The Red House. Эдит Несбит

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СКАЧАТЬ I shall never believe in anything again. It's the most beautiful place in the world—and it's ours—our very own. You'll see; no one will dare to take it.”

      What spells she worked I don't know, nor how she worked them. But, curiously enough, no one did take the house. City gentleman after city gentleman approached and retreated after a parley, that always ended in suggestions for repairs to the tune of from four to five hundred pounds. At first each new applicant was to me an object of interest, and to Chloe an object of jealous detestation. But as time wore on, and each new candidate told the same unflattering tale of the shocking state of repairs at the Red House, the hour came when at the accustomed formula I merely smiled. But Chloe laughed, a laugh of triumph and delight.

      We used to ride over there every day to see if the house was let, and it never was; and more and more flowers came out in the garden—old, small sweet tulips and forget-me-nots and hearts-ease, and the roses were in tiny bud.

      And never for a day did Chloe cease to cry for the moon.

      The 27th of May is her birthday. It is also the anniversary of the day on which I first met her. So that when, on that day, she held her hand up to look at her new turquoises, and said, “It is a lovely ring, and you're a dear, reckless, extravagant millionaire, and I love you; but oh, Len, I wish you'd give me the Red House instead”—I could hold out no longer.

      “Very well,” I said, “you shall have the moon, since you won't give up crying for it. But don't blame me if you find it's only green cheese, after all.”

      “Oh, you darling!” she cried. “But I knew all the time you would—if I only kept on—”

      “This revelation of your methods of government—” I began, with proper severity.

      But she stopped my mouth quite irresistibly.

      “Now, don't growl when I'm so happy,” she said. “We shall never have any horrid rent to pay again. We are just being economical, that's all. We can't afford to keep a great house eating its head off in the stable; and, anyway, we sha'n't dun ourselves for repairs.”

      “There will be rates,” I said.

      “And roses,” said she.

      “And the expense of moving.”

      “And the economy of moving.”

      “And we can't afford a gardener.”

      “And we don't want one.”

      “And we've got no furniture.”

      “Yes, we have; a whole Bandbox full.”

      “And there's a ghost.”

      “We sha'n't see it—”

      “And if you do?”

      “I'll train it to run on errands and clean the windows.”

      “No servant will stay with us.”

      “They won't as it is.”

      “There's a condition,” I said.

      “Anything on earth,” said she.

      “If I give you the Red House for a dear little birthday present, I must insist on being allowed to put my shaving-brush down anywhere in it; just anywhere I choose.”

      “You shall. There's room enough,” she said, but even at that moment she sighed.

      “When do you wish to move in?”

      “On your birthday, of course.”

      And so it was decided. The blow I had dreaded had fallen. My own hands had guided it. On the 6th of June we were to take possession of an immense mansion, standing in its own grounds, replete with every possible inconvenience. Chloe dropped her work and sewed curtains all day. I had never known her so happy. And indeed, now that the die was cast, I myself felt that our new experiment had in it at least all the elements of interest. I owned as much.

      “Ah,” said Chloe, “I knew you hid a kindly heart under that mask of indifference. Interesting? Oh, my dear boy, you haven't the faintest idea of the interesting things that are going to happen to us at the Red House.”

      Nor had she. Had either of us even faintly imagined a tenth part of what was to befall us in that house—And yet I don't know. Chloe says now that she would have left the safe shelter of the Bandbox just the same. And I—well, as you see, if Chloe only “keeps all on,” I am foolish enough for anything.

      II IN THE RED HOUSE

       Table of Contents

      “YOU look like a historical picture,” Chloe said. “What's-his-name weeping over the ruins of Somewhere or other.”

      “I am weeping, over the ruins of my happy home,” I replied, as I sat on a packing-case and stirred with my boot-toe a tangle of brown paper, string, dust, and empty bottles on the dining-room floor.

      “Nonsense!” she said. “Your happy home's where I am, isn't it?”

      “That's just what I say. This adorable Bandbox of ours contained my heart's one treasure, and therefore—”

      “If you mean me,” she said, briskly, “your treasure is not going to be kept in a Bandbox any longer. It is going to live in a palace—”

      “Unfurnished—replete with—”

      “Historic associations and other delights,” she interrupted. “And not quite unfurnished, either. Poor, dear boy—was it unhappy at the nasty flitting, then? And was it like a cat, and did it hate to leave its own house? It shall have its paws buttered—its boots, I mean—the minute we get into the new house!”

      She came and sat beside me on the packing-case, and I absently put my arm round her.

      “Allow me a moment for natural regrets,” I said. “It is not fair to distract my mind with undue influence when I'm watching the dark waters of time close over the wreck of that good ship, the Bandbox.”

      “That's fine writing,” she said, contemptuously. “Talk sensibly, there's a good boy.”

      Acquiescing, I pinched her ears softly. What my wife terms sensible conversation is unworthy to be reported.

      The Bandbox lay before us, so to speak, in little bits. All the curtains were down, and all the pictures. The crockery was packed up, so were the wedding-presents. The saucepans and kettles sat in a forlorn group on the sitting-room floor. Our comfortable beds were now nothing but rolls of striped ticking and long, iron bands—lying about where one could best trip over them. The wall-papers, which had looked so bright and pleasant with our books and pictures on them, now showed, in patches of aggressively unfaded color, the outlines of the shelves and frames that had hung against them. The fire that had boiled our breakfast-kettle had gone out, and the cold ashes looked inexpressibly desolate.

      As we СКАЧАТЬ