"Mary Stewart - Madam Will You Talk [txt]" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

"Don't tell me you feel a bond between us already?"
"No . . . though as a matter of fact I did wonder for a moment if we'd met before. There's something familiar -"
He interrupted, his voice rough again: "We haven't. I don't know any Selborne outside of Gilbert White."
I lifted my head, startled.
"Gilbert White?"
"Yes. You know the book -"
"Of course. It was just that somebody else the other day connected me with it too, and not so very many people read it now. And I was surprised at David, because he's only a boy."
I suppose I should have been more careful; I suppose I should have heard the way his voice altered then. But I was still embarrassed, wanting to get away, chattering aimlessly about nothing.
He said, very quietly: "David?"
"Yes. David Shelley. That's who I was thinking of when I said I should have been called Wordsworth. All the Romantic poets seem to be in -"
"Where did you meet this David Shelley?"
I heard it then. I stopped with my cigarette half-way to my lips and looked at him. His hand was quite steady as he flicked the ash from his cigarette, and his face showed no expression.
But there was a look behind his eyes that made my heart jolt once, sickeningly.
He said again, softly, almost indifferently: "Where did you meet this David Shelley?"
And looked at me with David's eyes.
Shelley--Coleridge--Byron. I knew now. I was alone in that quiet little temple with Richard Byron, who had been acquitted of murder on the grounds of insufficient evidence, and who was looking at me now as if he would like to choke me.
He threw away his cigarette and took a step towards me.

CHAPTER VI

Escape me?

(browning)

"Excuse me, monsieur."
Richard Byron stopped and swung round. The concierge stood just inside the doorway of the temple, looking at him with a sort of mournful reproach.
"Your ticket, monsieur. You nevaire show it." His limp moustache drooped with rebuke. His eyes were pale watery brown, and slightly bloodshot. I thought I had never seen anybody I liked better. I ground out my cigarette with shaking fingers, and started--oh, so casually!--for the door. But the concierge must have thought that Richard Byron and I were together, for he stood his ground.
As I fished hurriedly in my bag for my ticket, Byron handed over his paper slip with an abrupt gesture of impatience. The concierge took it, eyed it with the same spaniel-like reproach, and shook his head.
"It is torn, monsieur. It is defaced. It is perhaps not the right ticket.. .."
Richard Byron spoke harshly: "I cannot help its being torn. It was torn when I got it."
"Where did monsieur get it?"
"At the Maison Carree."
Something else jolted in my mind. The voice in the Arena, protesting about the same ticket in almost the same words; and David, who had been leaning over the parapet gazing into the Arena, coming flying down the steps to me, and dragging me away. David, white and shaking, going to hide in the church.
David had seen his father all right, and was even now hiding in the church like a rabbit in its burrow. At the thought of David, I was suddenly not afraid of Richard Byron any more. I held out my ticket again to the concierge, who took it, looked mournfully at it, and clipped it. Then I was out in the sunlight again walking past the cafe tables, back towards the canal. I was trying desperately to think of some way to get back to David and the car without Byron's seeing me. But the lovely gardens stretched ahead of me, open as a chessboard, and then there were the long, straight streets ... I began to hurry; if only the concierge would keep him . . . but he must have squared the old man somehow, for I had hardly gone fifty yards towards the canal when I heard his step behind me, and he said:
"Just a minute. Please."
I turned to face him.
"Look," I said, pleasantly, casually, "it's been very pleasant meeting you, and thank you for the cigarette. But I must go now. Goodbye."
I turned to go, but he was at my elbow again.
"I just wanted to ask you -"
I tried to freeze him--to act as if I thought this was just the usual pick-up, and to get away before he could ask any more questions.
"Please allow me to go," I said icily. "I prefer to go alone, as I said to you before."
"I want to talk to you."
"I'm afraid I -"
"You said you knew a boy called David Shelley." He was scowling down at me, and his voice had an edge that I by no means liked. Against this direct attack I felt helpless, and in spite of myself, panic started to creep over me again. I wanted time to think--to think what to do, what to say. "Where did you see him?"
"Why do you want to know?" I must have sounded feeble, but I could only stall weakly for time.
"I know him," he said shortly. "If he's hereabouts, I'd like to look him up. He's--he's the son of an old friend. He'd want to see me."
Like hell he would, I thought, hiding away like a panic stricken rabbit in the church, poor little kid.
I said: "I'm sorry, I don't really know him."
I could see people approaching up the long flight of steps from the gardens below, and I felt better. He could hardly detain me, make a scene, when there were people there. When they reached us I would break away from him, move off with them, lose myself among the other tourists....
I looked candidly into Richard Byron's angry grey eyes: "I only met him casually on a sight-seeing trip--the way I met you. I couldn't tell you where he's staying."