Читать книгу Captain Nicholas - Hugh Walpole - Страница 14

Table of Contents

In fact and in truth Edward was just now keeping something from his mother. He had had a very strange week.

Like all boys he had his own secret world; in this world he moved as an Indian moves in the jungle judging by a broken twig here, an imprint in the dust, the sound of underground water. This world was completely satisfactory to him, and even those for whom he cared were allowed only glimpses into its fascinating mystery.

And this world did not include girls. He despised them profoundly, and, as it seemed to him, for excellent reasons. They could do nothing. When they threw a ball or ran they were absurd. They could not talk about anything that was of the least importance. When they asked questions they were ridiculous.

And now, out of the blue, without warning, this girl had been thrown into his life. When he came home, his mind busied with all the important things that had to be considered, she sat at table with him. The event of the day that he preferred to all others (although he would confess this to no one)—the tea hour that he shared alone with his mother—was now entirely spoilt by the presence of this girl. The room that had been recognized by all the world as his own private kingdom was now invaded by this girl.

It was not that she asked to share anything with him. She was not like other girls. She did not run or throw balls. In fact, she played no games; she despised them utterly. She seldom spoke unless spoken to, but would sit there, reading a book or writing on a piece of paper, or simply sitting, with her hands folded, staring in front of her. She never laughed, she never smiled—only, if Aunt Grace had taken her for a walk, she would, on her return, have a look on her face that was almost a smile.

He was not by nature a cruel little boy, but he tried, at first, to entice her to do things that would make her look foolish. He turned a somersault (he was clever at somersaults) and dared her to do the same, but she looked at him with such an air of cold surprise that he was suddenly less proud of his somersaults than he had been.

Then, one evening, she helped him with his sums. She was marvellous at sums. She did them in no time at all, and he boasted about this at school. “We’ve got a girl at home,” he said, “who can do sums as good as anyone. And she reads French books like English.”

She had travelled, he discovered, almost over the whole world. It appeared that in Rome she had seen the Pope, and in some other place a sailor in a blue shirt had stuck another sailor with a knife while she stood looking on. Most astonishing of all, she had seen a woman produce a baby. He knew about babies—they talked about everything at school. He had a clean, independent mind, and all the things that did not belong to his world he disregarded. Babies most certainly did not belong. Nevertheless her account was interesting. He kept it to himself, even from his closer friends, who would have been greatly excited at his recital. He saw that Lizzie took everything with the greatest calm, and he learnt from her to show no excitement. Only one side of her experiences he loathed and, after the first anecdote or two, gave her clearly to understand that he would hear no more. All of this concerned the ill treatment of animals, for he understood that in Italy and Spain and other countries where she had been they stuck sharp pins into donkeys, beat horses until they had sore places, and knocked dogs against the wall. At one of her more horrible stories (which she related in a perfectly calm and unperturbed voice) he went suddenly very white and was sick, there and then, on the floor. The next time she attempted such a narrative he rushed at her, pulled her hair and kicked her black-stockinged legs. She did not cry. She made, at the moment, no attempt at retaliation, but half an hour later she came up behind him, pulled his head back, dug her sharp little fingers into his neck and nearly throttled him. That was their only physical contest, and she told him no more stories about animals.

Once she gave him an account of the magic that people practised in Sicily. You made a little doll of wax, stuck pins into it, melted it on the fire. Then the person of whom you were thinking died in great agony.

“Gosh! I don’t care,” said Edward. “You can’t do anything to me!”

Then she took out of her pocket a dirty little lump of wax with two black pins for eyes.

“You wait and see,” she said, and, sure enough, next day he had toothache. It was true that it was an old tooth that had often given him trouble before. Nevertheless, there it was.

On the whole, however, they maintained a rather friendly neutrality.

One thing disturbed him. He had always thought that his mother knew everything. Now, very plainly, she did not. Lizzie knew many things that his mother did not. One day he asked his mother where Palermo was. She said it was in Corsica. He did not correct her mistake but reflected on it.

He was very cross with Lizzie that evening and teased her about cricket, of which she knew nothing at all. He said to her with scorn: “Why, you don’t even know what a wicket-keeper is!” and that night, when his mother came to say good-night, he hugged and kissed her with more than his ordinary ardour.

But, after this, he was puzzled. Coming home from school was not quite as it had been—it was not so good and it was better. When he was at school he surrendered altogether to the school atmosphere. Life was very busy there; there was something going on every minute of the time.

Until the last fortnight, however, he always, as he approached his home, felt all the pleasures of the Westminster house close him in. He was extremely happy at home. People left him alone, he liked them all, was interested in a hundred things that went on in the house, and, above all else, treasured his independence in his own room, ruling his own kingdom.

He always knew every day what the house would be like, the smell of the pot-pourri at the top of the first staircase, the stutter and clangour of the old brass Georgian clock with the face of a grinning sun, the view from the window on the second floor—a square of small quiet street, a tree, a corner of the church tower—all these things were his and he was theirs. This was home as no other place ever would be all his life long.

But now they would be home no longer, for Uncle Nicholas and Lizzie had changed all that. You never knew what Uncle Nicholas would be at. He would stand in front of you making faces and reciting a funny poem about two drunken sailors in a boat at sea, or he would do a trick and take a ribbon out of your ear, or he would say: “Now—as man to man! What tricks have you been up to today?” and would add: “You can tell me, you know. I’m so wicked myself that nothing that anyone else can do can shock me.”

He made in some mysterious fashion the whole house different. Even when you knew that he was out somewhere, you expected to see him turning up in a doorway or from behind a curtain, smiling, cheerful, and saying: “Now then, out with it! Tell me your secrets!”

He and Lizzie were so different from anyone else Edward had ever known. They did not think the same things good and the same things bad as other people did.

Of one or two acts Edward was deeply ashamed, although he would not say that he was—as for instance when they had teased Blake Minor because he had a sister called Lucy. They called Blake Minor “Lucy,” and Edward had made him cry because he wrote “Lucy” all over the front page of a calendar Blake had.

Edward had strutted about after doing this and had pretended to be very proud, but he had not been proud really. After all, if anyone laughed at Nell he’d give them one, and Blake was a silly ass to cry. Nevertheless, Edward had been ashamed.

When, however, he told Uncle Nicholas this one day, Uncle Nicholas had laughed, had said that there was nothing to be ashamed of and that it did Blake Minor good. Then Uncle Nicholas was wonderful at imitating people. He could imitate anyone and especially Aunt Grace. Edward had always rather liked Aunt Grace. Of course she was silly sometimes, especially when she had one of those letters from the man in Winchester who was supposed to be in love with her (fancy being in love with Aunt Grace!), but although she was silly she was nice, would give you anything she had, and was never out of temper.

But Uncle Nicholas imitated her. Gosh! he imitated her until you had to laugh. He told Edward it was a secret between themselves and, right before your eyes, he would seem to swell, be all fat in front, and his eyes would stare just as Aunt Grace’s did, and he would say in that breathless foolish way that Aunt Grace had: “Yes, I’ve got a letter from John and he says the weather in Winchester has been quite fine these last days, only there was a thunderstorm last Thursday and I’ve found such a pretty book for dear little Lizzie. I’m sure she’ll love it—I know I did when I was a girl ...” all muddled up and catching his breath with his hand on his heart. You could swear that it was Aunt Grace! Edward must laugh, but at the same time he felt uncomfortable, and when he was with Aunt Grace could not look her in the face.

But this was the principal difference that Uncle Nicholas and Lizzie had made—that they had brought into the house with them the sights, sounds, smells of another world. Edward’s imagination was fed with all these things: hot, blazing streets, little dark rooms where you ate strange dishes, long high staircases lit with the cold radiance of the moon, hills that looked like spotted animals, and beaches that stretched for miles above a sea as purple as grapes and as green as a parrot. It must be fine to see these countries, not to know where your next meal was coming from, to carry a revolver in your pocket, to hear music and dancing in the room above the street. Edward must travel. It was absurd that Lizzie, who was not as old as he, should have seen all these things while he himself had seen nothing at all.

The Westminster house was not so wonderful. It was filled with old things that had been there for ever and ever. Perhaps, one day, Edward would run off and join Uncle Nicholas somewhere. He kept these things in his heart. He no longer told his mother everything that was in his mind.