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

"Of course. What?"
"Ask up at the hotel what time the bus gets here. How long it stays. What time it gets to Nimes. Will your French stand up to that, do you think?"
David gave me a look, and scrambled out of the car with Rommel.
"Of course," he said again; then, with a sudden burst of honesty--"It's not so much asking, because you can practise on the way up, but it's understanding what they tell you--'specially when it's numbers. But I'll try." He gave me his swift engaging grin, and ran off through the gravel terrace of the hotel.
"Are you sure you don't want to come on to Nimes, Louise?"
"Quite, thanks. I'll go down by the river and paint the bridge --oh, all right, aqueduct--I'll have lunch here first. What time are you coming back?"
"I'm not sure. When d'you want to be picked up?"
Louise looked through the trees towards the river, where could be seen a glowing glimpse of golden stone.
"I don't know, honestly. I'll tell you what, Charity--we won't tie ourselves down. You go on to Nimes and look at your remains in your own time. If I'm sitting at one of those tables when you come back, pick me up. If not, I'll have gone back on the bus, so don't bother. You won't want to come back much before dinner-time, anyway, and I'll have finished painting long before that."
David came panting across the road to the door of the car.
"Midi-vingt!" he announced with triumph. "The bus gets here midi-vingt. It waits half an hour, and it gets to Nimes at half-past one. Is that what you wanted to know?"
"That's fine," I said, glancing at my watch. "It's barely twelve now, and the bus doesn't get here till twenty past. We'll have time to look at the bridge--sorry, Louise, aqueduct--after all."
I took the ignition key out and dropped it into my bag.
"What do you mean?" asked Louise. She was looking at me curiously. "I thought that's one of the things you came for? What's the bus got to do with it?"
I felt the colour creep into my face. I had been thinking aloud, without realizing how queer it must have sounded.
"Nothing," I said, rather lamely. "I was thinking about lunch. We'll have lunch in Nimes, so we won't stay here too long."
I need not have been afraid that Louise would pursue the subject. She was already rummaging for her pencils, and hardly listened to my reply. But as I turned from the car, I saw David looking at me. A long, unreadable look . . . and again I sensed that all those impalpable defences were up. Then Rommel gave an impatient tug to his string, and we all went down towards the bank of the river, under tall trees harsh with the shrilling of the cicadas.

CHAPTER V

0 bloody Richard!

(shakespeare)

Whenever I look back now on the strange and terrifying events of that holiday in Southern France, I am conscious of two things which seem to dominate the picture. One is the continuous dry and nerve-rasping noise of the cicadas, invisible in the parched trees, the other is the Roman aqueduct over the Gardon as I first saw it that brilliant day. I suppose the ten or twelve minutes that David and Rommel and I spent gazing at those golden arches spanning the deep green Gardon were like the last brief lull before the thunder.
We stood near the edge of the narrow river, on the water smooth white rock, and watched Louise settle herself in the shade of some willows, where the aqueduct soared above us, '.ts steep angle cutting the sky. On the under-sides of the arches moved the slow, water-illumined shadows, till the sun-steeped stone glowed Eke living gold. Except for the lazy sliding silver of reflected light under the striding spans, nothing stirred. Not a leaf quivered; there was no cloud to betray the wind. You would have sworn that the gleaming river never moved. . . .
The sound of an engine on the road above recalled me abruptly. We said good-bye to Louise, who hardly heard us, and climbed the dusty track again to the car.
Not until we had swung out on to the road to Nimes did either of us speak.
Then David gave a queer little sigh, and said:
"I'm glad I did come, after all." Then he flung a quick glance at me, and flushed. "I mean--I didn't mean -"
"It doesn't matter. I'm glad you're glad you came."
He glanced at me again, and I could sense, rather than see, a long and curious scrutiny.
"Mrs. Selborne -"
"Yes?"
He hesitated. I could feel his body beside me, tense as a runner's. I kept my eyes on the road and waited. Then he gave another odd, sharp little sigh, and bent his cheek to Rommel's shoulder.
"Oh, nothing. How far is it to Nimes?"
And for the rest of the way we talked about the Romans. I was not to be allowed to help, after all. And I knew better than to force confidence from a boy of his age--a boy, moreover, who had so much the air of knowing exactly what he was up against, and what he was going to do about it. But stealing a look down at the childish curve of the thin cheek laid against the dog's fur, I wasn't so sure that he could deal with whatever queer situation he was in. And again, I knew that I wanted most desperately to help. It was irrational, and I can't explain it, even to-day. It was just the way David made me feel. I told myself savagely that I was a fool, I said unpleasant things under my breath about a frustrated mother-complex, and I kept my eyes on the road, my voice casual, and I talked about the Romans.
And so we drove into Nimes, parked the car off the square outside the church, and had lunch in a restaurant in a side street, out of sight of the place where the buses stop.
"The Arena first!" said David. "I want to see where they keep the bulls"
"Bloodthirsty little beast, aren't you? But there's no bullfight to-day, you know. Sunday nights only. The better the day, the better the deed."
"Look, there's a poster--a Corrida, and this Sunday, too!" He looked at me wistfully. I laughed.
'We, David. I won't. And you wouldn't like it either, really. You're English--you'd be on the side of the bull. And think of the horses."
"I suppose so. Golly, look! Is that it?"
We climbed the sloping street towards the enormous curve of the Arena, and made our way round half its circumference until we found the way in through its massive and terrible arches. I bought tickets, and we went into the barred shadows of the lower corridor. There were a few other tourists there, staring, chattering, fiddling with cameras. We followed a little group of English people up the main steps, out into the sunlight of the Arena until we emerged in what must have been the ringside seats, looking down into the great oval where the beasts and the Christians used to meet in blood and terror under the pitiless sun. I went forward to the edge and looked down at the sheer sides of the Arena, just too high for a man to leap, even if he were in terror of his life. David came to my side. He, at any rate, was not haunted by the things that had been done here. His face was excited and a little flushed and his eyes shining.
"Golly, Mrs. Selborne, what a place! I saw a door down there labelled TORIL. D'you suppose that's the bull? Do they use Spanish names here? Where does the bull come out to fight?"
I pointed to the big double doors at the end of the oval, where, in white letters, the word TORIL stood again.
"Golly!" said David again. He leaned over the parapet and gazed down with concentration. "Do you suppose we could see bloodstains?"
I moved back into the shadow of the stairway. The heat reflected from the stones was almost unbearable. I heard, behind and below me, the monotonous voice of the concierge doling out tickets to a new batch of tourists. Two or three people came up the steps beside me, and another group, I noticed, went through a doorway near the foot of the steps, that apparently led out into the arena itself.
I leaned back against the cool stone in the shadows and watched David idly as he sauntered along the ringside tier, periodically stopping to lean over--looking for bloodstains, I supposed. Well, at least that disposed of an idea that the boy was a neurotic--a healthy desire for bloodstains was, I knew, part of the normal boy's equipment.
I closed my eyes. The concierge's voice rose and fell. There was a murmur of talk in French, in German, in American. Somewhere near me a camera clicked. Some more tourists came up the steps beside me, talking vigorously in German. For once we seemed to be the only English people there. But no sooner had the idle thought crossed my mind than I was proved wrong, for down below, on the arena floor itself, I heard some people talking English. And suddenly, a man's voice, sharp, distinct, edged with bad temper: