Bealby; A Holiday. Герберт Уэллс

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СКАЧАТЬ in his trousers pockets in the way he had been repeatedly told not to.

      “Mother,” he said, “I’m not going to be a steward’s boy at the house anyhow, not if you tell me to, not till you’re blue in the face. So that’s all about it.”

      This delivered, he remained panting, having no further breath left in him.

      His mother was a thin firm woman. She paused in her rolling of the dough until he had finished, and then she made a strong broadening sweep of the rolling pin, and remained facing him, leaning forward on that implement with her head a little on one side.

      “You will do,” she said, “whatsoever your father has said you will do.”

      “ ’E isn’t my father,” said young Bealby.

      His mother gave a snapping nod of the head expressive of extreme determination.

      “Anyhow I ain’t going to do it,” said young Bealby, and feeling the conversation was difficult to sustain he moved towards the staircase door with a view to slamming it.

      “You’ll do it,” said his mother, “right enough.”

      “You see whether I do,” said young Bealby, and then got in his door-slam rather hurriedly because of steps outside.

      Mr. Darling came in out of the sunshine a few moments later. He was a large, many-pocketed, earthy-whiskered man with a clean-shaven determined mouth, and he carried a large pale cucumber in his hand.

      “I tole him,” he said.

      “What did he say?” asked his wife.

      “Nuthin’,” said Mr. Darling.

      “ ’E says ’e won’t,” said Mrs. Darling.

      Mr. Darling regarded her thoughtfully for a moment.

      “I never see such a boy,” said Mr. Darling. “Why—‘e’s got to.”

§ 2

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      But young Bealby maintained an obstinate fight against the inevitable.

      He had no gift of lucid exposition. “I ain’t going to be a servant,” he said. “I don’t see what right people have making a servant of me.”

      “You got to be something,” said Mr. Darling.

      “Everybody’s got to be something,” said Mrs. Darling.

      “Then let me be something else,” said young Bealby.

      “I dessay you’d like to be a gentleman,” said Mr. Darling.

      “I wouldn’t mind,” said young Bealby.

      “You got to be what your opportunities give you,” said Mr. Darling.

      Young Bealby became breathless. “Why shouldn’t I be an engine driver?” he asked.

      “All oily,” said his mother. “And getting yourself killed in an accident. And got to pay fines. You’d like to be an engine driver.”

      “Or a soldier.”

      “Oo!—a Swaddy!” said Mr. Darling decisively.

      “Or the sea.”

      “With that weak stummik of yours,” said Mrs. Darling.

      “Besides which,” said Mr. Darling, “it’s been arranged for you to go up to the ’ouse the very first of next month. And your box and everything ready.”

      Young Bealby became very red in the face. “I won’t go,” he said very faintly.

      “You will,” said Mr. Darling, “if I ’ave to take you by the collar and the slack of your breeches to get you there.”

§ 3

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      The heart of young Bealby was a coal of fire within his breast as—unassisted—he went across the dewy park up to the great house, whither his box was to follow him.

      He thought the world a “rotten show.”

      He also said, apparently to two does and a fawn, “If you think I’m going to stand it, you know, you’re JOLLY-well mistaken.”

      I do not attempt to justify his prejudice against honourable usefulness in a domestic capacity. He had it. Perhaps there is something in the air of Highbury, where he had spent the past eight years of his life, that leads to democratic ideals. It is one of those new places where estates seem almost forgotten. Perhaps too there was something in the Bealby strain. …

      I think he would have objected to any employment at all. Hitherto he had been a remarkably free boy with a considerable gusto about his freedom. Why should that end? The little village mixed school had been a soft job for his Cockney wits, and for a year and a half he had been top boy. Why not go on being top boy?

      Instead of which, under threats, he had to go across the sunlit corner of the park, through that slanting morning sunlight which had been so often the prelude to golden days of leafy wanderings! He had to go past the corner of the laundry where he had so often played cricket with the coachman’s boys (already swallowed up into the working world), he had to follow the laundry wall to the end of the kitchen, and there, where the steps go down and underground, he had to say farewell to the sunlight, farewell to childhood, boyhood, freedom. He had to go down and along the stone corridor to the pantry, and there he had to ask for Mr. Mergleson. He paused on the top step and looked up at the blue sky across which a hawk was slowly drifting. His eyes followed the hawk out of sight beyond a cypress bough, but indeed he was not thinking about the hawk, he was not seeing the hawk; he was struggling with a last wild impulse of his ferial nature. “Why not sling it?” his ferial nature was asking. “Why not even now—do a bunk?”

      It would have been better for him perhaps and better for Mr. Mergleson and better for Shonts if he had yielded to the whisper of the Tempter. But his heart was heavy within him, and he had no lunch. And never a penny. One can do but a very little bunk on an empty belly! “Must” was written all over him. He went down the steps.

      The passage was long and cool and at the end of it was a swing door. Through that and then to the left, he knew one had to go, past the stillroom and so to the pantry. The maids were at breakfast in the stillroom with the door open. The grimace he made in passing was intended rather to entertain than to insult, and anyhow a chap must do something with his face. And then he came to the pantry and into the presence of Mr. Mergleson.

      Mr. Mergleson was in his shirt-sleeves and generally dishevelled, having an early cup of tea in an atmosphere full of the bleak memories of overnight. He was an ample man with a large nose, a vast under lip and mutton-chop side-whiskers. His voice would have suited a СКАЧАТЬ