The Burden - Christie Agatha (читать книги TXT) 📗

"I shall be glad to have them. I want to hear all you can tell me about-about Shirley. It is so long since I saw her last. Nearly three years. I still can't believe-that she's dead."

"I know how you feel."

"I want to hear all you can tell me about her, but-but-don't say consoling things to me. You still believe in God, I suppose. Well, I don't? I'm sorry if that seems a crude thing to say, but you'd better understand what I feel. If there is a God, He is cruel and unjust."

"Because He let your sister die?"

"There's no need to discuss it. Please don't talk religion to me. Tell me about Shirley. Even now I don't understand how the accident happened."

"She was crossing the street and a heavy lorry knocked her down and ran over her. She was killed instantly. She did not suffer any pain."

"That's what Richard wrote me. But I thought-perhaps he was trying to be kind, to spare me. He is like that."

"Yes, he is like that. But I am not. You can take it as the truth that your sister was killed outright, and did not suffer."

"How did it happen?"

"It was late at night. Your sister had been sitting in one of the open-air caf?s facing the harbour. She left the cafe, crossed the road without looking, and the lorry came round the corner and caught her."

"Was she alone?"

"Quite alone."

"But where was Richard? Why wasn't he with her? It seems so extraordinary. I shouldn't have thought Richard would have let her go off by herself at night to a caf?. I should have thought he would have looked after her, taken care of her."

"You mustn't blame him. He adored her. He watched over her in every way possible. On this occasion he didn't know she had left the house."

Her face softened.

"I see. I've been unjust."

She pressed her hands together.

"It's so cruel, so unfair, so meaningless. After all Shirley had been through. To have only three years of happiness."

He did not answer at once, just sat watching her.

"Forgive me, you loved your sister very much?"

"More than anyone in the world."

"And yet, for three years you never saw her. They invited you, repeatedly, but you never came?"

"It was difficult to leave my work here, to find someone to replace me."

"That, perhaps; but it could have been managed. Why didn't you want to go?"

"I did. I did!"

"But you had some reason for not going?"

"I've told you. My work here-"

"Do you love your work so much?"

"Love it? No." She seemed surprised. "But it's worth-while work. It answers a need. These children were in a category that was not catered for. I think-I really think-that what I'm doing is useful."

She spoke with an earnestness that struck him as odd.

"Of course it's useful. I don't doubt it."

"This place was in a mess, an incredible mess. I've had a terrific job getting it on its feet again."

"You're a good administrator. I can see that. You've got personality. You can manage people. Yes, I'm sure that you've done a much-needed and useful job here. Has it been fun?"

"Fun?"

Her startled eyes looked at him.

"It's not a word in a foreign language. It could be fun-if you loved them."

"Loved who?"

"The children."

She said slowly and sadly:

"No, I don't love them-not really-not in the way you mean. I wish I did. But then"But then it would be pleasure, not duty. That's what you were thinking, wasn't it? And duty is what you must have."

"Why should you think that?"

"Because it's written all over you. Why, I wonder?"

He got up suddenly and walked restlessly up and down.

"What have you been doing all your life? It's so baffling, so extraordinary, to know you so well and to know nothing at all about you. It's-it's heart-rending. I don't know where to begin.

His distress was so real that she could only stare.

"I must seem quite mad to you. You don't understand. How should you? But I came to this country to meet you."

"To bring me Shirley's things?"

He waved an impatient hand.

"Yes, yes, that's all I thought it was. To do an errand that Richard hadn't got the heart to do. I'd no idea-not the faintest-that it would be you."

He leaned across the desk towards her.

"Listen, Laura, you've got to know some time-you might as well know now. Years ago, before I started on my mission, I saw three scenes. In my father's family there's a tradition of second sight. I suppose I have it too. I saw three things as clearly as I see you now. I saw an office desk, and a big-jowled man behind it. I saw a window looking out on pine trees against the sky and a man with a round pink face and an owlish expression. In due course I met and lived through those scenes. The man behind the big desk was the multi-millionaire who financed our religious crusade. Later I lay in a sanatorium bed, and I looked at those snow-covered pine trees against the sky, and a doctor with a round pink face stood by my bed and told me that my life and mission as an evangelist were over.

"The third thing I saw was you. Yes, Laura, you. As distinctly as I see you now. Younger than you are now, but with the same sadness in your eyes, the same tragedy in your face. I didn't see you in any particular setting, but very faintly, like an insubstantial back-cloth, I saw a church, and after that a background of leaping flames."

"Flames?"

She was startled.

"Yes, Were you ever in a fire?"

"Once. When I was a child. But the church-what kind of a church? A Catholic church, with Our Lady in a blue cloak?"

"Nothing so definite as that. No colour-or lights. Cold grey, and-yes, a font. You were standing by a font."

He saw the colour die out of her face. Her hands went slowly to her temples.

"That means something to you, Laura. What does it mean?"

"Shirley Margaret Evelyn, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost…" Her voice trailed off.

"Shirley's christening. I was Shirley's proxy godmother. I held her, and I wanted to drop her down on the stones! I wanted her to be dead! That's what was in my mind. I wished her to be dead. And now-now-she is dead."

She dropped her face suddenly on her hands.

"Laura, dearest, I see-oh, I see. And the flames? That means something too?"

"I prayed. Yes, prayed. I lit a candle for my Intention. And do you know what my Intention was? I wanted Shirley to die. And now-"

"Stop, Laura. Don't go on saying that. The fire-what happened?"

"It was the same night. I woke up. There was smoke. The house was on fire. I thought my prayer had been answered. And then I heard the baby give a queer little cry, and then suddenly it was all different. The only thing I wanted was to get her out safe. And I did. She wasn't even singed. I got her out on to the grass. And then I found it was all gone-the jealousy, the wanting to be first-all gone, and I loved her, loved her terribly. I've loved her ever since."

"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 to-night?"

"I'm afraid to-night's impossible."

"Then to-morrow."

"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."