W. Somerset Maugham: Novels, Short Stories, Plays & Travel Sketches (33 Titles In One Edition). Уильям Сомерсет Моэм

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СКАЧАТЬ and it's no business of yours how much it cost.' 'If you do,' he said, 'and anything happens, by God, I'll have you up for manslaughter.' I rang the bell. 'Leave the house,' I said, 'and never dare come here again!' Now don't you think I was right, Jamie?"

      "My dear Mary, you always are!"

      James looked back at the doctor entering the cottage. It was some comfort to think that he would put the old man into a comfortable position.

      "When I told papa," added Mary, "he got in a most fearful rage. He insisted on going out with a horsewhip, and said he meant to thrash Dr. Higgins. He looked for him all the morning, but couldn't find him; and then your mother and I persuaded him it was better to treat such a vulgar man with silent contempt."

      James had noticed that the doctor was a burly, broad-shouldered fellow, and he could not help thinking Colonel Clibborn's resolution distinctly wise. How sad it is that in this world right is so often subordinate to brute force!

      "But he's not received anywhere. We all cut him; and I get everyone I can not to employ him."

      "Ah!" murmured James.

      Mary's next patient was feminine, and James was again left to cool his heels in the road; but not alone, for Mr. Dryland came out of the cottage. The curate was a big, stout man, with reddish hair, and a complexion like squashed strawberries and cream; his large, heavy face, hairless except for scanty red eyebrows, gave a disconcerting impression of nakedness. His eyes were blue and his mouth small, with the expression which young ladies, eighty years back, strove to acquire by repeating the words prune and prism. He had a fat, full voice, with unctuous modulations not entirely under his control, so that sometimes, unintentionally, he would utter the most commonplace remark in a tone fitted for a benediction. Mr. Dryland was possessed by the laudable ambition to be all things to all men; and he tried, without conspicuous success, always to suit his conversation to his hearers. With old ladies he was bland; with sportsmen slangy; with yokels he was broadly humorous; and with young people aggressively juvenile. But above all, he wished to be manly, and cultivated a boisterous laugh and a jovial manner.

      "I don't know if you remember me," he cried, with a ripple of fat laughter, going up to James, "I had the pleasure of addressing a few words to you yesterday in my official capacity. Miss Clibborn told me you were waiting, and I thought I would introduce myself. My name is Dryland."

      "I remember quite well."

      "I'm the Vicar's bottle-washer, you know," added the curate, with a guffaw. "Change for you—going round to the sick and needy of the parish—after fighting the good fight. I hear you were wounded."

      "I was, rather badly."

      "I wish I could have gone out and had a smack at the Boers. Nothing I should have liked better. But, of course, I'm only a parson, you know. It wouldn't have been thought the correct thing." Mr. Dryland, from his superior height, beamed down on James. "I don't know whether you remember the few words which I was privileged to address to you yesterday—"

      "Perfectly," put in James.

      "Impromptu, you know; but they expressed my feelings. That is one of the best things the war has done for us. It has permitted us to express our emotions more openly. I thought it a beautiful sight to see the noble tears coursing down your father's furrowed cheeks. Those few words of yours have won all our hearts. I may say that our little endeavours were nothing beside that short, unstudied speech. I hope there will be a full report in the Tunbridge Wells papers."

      "I hope not!" cried James.

      "You're too modest, Captain Parsons. That is what I said to Miss Clibborn yesterday; true courage is always modest. But it is our duty to see that it does not hide its light under a bushel. I hope you won't think it a liberty, but I myself gave the reporter a few notes."

      "Will Miss Clibborn be long?" asked James, looking at the cottage.

      "Ah, what a good woman she is, Captain Parsons. My dear sir, I assure you she's an angel of mercy."

      "It's very kind of you to say so."

      "Not at all! It's a pleasure. The good she does is beyond praise. She's a wonderful help in the parish. She has at heart the spiritual welfare of the people, and I may say that she is a moral force of the first magnitude."

      "I'm sure that's a very delightful thing to be."

      "You know I can't help thinking," laughed Mr. Dryland fatly, "that she ought to be the wife of a clergyman, rather than of a military man."

      Mary came out.

      "I've been telling Mrs. Gray that I don't approve of the things her daughter wears in church," she said. "I don't think it's nice for people of that class to wear such bright colours."

      "I don't know what we should do in the parish without you," replied the curate, unctuously. "It's so rare to find someone who knows what is right, and isn't afraid of speaking out."

      Mary said that she and James were walking home, and asked Mr. Dryland whether he would not accompany them.

      "I shall be delighted, if I'm not de trop."

      He looked with laughing significance from one to the other.

      "I wanted to talk to you about my girls," said Mary.

      She had a class of village maidens, to whom she taught sewing, respect for their betters, and other useful things.

      "I was just telling Captain Parsons that you were an angel of mercy, Miss Clibborn."

      "I'm afraid I'm not that," replied Mary, gravely. "But I try to do my duty."

      "Ah!" cried Mr. Dryland, raising his eyes so that he looked exactly like a codfish, "how few of us can say that!"

      "I'm seriously distressed about my girls. They live in nasty little cottages, and eat filthy things; they pass their whole lives under the most disgusting conditions, and yet they're happy. I can't get them to see that they ought to be utterly miserable."

      "Oh, I know," sighed the curate; "it makes me sad to think of it."

      "Surely, if they're happy, you can want nothing better," said James, rather impatiently.

      "But I do. They have no right to be happy under such circumstances. I want to make them feel their wretchedness."

      "What a brutal thing to do!" cried James.

      "It's the only way to improve them. I want them to see things as I see them."

      "And how d'you know that you see them any more correctly than they do?"

      "My dear Jamie!" cried Mary; and then as the humour of such a suggestion dawned upon her, she burst into a little shout of laughter.

      "What d'you think is the good of making them dissatisfied?" asked James, grimly.

      "I want to make them better, nobler, worthier; I want to make their lives more beautiful and holy."

      "If you saw a man happily wearing a tinsel crown, would you go to him and say, 'My good friend, you're making a fool of yourself. Your crown isn't of real gold, and you must throw it away. I haven't a golden crown to give you instead, but you're wicked to take pleasure in that sham thing.' СКАЧАТЬ