Джек Лондон - The Little Lady of the Big House / Маленькая хозяйка большого дома. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“What for?” Mr. Crockett demanded.

“I don’t mind telling you,” was the lad’s steady answer. “To go traveling.”

“You’ll go to bed at eight-thirty this evening,” Mr. Crockett retorted. “And you don’t get any hundred. The lady we spoke to you about will be here before six. She is to have, as we explained, daily and hourly charge of you. At six-thirty, as usual, you will dine, and she will dine with you and see you to bed. As we told you, she will have to serve the place of a mother to you – see that your ears are clean, your neck washed —”

“And that I get my Saturday night bath,” Dick amplified meekly for him.

“Precisely.”

“How much are you – am I – paying the lady for her services?” Dick questioned in the disconcerting, tangential way that was already habitual to him, as his school companions and teachers had learned to their cost [73] had learned to their cost – ( разг. ) узнали (почувствовали) на своей шкуре .

Mr. Crockett for the first time cleared his throat for pause.

“I’m paying her, ain’t I?” Dick prodded. “Out of the twenty million, you know.”

“The spit of his father [74] The spit of his father – ( разг. ) Просто копия своего отца ,” said Mr. Slocum in an aside.

“Mrs. Summerstone, the lady as you elect to call her, receives one hundred and fifty a month, eighteen hundred a year in round sum,” said Mr. Crockett.

“It’s a waste of perfectly good money,” Dick sighed. “And board and lodging thrown in!”

He stood up – not the born aristocrat of the generations, but the reared aristocrat of thirteen years in the Nob Hill palace. He stood up with such a manner that his Board of Guardians left their leather chairs to stand up with him. But he stood up as no Lord Fauntleroy [75] Lord Fauntleroy – герой популярной повести американской писательницы Элизы Бернетт (1849–1924) «Маленький лорд Фаунтлерой» ever stood up; for he was a mixer. He had knowledge that human life was many-faced and many-placed. Not for nothing had he been spelled down by Mona Sanguinetti. Not for nothing had he fought Tim Hagan to a standstill and, co-equal, ruled the schoolyard roost with him.

He was birthed of the wild gold-adventure of Forty-nine [76] of the wild gold-adventure of Forty-nine – ( разг. ) от человека, пережившего «золотую лихорадку» 1849 г. . He was a reared aristocrat and a grammar-school-trained democrat. He knew, in his precocious immature way, the differentiations between caste and mass; and, behind it all, he was possessed of a will of his own and of a quiet surety of self that was incomprehensible to the three elderly gentlemen who had been given charge of his and his destiny and who had pledged themselves to increase his twenty millions and make a man of him in their own composite image.

“Thank you for your kindness,” Young Dick said generally to the three. “I guess we’ll get along all right. Of course, that twenty millions is mine, and of course you’ve got to take care of it for me, seeing I know nothing of business —”

“And we’ll increase it for you, my boy, we’ll increase it for you in safe, conservative ways,” Mr. Slocum assured him.

“No speculation,” Young Dick warned. “Dad’s just been lucky – I’ve heard him say that times have changed and a fellow can’t take the chances everybody used to take.”

From which, and from much which has already passed, it might erroneously be inferred that Young Dick was a mean and money-grubbing soul. On the contrary, he was at that instant entertaining secret thoughts and plans so utterly regardless and disdainful of his twenty millions as to place him on a par [77] as to place him on a par – ( разг. ) которые роднили его with a drunken sailor sowing the beach with a three years’ pay-day.

“I am only a boy,” Young Dick went on. “But you don’t know me very well yet. We’ll get better acquainted by and by, and, again thanking you…”

He paused, bowed briefly and grandly as lords in Nob Hill palaces early learn to bow, and, by the quality of the pause, signified that the audience was over. Nor did the impact of dismissal miss his guardians. They, who had been co-lords with his father, withdrew confused and perplexed. Messrs. Davidson and Slocum were on the point of resolving their perplexity into wrath, as they went down the great stone stairway to the waiting carriage, but Mr. Crockett, the testy and snappish, muttered ecstatically: “The son of a gun! [78] The son of a gun! – Вот стервец! The little son of a gun!”

The carriage carried them down to the old Pacific Union Club, where, for another hour, they gravely discussed the future of Young Dick Forrest and pledged themselves anew to the faith reposed in them by Lucky Richard Forrest. And down the hill, on foot, where grass grew on the paved streets too steep for horse-traffic, Young Dick hurried. As the height of land was left behind, almost immediately the palaces and spacious grounds of the nabobs gave way to the mean streets and wooden warrens of the working people. The San Francisco of 1887 as incontinently intermingled its slums and mansions as did the old cities of Europe. Nob Hill arose, like any medieval castle, from the mess and ruck of common life [79] from the mess and ruck of common life – ( разг. ) из нищеты и грязи обыденной жизни that denned and laired at its base.

Young Dick came to pause alongside a corner grocery, the second story of which was rented to Timothy Hagan Senior, who, by virtue of being a policeman with a wage of a hundred dollars a month, rented this high place to dwell above his fellows who supported families on no more than forty and fifty dollars a month.

In vain Young Dick whistled up through the unscreened, open windows. Tim Hagan Junior was not at home. But Young Dick wasted little wind in the whistling. He was debating on possible adjacent places where Tim Hagan might be, when Tim himself appeared around the corner, bearing a lidless lard-can that foamed with steam beer. He grunted greeting, and Young Dick grunted with equal roughness, just as if, a brief space before, he had not, in most lordly fashion, terminated an audience with three of the richest merchant-kings of an imperial city. Nor did his possession of twenty increasing millions hint the slightest betrayal in his voice or mitigate in the slightest the gruffness of his grunt.

“Ain’t seen yeh since yer old man died,” Tim Hagan commented.

“Well, you’re seein’ me now, ain’t you?” was Young Dick’s retort. “Say, Tim, I come to see you on business.”

“Wait till I rush the beer to the old man,” said Tim, inspecting the state of the foam in the lard-can with an experienced eye. “He’ll roar his head off if it comes in flat.”

“Oh, you can shake it up,” Young Dick assured him. “Only want to see you a minute. I’m hitting the road tonight. [80] I’m hitting the road to-night. – ( разг. ) Я сбегу сегодня ночью. Want to come along?”

Tim’s small, blue Irish eyes flashed with interest.

“Where to?” he queried.

“Don’t know. Want to come? If you do, we can talk it over after we start? You know the ropes. [81] You know the ropes. – ( разг. ) Ты знаешь все лучше меня. What d’ye say?”

“The old man’ll beat the stuffin’ outa me,” Tim demurred.

“He’s done that before, an’ you don’t seem to be much missing,” Young Dick callously rejoined. “Say the word, an’ we’ll meet at the Ferry Building at nine to-night. What d’ye say? I’ll be there.”