The Burden - Christie Agatha - Страница 32

But he had wanted education, and here his father had encouraged him. He had the Scot's reverence for learning, and was ambitious for this eldest son of his to become something more than a mere tiller of the soil.

"I'll do what I can to help you, Llewellyn, but that will not be much. You'll have to manage mostly for yourself."

And he had done so. Encouraged by his teacher, he had gone ahead and put himself through college. He had worked in vacations, waiting in hotels and camps, he had done evening work washing dishes.

With his father he had discussed his future. Either a teacher or a doctor, he decided. He had had no particular sense of vocation, but both careers seemed to him congenial. He finally chose medicine.

Through all these years, was there no hint of dedication, of special mission? He thought back, trying to remember.

There had been something… yes, looking back from to-day's viewpoint, there had been something. Something not understood by himself at the time. A kind of fear-that was the nearest he could get to it. Behind the normal fac,ade of daily life, a fear, a dread of something that he himself did not understand. He was more conscious of this fear when he was alone, and he had, therefore, thrown himself eagerly into community life.

It was about that time he became conscious of Carol.

He had known Carol all his life. They had gone to school together. She was two years younger than he was, a gawky, sweet-tempered child, with a brace on her teeth and a shy manner. Their parents were friends, and Carol spent a lot of time in the Knox household.

In the year of taking his finals, Llewellyn came home and saw Carol with new eyes. The brace was gone, and so was the gawkiness. Instead there was a pretty coquettish young girl, whom all the boys were anxious to date up.

Girls had so far not impinged much on Llewellyn's life. He had worked too hard, and was, moreover, emotionally undeveloped. But now the manhood in him suddenly came to life. He started taking trouble with his appearance, spent money he could ill afford on new ties, and bought boxes of candy to present to Carol. His mother smiled and sighed, as mothers do, at the signs that her son had entered on maturity! The time had come when she must lose him to another woman. Too early to think of marriage as yet, but if it had to come, Carol would be a satisfactory choice. Good stock, carefully brought up, a sweet-tempered girl, and healthy-better than some strange girl from the city whom she did not know. 'But not good enough for my son,' said her mother's heart, and then she smiled at herself, guessing that that was what all mothers had felt since time immemorial! She spoke hesitantly to Angus of the matter.

"Early days yet," said Angus. "The lad has his way to make. But he might do worse. She's a good lass, though maybe not overloaded with brains."

Carol was both pretty and popular, and enjoyed her popularity. She had plenty of dates, but she made it fairly clear that Llewellyn was the favourite. She talked to him sometimes in a serious way about his future. Though she did not show it, she was slightly disconcerted by his vagueness and what seemed to her his lack of ambition.

"Why, Lew, surely you've got some definite plans for when you've qualified?"

"Oh! I shall get a job all right. Plenty of openings."

"But don't you have to specialise nowadays?"

"If one has any particular bent. I haven't."

"But, Llewellyn Knox, you want to get on, don't you?"

"Get on-where?" His smile was slightly teasing.

"Well-get somewhere."

"But that is life, isn't it, Carol? From here to here." His finger traced a line on the sand. "Birth, growth, school, career, marriage, children, home, hard work, retirement, old age, death. From the frontier of this country to the frontier of the next."

"That's not what I mean at all, Lew, and you know it. I mean getting somewhere, making a name for yourself, making good, getting right to the top, so that everyone's proud of you."

"I wonder if all that makes any difference," he said abstractedly.

"I'll say it makes a difference!"

"It's how you go through your journey that matters, I think, not where it takes you."

"I never heard such nonsense. Don't you want to be a success?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

Carol was a long way away from him suddenly. He was alone, quite alone, and he was conscious of fear. A shrinking, a terrible shrinking. "Not me-someone else." He almost said the words aloud.

"Lew! Llewellyn!" Carol's voice came thinly to him from a long way away, coming towards him through the wilderness. "What's the matter? You look downright queer."

He was back again, back with Carol, who was staring at him with a perplexed, frightened expression. He was conscious of a rush of tenderness towards her. She had saved him, called him back from that barren place. He took her hand.

"You're so sweet." He drew her towards him, kissed her gently, almost shyly. Her lips responded to his.

He thought: 'I can tell her now… that I love her… that when I'm qualified we can get engaged. I'll ask her to wait for me. Once I've got Carol, I'll be safe.'

But the words remained unspoken. He felt something that was almost like a physical hand on his breast, pushing him back, a hand that forbade. The reality of it alarmed him. He got up.

"Some day, Carol," he said, "some day I-I've got to talk to you."

She looked up at him and laughed, satisfied. She was not particularly anxious for him to come to the point. Things were best left as they were. She enjoyed in an innocent happy fashion her own young girl's hour of triumph, courted by the young males. Some day she and Llewellyn would marry. She had felt the emotion behind his kiss. She was quite sure of him.

As for his queer lack of ambition, that did not really worry her. Women in this country were confident of their power over men. It was women who planned and urged on their men to achieve; women, and the children that were their principal weapons. She and Llewellyn would want the best for their children, and that would be a spur to urge Llewellyn on.

As for Llewellyn, he walked home in a serious state of perturbation. What a very odd experience that had been. Full of recent lectures on psychology, he analysed himself with misgiving. A resistance to sex perhaps? Why had he set up this resistance? He ate his supper staring at his mother, and wondering uneasily if he had an Oedipus Complex.

Nevertheless, it was to her he came far reassurance before he went back to college.

He said abruptly:

"You like Carol, don't you?"

Here it comes, she thought with a pang, but she said steadfastly:

"She's a sweet girl. Both your father and I like her well."

"I wanted to tell her-the other day-"

"That you loved her?"

"Yes. I wanted to ask her to wait for me."

"No need of that, if she loves you, bach."

"But I couldn't say it, the words wouldn't come."

She smiled. "Don't let that worry you. Men are mostly tongue-tied at these times. There was your father sitting and glowering at me, day after day, more as though he hated me than loved me, and not able to get a word out but 'How are you?' and 'It's a fine day.' "

Llewellyn said sombrely: "It was more than that. It was like a hand shoving me back. It was as though I was-forbidden."

She felt then the urgency and force of his trouble. She said slowly:

"It may be that she's not the real girl for you. Oh-" she stifled his protest. "It's hard to tell when you're young and the blood rises. But there's something in you-the true self, maybe-that knows what should and shouldn't be, and that saves you from yourself, and the impulse that isn't the true one."

"Something in oneself…" He dwelt on that.

He looked at her with sudden desperate eyes.