The Burden - Christie Agatha (читать книги TXT) 📗

"What do I matter? It isn't my husband who's been struck down with infantile paralysis!"

"It might be, by the way you're going on about it! Do you know what I want for you, Laura? Some good everyday happiness. A husband, some noisy, naughty children. You've always been a tragic little thing ever since I've known you-you need the other thing, if you're ever going to develop properly. Don't take the sufferings of the world upon your shoulders-our Lord Jesus Cbrist did that once for all. You can't live other people's lives for them, not even Shirley's. Help her, yes; but don't mind so much."

Laura said, white-faced: "You don't understand."

"You're like all women, have to make such a song and dance about things."

Laura looked at him for a moment in silence, and then turned on her heel and went out of the room.

"Bloody old fool, that's what I am," said Mr. Baldock aloud to himself. "Oh well, I've been and done it now, I suppose."

He was startled when the door opened, and Laura came swiftly through it, and across to his chair.

"You are an old devil," she said, and kissed him.

When she went out again, Mr. Baldock lay still and blinked his eyes in some embarrassment.

It had become his habit lately to mutter to himself, and he now addressed a prayer to the ceiling.

"Look after her, Lord," he said. "I can't. And I suppose it's been presumption on my part to try."

4

On hearing of Henry's illness, Richard Wilding had written to Shirley a letter expressing conventional sympathy. A month later he had written again, asking her to see him. She wrote back:

"I don't think we had better meet. Henry is the only reality now in my life. I think you will understand. Goodbye."

To that he replied:

"You have said what I expected you to say. God bless you, my dear, now and always."

So that, Shirley thought, was the end of that…

Henry would live, but what confronted her now were the practical difficulties of existence. She and Henry had practically no money. When he came out of hospital, a cripple, the first necessity would be a home.

The obvious answer was Laura.

Laura, generous, loving, took it for granted that Shirley and Henry would come to Bellbury. Yet, for some curious reason, Shirley was deeply reluctant to go.

Henry, a bitter rebellious invalid, with no trace of his former light-heartedness, told her she was mad.

"I can't see what you've got against it. It's the obvious thing to do. Thank goodness Laura has never given the house up. There's plenty of room. We can have a whole suite to ourselves, and a bloody nurse or man attendant, too, if I've got to have one. I can't see what you are dithering about."

"Couldn't we go to Muriel?"

"She's had a stroke, you know that. She'll probably be having another quite soon. She's got a nurse looking after her and is quite ga-ga, and her income's halved with taxation. It's out of the question. What's wrong with going to Laura? She's offered to have us, hasn't she?"

"Of course she has. Again and again."

"Then that's all right Why don't you want to go there? You know Laura adores you."

"She loves me-but-"

"All right! Laura adores you and doesn't like me! All the more fun for her. She can gloat over my being a helpless cripple and enjoy herself."

"Don't say that, Henry. You know Laura isn't like that."

"What do I care what Laura is like? What do I care about anything. Do you realise what I'm going through? Do you realise what it's like to be helpless, inert, not able to turn over in bed? And what do you care?"

"I care."

"Tied to a cripple! A lot of fun for you!"

"It's all right for me."

"You're like all women, delighted to be able to treat a man like a child. I'm dependent on you, and I expect you enjoy it."

"Say anything you like to me," said Shirley. "I know just how awful it is for you."

"You don't know in the least. You can't. How I wish I was dead! Why don't these bloody doctors finish one off? It's the only decent thing to do. Go on, say some more soothing, sweet things."

"All right," said Shirley, "I will. This will make you really mad. It's worse for me than it is for you."

Henry glared at her; then, reluctantly, he laughed.

"You called my bluff," he said.

5

Shirley wrote to Laura a month later.

"Darling Laura. It's very good of you to have us. You mustn't mind Henry and the things he says. He's taking it very hard. He's never had to bear anything he didn't want to before, and he gets in the most dreadful rages. It's such an awful thing to happen to anyone like Henry."

Laura's answer, quick and loving, came by return.

Two weeks later, Shirley and her invalid husband came home.

Why, Shirley wondered, as Laura's loving arms went round her, had she ever felt she did not want to come here?

This was her own place. She was back within the circle of Laura's care and protection. She felt like a small child again.

"Laura darling, I'm so glad to be here… I'm so tired… so dreadfully tired…"

Laura was shocked by her sister's appearance.

"My darling Shirley, you've been through such a lot… don't worry any more."

Shirley said anxiously: "You mustn't mind Henry."

"Of course I shan't mind anything Henry says or does. How could I? It's dreadful for a man, especially a man like Henry, to be completely helpless. Let him blow off steam as much as he likes."

"Oh, Laura, you do understand…"

"Of course I understand."

Shirley gave a sigh of relief. Until this morning, she had hardly realised herself the strain under which she had been living.

Chapter Nine

1

Before going abroad again, Sir Richard Wilding went down to Bellbury.

Shirley read his letter at breakfast; and then passed it to Laura, who read it.

"Richard Wilding. Is that the traveller man?"

"Yes."

"I didn't know he was a friend of yours."

"Well-he is. You'll like him."

"He'd better come to lunch. Do you know him well?"

"For a time," said Shirley, "I thought I was in love with him."

"Oh!" said Laura, startled.

She wondered…

Richard arrived a little earlier than they had expected. Shirley was up with Henry, and Laura received him, and took him out into the garden.

She thought to herself at once: 'This is the man Shirley ought to have married.'

She liked his quietness, his warmth and sympathy, and his authoritativeness.

Oh! if only Shirley had never met Henry, Henry with his charm, his instability and his underlying ruthlessness.

Richard enquired politely after the sick man. After the conventional questions and answers, Richard Wilding said:

"I only met him a couple of times. I didn't like him."

And then he asked brusquely:

"Why didn't you stop her marrying him?"

"How could I?"

"You could have found some way."

"Could I? I wonder."

Neither of them felt that their quick intimacy was unusual.

He said gravely:

"I might as well tell you, if you haven't guessed, that I love Shirley very deeply."

"I rather thought so."

"Not that it's any good. She'll never leave the fellow now."

Laura said dryly:

"Could you expect her to?"

"Not really. She wouldn't be Shirley if she did." Then he said: "Do you think she still cares for him?"

"I don't know. Naturally she's dreadfully sorry for him."

"How does he bear up?"

"He doesn't," said Laura sharply. "He's no kind of endurance or fortitude. He just-takes it out of her."

"Swine!"