The Burden (23 page)

‘My dear – oh! my dear.'

Again he leaned across the desk towards her.

He said urgently:

‘You do see, don't you, that my coming here –'

He was interrupted as the door opened.

Miss Harrison came in breathlessly:

‘The specialist is here – Mr Bragg. He's in A ward, and is asking for you.'

Laura rose.

‘I'll come at once.' Miss Harrison withdrew, and Laura said hurriedly:

‘I'm sorry. I must go now. If you'll arrange to send me Shirley's things …'

‘I'd rather you came to dine with me at my hotel. It's the Windsor? near Charing Cross Station. Can you come tonight?'

‘I'm afraid tonight's impossible.'

‘Then tomorrow.'

‘It's difficult for me to get away in the evenings –'

‘You are off duty then. I've already inquired about that.'

‘I have other arrangements – commitments …'

‘It's not that. You're afraid.'

‘Very well then, I'm afraid.'

‘Of me?'

‘I suppose so, yes.'

‘Why? Because you think I'm mad?'

‘No. You're not mad. It's not that.'

‘But still you are afraid. Why?'

‘I want to be let alone. I don't want my – my way of life disturbed. Oh! I don't know what I'm talking about. And I must go.'

‘But you'll dine with me – when? Tomorrow? The day after? I shall wait here in London until you do.'

‘Tonight, then.'

‘And get it over!' He laughed and suddenly, to her own surprise, she laughed with him. Then, her gravity restored, she went quickly to the door. Llewellyn stood aside to let her pass, and opened the door for her.

‘Windsor Hotel, eight o'clock. I'll be waiting.'

Laura sat before her mirror in the bedroom of her tiny flat. There was a queer smile on her lips as she studied her face. In her right hand she held a lipstick, and she looked down now at the name engraved on the gilt case.
Fatal Apple
.

She wondered again at the unaccountable impulse that had taken her so suddenly into the luxurious perfumed interior of the shop that she passed every day.

The assistant had brought out a selection of lipsticks, trying them for her to see on the back of a slim hand with long exotic fingers and deep carmine nails.

Little smears of pink and cerise and scarlet and maroon and cyclamen, some of them hardly distinguishable from one another except by their names – such fantastic names they seemed to Laura.

Pink Lightning, Buttered Rum, Misty Coral, Quiet Pink, Fatal Apple.

It was the name that attracted her, not the colour.

Fatal Apple … it carried with it the suggestion of Eve, of temptation, of womanhood.

Sitting before the mirror, she carefully painted her lips.

Baldy! She thought of Baldy, pulling up bindweed and lecturing her so long ago. What had he said? ‘Show you're a woman, hang out your flag, go after your man …'

Something like that. Was that what she was doing now?

And she thought: ‘Yes, it's exactly that. Just for this evening, just for this once, I want to be a woman, like other women, decking herself out, painting herself up to attract her man. I never wanted to before. I didn't think I was that kind of person. But I am, after all. Only I never knew it.'

And her impression of Baldy was so strong that she could almost fancy him standing behind her, nodding his great heavy head in approval, and saying in his gruff voice:

‘That's right, young Laura. Never too late to learn.'

Dear Baldy …

Always, all through her life, there had been Baldy, her friend. Her one true and faithful friend.

Her mind went back to his deathbed, two years ago. They had sent for her, but when she had got there the doctor had explained that he was probably too far gone to recognize her. He was sinking fast and was only semi-conscious.

She had sat beside him, holding his gnarled hand between her own, watching him.

He had lain very still, grunting occasionally and puffing as though some inner exasperation possessed him. Muttered words came fitfully from his lips.

Once he opened his eyes, looked at her without recognition and said: ‘Where
is
the child? Send for her, can't you? And don't talk tommy-rot about its being bad for her to see anyone die. Experience, that's all … And children take death in their stride, better than we do.'

She had said:

‘I'm here, Baldy. I'm here.'

But, closing his eyes, he had only murmured indignantly:

‘Dying, indeed? I'm not dying. Doctors are all alike – gloomy devils. I'll show him.'

And then he had relapsed into his half-waking state, with the occasional murmur that showed where his mind was wandering, amongst the memories of his life.

‘Damned fool – no historical sense …' Then a sudden chortle! ‘Old Curtis and his bone meal. My roses better than his any day.'

Then her name came.

‘Laura – ought to get her a dog …'

That puzzled her. A dog? Why a dog?

Then, it seemed, he was speaking to his housekeeper:

‘ – and clear away all that disgusting sweet stuff – all right for a child – makes me sick to look at it …'

Of course – those sumptuous teas with Baldy, that had been such an event of her childhood. The trouble that he had taken. The éclairs, the meringues, the macaroons … Tears came into her eyes.

And then suddenly his eyes were open, and he was looking at her, recognizing her, speaking to her. His tone was matter-of-fact:

‘You shouldn't have done it, young Laura,' he said reprovingly. ‘You shouldn't have done it, you know. It will only lead to trouble.'

And in the most natural manner in the world, he had turned his head slightly on his pillow and had died.

Her friend …

Her only friend.

Once again Laura looked at her face in the mirror. She was startled, now, at what she saw. Was it only the dark crimson line of the lipstick outlining the curve of her lips? Full lips – nothing really ascetic about them. Nothing ascetic about her in this moment of studying herself.

She spoke, half aloud, arguing with someone who was herself and yet not herself.

‘Why shouldn't I try to look beautiful? Just this once? Just for tonight? I know it's too late, but why shouldn't I know what it feels like? Just to have something to remember …'

He said at once: ‘What's happened to you?'

She returned his gaze equably. A sudden shyness had invaded her, but she concealed it. To regain her poise, she studied him critically.

She liked what she saw. He was not young – actually he looked older than his years (which she knew from the Press accounts of him) – but there was a boyish awkwardness about him that struck her as both strange and oddly endearing. He showed an eagerness allied with timidity, a queer, hopeful expressiveness, as though the world and everything in it was fresh and new to him.

‘Nothing's happened to me.' She let him help her off with her coat.

‘Oh, but it has. You're different – quite different – from what you were this morning!'

She said brusquely: ‘Lipstick and make-up, that's all!'

He accepted her word for it.

‘Oh, I see. Yes, I did think your mouth was paler than most women's usually are. You looked rather like a nun.'

‘Yes – yes – I suppose I did.'

‘You look lovely now, really lovely. You
are
lovely, Laura. You don't mind my saying so?'

She shook her head. ‘I don't mind.'

‘Say it often,' her inner self was crying. ‘Say it again and again. It's all I shall ever have.'

‘We're having dinner up here – in my sitting-room. I thought you'd prefer it. But perhaps – you don't mind?'

He looked at her anxiously.

‘I think it's perfect.'

‘I hope the dinner will be perfect. I'm rather afraid it won't. I've never thought much about food until now, but I would like it to be just right for you.'

She smiled at him as she sat down at the table, and he rang for the waiter.

She felt as though she was taking part in a dream.

For this wasn't the man who had come to see her this morning at the Foundation. This was a different man altogether. A younger man, callow, eager, unsure of himself, desperately anxious to please. She thought suddenly: ‘This was what he was like when he was in his twenties. This is something he's missed – and he's gone back into the past to find it.'

For a moment sadness, desperation, swept over her. This wasn't real. This was a might-have-been that they were acting out together. This was young Llewellyn and young Laura. It was ridiculous and rather pathetic, unsubstantial in time, but oddly sweet.

They dined. The meal was mediocre, but neither of them noticed it. Together they were exploring the
Pays du Tendre
. They talked, laughed, hardly noticed what they said.

Then, when the waiter finally left, setting coffee on the table, Laura said:

‘You know about me – a good deal, anyway, but I know nothing about you. Tell me.'

He told her, describing his youth, his parents and his upbringing.

‘Are they still alive?'

‘My father died ten years ago, my mother last year.'

‘Were they – was she – very proud of you?'

‘My father, I think, disliked the form my mission took. Emotional religion repelled him, but he accepted, I think, that there was no other way for me. My mother understood better. She was proud of my world fame – mothers are – but she was sad.'

‘Sad?'

‘Because of the things – the human things – that I was missing. And because my lack of them separated me from other human beings; and, of course, from her.'

‘Yes. I see that.'

She thought about it. He went on, telling her his story, a fantastic story it seemed to her. The whole thing was outside her experience, and in some ways it revolted her. She said:

‘It's terribly commercial.'

‘The machinery? Oh yes.'

She said: ‘If only I could understand better. I want to understand. You feel – you felt – that it was really important, really worth while.'

‘To God?'

She was taken aback.

‘No – no, I didn't mean that. I meant – to
you
.'

He sighed.

‘It's so hard to explain. I tried to explain to Richard Wilding. The question of whether it was worth while never arose. It was a thing I had to do.'

‘And suppose you'd just preached to an empty desert, would that have been the same?'

‘In my sense, yes. But I shouldn't have preached so well, of course.' He grinned. ‘An actor can't act well to an empty house. An author needs people to read his books. A painter needs to show his pictures.'

‘You sound – that's what I can't understand – as though the
results
didn't interest you.'

‘I have no means of knowing what the results were.'

‘But the figures, the statistics, the converts – all those things were listed and put down in black and white.'

‘Yes, yes, I know. But that's machinery again, human calculations. I don't know the results that God wanted, or what He got. But understand this, Laura: if, out of all the millions who came to hear me, God wanted one – just one – soul, and chose that means to reach that soul, it would be enough.'

‘It sounds like taking a steam-hammer to crack a nut.'

‘It does, doesn't it, by human standards? That's always our difficulty, of course; we have to apply human standards of values – or of justice and injustice – to God. We haven't, can't have, the faintest knowledge of what God really requires from man, except that it seems highly probable that God requires man to become something that he could be, but hasn't thought of being yet.'

Laura said:

‘And what about you? What does God require of you now?'

‘Oh – just to be an ordinary sort of guy. Earn my living, marry a wife, raise a family, love my neighbours.'

‘And you'll be satisfied – with that?'

‘Satisfied? What else should I want? What more should any man want? I'm handicapped, perhaps. I've lost fifteen years – of ordinary life. That's where you'll have to help me, Laura.'

‘I?'

‘You know that I want to marry you, don't you? You realize, you must realize, that I love you.'

She sat, very white, looking at him. The unreality of their festive dinner was over. They were themselves now. Back in the now and here that they had made for themselves.

She said slowly: ‘It's impossible.'

He answered her without due concern: ‘Is it? Why?'

‘I can't marry you.'

‘I'll give you time to get used to the idea.'

‘Time will make no difference.'

‘Do you mean that you could never learn to love me? Forgive me, Laura, but I don't think that's true. I think that, already, you love me a little.'

Emotion rose up in her like a flame.

‘Yes, I could love you. I do love you …'

He said very softly: ‘That's wonderful, Laura … dearest Laura, my Laura.'

She thrust out a hand, as though to hold him away from her.

‘But I can't marry you. I can't marry anybody.'

He stared at her hard.

‘What's in your head? There's something.'

‘Yes. There's something.'

‘Vowed to good works? To celibacy?'

‘No, no,
no
!'

‘Sorry. I spoke like a fool. Tell me, my dearest.'

‘Yes. I must tell you. It's a thing I thought I should never tell anybody.'

‘Perhaps not. But you must certainly tell me.'

She got up and went over to the fireplace. Without looking at him, she began to speak in a quiet matter-of-fact voice.