Читать книгу The Definite Object - Jeffery Farnol - Страница 6

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Geoffrey Ravenslee was tall and pale and very languid, so languid indeed that the automobile coat he bore across his arm slipped to the floor ere Mr. Brimberly could take it, after which he shed his cap and goggles and dropped them, drew off his gauntlets and dropped them and, crossing to his favourite lounge chair, dropped himself into it, and lay there staring into the fire.

"Ah, Brimberly," he sighed gently, "making a night of it?"

"Why, sir," bowed his butler, "indeed, sir—to tell the truth, sir—"

"You needn't, Brimberly. Excellent cigars you smoke—judging from the smell. May I have one?"

"Sir," said Brimberly, his whiskers slightly agitated, "cigars, sir?"

"In the cabinet, I think," and Mr. Ravenslee motioned feebly with one white hand towards the tall, carved cabinet in an adjacent corner.

Mr. Brimberly coughed softly behind plump fingers.

"The—the key, sir?" he suggested.

"Oh, not at all necessary, Brimberly; the lock is faulty, you know."

"Sir?" said Brimberly, soothing a twitching whisker.

"If you are familiar with the life of the Fourteenth Louis, Brimberly, you will remember that the Grand Monarch hated to be kept waiting—so do I. A cigar—in the cabinet yonder."

With his whiskers in a high state of agitation, Mr. Brimberly laid by the garments he held clutched in one arm and coming to the cabinet, opened it, and taking thence a box of cigars, very much at random, came back, carrying it rather as though it were a box of highly dangerous explosives, and setting it at his master's elbow, struck a match.

As Mr. Brimberly watched his master select and light his cigar, it chanced that Young R. raised his eyes and looked at him, and to be sure those eyes were surprisingly piercing and quick for one so very languid. Indeed, Mr. Brimberly seemed to think so, for he coughed again, faint and discreetly, behind his hand, while his whiskers quivered slightly, though perceptibly.

"You're 'ome quite—quite unexpected, sir!"

"Brimberly, I'm afraid I am, but I hope I don't intrude?"

"Intrude, sir!" repeated Mr. Brimberly. "Oh, very facetious, sir, very facetious indeed!" and he laughed, deferentially and soft.

"I blew the horn, but I see he left his hat behind him!" sighed Young R., nodding languidly toward the headgear of Mr. Stevens, which had fallen beneath a chair and thus escaped notice.

"Why, I—indeed, sir," said Mr. Brimberly, stooping to make a fierce clutch at it, "I took the liberty of showing a friend of mine your—your picters, sir—no offence, I 'ope, sir?"

"Friend?" murmured his master.

"Name of Stevens, sir, valet to Lord Barberton—a most sooperior person indeed, sir!"

"Barberton? I don't agree with you, Brimberly."

"Stevens, sir!"

"Ah! And you showed him my—pictures, did you?"

"Yes, sir, I did take that liberty—no offence, sir, I—"

"Hum! Did he like 'em?"

"Like them, sir! 'E were fair overpowered, sir! Brandy and soda, sir?"

"Thanks! Did he like that, too?"

"Why, sir—I—indeed—"

"Oh, never mind—to-night is an occasion, anyway—just a splash of soda! Yes, Brimberly, when the clocks strike midnight I shall be thirty-five years old—"

"Indeed, sir!" exclaimed Brimberly, clasping his plump hands softly and bowing, "then allow me to wish you many, many 'appy returns, sir, with continued 'ealth, wealth, and all 'appiness, sir!"

"Happiness?" repeated Young R., and smiled quite bitterly, as only the truly young can smile. "Happiness!" said he again, "thank you, Brimberly—now take your friend his hat, and have the extreme goodness to make up the fire for me. I love a fire, as you know, but especially when I am mournful. And pray—hurry, Brimberly!"

Forthwith Mr. Brimberly bowed and bustled out, but very soon bustled in again; and now, as he stooped, menial-like, to ply the coal tongs, though his domelike brow preserved all its wonted serenity, no words could possibly express all the mute rebellion of those eloquent whiskers.

"Hanything more, sir?" he enquired, as he rose from his knees.

"Why, yes," said Young R., glancing up at him, and beneath the quizzical look in those sleepy grey eyes, Mr. Brimberly's whiskers wilted slightly. "You're getting a trifle too—er—portly to hop round on your knees, aren't you, Brimberly? Pray sit down and talk to me."

Mr. Brimberly bowed and took a chair, sitting very upright and attentive while his master frowned into the fire.

"Thirty-five is a ripe age, Brimberly!" said he at last; "a man should have made something of his life—at thirty-five!"

"Certingly, sir!"

"And I'm getting quite into the sere and yellow leaf, am I not, Brimberly?"

Mr. Brimberly raised a plump, protesting hand.

"'Ardly that, sir, 'ardly that!" said he, "we are hall of us getting on, of course—"

"Where to, Brimberly? On where, Brimberly—on what?"

"Why, sir, since you ask me, I should answer—begging your parding—'eavens knows, sir!"

"Precisely! Anyway, I'm going there fast."

"Where, sir?"

"Heaven knows, Brimberly."

"Ah—er—certingly, sir!"

"Now, Brimberly, as a hard-headed, matter-of-fact, common-sense being, what would you suggest for a poor devil who is sick and tired of everything and most of all—of himself?"

"Why, sir, I should prescribe for that man change of hair, sir—travel, sir. I should suggest to that man Hafghanistan or Hasia Minor, or both, sir. There's your noo yacht a-laying in the river, sir—"

His master leant his square chin upon his square fist and still frowning at the fire, gently shook his head.

"My good Brimberly," he sighed, "haven't I travelled in most parts of the world?"

"Why, yes, sir, you've travelled, sir, very much so indeed, sir—you've shot lions and tigers and a helephant or so, and exchanged sentiments with raging 'eathen—as rage in nothing but a string o' beads—but what about your noomerous possessions in Europe, sir?"

"Ah, yes," nodded Young R., "I do possess some shanties and things over there, don't I, Brimberly?"

"Shanties, sir!" Mr. Brimberly blinked, and his whiskers bristled in horrified reproof. "Shanties!—Oh, dear me, sir!" he murmured. "Shanties—your magnificent town mansion situate in Saint James's Square, London, as your respected father hacquired from a royal dook, sir! Shanties!—your costly and helegant res-eye-dence in Park Lane, sir!"

"Hum!" said Young R. moodily.

"Then, in Scotland, sir, we 'ave your castle of Drumlochie, sir—rocks, turrets, battlements, 'ighly grim and romantic, sir!"

"Ha!" sighed his young master, frowning at his cigar.

"Next, sir—in Italy we find your ancient Roman villa, sir—halabaster pillows and columns, sir—very historical though a trifle wore with wars and centuries of centoorians, sir, wherefore I would humbly suggest a coat or two of paint, sir, applied beneath your very own eye, sir—"

"No, Brimberly," murmured Young R., "paint might have attractions—Italy, none!"

"Certingly not, sir, cer-tingly not! Which brings us to your schloss in Germany, sir—"

"Nor Germany! Lord, Brimberly, are there many more?"

"Ho, yes, sir, plenty!" nodded Mr, Brimberly, "your late honoured and respected father, sir, were a rare 'and at buying palaces, sir; 'e collected 'em, as you might say, like some folks collects postage starmps, sir!"

"And a collection of the one is about as useless as a collection of the other, Brimberly!"

"Why, true, sir, one man can't live in a dozen places all at once, but why not work round 'em in turn, beginning, say, at your imposing Venetian palazzo—canals, sir, gondoleers—picturesque though dampish? Or your shally in the Tyro-leen Halps, sir, or—"

"Brimberly, have the goodness to—er—shut up!"

"Certingly, sir."

"To-day is my birthday, Brimberly, and to-night I've reached a kind of 'jumping off' place in my life, and—between you and me—I'm seriously thinking of—er—jumping off!"

"I crave parding, sir?"

"I'm thirty-five years old," continued Young R., his frown growing blacker, "and I've never done anything really worth while in all my useless life! Have the goodness to look at me, will you?"

"With pleasure, sir!"

"Well, what do I look like?"

"The very hacme of a gentleman, sir!"

"Kind of you, Brimberly, but I know myself for an absolutely useless thing—a purposeless, ambitionless wretch, drifting on to God knows what. I'm a hopeless wreck, a moral derelict, and it has only occurred to me to-night—but"—and here the speaker paused to flick the ash from his cigar—"I fear I'm boring you?"

"No, sir—ho, no, not at all, indeed, sir!"

"You're very kind, Brimberly—light a cigarette! Ah, no, pardon me, you prefer my cigars, I know."

"Why—why, sir—" stammered Mr. Brimberly, laying a soothing hand upon his twitching whisker, "indeed, I—I—"

"Oh—help yourself, pray!"

Hereupon Mr. Brimberly took a cigar very much at random, and, while Young R. watched with lazy interest, proceeded to cut it—though with singularly clumsy fingers.

"A light, Mr. Brimberly—allow me!"

So Ravenslee held the light while Mr. Brimberly puffed his cigar to a glow, though to be sure he coughed once and choked, as he met Young R.'s calm grey eye.

"Now," pursued his master, "if you're quite comfortable, Mr. Brimberly, perhaps you'll be good enough to—er—hearken further to my tale of woe?"

Mr. Brimberly choked again and recovering, smoothed his writhing whiskers and murmured: "It would be a honour!"

"First, then, Brimberly, have you ever hated yourself—I mean, despised yourself so utterly and thoroughly that the bare idea of your existence makes you angry and indignant?"

"Why—no, sir," answered Mr. Brimberly, staring, "I can't say as I 'ave, sir."

"No," said his master with another keen glance, "and I don't suppose you ever will!" Now here again, perhaps because of the look or something in Young R.'s tone, Mr. Brimberly took occasion to emit a small, apologetic cough.

"You have never felt yourself to be a—cumberer of the earth, Brimberly?"

Mr. Brimberly, having thought the matter over, decided that he had not.

"You are not given to introspection, Brimberly?"

"Intro—ahem! No, sir, not precisely—'ardly that, sir, and then only very occasional, sir!"

"Then you've never got on to yourself—got wise to yourself—seen yourself as you really are?"

Mr. Brimberly goggled and groped for his whisker.

"I mean," pursued his master, "you have never seen all your secret weaknesses and petty meannesses stripped stark naked, have you?"

"N-naked, sir!" faltered Mr. Brimberly, "very distressing indeed, sir—oh, dear me!"

"It's a devilish unpleasant thing," continued Young R., scowling at the fire again, "yes, it's a devilish unpleasant thing to go serenely on our flowery way, pitying and condemning the sins and follies of others and sublimely unconscious of our own until one day—ah, yes—one day we meet Ourselves face to face and see beneath all our pitiful shams and hypocrisies and know ourselves at last for what we really are—behold the decay of faculties, the degeneration of intellect bred of sloth and inanition and know ourselves at last—for exactly what we are!"

Mr. Brimberly stared at the preoccupation of his master's scowling brow and grim-set mouth, and, clutching a soft handful of whisker, murmured: "Certingly, sir!"

"When I was a boy," continued Ravenslee absently, "I used to dream of the wonderful things I would do when I was a man—by the way, you're quite sure I'm not boring you—?"

"No, sir—certingly not, sir—indeed, sir!"

"Take another cigar, Brimberly—oh, put it in your pocket, it will do to—er—to add to your collection! But, as I was saying, as a boy I was full of a godlike ambition—but, as I grew up, ambition and all the noble things it leads to, sickened and died—died of a surfeit of dollars! And to-day I am thirty-five and feel that I can't—that I never shall—do anything worth while—"

"But, sir," exclaimed Mr. Brimberly with a bland and reassuring smile, "you are one as don't have to do nothing—you're rich!"

Mr. Ravenslee started.

"Rich!" he cried, and turning, he glanced at Mr. Brimberly, and his square chin looked so very square and his grey eyes so very piercing that Mr. Brimberly, loosing his whisker, coughed again and shifted his gaze to the Persian rug beneath his feet; yet when Young R. spoke again, his voice was very soft and sleepy.

"Rich!" he repeated, "yes, that's just the unspeakable hell of it—it's money that has crippled all endeavours and made me what I am! Rich? I'm so rich that my friends are all acquaintances—so rich that I might buy anything in the world except what I most desire—so rich that I am tired of life, the world, and everything in the world, and have been seriously considering a—er—a radical change. It is a comfort to know that we may all of us find oblivion when we so desire."

"Oblivion!" nodded Mr. Brimberly, mouthing the word sonorously, "oblivion, sir, certingly—my own sentiments exactly, sir—for, though not being a marrying man myself, sir, I regard it with a truly reverent heye and 'umbly suggest that for you such a oblivious change would be—"

"Brimberly," said Young R., turning to stare in lazy wonder, "where in the world are you getting to now?"

Mr. Brimberly coughed and touched a whisker with dubious finger.

"Wasn't you allooding to—hem!—to matrimony, sir?"

"Matrimony! Lord, no! Hardly so desperate a course as that, Brimberly. I was considering the advisability of—er—this!" And opening a drawer in the escritoire, Young R. held up a revolver, whereat Mr. Brimberly's whiskers showed immediate signs of extreme agitation, and he started to his feet.

"Mr. Ravenslee, sir—for the love o' Gawd!" he exclaimed, "if it's a choice between the two—try matrimony first, it's so much—so much wholesomer, sir!"

"Is it, Brimberly? Let me see, there are about five hundred highly dignified matrons in this—er—great city, wholly eager and anxious to wed their daughters to my dollars (and incidentally myself) even if I were the vilest knave or most pitiful piece of doddering antiquity—faugh! Let's hear no more of matrimony."

"Certingly not, sir!" bowed Mr. Brimberly.

"And I'm neither mad, Brimberly, nor drunk, only—speaking colloquially—I'm 'on to' myself at last. If my father had only left me fewer millions, I might have been quite a hard-working, useful member of society, for there's good in me, Brimberly. I am occasionally aware of quite noble impulses, but they need some object to bring 'em out. An object—hum!" Here Mr. Ravenslee put away the revolver. "An object to work for, live for, be worthy of!" Here he fell to frowning into the fire again and stared thus so long that at last Mr. Brimberly felt impelled to say:

"A hobject, of course, sir! A hobject—certingly, sir!" But here he started and turned to stare toward the windows as from the darkness beyond two voices were uplifted in song; two voices these which sang the same tune and words but in two different keys, uncertain voices, now shooting up into heights, now dropping into unplumbable deeps, two shaky voices whose inconsequent quaverings suggested four legs in much the same condition.

"Brimberly," sighed his master, "what doleful wretches have we here?"

"Why, sir, I—I rather fancy it's William and James—the footmen, sir," answered Mr. Brimberly between bristling whiskers. "Hexcuse me, sir—I'll go and speak to 'em, sir—"

"Oh, pray don't trouble yourself, Mr. Brimberly; sit down and hearken! These sad sounds are inspired by deep potations—beer, I fancy. Be seated, Mr. Brimberly."

Mr. Brimberly obeyed, and being much agitated dropped his cigar and grovelled for it, and it was to be noted thereafter that as the singers drew nearer, he shuffled on his chair with whiskers violently a-twitch, while his eyes goggled more and his domelike brow grew ever moister. But on came the singing footmen and passed full-tongued, wailing out each word with due effect, thus:

"—my sweet 'eart's—me mother

The best—the dearest—of—'em all."

"Hum!" murmured Young R., "I admire the sentiment, Brimberly, but the execution leaves something to be desired, perhaps—"

"If you'll only let me go out to 'em, sir!" groaned Mr. Brimberly, mopping himself with a very large, exceeding white handkerchief, "if you honly will, sir!"

"No, Brimberly, no—it would only distress you, besides—hark! their song is ended, and rather abruptly—I rather fancy they have fallen down the terrace steps."

"And I 'opes," murmured Mr. Brimberly fervently, "I do 'ope as they've broke their necks!"

"Of course I ought to have gone out and switched on the lights for them," sighed Young R, "but then, you see, I thought they were safe in bed, Brimberly!"

"Why, sir," said Mr. Brimberly, mopping furiously, "I—I ventured to give 'em a hour's leave of habsence, sir; I ventured so to do, sir, because, sir—"

"Because you are of rather a venturesome nature, aren't you, Brimberly?"

"No offence, sir, I 'ope?"

"None at all, Mr. Brimberly—pray calm yourself and—er—take a little brandy."

"Sir?"

"Your glass is under the chair yonder, or is it your friend's?"

Mr. Brimberly goggled toward Mr. Stevens' betraying glass, picked it up, and sat staring at it in vague and dreamy fashion until, rousing at his master's second bidding, he proceeded to mix brandy and soda, his gaze still profoundly abstracted and his whiskers drooping with an abnormal meekness.

At this juncture a knock sounded at the door, and a chauffeur appeared, looking very smart in his elegant livery; a thick-set man, mightily deep of chest, whose wide shoulders seemed to fill the doorway, and whose long, gorilla-like arms ended in two powerful hands; his jaw was squarely huge, his nose broad and thick, but beneath his beetling brows blinked two of the mildest blue eyes in the world.

"What is it, Joe?"

"And what time will ye be wantin' the car in the mornin', sir?" he enquired.

"The morning, Joe? Who can say what may happen between now and then?"

"Shall I have her round at eleven, sir, or—"

"Eleven will do as well as any other time—let it go at that."

"You was to see your broker, Mr. Anderson, in the morning over them steamship shares, sir."

"Shares, Joe, are a vanity; all is vanity—they weary me. Mr. Brimberly yawns, and you look sleepy—good night, Joe; pleasant dreams."

"Good night, sir!" and touching his right eyebrow, Joe went out, closing the door behind him.

"And now," said Mr. Ravenslee, puffing languidly at his cigar, "referring to the necessary object, there is a chance that it may be found—even yet, Mr. Brimberly!"

"Object, sir," murmured Mr. Brimberly, "found, sir—to be sure, sir."

"Yes; I intend you shall find it for me, Brimberly."

Mr. Brimberly's abstraction gave place to sudden amaze.

"Find it—wot, me, sir? Hexcuse me, sir, but did you say—" Mr. Brimberly actually gaped!

"You, Brimberly, of course!"

"But—but wot kind of a hobject—and where, sir?"

"Really," sighed Young R., "these are quite fool questions for one of your hard-headed common sense! If I knew exactly 'what' and 'where', I'd go and find it myself—at least, I might!"

"But—'ow in the world, sir—begging your parding I'm sure, but 'ow am I to go a-finding hobjex as I've never seen nor 'eard of?"

"Brimberly, I pass! But if you manage it in—say a week, I'll double your wages and give you a—er—a bonus into the bargain; think it over."

"I—I will, sir—indeed, sir!"

"Very well; you may go."

"Certingly, sir." Mr. Brimberly bowed and crossed to the door but, being there, paused. "Double me wages I think it were, sir, and a bonus? Very 'andsome, very 'andsome indeed, sir—thank you, sir." Saying which, Mr. Brimberly bowed himself out, but immediately bowed himself in again.

"Sir," said he, "if you could give me some hidea, sir—"

"Some what?"

"A few 'ints, sir, as to the nature of said hobject—whether animal, mineral, or nooter, sir?"

"Well—perhaps 'animal' might be the more interesting."

"Now—as to gender, sir—masculine shall we say, or shall we make it feminine?"

"Oh—either will do! And yet, since you offer so wide a selection, perhaps—er—feminine—?"

"Very good, sir!"

"And you'd better make it singular number, Brimberly."

"Certingly, sir, much obliged, sir! Will you be wanting me again, sir?"

"Not again, Brimberly."

"Then good night, sir—thank you, sir!" And Mr. Brimberly went softly forth and closed the door noiselessly behind him.

Being alone, Mr. Ravenslee switched off the lights and sat in the fire-glow.

"Feminine gender, singular number, objective case, governed by the verb—to love—I wonder!"

And he laughed a little bitterly (and very youthfully) as he stared down into the dying fire.