The Burden (14 page)

‘No. I shall never leave him.'

He stopped and took her hands in his.

‘Just one thing, my dear. If you need me – at any time – just send the one word: “Come.” I'll come from the ends of the earth.'

‘Dear Richard.'

‘It's goodbye then, Shirley.'

He took her in his arms. Her starved and tired body trembled into life. She kissed him wildly, desperately.

‘I love you, Richard, I love you, I love you …'

Then she whispered:

‘Goodbye. No, don't come with me …'

She tore herself away and ran back towards the house. Richard Wilding swore under his breath. He cursed Henry Glyn-Edwards and the disease called polio.

Mr Baldock was confined to bed. More than that, he had two nurses in attendance. He loathed them both.

Laura's visits were the only bright spot in his day.

The nurse who was on duty retired tactfully, and Mr Baldock told Laura all her failings.

His voice rose in a shrill falsetto:

‘So damned arch. “
And how are we this morning?
” There's only one of me, I told her. The other one is a damned slab-faced, grinning ape.'

‘That was very rude of you, Baldy.'

‘Bah! Nurses are thick-skinned. They don't mind. Held up her finger, and said: “Naughty, naughty!”
How
I'd like to boil the woman in oil!'

‘Now don't get excited. It's bad for you.'

‘How's Henry? Still playing up?'

‘Yes. Henry really is a
fiend
! I try to be sorry for him, but I can't.'

‘You women! Hard-hearted! Sentimental about dead birds and things like that, and hard as nails when a poor fellow is going through hell.'

‘It's Shirley who's going through hell. He just – goes for her.'

‘Naturally. Only person he can take it out on. What's a wife for, if you can't let loose on her in times of trouble?'

‘I'm terribly afraid she'll have a breakdown.'

Mr Baldock snorted contemptuously: ‘Not she. Shirley's tough. She's got guts, Shirley has.'

‘She's under a terrible strain.'

‘Yes, I expect so. Well, she would marry the fellow.'

‘She didn't know he was going to get polio.'

‘
That
wouldn't have stopped her! What's all this I hear about some romantic swashbuckler coming down here to stage a fond farewell?'

‘Baldy, how
do
you get hold of things?'

‘Keep my ears open. What's a nurse for, if you can't get the local scandal out of her?'

‘It was Richard Wilding, the traveller.'

‘Oh yes, rather a good chap by all accounts. Made a silly marriage before the war. Glorified Piccadilly tart. Had to get rid of her after the war. Very cut up about it, I believe – silly ass to marry her. These idealists!'

‘He's nice – very nice.'

‘Soft about him?'

‘He's the man Shirley ought to have married.'

‘Oh, I thought maybe you fancied him yourself. Pity.'

‘I shall never marry.'

‘Ta-ra-ra-boom-di-ay,' said Mr Baldock rudely.

The young doctor said: ‘You ought to go away, Mrs Glyn-Edwards. Rest and a change of air is what you need.'

‘I can't possibly go away.'

Shirley was indignant.

‘You're very run down. I'm warning you.' Dr Graves spoke impressively. ‘You'll have a complete breakdown if you're not careful.'

Shirley laughed.

‘I shall be all right.'

The doctor shook his head doubtfully.

‘Mr Glyn-Edwards is a very trying patient,' he said.

‘If he could only – resign himself a little,' said Shirley.

‘Yes, he takes things badly.'

‘You don't think that
I'm
bad for him? That I – well – irritate him?'

‘You're his safety-valve. It's hard on you, Mrs Glyn-Edwards, but you're doing good work, believe me.'

‘Thank you.'

‘Continue with the sleeping-pills. It's rather a heavy dose, but he must have rest at night when he works himself up so much. Don't leave them where he can get at them, remember.'

Shirley's face grew paler.

‘You don't think that he'd –'

‘No, no, no,' the doctor interrupted her hastily. ‘I should say definitely not the type to do away with himself. Yes, I know he says he wants to sometimes, but that's just hysteria. No, the danger with this type of drug is that you may wake up in a half-bemused condition, forget you've had your dose and take another. So be careful.'

‘Of course I will.'

She said goodbye and went back to Henry.

Henry was in one of his most unpleasant moods.

‘Well, what does he say – everything proceeding satisfactorily! Patient just a
little
irritable, perhaps. No need to worry about
that
!'

‘Oh, Henry.' Shirley sank down in a chair. ‘Couldn't you sometimes – be a little kind?'

‘Kind – to you?'

‘Yes. I'm so tired, so dreadfully tired. If you could just be – sometimes – kind.'

‘
You've
got nothing to complain about. You're not a twisted mass of useless bones.
You're
all right.'

‘So you think,' said Shirley, ‘that I'm all right?'

‘Did the doctor persuade you to go away?'

‘He said I ought to have a change and a rest.'

‘And you're going, I suppose! A nice week at Bournemouth!'

‘No, I'm not going.'

‘Why not?'

‘I don't want to leave you.'

‘
I
don't care whether you go or not. What use are you to me?'

‘I don't seem to be any use,' said Shirley dully.

Henry turned his head restlessly.

‘Where's my sleeping stuff? You never gave it to me last night.'

‘Yes, I did.'

‘You didn't. I woke up and I asked for it. That nurse pretended I'd had it.'

‘You had had it. You forget.'

‘Are you going to the vicarage thing tonight?'

‘Not if you don't want me to,' said Shirley.

‘Oh, better go! Otherwise everyone says what a selfish brute I am. I told Nurse she could go, too.'

‘I'll stay.'

‘You needn't. Laura will look after me. Funny – I've never liked Laura much, but there's something about her that's very soothing when you're ill. There's a sort of strength.'

‘Yes. Laura's always been like that. She
gives
you something. She's better than me. I only seem to make you angry.'

‘You're very annoying sometimes.'

‘Henry –'

‘Yes?'

‘Nothing.'

When she came in before going out to the vicarage whist drive, she thought at first that Henry was asleep. She bent over him. Tears pricked her eyelids. Then as she turned to go, he plucked at her sleeve.

‘Shirley.'

‘Yes, darling?'

‘Shirley – don't hate me.'

‘Hate you? How could I hate you?'

He muttered: ‘You're so pale, so thin … I've worn you out. I couldn't help it … I can't help it. I've always hated anything like illness or pain. In the war, I used to think I wouldn't mind being killed, but I could never understand how fellows could bear to be burnt or disfigured or – or maimed.'

‘I see. I understand …'

‘I'm a selfish devil, I know. But I'll get better – better in mind, I mean – even if I never get better in body. We might be able to make a go of it – of everything – if you'll be patient. Just don't leave me.'

‘I'll never leave you, never.'

‘I do love you, Shirley … I do … I always have. There's never really been anyone but you – there never will be. All these months – you've been so good, so patient. I know I've been a devil. Say you forgive me.'

‘There's nothing to forgive. I love you.'

‘Even if one is a cripple – one might enjoy life.'

‘We will enjoy life.'

‘Can't see how!'

With a tremor in her voice, Shirley said:

‘Well, there's always eating.'

‘And drinking,' said Henry.

A faint ghost of his old smile showed.

‘One might go in for higher mathematics.'

‘Crossword puzzles for me.'

He said:

‘I shall be a devil tomorrow, I expect.'

‘I expect you will. I shan't mind now.'

‘Where are my pills?'

‘I'll give them to you.'

He swallowed them obediently.

‘Poor old Muriel,' he said suddenly.

‘What made you think of her?'

‘Remembering taking you over there the first time. You had on a yellow stripy dress. I ought to have gone and seen old Muriel more often, but she had got to be such a bore. I hate bores. Now
I'm
a bore.'

‘No, you're not.'

From the hall below, Laura called: ‘Shirley!'

She kissed him. She ran down the stairs, happiness surging up in her, happiness and a kind of triumph.

In the hall below, Laura said that Nurse had started.

‘Oh, am I late? I'll run.'

She ran down the drive turning her head to call:

‘I've given Henry his sleeping-pills.'

But Laura had gone inside again, and was closing the door.

Llewellyn Knox threw open the shutters of the hotel windows and let in the sweet-scented night air. Below him were the twinkling lights of the town, and beyond them the lights of the harbour.

For the first time for some weeks, Llewellyn felt relaxed and at peace. Here, perhaps, in the island, he could pause and take stock of himself and of the future. The pattern of the future was clear in outline, but blurred as to detail. He had passed through the agony, the emptiness, the weariness. Soon, very soon now, he should be able to begin life anew. A simpler, more undemanding life, the life of a man like any other man – with this disadvantage only: he would be beginning it at the age of forty.

He turned back into the room. It was austerely furnished but clean. He washed his face and hands, unpacked his few possessions, and then left his bedroom, and walked down two flights of stairs into the hotel lobby. A clerk was behind a desk there, writing. His eyes came up for a moment, viewed Llewellyn politely, but with no particular interest or curiosity, and dropped once more to his work.

Llewellyn pushed through the revolving doors and went out into the street. The air was warm with a soft, fragrant dampness.

It had none of the exotic languor of the tropics. Its warmth was just sufficient to relax tension. The accentuated tempo of civilization was left behind here. It was as though in the island one went back to an earlier age, an age where the people went about their business slowly, with due thought, without hurry or stress, but where purpose was still purpose. There would be poverty here, and pain, and the various ills of the flesh, but not the jangled nerves, the feverish haste, the apprehensive thoughts of tomorrow, which are the constant goads of the higher civilizations of the world. The hard faces of the career women, the ruthless faces of mothers, ambitious for their young, the worn grey faces of business executives fighting incessantly so that they and theirs should not go down and perish, the anxious tired faces of multitudes fighting for a better existence tomorrow or even to retain the existence they had – all these were absent from the people who passed him by. Most of them glanced at him, a good-mannered glance that registered him as a foreigner, and then glanced away, resuming their own lives. They walked slowly, without haste. Perhaps they were just taking the air. Even if they were bent upon some particular course, there was no urgency. What was not done today could be done tomorrow; friends who awaited their arrival would always wait a little longer, without annoyance.

A grave, polite people, Llewellyn thought, who smiled seldom, not because they were sad, but because to smile one must be amused. The smile here was not used as a social weapon.

A woman with a baby in her arms came up to him and begged in a mechanical, lifeless whine. He did not understand what she said, but her outstretched hand, and the melancholy chant of her words conformed, he thought, to a very old pattern. He put a small coin in her palm and she thanked him in the same mechanical manner and turned away. The baby lay asleep against her shoulder. It was well nourished, and her own face, though worn, was not haggard or emaciated. Probably, he thought, she was not in want, it was simply that begging was her trade. She pursued it mechanically, courteously, and with sufficient success to provide food and shelter for herself and the child.

He turned a corner and walked down a steep street towards the harbour. Two girls, walking together, came up and passed him. They were talking and laughing, and, without turning their heads, it was apparent that they were very conscious of a group of four young men who walked a little distance behind them.

Llewellyn smiled to himself. This, he thought, was the courting pattern of the island. The girls were beautiful with a proud dark beauty that would probably not outlast youth. In ten years, perhaps less, they would look like this elderly woman who was waddling up the hill on her husband's arm, stout, good-humoured, and still dignified in spite of her shapelessness.

Llewellyn went on down the steep, narrow street. It came out on the harbour front. Here there were cafés with broad terraces where people sat and drank little glasses of brightly-coloured drinks. Quite a throng of people were walking up and down in front of the cafés. Here again their gaze registered Llewellyn as a foreigner, but without any overwhelming interest. They were used to foreigners. Ships put in, and foreigners came ashore, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes to stay – though not usually for long, since the hotels were mediocre and not much given to refinements of plumbing. Foreigners, so the glances seemed to say, were not really their concern. Foreigners were extraneous and had nothing to do with the life of the island.