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

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      "James!"

      She sighed and cast up her eyes to heaven.

      "I always liked you. I shall never feel differently towards you."

      "It's very kind of you to say so," replied James, somewhat relieved.

      "You must come and see me often. It'll comfort you."

      "I'm afraid you and Colonel Clibborn must be very angry with me?"

      "I could never be angry with you, James.... Poor Reginald, he doesn't understand! But you can't deceive a woman." Mrs. Clibborn put her hand on Jamie's arm and gazed into his eyes. "I want you to tell me something. Do you love anyone else?"

      James looked at her quickly and hesitated.

      "If you had asked me the other day, I should have denied it with all my might. But now—I don't know."

      Mrs. Clibborn smiled.

      "I thought so," she said. "You can tell me, you know."

      She was convinced that James adored her, but wanted to hear him say so. It is notorious that to a handsome woman even the admiration of a crossing-sweeper is welcome.

      "Oh, it's no good any longer trying to conceal it from myself!" cried James, forgetting almost to whom he was speaking. "I'm sorry about Mary; no one knows how much. But I do love someone else, and I love her with all my heart and soul; and I shall never get over it now."

      "I knew it," sighed Mrs. Clibborn, complacently, "I knew it!" Then looking coyly at him: "Tell me about her."

      "I can't. I know my love is idiotic and impossible; but I can't help it. It's fate."

      "You're in love with a married woman, James."

      "How d'you know?"

      "My poor boy, d'you think you can deceive me! And is it not the wife of an officer?"

      "Yes."

      "A very old friend of yours?"

      "It's just that which makes it so terrible."

      "I knew it."

      "Oh, Mrs. Clibborn, I swear you're the only woman here who's got two ounces of gumption. If they'd only listened to you five years ago, we might all have been saved this awful wretchedness."

      He could not understand that Mrs. Clibborn, whose affectations were manifest, whose folly was notorious, should alone have guessed his secret. He was tired of perpetually concealing his thoughts.

      "I wish I could tell you everything!" he cried.

      "Don't! You'd only regret it. And I know all you can tell me."

      "You can't think how hard I've struggled. When I found I loved her, I nearly killed myself trying to kill my love. But it's no good. It's stronger than I am."

      "And nothing can ever come of it, you know," said Mrs. Clibborn.

      "Oh, I know! Of course, I know! I'm not a cad. The only thing is to live on and suffer."

      "I'm so sorry for you."

      Mrs. Clibborn thought that even poor Algy Turner, who had killed himself for love of her, had not been so desperately hit.

      "It's very kind of you to listen to me," said James. "I have nobody to speak to, and sometimes I feel I shall go mad."

      "You're such a nice boy, James. What a pity it is you didn't go into the cavalry!"

      James scarcely heard; he stared at the floor, brooding sorrowfully.

      "Fate is against me," he muttered.

      "If things had only happened a little differently. Poor Reggie!"

      Mrs. Clibborn was thinking that if she were a widow, she could never have resisted the unhappy young man's pleading.

      James got up to go.

      "It's no good," he said; "talking makes it no better. I must go on trying to crush it. And the worst of it is, I don't want to crush it; I love my love. Though it embitters my whole life, I would rather die than lose it. Good-bye, Mrs. Clibborn. Thank you for being so kind. You can't imagine what good it does me to receive a little sympathy."

      "I know. You're not the first who has told me that he is miserable. I think it's fate, too."

      James looked at her, perplexed, not understanding what she meant. With her sharp, feminine intuition, Mrs. Clibborn read in his eyes the hopeless yearning of his heart, and for a moment her rigid virtue faltered.

      "I can't be hard on you, Jamie," she said, with that effective, sad smile of hers. "I don't want you to go away from here quite wretched."

      "What can you do to ease the bitter aching of my heart?"

      Mrs. Clibborn, quickly looking at the window, noticed that she could not possibly be seen by anyone outside. She stretched out her hand.

      "Jamie, if you like you may kiss me."

      She offered her powdered cheek, and James, rather astonished, pressed it with his lips.

      "I will always be a mother to you. You can depend on me whatever happens.... Now go away, there's a good boy."

      She watched him as he walked down the garden, and then sighed deeply, wiping away a tear from the corner of her eyes.

      "Poor boy!" she murmured.

      Mary was surprised, when she came home, to find her mother quite affectionate and tender. Mrs. Clibborn, indeed, intoxicated with her triumph, could afford to be gracious to a fallen rival.

      XV

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       A Few days later Mary was surprised to receive a little note from Mr. Dryland:

      "My Dear Miss Clibborn,—With some trepidation I take up my pen to address you on a matter which, to me at least, is of the very greatest importance. We have so many sympathies in common that my meaning will hardly escape you. I daresay you will find my diffidence ridiculous, but, under the circumstances, I think it is not unpardonable. It will be no news to you when I confess that I am an exceptionally shy man, and that must be my excuse in sending you this letter. In short, I wish to ask you to grant me a brief interview; we have so few opportunities of seeing one another in private that I can find no occasion of saying to you what I wish. Indeed, for a long period my duty has made it necessary for me to crush my inclination. Now, however, that things have taken a different turn, I venture, as I said, to ask you to give me a few minutes' conversation.—I am, my dear Miss Clibborn, your very sincere,

      Thomas Dryland.

      "P.S.—I open this letter to say that I have just met your father on the Green, who tells me that he and СКАЧАТЬ