The Burden

by Agatha Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott

  Watching them dispassionately, Laura tried to understand her own mounting feeling of uneasiness. Was it simply that she had taken a dislike to Henry? No, it could hardly be that. She acknowledged Henry’s charm, his likeability, his good manners. Since, as yet, she knew nothing about him, she could hardly form a considered judgment. He was perhaps a little too casual, too off-hand, too detached? Yes, that explained it best – detached.

  Surely the core of her feeling was rooted in Shirley. She was experiencing the sharp sense of shock which comes when you discover an unknown facet in someone about whom you are assured you know everything. Laura and Shirley were not unduly demonstrative to each other, but stretching back over the years was the figure of Shirley, pouring out to Laura her hates, her loves, her desires, her frustrations.

  But yesterday, when Laura had asked casually: ‘Anybody exciting? Or just Bellbury?’ Shirley had replied nonchalantly: ‘Oh, mostly Bellbury.’

  Laura wondered why Shirley hadn’t mentioned Henry. She remembered the sudden breathlessness just now in Shirley’s voice as she had said, over the telephone, ‘Henry?’

  Her mind came back to the conversation going on so close to her.

  Henry was just concluding a sentence …

  ‘ – if you liked. I’d pick you up in Carswell.’

  ‘Oh, I’d love it. I’ve never been much to race meetings …’

  ‘Marldon’s a tin-pot one, but a friend of mine’s got a horse running. We might …’

  Laura reflected calmly and dispassionately that this was a courtship. Henry’s unexplained appearance, the wangled petrol, the inadequate excuse – he was sharply attracted by Shirley. She did not tell herself that this all might come to nothing. She believed, on the contrary, that she saw events casting their shadows before them.

  Henry and Shirley would marry. She knew it, she was sure of it. And Henry was a stranger … She would never really know Henry any better than she knew him now.

  Would Shirley ever know him?

  Chapter Three

  1

  ‘I wonder,’ said Henry, ‘if you ought to come and meet my aunt.’

  He looked at Shirley doubtfully.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘that it will be an awful bore for you.’

  They were leaning over the rail of the paddock, gazing unseeingly at the only horse, Number Nineteen, which was being led monotonously round and round.

  This was the third race meeting Shirley had attended in Henry’s company. Where other young men’s ideas ran to the pictures, Henry’s seemed to be concerned with sport. It was all on a par with the exciting difference between Henry and other young men.

  ‘I’m sure I shouldn’t be bored,’ said Shirley politely.

  ‘I don’t really see how you could help it,’ said Henry. ‘She does horoscopes and has queer ideas about the Pyramids.’

  ‘Do you know, Henry, I don’t even know what your aunt’s name is?’

  ‘Don’t you?’ said Henry, surprised.

  ‘Is it Glyn-Edwards?’

  ‘No. It’s Fairborough. Lady Muriel Fairborough. She’s not bad really. Doesn’t mind how you come and go. And always very decent at stumping up in a crisis.’

  ‘That’s a very depressed-looking horse,’ said Shirley, looking at Number Nineteen. She was nerving herself to say something quite different.

  ‘Wretched brute,’ agreed Henry. ‘One of Tommy Twisdon’s worst. Come down over the first hurdle, I should think.’

  Two more horses were brought into the ring, and more people arrived to lean over the rails.

  ‘What’s this? Third race?’ Henry consulted his card. ‘Are the numbers up yet? Is Number Eighteen running?’

  Shirley glanced up at the board behind her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We might have a bit on that, if the price is all right.’

  ‘You know a lot about horses, don’t you, Henry? Were you – were you brought up with horses?’

  ‘My experience has mostly been with bookmakers.’

  Shirley nerved herself to ask what she had been wanting to ask.

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it, how little I really know about you? Have you got a father or mother, or are you an orphan, like me?’

  ‘Oh! My father and mother were killed in the blitz. They were in the Café de Paris.’

  ‘Oh! Henry – how awful!’

  ‘Yes, wasn’t it?’ agreed Henry, without, however, displaying undue emotion. He seemed to feel this himself, for he added: ‘Of course it’s over four years ago now. I was quite fond of them and all that, but one can’t go on remembering things, can one?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said Shirley doubtfully.

  ‘Why all this thirst for information?’ asked Henry.

  ‘Well – one likes to know about people,’ Shirley spoke almost apologetically.

  ‘Does one?’ Henry seemed genuinely surprised.

  ‘Anyway,’ he decided, ‘you’d better come and meet my aunt. Put it all on a proper footing with Laura.’

  ‘Laura?’

  ‘Well, Laura’s the conventional type, isn’t she? Satisfy her that I’m respectable and all that.’

  And very shortly afterwards, a polite note arrived from Lady Muriel, inviting Shirley to lunch, and saying Henry would call for her in the car.

  2

  Henry’s aunt bore a strong resemblance to the White Queen. Her costume was a jumble of different and brightly-coloured wool garments, she knitted assiduously, and she had a bun of faded brown hair, streaked with grey, from which untidy wisps descended in all directions.

  She managed to combine the qualities of briskness and vagueness.

  ‘So nice you could come, my dear,’ she said warmly, shaking Shirley by the hand and dropping a ball of wool. ‘Pick it up, Henry, there’s a good boy. Now tell me, when were you born?’

  Shirley said that she was born on 18th September, 1928.

  ‘Ah yes. Virgo – I thought so. And the time?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

  ‘Tck! How annoying! You must find out and let me know. It’s most important. Where are my other needles – the number eights? I’m knitting for the navy – a pullover with a high neck.’

  She held out the garment.

  ‘It will have to be for a very large sailor,’ said Henry.

  ‘Well, I expect they have all sizes in the navy,’ said Lady Muriel comfortably. ‘And in the army, too,’ she added inconsequently. ‘I remember Major Tug Murray – sixteen stone – special polo ponies to be up to his weight – and when he rode anyone off there was nothing they could do about it. Broke his neck when he was out with the Pytchley,’ she added cheerfully.

  A very old and shaky butler opened the door and announced that luncheon was served.

  They went into the dining-room. The meal was an indifferent one, and the table silver was tarnished.

  ‘Poor old Melsham,’ said Lady Muriel when the butler was out of the room. ‘He really can’t see at all. And he shakes so when he hands things, that I’m never sure if he’ll get round the table safely. I’ve told him again and again to put things on the sideboard, but he won’t. And he won’t let any of the silver be put away, though of course he can’t see to clean it. And he quarrels with all the queer girls which are all one gets nowadays – not what he’s been accustomed to, he says. Well, I mean, what is? With the war and all.’

  They returned to the drawing-room, and Lady Muriel conducted a brisk conversation on biblical prophecies, the measurements of the pyramids, how much one should pay for illicit clothing coupons, and the difficulties of herbaceous borders.

  After which she rolled up her knitting with great suddenness, and announced that she was going to take Shirley round the garden and dispatched Henry with a message to the chauffeur.

  ‘He’s a dear boy, Henry,’ she said as she and Shirley set forth. ‘Very selfish, of course, and frightfully extravagant. But what can you expect – brought up as he has been?’

  ‘Does
he – take after his mother?’ Shirley felt her way cautiously.

  ‘Oh dear me, no. Poor Mildred was always most economical. It was quite a passion with her. I can’t think why my brother ever married her – she wasn’t even a pretty girl, and deadly dull. I believe she was very happy when they were out on a farm in Kenya among the serious farming kind. Later, of course, they got into the gay set, which didn’t suit her nearly as well.’

  ‘Henry’s father –’ Shirley paused.

  ‘Poor dear Ned. He went through the Bankruptcy Court three times. But such good company. Henry reminds me of him sometimes. That’s a very special kind of alstroemeria – it doesn’t do everywhere. I’ve had a lot of success with it.’

  She tweaked off a dead bloom and glanced sideways at Shirley.

  ‘How pretty you are, my dear – you mustn’t mind my saying so. And very young, too.’

  ‘I’m nearly nineteen.’

  ‘Yes … I see … Do you do things – like all these clever girls nowadays?’

  ‘I’m not clever,’ said Shirley. ‘My sister wants me to take a secretarial course.’

  ‘I’m sure that would be very nice. Secretary to an MP perhaps. Everyone says that’s so interesting; I’ve never seen why. But I don’t suppose you’ll do anything long – you’ll get married.’

  She sighed.

  ‘Such an odd world nowadays. I’ve just had a letter from one of my oldest friends. Her girl has just married a dentist. A dentist. In my young days, girls didn’t marry dentists. Doctors, yes, but not dentists.’

  She turned her head.

  ‘Ah, here comes Henry. Well, Henry, I suppose you’re going to take Miss – Miss –’

  ‘Franklin.’

  ‘Miss Franklin away from me.’

  ‘I thought we’d run over to Bury Heath.’

  ‘Have you been getting petrol out of Harman?’

  ‘Just a couple of gallons, Aunt Muriel.’

  ‘Well, I won’t have it, do you hear? You must wangle your own petrol. I have trouble enough getting mine.’

  ‘You don’t really mind, darling. Come now.’

  ‘Well – just this once. Goodbye, my dear. Now mind you send me those particulars about time of birth – don’t forget – then I can get your horoscope worked out properly. You should wear green, dear – all Virgo people should wear green.’

  ‘I’m Aquarius,’ said Henry. ‘20th January.’

  ‘Unstable,’ snapped his aunt, ‘remember that, my dear. All Aquariuses – most undependable.’

  ‘I hope you weren’t too bored,’ said Henry as they drove away.

  ‘I wasn’t bored at all. I think your aunt’s sweet.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that. But she’s not too bad.’

  ‘She’s very fond of you.’

  ‘Oh, not really. She doesn’t mind having me about.’

  He added: ‘My leave’s nearly over. I ought to be demobbed soon.’

  ‘What are you going to do then?’

  ‘I don’t really know. I thought of the Bar.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘But that’s rather a sweat. I think perhaps I might go into a business of some kind.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘Well, it rather depends where one has a pal to give one a start. I’ve got one or two banking connections. And I know a couple of tycoons who’d graciously allow me to start at the bottom.’ He added: ‘I’ve not got much money, you know. Three hundred a year to be exact. Of my own, I mean. Most of my relations are as mean as hell – no good for a touch. Good old Muriel comes to the rescue now and again, but she’s a bit straitened herself nowadays. I’ve got a godmother who’s reasonably generous if one puts it to her the right way. It’s all a bit unsatisfactory, I know …’

  ‘Why,’ said Shirley, puzzled by this sudden flood of information, ‘are you telling me all this?’

  Henry blushed. The car wobbled in a drunken manner.

  He spoke in an indistinct mumble.

  ‘Thought you knew … Darling – you’re so lovely … I want to marry you … You must marry me – you must – you must …’

  3

  Laura looked at Henry with a kind of desperation.

  It was exactly, she thought, like climbing up a steep hill on an icy day – you slipped back as fast as you advanced.

  ‘Shirley is too young,’ she said, ‘far too young.’

  ‘Come now, Laura, she’s nineteen. One of my grandmothers was married at sixteen, and had twins before she was eighteen.’

  ‘That was a long time ago.’

  ‘And lots of people have married young in the war.’

  ‘And have already lived to regret it.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re taking rather a gloomy view? Shirley and I shan’t regret.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Oh, but I do.’ He grinned at her. ‘I’m positive. I do really love Shirley madly. And I shall do everything I can to make her happy.’

  He looked at her hopefully. He said again:

  ‘I really do love her.’

  As before, his patent sincerity disarmed Laura. He did love Shirley.

  ‘I know, of course, that I’m not particularly well off –’

  There again he was disarming. For it wasn’t the financial angle that worried Laura. She had no ambition for Shirley to make what is called a ‘good match’. Henry and Shirley would not have a large income to start life on, but they would have enough, if they were careful. Henry’s prospects were no worse than those of hundreds of other young men released from the services with their way to make. He had good health, good brains, great charm of manner. Yes, perhaps that was it. It was his charm that made Laura mistrust him. No one had any right to have as much charm as Henry had.

  She spoke again, a tone of authority in her voice.

  ‘No, Henry. There can be no question of marriage as yet. A year’s engagement, at least. That gives you both time to be sure you know your own minds.’

  ‘Really, Laura dear, you might be at least fifty. A heavy Victorian father rather than a sister.’

  ‘I have to stand in the place of a father to Shirley. That gives time for you to find a job and get yourself established.’

  ‘How depressing it all sounds.’ His smile was still charming. ‘I don’t believe you want Shirley to marry anybody.’

  Laura flushed.

  ‘Nonsense.’

  Henry was pleased with the success of his stray shaft. He went away to find Shirley.

  ‘Laura,’ he said, ‘is being tiresome. Why shouldn’t we get married? I don’t want to wait. I hate waiting for things. Don’t you? If one waits too long for anything, one loses interest. Of course we could go off and get quietly married at a registry office somewhere. How about it? It would save a lot of fuss.’

  ‘Oh no, Henry, we couldn’t do that.’

  ‘I don’t see why not! As I say, it would save a lot of fuss all round.’

  ‘I’m under age. Wouldn’t we have to have Laura’s consent?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you would. She’s your legal guardian, isn’t she? Or is it old what’s his name?’

  ‘I don’t believe I actually know. Baldy is my trustee.’

  ‘The trouble is,’ said Henry, ‘that Laura doesn’t like me.’

  ‘Oh, she does, Henry. I’m sure she does.’

  ‘No, she doesn’t. She’s jealous, of course.’

  Shirley looked troubled.

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘She never has liked me – from the beginning. And I’ve taken a lot of trouble to be nice to her.’ Henry sounded injured.

  ‘I know. You’re sweet to her. But after all, Henry, we have sprung this rather suddenly on her. We’ve only known each other – what? – three weeks. I suppose it doesn’t really matter if we have to wait a year.’

  ‘Darling, I don’t want to wait a year. I want to marry you now – next week – tomorrow. Don’t you want to marry me?’

  ‘Oh, H
enry, I do – I do.’

  4

  Mr Baldock had duly been asked to dinner to meet Henry. Afterwards Laura had demanded breathlessly:

  ‘Well, what do you think of him?’

  ‘Now, now, slowly. How can I judge across a dinner-table? Nice manners, doesn’t treat me as an old fogy. Listens to me deferentially.’

  ‘Is that all you’ve got to say? Is he good enough for Shirley?’

  ‘Nobody, my dear Laura, will ever be good enough for Shirley in your eyes.’

  ‘No, perhaps that’s true … But do you like him?’

  ‘Yes, I like him. What I’d call an agreeable fellow.’

  ‘You think he’ll make her a good husband.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that. I should strongly suspect that as a husband he might prove unsatisfactory in more ways than one.’

  ‘Then we can’t let her marry him.’

  ‘We can’t stop her marrying him, if she wants to. And I daresay he won’t prove much more unsatisfactory than any other husband she might choose. I shouldn’t think he’d beat her, or put arsenic in her coffee, or be rude to her in public. There’s a lot to be said, Laura, for having a husband who’s agreeable and got good manners.’

  ‘Do you know what I think about him? I think he’s utterly selfish and – and ruthless.’

  Mr Baldock raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder if you weren’t right.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘Yes, but she likes the fellow, Laura. She likes him very much. In fact, she’s crazy about him. Young Henry mayn’t be your cup of tea, and strictly speaking, he isn’t my cup of tea, but there’s no doubt that he is Shirley’s cup of tea.’

  ‘If she could only see what he’s really like!’ cried Laura.

  ‘Well, she’ll find out,’ prophesied Mr Baldock.

  ‘When it’s too late! I want her to see what he’s like now!’

  ‘Daresay it wouldn’t make any difference. She means to have him, you know.’