Читать книгу The Undying Fire - H.G. Wells - Страница 10

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IN an uncomfortable armchair of slippery black horsehair, in a mean apartment at Sundering-on-Sea, sat a sick man staring dully out of the window. It was an oppressive day, hot under a leaden sky; there was scarcely a movement in the air save for the dull thudding of the gun practice at Shorehamstow. A multitude of flies crawled and buzzed fitfully about the room, and ever and again some chained-up cur in the neighbourhood gave tongue to its discontent. The window looked out upon a vacant building lot, a waste of scorched grass and rusty rubbish surrounded by a fence of barrel staves and barbed wire. Between the ruinous notice-board of some pre-war building enterprise and the gaunt verandah of a convalescent home, on which the motionless blue forms of two despondent wounded men in deck chairs were visible, came the sea view which justified the name of the house; beyond a wide waste of mud, over which quivered the heat-tormented air, the still anger of the heavens lowered down to meet in a line of hard conspiracy, the steely criminality of the remote deserted sea.

The man in the chair flapped his hand and spoke. "You accursed creature," he said. "Why did God make flies?"

After a long interval he sighed deeply and repeated: "Why?"

He made a fitful effort to assume a more comfortable position, and relapsed at last into his former attitude of brooding despondency.

When presently his landlady came in to lay the table for lunch, an almost imperceptible wincing alone betrayed his sense of the threatening swish and emphasis of her movements. She was manifestly heated by cooking, and a smell of burnt potatoes had drifted in with her appearance. She was a meagre little woman with a resentful manner, glasses pinched her sharp red nose, and as she spread out the grey-white diaper and rapped down the knives and forks in their places she glanced at him darkly as if his inattention aggrieved her. Twice she was moved to speak and did not do so, but at length she could endure his indifference no longer. "Still feeling ill I suppose, Mr. 'Uss?" she said, in the manner of one who knows only too well what the answer will be.

He started at the sound of her voice, and gave her his attention as if with an effort. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Croome?"

The landlady repeated with acerbity, " I arst if you was still feeling ill, Mr. 'Uss."

He did not look at her when he replied, but glanced towards her out of the corner of his eyes. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I am. I am afraid I am ill." She made a noise of unfriendly confirmation that brought his face round to her. "But mind you, Mrs. Croome, I don't want Mrs. Huss worried about it. She has enough to trouble her just now. Quite enough."

"Misfortunes don't ever come singly," said Mrs. Croome with quiet satisfaction, leaning across the table to brush some spilt salt from off the cloth to the floor. She was not going to make any rash promises about Mrs. Huss.

"We 'ave to bear up with what is put upon us," said Mrs. Croome. "We 'ave to find strength where strength is to be found."

She stood up and regarded him with pensive malignity. "Very likely all you want is a tonic of some sort. Very likely you've just let yourself go. I shouldn't be surprised."

The sick man gave no welcome to this suggestion.

"If you was to go round to the young doctor at the corner— Barrack isnameis— very likely he'd put you right. Everybody says he's very clever. Not that me and Croome put much faith in doctors. Nor need to. But you 're in a different position."

The man in the chair had been to see the young doctor at the corner twice already, but he did not want to discuss that interview with Mrs. Croome just then. "I must think about it," he said evasively.

"After all it isn't fair to yourself, it isn't fair to others, to sicken— for it might be anythink— without proper advice. Sitting there and doing nothing. Especially in lodgings at this time of year. It isn't, well not what I call considerate."

"Exactly," said Mr. Huss weakly.

"There's homes and hospitals properly equipped."

The sick man nodded his head appreciatively.

"If things are nipped in the bud they're nipped in the bud, otherwise they grow and make trouble."

It was exactly what her hearer was thinking.

Mrs. Croome ducked to the cellarette of a gaunt sideboard and rapped out a whisky bottle, a bottle of lime-juice, and a soda-water syphon upon the table. She surveyed her handiwork with a critical eye. "Cruet," she whispered, and vanished from the room, leaving the door, after a tormenting phase of creaking, to slam by its own weight behind her....

The invalid raised his hand to his forehead and found it wet with perspiration. His hand was trembling violently. "My God!" he whispered.