She got up, stumbled a little. ‘I think, perhaps, I'll go back to bed. I think you're right, Richard, perhaps I am feverish. But crowns are heavy. Being here is like a dream come true, only I'm not in the dream any more. I ought to be somewhere else, but I don't know where. If only –'

She crumpled very suddenly, and Llewellyn, who had been waiting for it, caught her in time, relinquishing her a moment later to Wilding.

‘Better get her back to her bed,' he advised crisply.

‘Yes, yes. And then I'll telephone to the doctor.'

‘She'll sleep it off,' said Llewellyn.

Richard Wilding looked at him doubtfully.

Llewellyn said: ‘Let me help you.'

The two men carried the unconscious girl through the door by which she had entered the room. A short way along a corridor brought them to the open door of a bedroom. They laid her gently on the big carved wooden bed, with its hangings of rich dark brocade. Wilding went out into the corridor and called: ‘Maria – Maria.'

Llewellyn looked swiftly round the room.

He went through a curtained alcove into a bathroom, looked into the glass-panelled cupboard there, then came back to the bedroom.

Wilding was calling again: ‘Maria,' impatiently.

Llewellyn moved over to the dressing-table.

A moment or two later Wilding came into the room, followed by a short, dark woman. The latter moved quickly across the room to the bed and uttered an exclamation as she bent over the recumbent girl.

Wilding said curtly:

‘See to your mistress. I will ring up the doctor.'

‘It is not necessary, señor. I know what to do. By tomorrow morning she will be herself again.'

Wilding, shaking his head, left the room reluctantly.

Llewellyn followed him, but paused in the doorway.

He said: ‘Where does she keep it?'

The woman looked at him; her eyelids flickered.

Then, almost involuntarily, her gaze shifted to the wall behind his head. He turned. A small picture hung there, a landscape in the manner of Corot. Llewellyn raised it from its nail. Behind it was a small wall safe of the old-fashioned type, where women used to keep their jewels, but which would hold little protection against a modern cracksman. The key was in the lock. Llewellyn pulled it gently open and glanced inside. He nodded and closed it again. His eyes met those of Maria in perfect comprehension.

He went out of the room and joined Wilding, who was just replacing the telephone on its cradle.

‘The doctor is out, at a confinement, I understand.'

‘I think,' said Llewellyn, choosing his words carefully, ‘that Maria knows what to do. She has, I think, seen Lady Wilding like this before.'

‘Yes … yes … Perhaps you are right. She is very devoted to my wife.'

‘I saw that.'

‘Everybody loves her. She inspires love – love, and the wish to protect. All these people here have a great feeling for beauty, and especially for beauty in distress.'

‘And yet they are, in their way, greater realists than the Anglo-Saxon will ever be.'

‘Possibly.'

‘They don't shirk facts.'

‘Do we?'

‘Very often. That is a beautiful room of your wife's. Do you know what struck me about it? There was no smell of perfume such as many women delight in. Instead, there was only the fragrance of lavender and eau-de-Cologne.'

Richard Wilding nodded.

‘I know. I have come to associate lavender with Shirley. It brings back to me my days as a boy, the smell of lavender in my mother's linen-cupboard. The fine white linen, and the little bags of lavender that she made and put there, clean, pure, all the freshness of spring. Simple country things.'

He sighed and looked up to see his guest regarding him with a look he could not understand.

‘I must go,' said Llewellyn, holding out his hand.

‘So you still come here?'

Knox delayed his question until the waiter had gone away.

Lady Wilding was silent for a moment. Tonight she was not staring out at the harbour. Instead she was looking down into her glass. It held a rich golden liquid.

‘Orange juice,' she said.

‘I see. A gesture.'

‘Yes. It helps – to make a gesture.'

‘Oh, undoubtedly.'

She said: ‘Did you tell him that you had seen me here?'

‘No.'

‘Why not?'

‘It would have caused him pain. It would have caused you pain. And he didn't ask me.'

‘If he had asked you, would you have told him?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why?'

‘Because the simpler one is over things, the better.'

She sighed.

‘I wonder if you understand at all?'

‘I don't know.'

‘You do see that I can't hurt him? You do see how good he is? How he believes in me? How he thinks only of me?'

‘Oh yes. I see all that. He wants to stand between you and all sorrow, all evil.'

‘But that's too much.'

‘Yes, it's too much.'

‘One gets into things. And then, one can't get out. One pretends – day after day one pretends. And then one gets tired, one wants to shout: “Stop loving me, stop looking after me, stop worrying about me, stop caring and watching.” ' She clenched both hands. ‘I
want
to be happy with Richard. I want to! Why can't I? Why must I sicken of it all?'

‘
Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love
.'

‘Yes, just that. It's
me
. It's my fault.'

‘Why did you marry him?'

‘Oh, that!' Her eyes widened. ‘That's simple. I fell in love with him.'

‘I see.'

‘It was, I suppose, a kind of infatuation. He has great charm, and he's sexually attractive. Do you understand?'

‘Yes, I understand.'

‘And he was romantically attractive too. A dear old man, who's known me all my life, warned me. He said to me: “Have an affair with Richard, but don't marry him.” He was quite right. You see, I was very unhappy, and Richard came along. I – day-dreamed. Love and Richard and an island and moonlight. It helped, and it didn't hurt anybody. Now I've got the dream – but I'm not the me I was in the dream. I'm only the me who dreamed it – and that's no good.'

She looked across the table, straight into his eyes.

‘Can I ever become the me of the dream? I'd like to.'

‘Not if it was never the real you.'

‘I could go away – but where? Not back into the past because that's all gone, broken up. I'd have to start again, I don't know how or where. And, anyway, I couldn't hurt Richard. He's already been hurt too much.'

‘Has he?'

‘Yes, that woman he married. She was just a natural tart. Very attractive and quite good-natured, but completely amoral. He didn't see her like that.'