THE ESSENTIAL GEORGE BERNARD SHAW COLLECTION. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ pass when an Englishman is run in for stopping when he sees a crowd.”

      “All right,” said the sergeant. “I have got that bundle of colored handkerchiefs you were selling; and I’ll find the other man before you’re a day older. It’s a pity, seeing how you’ve behaved so well and haven’t resisted us, that you won’t drop a hint of where those ropes and stakes are hid. I might have a good word at the sessions for any one who would put me in the way of finding them.”

      “Ropes and stakes! Fiddlesticks and grandmothers! There weren’t no ropes and stakes. It was only a turn-up — that is, if there was any fighting at all. I didn’t see none; but I s’pose you did. But then you’re clever, and I’m not.”

      By this time the last straggler of the party had disappeared from Lydia, who had watched their retreat from the door of the Warren Lodge. When she turned to go in she saw Cashel cautiously entering from the room in which he had lain concealed. His excitement had passed off; he looked cold and anxious, as if a reaction were setting in.

      “Are they all gone?” he said. “That servant of yours is a good sort. He has promised to bring me some clothes. As for you, you’re better than — What’s the matter? Where are you going to?”

      Lydia had put on her hat, and was swiftly wrapping herself in a shawl. Wreaths of rosy color were chasing each other through her cheeks; and her eyes and nostrils, usually so tranquil, were dilated.

      “Won’t you speak to me?” he said, irresolutely.

      “Just this,” she replied, with passion. “Let me never see you again. The very foundations of my life are loosened: I have told a lie. I have made my servant — an honorable man — an accomplice in a lie. We are worse than you; for even your wild-beast’s handiwork is a less evil than the bringing of a falsehood into the world. This is what has come to me out of our acquaintance. I have given you a hiding-place. Keep it. I will never enter it again.”

      Cashel, appalled, shrank back with an expression such as a child wears when, in trying to steal sweetmeats from a high shelf, it pulls the whole cupboard down about its ears. He neither spoke nor stirred as she left the lodge.

      Finding herself presently at the castle, she went to her boudoir, where she found her maid, the French lady, from whose indignant description of the proceedings below she gathered that the policemen were being regaled with bread and cheese, and beer; and that the attendance of a surgeon had been dispensed with, Paradise’s wounds having been dressed skilfully by Mellish. Lydia bade her send Bashville to the Warren Lodge to see that there were no strangers loitering about it, and ordered that none of the female servants should return there until he came back. Then she sat down and tried not to think. But she could not help thinking; so she submitted and tried to think the late catastrophe out. An idea that she had disjointed the whole framework of things by creating a false belief filled her imagination. The one conviction that she had brought out of her reading, observing, reflecting, and living was that the concealment of a truth, with its resultant false beliefs, must produce mischief, even though the beginning of that mischief might be as inconceivable as the end. She made no distinction between the subtlest philosophical misconception and the vulgarest lie. The evil of Cashel’s capture was measurable, the evil of a lie beyond all measure. She felt none the less assured of that evil because she could not foresee one bad consequence likely to ensue from what she had done. Her misgivings pressed heavily upon her; for her father, a determined sceptic, had taught her his own views, and she was, therefore, destitute of the consolations which religion has for the wrongdoer. It was plainly her duty to send for the policeman and clear up the deception she had practised on him. But this she could not do. Her will, in spite of her reason, acted in the opposite direction. And in this paralysis of her moral power she saw the evil of the lie beginning. She had given it birth, and nature would not permit her to strangle the monster.

      At last her maid returned and informed her that the canaille had gone away. When she was again alone, she rose and walked slowly to and fro through the room, forgetting the lapse of time in the restless activity of her mind, until she was again interrupted, this time by Bashville.

      “Well?”

      He was daunted by her tone; for he had never before heard her speak haughtily to a servant. He did not understand that he had changed subjectively, and was now her accomplice.

      “He’s given himself up.”

      “What do you mean?” she said, with sudden dismay.

      “Byron, madam. I brought some clothes to the lodge for him, but when I got there he was gone. I went round to the gates in search of him, and found him in the hands of the police. They told me he’d just given himself up. He wouldn’t give any account of himself; and he looked — well, sullen and beaten down like.”

      “What will they do with him?” she asked, turning quite pale.

      “A man got six weeks’ hard labor, last month, for the same offence. Most probably that’s what he’ll get. And very little for what’s he’s done, as you’d say if you saw him doing it, madam.”

      “Then,” said Lydia, sternly, “it was to see this” — she shrank from naming it— “this fight, that you asked my permission to go out!”

      “Yes, madam, it was,” said Bashville, with some bitterness. “I recognized Lord Worthington and plenty more noblemen and gentlemen there.”

      Lydia was about to reply sharply; but she checked herself; and her usual tranquil manner came back as she said, “That is no reason why you should have been there.”

      Bashville’s color began to waver, and his voice to need increased control. “It’s in human nature to go to such a thing once,” he said; “but once is enough, at least for me. You’ll excuse my mentioning it, madam; but what with Lord Worthington and the rest of Byron’s backers screaming oaths and abuse at the other man, and the opposite party doing the same to Byron — well, I may not be a gentleman; but I hope I can conduct myself like a man, even when I’m losing money.”

      “Then do not go to such an exhibition again, Bashville. I must not dictate to you what your amusements shall be; but I do not think you are likely to benefit yourself by copying Lord Worthington’s tastes.”

      “I copy no lord’s tastes,” said Bashville, reddening. “You hid the man that was fighting, Miss Carew. Why do you look down on the man that was only a bystander?”

      Lydia’s color rose, too. Her first impulse was to treat this outburst as rebellion against her authority, and crush it. But her sense of justice withheld her.

      “Would you have had me betray a fugitive who took refuge in my house, Bashville? YOU did not betray him.”

      “No,” said Bashville, his expression subdued to one of rueful pride. “When I am beaten by a better man, I have courage enough to get out of his way and take no mean advantage of him.”

      Lydia, not understanding, looked inquiringly at him. He made a gesture as if throwing something from him, and continued recklessly,

      “But one way I’m as good as he, and better. A footman is held more respectable than a prizefighter. He’s told you that he’s in love with you; and if it is to be my last word, I’ll tell you that the ribbon round your neck is more to me than your whole body and soul is to him or his like. When he took an unfair advantage of me, and pretended to be a gentleman, I told Mr. Lucian of him, and showed him up for what he was. But when I found him to-day hiding in the pantry at the Lodge, I took no advantage of him, though I knew СКАЧАТЬ