The Classic Morpurgo Collection. Michael Morpurgo

Чтение книги онлайн.

       The Frenchman

      They were there waiting on the veranda, his mother in her nightgown, his father in his hat, his horse saddled, ready to come after him. “I’ve set him free,” Bertie cried. “I’ve set him free, so he won’t ever have to live behind bars.” He was sent to his room at once, where he threw himself on his bed and buried his face in his pillow.

      Day after day his father went out looking for the white lion, but each evening he came back empty-handed and blazing with fury.

      “What’ll I tell the Frenchman when he comes, eh? Did you for one minute think of that, Bertie? Did you? I should strap you. Any father worth his salt would strap you.” But he didn’t.

      Bertie spent all day and every day at the fence, or up his tree in the compound, or at his bedroom window, his eyes scanning the veld for anything white moving through the grass. He prayed at his bedside every night until his knees were numb, prayed that his white lion would learn how to kill, would somehow find enough to eat, would avoid the hyenas, and other lions too, come to that. Above all, he prayed he would not come back, at least not until the Frenchman from the circus had come and gone.

      The day the Frenchman came, it rained, the first rain for months, it seemed. Bertie watched him as he stood there, dripping on the veranda, his thumb hooked into his waistcoat pocket, as Bertie’s father broke the news that there was no white lion to collect, that he had escaped. That was the moment when Bertie’s mother put her hand to her throat, cried out and pointed. The white lion was wandering through the open compound gate, yowling pitifully. Bertie ran to him and fell on his knees and held him. The lion was soaked to the skin and trembling. He was panting with hunger and so thin that you could see his rib cage. They all helped to rub him down, and then looked on as he ate ravenously.

      “Incroyable! Magnifique!” said the Frenchman. “And white, just as you said, white like the snow, and tame too. He will be the star of my circus. I shall call him ‘Le Prince Blanc’, ‘The White Prince’. He will have all he needs, all he wants, fresh meat every day, fresh straw every night. I love my animals, you know. They are my family, and this lion of yours, he will be my favourite son. Have no fear, young man, I promise you that he will never be hungry again.” He put his hand on his heart. “As God is my witness, I promise it.”

      Bertie looked up into the Frenchman’s face. It was a kind face, not smiling, yet earnest and trustworthy. But even so, it did not make Bertie feel any better.

      “There, you see,” said Bertie’s mother. “He’ll be happy, and that’s all that matters, Bertie, isn’t it?”

      Bertie knew that there was no point in begging. He knew now that the lion could never survive on his own in the wild, that he would have to go with the Frenchman. There was nothing else for it.

      That night as they lay in the dark together side by side, Bertie made him a last promise. “I will find you,” he whispered. “Always remember that I will find you. I promise I will.”

      The next morning the Frenchman shook hands with Bertie on the veranda and said goodbye. “He’ll be fine, don’t you worry. And one day you must come to France and see my circus, Le Cirque Merlot. It is the best circus in all of France.” Then they left, the white lion in a wooden crate rocking from side to side in the back of the Frenchman’s wagon. Bertie watched until the wagon disappeared from view.

      A few months later, Bertie found himself on a ship steaming out of Cape Town, bound for England and school and a new life. As the last of Table Mountain vanished in a heat haze, he said goodbye to Africa and was not at all unhappy. He had his mother with him, for the time being at least. And after all, England was nearer France than Africa was, much nearer.

       Strawbridge

      The old lady drank her tea and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I’m always doing that,” she said. “I’m always letting my tea go cold.” The dog scratched his ear, groaning with the pleasure of it, but eyeing me all the time.

      “Is that the end then?” I asked.

      She laughed and put down her cup. “I should say not,” she said. And then she went on, picking a tea leaf off the tip of her tongue. “Up till now it’s been just Bertie’s story. He told it to me so often that I almost feel I was there when it happened. But from now on it’s my story too.”

      “What about the white lion?” I had to know. “Did he find the white lion? Did he keep his promise?”

      The old lady seemed suddenly clouded with sadness. “You must remember,” she said, putting a bony hand on mine, “that true stories do not always end just as we would wish them to. Would you like to hear the truth of what happened, or shall I make something up for you just to keep you happy?”

      “I want to know what really happened,” I replied.

      “Then you shall,” she said. She turned from me and looked out of the window again at the butterfly lion, still blue and shimmering on the hillside.

      Whilst Bertie was growing up on his farm in Africa with his fence all around, I was growing up here at Strawbridge in this echoing cold cavern of a house with its deer park and its high wall all around. And I grew up, for the most part, alone. I too was an only child. My mother had died giving birth to me, and Father was rarely at home. Maybe that was why the two of us, Bertie and I, got on so well from the first moment we met. We had so much in common from the very start.

      Like Bertie, I scarcely ever left the confines of my home, so I had few friends. I didn’t go to school either, not to start with. I had a governess instead, Miss Tulips – everyone called her “Nolips” because she was so thin-lipped and severe. She moved around the house like a cold shadow. She lived on the top floor, like Cook, and like Nanny. Nanny Mason – bless her heart – brought me up and taught me all the do’s and don’ts of life like all good nannies should. But she was more than just a nanny to me, she was a mother to me, and a wonderful one too, the best СКАЧАТЬ