Читать книгу The Coward - Robert Hugh Benson - Страница 11

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VAL was extraordinarily miserable the very instant he awoke next morning, and he awoke very early indeed, to find the room already grey with the dawn.

For the moment he did not know whence this misery came; it rushed on him and enveloped him, or, as psychologists would say, surged up from his subconscious self, almost before he was aware of anything else. He lay a minute or two collecting data. Then he perceived that the thing must be settled at once. He had a great deal to review and analyse, and he set about it immediately with that pitilessly strenuous and clear logic that offers itself at such wakeful hours—that logic that, at such times, escapes the control and the criticism of the wider reason.

I suppose that the storm had been gathering for the last year or two—ever since he had been called a “funk” openly and loudly in the middle of football. Of course he had repelled that accusation vehemently, and had, indeed, silenced criticism by his subsequent almost desperate play. A hint of it, however, reappeared a few months later, when, as it had appeared to him, he had avoided a fight with extreme dignity and self-restraint. And now, once again, the problem was presented.

The emotion of which he had been conscious when, after his fall, he had remounted to ride home, was one of a furious hatred against Quentin—not fear, he had told himself repeatedly during the ride and during his silences after dinner, but just hatred. He had even cut Quentin viciously with his whip once or twice to prove that to himself. It was ignominious to be kicked off Quentin. And this hatred had been succeeded by a sense of extreme relief as he dismounted at last and limped into the house. And then a still small voice had haunted him all the evening with the suggestion that he was really afraid of riding Quentin again, and that he was simulating a strain which was quite negligible in order to avoid doing so.

To the settling of this question, then, he arranged his mind. He turned over on to his back, feeling with a pang of pleasure that his left thigh was really stiff, clasped his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes.

The moment he really faced it, in the clear mental light that comes with the dawn, it seemed to him simply absurd ever to have suspected his own courage. Every single reasonable argument was against such a conclusion.

First, he had ridden Quentin for the last three years; he had had fall after fall, one or two of them really dangerous.... Why, he had actually been rolled on by the horse on one occasion when they had both come down together! And he had never before had the slightest hesitation in riding him again.

“What about that jumping?” whispered his inner monitor.

The jumping! Why, that had been absurd, he snapped back furiously. Austin, mounted on old Trumpeter, who had followed the hounds for years, had challenged Val, mounted on Quentin, who never yet had been known to jump anything higher than a sloped hurdle, to follow him over a low post and rails. Val, very properly, had refused; and Austin, on telling the story at dinner, had been rebuked by his father, who said that he ought to have known better than to have suggested such a thing for Quentin. Yes, said Val to himself now; he has been perfectly right.

“Was that the reason why you refused?”

Of course it was. He wasn’t going to risk Quentin over nonsense like that.

“Well then; what about that funking at Eton?”

He hadn’t funked. He had been hovering on the outside in order to get a run down. Besides, hadn’t he been applauded later for his pluck?

“Well then; come down to the present. Are you going to ride this evening?”

He would see, said Val. Certainly he wasn’t going to ride if his thigh was really strained. (He felt it gingerly.) What was the fun of that? Certainly he wasn’t going to ride simply to show himself that he wasn’t afraid. That would be a practical acknowledgment that he was. No, if the others rode, and his thigh was all right, and ... and he didn’t want to do anything else, of course he would ride just as usual. It was absurd even to think of himself as afraid. The fall yesterday was nothing at all, he had just been kicked off—certainly rather ridiculously—just because he wasn’t attending and hadn’t been expecting that sudden joyous up-kicking of heels as the horse felt the firm turf under him. Why, if he had been afraid, he would have shown fear then, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t have mounted again so quickly, if there had been the slightest touch of funk about the affair.

“You’re ... you’re quite sure?”

Yes. Perfectly sure.... That was decided again. He would go to sleep. He unclasped his hands and turned over on his side, and instantly the voice began da capo.

“You’re ... you’re quite sure you’re not a funk?” ...

As the stable clock struck six he got up in despair, threw his legs over the side of the bed, entirely forgetful of the strained thigh (though he remembered it quickly five minutes later), and went to look for “Badminton” on riding. He remembered it was in the bookshelf on the left of the fire-place in the sitting-room. He was going to be entirely dispassionate about it, and just do what “Badminton” advised. That would settle once and for all whether he was a funk or not. If, under circumstances of a strained thigh and a triumphant horse, and ... and a faint, though really negligible feeling of apprehension, it said, Ride: he would ride that evening, anyhow, whether the others did or not. If not, not.

As he took down “Badminton,” after a glance round the room that looked simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar in this cold morning light, he noticed another book on riding, and took that down too; and half an hour later, perfectly reassured, he put both the books on the table by his bed, and went tranquilly to sleep. He had found that even a slight strain in ... in the lower part of the thigh ought not to be neglected, or serious mischief might result. He had dismissed as not in the least applicable to his case a little discussion on the curious fact that a fall, if it takes place slowly enough, and if the rider has plenty of time to consider it, will often produce such nervousness as that a really dangerous swift fall fails to effect. That was only in a footnote, and of course was unimportant.