Читать книгу The Man and His Kingdom - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 7

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Dene looked gravely down at a particularly insignificant specimen of a rare but unlovely orchid, and then some impulse prompted him to glance quickly into Lucia's face. Her eyes were slightly contracted, the shadow of a smile was twitching at the corners of her lips. His own sense of humour was swiftly aroused. He laughed outright, and, to his surprise, she joined in.

"How shocking!" she remarked, a moment later. "After all, then, you are not an enthusiast!"

"On the contrary," he assured her, "I dislike orchids."

She lowered her parasol and glanced, doubtless by accident, towards a wooden seat which encircled a gigantic tropical shrub.

"You have brought me out," she said demurely, "under false pretences. And I was so comfortable."

"Your trees at least are magnificent," he said. "May we not sit down for a few moments? It seems cooler to me out here than on the piazza."

"Just as you like," she answered, with a touch of her old ungraciousness. "This is the coolest part of the garden."

They moved slowly towards the seat and sat down. Her manner showed no signs of relaxation; the smile, after all, seemed to have been merely an interlude. She relapsed for a moment or two into cold silence. Then, as Dene ventured upon some conventional remark, she brushed it away and turned to him abruptly.

"Will you tell me," she said, "about your people at Beau Desir? I have heard so many strange things, and I want to know the truth."

He smiled.

"I will tell you all about them, with pleasure," he said, "if you are sure that it will interest you."

She twirled her parasol for a moment and then looked from the clear blue sky into his face.

"It may," she said. "It probably will I have only met one man yet in all my life who thought about anything but his own pleasure. They say that you are rich and yet that you are a worker, that you live simply and study the welfare of other people. It sounds like a fairy tale. I should like to know why you do it—why you consider it worth while to think of anything else but yourself."

"That sounds," he said gravely, "a little cynical."

"Oh, I am purely a negative quantity," she said. "I have no individuality—it is a luxury which is denied me. I am not allowed to live for myself at all My ideas are only echoes. You must not consider me as a responsible person. Only I should like to hear."

"And where," he asked, having made up his mind to humour her, "am I to begin?"

"At the very beginning, if you please," she answered.

"If we are interrupted before you have finished you can tell me the rest another time."

He smiled.

"I am afraid that as a story it is not very interesting," he said, "but I will tell you all about it with pleasure. It is nearly five years ago when I first made up my mind to attempt something of this sort A friend of mine took me one night to a meeting of working men somewhere in London. I think it was the first time I had ever heard our social conditions discussed from their point of view, and I was interested. Although they did not know it at the time, I was one of those against whom they were most bitter. I was a capitalist, and my money came to me from my father, who was one of the largest employers of labour in England. Well, what I heard made a great impression upon me from the first. I saw that there was truth in it. Of course they suffered, as the cause of socialism always has suffered, from exaggeration and indiscretions on the part of their leaders, but it took me a very short time to see that at the root of the matter they had right and justice on their side. I wanted to help them, but at first I was doubtful what course to take. I allowed myself to be persuaded to go in to Parliament as a Radical, and the representative of a working men's constituency. Well, I soon had enough of that. I came to the conclusion that if I could have kept my seat and lived to be a hundred, I should have made very little real progress."

"You called yourself a Socialist, then?" she remarked

"The term is so ill-defined," he answered. "I came at least to belong to a party of men who think that the religion of life consists rather in the brotherhood of man than in the worship of an unknown God. Of course, we realise that mankind, as a whole, must live out their lives in the place and order in which they are from, but our doctrine is that the strong should help the weak, the rich the poor. Where this religion is neglected very great misery results. Starvation and great wealth were never meant to flourish side by side. That is what we think it our duty to try and modify. We want every one to have a chance for development. I wonder if you can understand what I mean?"

"Perfectly," she said. "It is very simple and very interesting. Go on, please."

"Well," he continued, "it is one thing to have theories, of course, and another to find the proper means of putting them into practice. I tried Parliament, as I told you, and I used to write a little and speak a little, but I could not persuade myself that a single man or woman was appreciably the better for the trifle I was able to do. Well, I got impatient at last, and I altered my tactics. I left off trying to aid great changes by theorising, and determined to do a little practical and personal good I had got to know a great many of my constituents personally, and I was able to collect easily a hundred or so who for various reasons were going under in the struggle for life. I brought them out here to the Valley of Beau Desir, which I have just purchased from your father. There I have established a sort of little colony. We grow corn and breed horses, and the profits are divided amongst all in a fair proportion. The men enjoy the dignity of earning their living healthily and without humiliation, and the women, of course, share in their prosperity. They have no sense of injustice to make fanatics of them—they have every opportunity of living out their lives fully, and, so far as possible, every one does that for which he is best fitted. Of course it is a very small thing really to help a few hundreds when millions are suffering—yet I was weary of generalities, of seeing the same tired faces day by day, and so little result from all our work. I have at least made a tangible start, if it is only in a very small way."

He glanced towards her tentatively. He scarcely expected to find her interested. What he saw in her face surprised him.

"You are a very fortunate man," she said. "You have opportunities."

"Every one has opportunities," he answered. "It is the desire and the energy which is generally lacking."

She shook her head. The old sullen gloom was upon her.

"It is not so," she said coldly. "Every one has not the opportunity. The inequalities in this way are quite as bad as the inequalities of wealth and fortune."

"I cannot agree with you," Dene declared. "I believe that every single person in the world has the opportunity of shaping their life towards some practical and good purpose if they desire it."

"Such a speech, Señor," she answered bitterly, "shows only how limited is your experience."

"I am always willing to enlarge it," he answered. "Do I understand that you disagree with me?"

"Disagree?" She shrugged her shoulders and looked at him scornfully. "Why not? Am I not myself a proof that it is not so? You do not believe it? Very well, Señor. Perhaps you will tell me of your great wisdom what good to any one can I accomplish?"

He saw something which interested him struggling with the dark gloom of her face and he answered her gently.

"Am I," he said, "to take the desire for granted?"

"You can do that," she answered ungraciously.

"Good. Well, then, to begin with, there is only one wretched little hospital in San Martina, and that, I understand, is about to be closed for want of funds. A thorough system of trained nurses is required—"

"The first thing which occurred to me was this," she interrupted. "Months ago I sent for some books on nursing, and when I thought that I had gained some little knowledge about it, I asked my father to allow me to have a meeting of the women of San Martina here, and organise a band of amateur nurses under the direction of the doctor. I proposed—but never mind about that It is no matter, for my father flatly refused to allow me to do anything of the sort."

"And your mother?"

"Agreed with him thoroughly. She was profoundly shocked Do you not understand that my father and mother are a mixture of French and Spanish, and they have imbibed the imbecility of both nations as regards the position of their children? Do you not understand that I am practically doomed to consider myself unborn—uncreated—until my marriage? I may not put my band to any useful work. I may not assume any position whatever. I am worse off really than those poor creatures whom you have brought out here and set free."

Dene was silent for a moment. He felt vaguely that there was a good deal which he ought to say to her concerning home duties and personal development, and at the same time he felt an absolute inability to say it. The appearance of a negro servant summoning them to tea was almost a relief to him.

The Señora was smiling placidly at them from behind a small table, at which were many small cups and an impossible teapot.

"You have seen it," she cried. "You agree with me. It is unrivalled."

Dene for a moment was bewildered. Lucia, who was still by his side, laughed and whispered in his ear—

"The green Carmenita!"