Llewellyn looked up at the building before he entered it.
It was drab like the street in which it stood. Here, in this quarter of London, war damage and general decay still reigned. The effect was depressing. Llewellyn himself felt depressed. The errand which he had come to perform was a painful one. He did not exactly shrink from it, but he was aware that he would be glad when he had discharged it to the best of his ability.
He sighed, squared his shoulders, and went up a short flight of steps and through a swing door.
The inside of the building was busy, but busy in an orderly and controlled fashion. Hurrying but disciplined feet sped along the corridors. A young woman in a dull blue uniform paused beside him.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘I wish to see Miss Franklin.’
‘I’m sorry. Miss Franklin can’t see anyone this morning. I will take you to the secretary’s office.’
He insisted gently on seeing Miss Franklin.
‘It is important,’ he said, and added: ‘If you will please give her this letter.’
The young woman took him into a minute waiting-room and sped away. Five minutes later a round woman with a kindly face and an eager manner came to him.
‘I’m Miss Harrison, Miss Franklin’s secretary. I’m afraid you will have to wait a few minutes. Miss Franklin is with one of the children who is just coming out of the anaesthetic after an operation.’
Llewellyn thanked her and began to ask questions. She brightened at once, and talked eagerly about the Worley Foundation for Sub-Normal Children.
‘It’s quite an old foundation, you know. Dates back to 1840: Nathaniel Worley, our founder, was a mill-owner.’ Her voice ran on. ‘So unfortunate – the funds dwindled, investments brought in so much less … and rising costs … of course there were faults of administration. But since Miss Franklin has been superintendent …’
Her face lighted up, the speed of her words increased.
Miss Franklin was clearly the sun in her heaven. Miss Franklin had cleaned the Augean stables, Miss Franklin had reorganized this and that, Miss Franklin had battled with authority and won, and now, equally clearly, Miss Franklin reigned supreme, and all was for the best in the best of possible worlds. Llewellyn wondered why women’s enthusiasms for other women always sounded so pitifully crude. He doubted if he should like the efficient Miss Franklin. She was, he thought, of the order of Queen Bees. Other women buzzed round them, and they waxed and throve on the power thus accorded to them.
Then at last he was taken upstairs and along a corridor, and Miss Harrison knocked at a door and stood aside, and motioned to him to go into what was evidently the Holy of Holies – Miss Franklin’s private office.
She was sitting behind a desk, and she looked frail and very tired.
He stared at her in awe and amazement as she got up and came towards him.
He said, just under his breath: ‘You …’
A faint, puzzled frown came between her brows, those delicately marked brows that he knew so well. It was the same face – pale, delicate, the wide sad mouth, the unusual setting of the dark eyes, the hair that sprang back from the temples, triumphantly, like wings. A tragic face, he thought, yet that generous mouth was made for laughter, that severe, proud face might be transformed by tenderness.
She said gently: ‘Dr Llewellyn? My brother-in-law wrote to me that you would be coming. It’s very good of you.’
‘I’m afraid the news of your sister’s death must have been a great shock to you.’
‘Oh, it was. She was so young.’
Her voice faltered for one moment, but she had herself well under control. He thought to himself: ‘She is disciplined, has disciplined herself.’
There was something nun-like about her clothes. She wore plain black with a little white at the throat.
She said quietly:
‘I wish it could have been I who died – not her. But perhaps one always wishes that.’
‘Not always. Only – if one cares very much – or if one’s own life has some quality of the unbearable about it.’
The dark eyes opened wider. She looked at him questioningly, she said:
‘You’re really Llewellyn Knox, aren’t you?’
‘I was. I call myself Dr Murray Llewellyn. It saves the endless repetition of condolences, makes it less embarrassing for other people and for me.’
‘I’ve seen pictures of you in the papers, but I don’t think I would have recognized you.’
‘No. Most people don’t, now. There are other faces in the news – and perhaps, too, I’ve shrunk.’
‘Shrunk?’
He smiled.
‘Not physically, but in importance.’
He went on:
‘You know that I’ve brought your sister’s small personal possessions. Your brother-in-law thought you would like to have them. They are at my hotel. Perhaps you will dine with me there, or if you prefer, I will deliver them to you here?’
‘I shall be glad to have them. I want to hear all you can tell me about – about Shirley. It is so long since I saw her last. Nearly three years. I still can’t believe – that she’s dead.’
‘I know how you feel.’
‘I want to hear all you can tell me about her, but – but don’t say consoling things to me. You still believe in God, I suppose. Well, I don’t! I’m sorry if that seems a crude thing to say, but you’d better understand what I feel. If there is a God, He is cruel and unjust.’
‘Because He let your sister die?’
‘There’s no need to discuss it. Please don’t talk religion to me. Tell me about Shirley. Even now I don’t understand how the accident happened.’
‘She was crossing the street and a heavy lorry knocked her down and ran over her. She was killed instantly. She did not suffer any pain.’
‘That’s what Richard wrote me. But I thought – perhaps he was trying to be kind, to spare me. He is like that.’
‘Yes, he is like that. But I am not. You can take it as the truth that your sister was killed outright, and did not suffer.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘It was late at night. Your sister had been sitting in one of the open-air cafés facing the harbour. She left the café, crossed the road without looking, and the lorry came round the corner and caught her.’
‘Was she alone?’
‘Quite alone.’
‘But where was Richard? Why wasn’t he with her? It seems so extraordinary. I shouldn’t have thought Richard would have let her go off by herself at night to a café. I should have thought he would have looked after her, taken care of her.’
‘You mustn’t blame him. He adored her. He watched over her in every way possible. On this occasion he didn’t know she had left the house.’
Her face softened.
‘I see. I’ve been unjust.’
She pressed her hands together.
‘It’s so cruel, so unfair, so meaningless. After all Shirley had been through. To have only three years of happiness.’
He did not answer at once, just sat watching her.
‘Forgive me, you loved your sister very much?’
‘More than anyone in the world.’
‘And yet, for three years you never saw her. They invited you, repeatedly, but you never came?’
‘It was difficult to leave my work here, to find someone to replace me.’
‘That, perhaps; but it could have been managed. Why didn’t you want to go?’
‘I did. I did!’
‘But you had some reason for not going?’
‘I’ve told you. My work here –’
‘Do you love your work so much?’
‘Love it? No.’ She seemed surprised. ‘But it’s worthwhile work. It answers a need. These children were in a category that was not catered for. I think – I really think – that what I’m doing is useful.’
She spoke with an earnestness that struck him as odd.
‘Of course it’s useful. I don’t doubt it.’
‘This place was in a mess, an incredible mess. I’ve had a terrific job getting it on its feet again.’
‘You’re a good administrator. I can see that. You’ve got personality. You can manage people. Yes, I’m sure that you’ve done a much-needed and useful job here. Has it been fun?’
‘Fun?’
Her startled eyes looked at him.
‘It’s not a word in a foreign language. It could be fun if you loved them.’
‘Loved who?’
‘The children.’
She said slowly and sadly:
‘No, I don’t love them – not really – not in the way you mean. I wish I did. But then –’
‘But then it would be pleasure, not duty. That’s what you were thinking, wasn’t it? And duty is what you must have.’
‘Why should you think that?’
‘Because it’s written all over you. Why, I wonder?’
He got up suddenly and walked restlessly up and down.
‘What have you been doing all your life? It’s so baffling, so extraordinary, to know you so well and to know nothing at all about you. It’s – it’s heart-rending. I don’t know where to begin.’
His distress was so real that she could only stare.
‘I must seem quite mad to you. You don’t understand. How should you? But I came to this country to meet you.’
‘To bring me Shirley’s things?’
He waved an impatient hand.
‘Yes, yes, that’s all I thought it was. To do an errand that Richard hadn’t got the heart to do. I’d no idea – not the faintest – that it would be you.’
He leaned across the desk towards her.
‘Listen, Laura, you’ve got to know some time – you might as well know now. Years ago, before I started on my mission, I saw three scenes. In my father’s family there’s a tradition of second sight. I suppose I have it too. I saw three things as clearly as I see you now. I saw an office desk, and a big-jowled man behind it. I saw a window looking out on pine trees against the sky and a man with a round pink face and an owlish expression. In due course I met and lived through those scenes. The man behind the big desk was the multi-millionaire who financed our religious crusade. Later I lay in a sanatorium bed, and I looked at those snow-covered pine trees against the sky, and a doctor with a round pink face stood by my bed and told me that my life and mission as an evangelist were over.
‘The third thing I saw was you. Yes, Laura, you. As distinctly as I see you now. Younger than you are now, but with the same sadness in your eyes, the same tragedy in your face. I didn’t see you in any particular setting, but very faintly, like an insubstantial back-cloth, I saw a church, and after that a background of leaping flames.’
‘Flames?’
She was startled.
‘Yes. Were you ever in a fire?’
‘Once. When I was a child. But the church – what kind of a church? A Catholic church, with Our Lady in a blue cloak?’
‘Nothing so definite as that. No colour – or lights. Cold grey, and – yes, a font. You were standing by a font.’
He saw the colour die out of her face. Her hands went slowly to her temples.
‘That means something to you, Laura. What does it mean?’
‘Shirley Margaret Evelyn, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost …’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Shirley’s christening. I was Shirley’s proxy godmother. I held her, and I wanted to drop her down on the stones! I wanted her to be dead! That’s what was in my mind. I wished her to be dead. And now – now – she is dead.’
She dropped her face suddenly on her hands.
‘Laura, dearest, I see – oh, I see. And the flames? That means something too?’
‘I prayed. Yes, prayed. I lit a candle for my Intention. And do you know what my Intention was? I wanted Shirley to die. And now –’
‘Stop, Laura. Don’t go on saying that. The fire – what happened?’
‘It was the same night. I woke up. There was smoke. The house was on fire. I thought my prayer had been answered. And then I heard the baby give a queer little cry, and then suddenly it was all different. The only thing I wanted was to get her out safe. And I did. She wasn’t even singed. I got her out on to the grass. And then I found it was all gone – the jealousy, the wanting to be first – all gone, and I loved her, loved her terribly. I’ve loved her ever since.’
‘My dear – oh! my dear.’
Again he leaned across the desk towards her.
He said urgently:
‘You do see, don’t you, that my coming here –’
He was interrupted as the door opened.
Miss Harrison came in breathlessly:
‘The specialist is here – Mr Bragg. He’s in A ward, and is asking for you.’
Laura rose.
‘I’ll come at once.’ Miss Harrison withdrew, and Laura said hurriedly:
‘I’m sorry. I must go now. If you’ll arrange to send me Shirley’s things …’
‘I’d rather you came to dine with me at my hotel. It’s the Windsor? near Charing Cross Station. Can you come tonight?’
‘I’m afraid tonight’s impossible.’
‘Then tomorrow.’
‘It’s difficult for me to get away in the evenings –’
‘You are off duty then. I’ve already inquired about that.’
‘I have other arrangements – commitments …’
‘It’s not that. You’re afraid.’
‘Very well then, I’m afraid.’
‘Of me?’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘Why? Because you think I’m mad?’
‘No. You’re not mad. It’s not that.’
‘But still you are afraid. Why?’
‘I want to be let alone. I don’t want my – my way of life disturbed. Oh! I don’t know what I’m talking about. And I must go.’
‘But you’ll dine with me – when? Tomorrow? The day after? I shall wait here in London until you do.’
‘Tonight, then.’
‘And get it over!’ He laughed and suddenly, to her own surprise, she laughed with him. Then, her gravity restored, she went quickly to the door. Llewellyn stood aside to let her pass, and opened the door for her.
‘Windsor Hotel, eight o’clock. I’ll be waiting.’