Winter. Christopher Nicholson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ The old man sometimes felt that there was more than a little truth in the notion. Florence seemed to derive such pleasure from her visits to her London doctors.

      It was inevitable that the contrast with Gertie, who was such a picture of health, should cross his mind. Of course, he reminded himself, she was younger than Florence by perhaps two decades. Florence was forty-five. How old was Gertie? Twenty-four, twenty-five? In a trick that no doubt came from his long career as a writer, he slipped into a kind of trance in which he pretended that she, not Florence, was sitting here now, reading to him.

      ‘Thomas!’ she broke into his reverie. ‘Do you want me to go on?’

      ‘If you are happy to.’

      ‘I thought you were asleep.’

      ‘I was listening. I was thinking of Mr. Bennet.’

      ‘What were you thinking about him?’

      ‘O … nothing much.’

      She read on awhile, and he did his best to pay attention, or to seem to do so, but his thoughts came and went of their own accord. He noted the sparkle of the whisky as he turned the glass; he noted the gleam of Wessex’s nose; he noted the shadows moving on the wall by his bed, among them two of Florence, each cast by a different oil lamp, one darker and stronger than the other. There was also his own double-shadow, shifting. It was common enough to see shadows as reminders of death, but what if they were more than that? What if shadows were owned not only by the quick but also by the dead, or if attached to one side of a shadow was the body of the living man, and to the other his dead self?

      He explored the fancy that shadows lived outside time, possessing knowledge and consciousness; that they were not mute but had tongues, and could whisper what they knew of the invisible country beyond. It was a possible subject for a poem, the shadow soliloquising on its corporeal self, and if he had had the energy he would have fetched a pen.

      Curious ideas such as these often entered the old man’s mind when Florence was reading. They were like clouds drifting in a clear sky; he enjoyed looking at their shapes and structures, without any sense that they had any great significance.

      ‘I think I shall stop now. Her sentences are so long.’ She put her hand to the stole. ‘My throat is a little painful tonight. I sometimes feel as if there is something still there.’

      ‘You should try whisky.’

      ‘I hate whisky. You know I hate the taste of whisky.’

      The old man saw that he had said the wrong thing, or the right thing in the wrong tone. He kept quiet, which seemed the best course.

      ‘You don’t think there is anything still there?’ she asked anxiously.

      ‘I am sure there is not. If there were, the doctors would have found it.’

      She closed the book and got up from her chair. She smoothed the front of her night-gown, turned down one of the oil lamps and seemed about to leave for her bedroom. Then she paused.

      ‘Thomas,’ she said, ‘I have been thinking about the trees. We must get them cut back this winter. This is the time to do it. This is the time.’

      Although it was far from the first occasion on which she had spoken to him about the trees, the old man was perplexed. Why mention it now?

      ‘They are so oppressive,’ she went on. ‘Some of them are so big, when they sway in the wind they are so worrying. Imagine if one came down on the house. And they make the house so dark. They shut out the light, even at this time of year. We never see the sun!’

      This was a very considerable exaggeration. The sun was low in November, but not so low that the trees hid it for the entire day.

      ‘They are not at all dangerous,’ he said. ‘I know they make a lot of noise, but they are in excellent health, according to Mr. Caddy. You shouldn’t worry about them; there is no need. They are perfectly safe.’

      ‘Thomas, they are getting bigger and bigger, they are so much bigger than they were. You can’t deny it. We are almost engulfed!’

      Trees were fine things, noble things, thought the old man; he simply did not understand the problem.

      ‘My dear, this is a very exposed, draughty spot; if there were no trees, imagine what it would be like. I remember it when Emma and I first came here, before the trees were planted. She was always complaining about the wind. If there were no trees, we should be blasted.’

      ‘I am not talking about cutting them down, it is a matter of cutting back. They are so big. They take so much light. And the spores … the spores are so bad for one’s health.’

      She was becoming upset; this was what the neuritis did to her. ‘Let us talk about it another time.’

      ‘When?’

      ‘In the morning. Now is not a good time. Has Wessex been out? Wessex? Have you been out?’

      ‘Yes, he has,’ she said.

      They wished each other good night and she departed for her bedroom, where she no doubt took one of the pills that were meant to improve the blood supply to her nerves.

      He forgot about the trees straight away. Instead, as he finished his whisky, he again allowed his mind to be occupied by thoughts of Gertie, with her pale complexion, oval face and liquid eyes. Fifteen miles of dark countryside lay between here and Beaminster, but he had no difficulty in bringing her to life. He saw her in her little cottage, standing by the fireside, hoisting her skirts to warm her legs. He saw her red lips as she yawned, and the white of her teeth, and the skin shining on her arms, just as he had once imagined Tess yawning, red-mouthed, arms shining like satin. Gertie was the very incarnation of Tess.

      Sighing to himself, he wondered whether he would ever have the opportunity to explain how close she was to his heart. The discrepancy in their ages seemed to make such a disclosure impossible; nonetheless, between them there was a perfect reciprocity of thought and emotion, or so the old man felt.

       CHAPTER II

      Last night I asked him, not for the first time, for indeed I have asked him a number of times, if we could have a few of the branches taken down as the house is now in shadow for much of the day. The problem is most acute in the summer, when we are engulfed by foliage, but even now, with winter almost upon us, the trees are an oppression. They oppress me, they darken my life. This is a dark house. He would not discuss it. I tried again this morning.

      ‘Thomas,’ I said, ‘forgive me for mentioning it again but we must talk about the trees. I know you are very preoccupied, but this is the right time of year – this is the time for tree work. The birds are not nesting now.’

      We were at the breakfast table, and he said nothing, not a word, he looked elsewhere as if he had not heard me. He looked at his toast. He studied his toast. I wondered if I had spoken or if I had merely imagined speaking. Had my senses deserted me? Had my words left my mouth or had they stuck in my throat?

      I СКАЧАТЬ