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

"This is not the wrong blasted ticket. It was issued at the Maison Carree."
Then someone passing on the steps jostled me, and my bag slipped from my lax fingers. I opened startled eyes, and made a grab for it. The culprit--it was a pleasant-looking woman of about forty--stooped for the bag and handed it to me with a soft-voiced apology in a charming American drawl.
"My own fault, I was half asleep."
"It's this turrible heat," she said. "You do better in the shade. Come along, Junior." As they turned to go, I became aware of David at my elbow. He spoke breathlessly:
"Mrs. Selborne!"
"What--why, what on earth's the matter, David?"
He had hold of my sleeve. His face was flour-white, and in the shadow his eyes looked enormous.
"Don't you feel well?"
"No--I--that is -" The hand on my arm was shaking. He began to pull me down the steps. "May we go now? I don't want to stay here--do you mind?"
"Of course not. We'll go straight away. I was only waiting for you."
He hardly waited for me to finish; he went down the steps as if his feet were winged, and out through the gate into the hot street, with Rommel close at his heels.
I followed, to find him heading back the way we had come.
"Why, David, don't you want to see the other things? This is the way back to the car."
He paused a moment as we rounded the street corner, and put out a tentative hand again.
"I--I don't feel too good, Mrs. Selborne. I suppose it's the heat. D'you mind if I don't see the other things with you? I-- I can wait for you somewhere."
I took him by the arm.
"I don't mind at all. Of course not. I'm sorry you're not feeling well, though. Shall we go back to the car?"
We retraced our steps to the square, then he stopped and faced me again. He looked better now; he was still very pale, but he had stopped shaking, and even smiled at me.
"I'll be fine now, Mrs. Selborne. I'll sit in the church till you come back. It's lovely and cool in there. Please don't worry about me."
"What about a drink? An iced mint? Here's a cafe."
But he shook his head.
"I'll just go and sit in the church."
"What about the dog?"
"Oh -" he glanced uncertainly at the church door. "Oh.
I expect it'll be all right. I'll sit near the back, and it's not the time for service. He could stay in the porch anyway. . . ."
In the end he had his way. I watched him into the cool shadow of the west doorway, then I turned away to look for the temple and the gardens. At least nobody appeared to have forbidden Rommel's entry, and the church was the best place David could choose in this heat. I realized that, if he thought his indisposition had spoiled my day, he would be very embarrassed, so I decided to continue my sight-seeing tour of Nimes, but to complete it as quickly as I could.
I saw the lovely pillared Maison Carree, then I made my way along the stinking street beside the canal to the beautiful formal gardens which are the pride of Nimes. The heat was terrific, and by the time I reached the gardens--so beautifully laid out around their stagnant and pestilential pools--even my enthusiasm for Roman remains had begun to waver.
I stood for a moment gazing up at the ranks of pine trees on the steep slope which leads up to the Roman Tower. It was very steep; the cicadas were fiddling in the branches like mad; the heat came out of the ground in waves.
"No," I said firmly.
I turned my back on the tower, and made like a horning bee for the little ruined Temple of Diana--which has a cafe just beside it, where one can drink long iced drinks under the lime trees.
After two very long, very cold drinks, I felt considerably better. I still could not face the Tour Magne, but out of self respect, as a tourist, I must use up the part of my tourist's ticket dedicated to the Temple of Diana. I left my chair and went through the crumbled arches into the tiny square of the temple.
It was like being miles from anywhere. Behind me, back through the crumbled archway, was the hot white world with its people and its voices; here, within, was a little square of quiet and green coolness. Trees dipped over the high broken walls, shadows lay like arras in the pillared corners, fronds of ferns lent softness to every niche and crevice. And silence. Such silence. Silence with a positive quality, that is more than just an absence of sound. Silence like music.
I sat down on a fallen piece of carved stone, leaned back against a pillar, and closed my eyes. I tried not to think of Johnny ... it didn't do any good to think of Johnny ... I must just think of nothing except how quiet it was, and how much I liked being alone....
"Aren't you well?"
I opened my eyes with a start.
A man had come into the temple, so quietly that I had not heard him approach. He was standing over me now, frowning at me.
"What's the matter? The heat?" He spoke with a sort of reluctant consideration, as if he felt constrained to offer help, but hoped to God I wasn't going to need it.
I knew there were tears on my eyelashes, and felt a fool.
"I'm all right, thanks," I said crisply. "I was only resting, and enjoying being alone."
He raised his eyebrows at that, and the corner of his mouth twitched sourly.
"I'm sorry."
I got up, feeling still more of a fool.
"I'm sorry too. I didn't mean that--I didn't mean to be rude. I--it was actually the literal truth. I wouldn't have said it, but you caught me a little off balance."
He did not answer, but stood looking at me; I felt myself flushing like a schoolgirl and, for some idiotic reason, the tears began to sung again behind my eyes.
"I'm not usually rude to perfect strangers," I said. "Especially when they have been kind enough to--to ask after my health. Please forgive me."
He didn't smile, but said, kindly enough:
"It was my fault for catching you--off balance. Hadn't you better have a cigarette to put you back on again before you go out?"
He handed me his case, and added, as I hesitated: "If you don't accept cigarettes from perfect strangers either, we had better remedy that. My name's Coleridge. Richard Coleridge."
I took a cigarette. "And mine's Charity Sclborne. Though it ought to be Wordsworth, I feel."
He lit a match for me, and his look over it was sardonic.