The Burden - Christie Agatha - Страница 25

How often, Llewellyn thought, he had heard and said those words: "Thy loving kindness to us and to all men."

Man himself could have that feeling, although he could not hold it long.

And suddenly he saw that here was the compensation, the promise of the future, that he had not understood. For fifteen or more years he had been held apart from just that-the sense of brotherhood with other men. He bad been a man set apart, a man dedicated to service. But now, now that the glory and the agonising exhaustion were done with, he could become once more a man among men. He was no longer required to serve-only to live.

Llewellyn turned aside and sat down at one of the tables in a caf?. He chose an inside table against the back wall where he could look over the other tables to the people walking in the street, and beyond them to the lights of the harbour, and the ships that were moored there.

The waiter who brought his order asked in a gentle, musical voice:

"You are American? Yes?"

Yes, Llewellyn said, he was American.

A gentle smile lit up the waiter's grave face.

"We have American papers here. I bring them to you."

Llewellyn checked his motion of negation.

The waiter went away, and came back with a proud expression on his face, carrying two illustrated American magazines.

"Thank you."

"You are welcome, se?or."

The periodicals were two years old, Llewelyn noted. That again pleased him. It emphasised the remoteness of the island from the up-to-date stream. Here at least, he thought, there would not be recognition.

His eyes closed for a moment, as he remembered all the various incidents of the last months.

"Aren't you-isn't it? I thought I recognised you…"

"Oh, do tell me-you are Dr. Knox?"

"You're Llewellyn Knox, aren't you? Oh, I do want to tell you how terribly grieved I was to hear-"

"I knew it must be you! What are your plans, Dr. Knox? Your illness was so terrible. I've heard you're writing a book? I do hope so. Giving us a message?"

And so on, and so on. On ships, in airports, in expensive hotels, in obscure hotels, in restaurants, on trains. Recognised, questioned, sympathised with, fawned upon-yes, that had been the hardest. Women… Women with eyes like spaniels. Women with that capacity for worship that women had.

And then there had been, of course, the Press. For even now he was still news. (Mercifully, that would not last long.) So many crude brash questions: What are your plans? Would you say now that-? Can I quote you as believing-? Can you give us a message?

A message, a message, always a message! To the readers of a particular journal, to the country, to men and women, to the worldBut he had never had a message to give. He had been a messenger, which was a very different thing. But no one was likely to understand that.

Rest-that was what he had needed. Rest and time. Time to take in what he himself was, and what he should do. Time to take stock of himself. Time to start again, at forty, and live his own life. He must find out what had happened to him, to Llewellyn Knox, the man, during the fifteen years he had been employed as a messenger.

Sipping his little glass of coloured liqueur, looking at the people, the lights, the harbour, he thought that this would be a good place to find out all that. It was not the solitude of a desert he wanted, he wanted his fellow kind. He was not by nature a recluse or an ascetic. He had no vocation for the monastic life. All he needed was to find out who and what was Llewellyn Knox. Once he knew that, he could go ahead and take up life once more.

It all came back, perhaps, to Kant's three questions:

What do I know?

What can I hope?

What ought I to do?

Of these questions, he could answer only one, the second.

The waiter came back and stood by his table.

"They are good magazines?" he asked happily.

Llewellyn smiled.

"Yes."

"They were not very new, I am afraid."

"That does not matter."

"No. What is good a year ago is good now."

He spoke with calm certainty.

Then he added:

"You have come from the ship? The Santa Margherita? Out there?"

He jerked his head towards the jetty.

"Yes."

"She goes out again to-morrow at twelve, that is right?"

"Perhaps. I do not know. I am staying here."

"Ah, you have come for a visit? It is beautiful here, so the visitors say. You will stay until the next ship comes in? On Thursday?"

"Perhaps longer. I may stay here some time."

"Ah, you have business here!"

"No, I have no business."

"People do not usually stay long here, unless they have business. They say the hotels are not good enough, and there is nothing to do."

"Surely there is as much to do here as anywhere else?"

"For us who live here, yes. We have our lives and our work. But for strangers, no. Although we have foreigners who have come here to live. There is Sir Wilding, an Englishman. He has a big estate here-it came to him from his grandfather. He lives here altogether now, and writes books. He is a very celebrated se?or, and much respected."

"You mean Sir Richard Wilding?"

The waiter nodded.

"Yes, that is his name. We have known him here many, many years. In the war he could not come, but afterwards he came back. He also paints pictures. There are many painters here. There is a Frenchman who lives in a cottage up at Santa Dolmea. And there is an Englishman and his wife over on the other side of the island. They are very poor, and the pictures he paints are very odd. She carves figures out of stone as well-"

He broke off and darted suddenly forward to a table in the corner at which a chair had been turned up, to indicate that it was reserved. Now he seized the chair and drew it back a little, bowing a welcome at the woman who came to occupy it.

She smiled her thanks at him as she sat down. She did not appear to give him an order, but he went away at once. The woman put her elbows on the table and stared out over the harbour.

Llewellyn watched her with a stirring of surprise.

She wore an embroidered Spanish scarf of flowers on an emerald green background, like many of the women walking up and down the street, but she was, he was almost sure, either American or English. Her blonde fairness stood out amongst the other occupants of the caf?. The table at which she was sitting was half obliterated by a great hanging mass of coral-coloured bougainvillaea. To anyone sitting at it, it must have given the feeling of looking out from a cave smothered in vegetation on to the world, and more particularly over the lights of the ships, and their reflections in the harbour.

The girl, for she was little more, sat quite still, in an attitude of passive waiting. Presently the waiter brought her her drink. She smiled her thanks without speaking. Then, her hands cupped round the glass, she continued to stare out over the harbour, occasionally sipping her drink.

Llewellyn noticed the rings on her fingers, a solitaire emerald on one hand, and a cluster of diamonds on the other. Under the exotic shawl she was wearing a plain high-necked black dress.

She neither looked at, nor paid any attention to, the people sitting round her, and noae of them did more than glance at her, and even so without any particular attention. It was clear that she was a well-known figure in the caf?.

Llewellyn wondered who she was. It struck him as a little unusual that a young woman of her class should be sitting there alone, without any companion. Yet she was obviously perfectly at ease and had the air of someone performing a well-known routine. Perhaps a companion would shortly come and join her.

But the time went on, and the girl still sat alone at her table. Occasionally she made a slight gesture with her head, and the waiter brought her another drink.