Читать книгу The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping - Warwick Deeping - Страница 8

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Wilmer’s chauffeur, a grizzled Italian whose smile uncovered two rows of strong white teeth, had brought Wilmer over the Atlas mountains with irresponsible and brilliant recklessness, but before starting on the homeward journey from Bou Saada his English passenger cautioned him:

“Drive slowly, and be careful on the mountains.”

The Italian beamed.

“Monsieur is a little afraid of the mountains?”

Wilmer’s French was not of the best, but the Italian understood him to say that there was a second passenger in the car. The chauffeur comforted him with a beneficent flash of his white teeth, and on the mountain road he drove most sympathetically, to be rewarded in the courtyard of the Mustapha Hotel with a tip of a hundred francs.

The Italian took off his hat and bowed low. Later, he was heard to say that the Englishman was moonstruck but generous.

Yet, the Wilmer who had returned to the Mustapha Hotel was a different Wilmer. He walked into the dining-room that night, with a happy erectness; an inward light seemed to burn in him. He bowed to Mrs. Gallaby, and joked with the head-waiter.

After dinner he sat in the lounge and smoked, and when Dr. Rome came and sat beside him Wilmer broke into conversation. He laughed. He appeared light-hearted, but not in the least light-headed.

At nine o’clock he went up to his suite and rang for the femme de chambre. She found him standing by the writing-table, his portfolio open, with a photograph lying on the top of the white sheets.

“Madame—I shall have some work to do. Would it be possible for you to tidy my room at nine o’clock each morning?”

“Certainly, monsieur. Monsieur does not wish to be disturbed.”

A month passed, and Wilmer had become part of the life of the hotel. He went about with a serenely radiant face; he attended concerts; he talked to the old ladies. On the terrace he still kept that empty chair beside him, and the hotel respected it. He went on botanizing expeditions with Dr. Rome.

And he was working five hours a day, and never before had he done such work, for the invisible presence was with him, filling his whole life.

One April day, a week before his return to England, Wilmer walked down through the garden to where Dr. Rome was sitting contemplating a bed of anemones. There was a vacant chair beside the doctor, and Wilmer took it.

“Rome, I want to ask you a question.”

“Well—my dear man?”

“Don’t you think me just a little mad?”

Rome, posed for the moment, found himself meeting the mystery of a smile.

“I must say—Wilmer, that I thought you a little strange.”

“Life is strange, doctor. Has anyone explained it?”

“Not yet.”

“My wife died—you know; but now she is with me again. Look here: I am going to send you my next book, and I want you to write and tell me whether you think it to be the book of a madman.”