Array Коллектив авторов - 30 лучших рассказов британских писателей / 30 Best British Short Stories

‘We’re all right when we’re sure ,’ said Paul. ‘It’s when we’re not quite sure that we go down.’

‘Oh, but we’re careful then,’ said Bassett.

‘But when are you sure ?’ smiled Uncle Oscar.

‘It’s Master Paul, sir,’ said Bassett, in a secret, religious voice. ‘It’s as if he had it from heaven. Like Daffodil now, for the Lincoln. That was as sure as eggs.’

‘Did you put anything on Daffodil?’ asked Oscar Cresswell.

‘Yes, sir. I made my bit.’

‘And my nephew?’

Bassett was obstinately silent, looking at Paul.

‘I made twelve hundred, didn’t I, Bassett? I told uncle I was putting three hundred on Daffodil.’

‘That’s right,’ said Bassett, nodding.

‘But where’s the money?’ asked the uncle.

‘I keep it safe locked up, sir. Master Paul, he can have it any minute he likes to ask for it.’

‘What, fifteen hundred pounds?’

‘And twenty! And forty, that is, with the twenty he made on the course.’

‘It’s amazing!’ said the uncle.

‘If Master Paul offers you to be partners, sir, I would, if I were you: if you’ll excuse me,’ said Bassett.

Oscar Cresswell thought about it.

‘I’ll see the money,’ he said.

They drove home again, and sure enough, Bassett came round to the garden-house with fifteen hundred pounds in notes. The twenty pounds reserve was left with Joe Glee, in the Turf Commission deposit.

‘You see, it’s all right, uncle, when I’m sure ! Then we go strong, for all we’re worth. Don’t we, Bassett?’

‘We do that, Master Paul.’

‘And when are you sure?’ said the uncle, laughing.

‘Oh, well, sometimes I’m absolutely sure, like about Daffodil,’ said the boy; ‘and sometimes I have an idea; and sometimes I haven’t even an idea, have I, Bassett? Then we’re careful, because we mostly go down.’

‘You do, do you! And when you’re sure, like about Daffodil, what makes you sure, sonny?’

‘Oh, well, I don’t know,’ said the boy uneasily. ‘I’m sure, you know, uncle; that’s all.’

‘It’s as if he had it from heaven, sir,’ Bassett reiterated.

‘I should say so!’ said the uncle.

But he became a partner. And when the Legerwas coming on, Paul was “sure” about Lively Spark, which was a quite inconsiderable horse. The boy insisted on putting a thousand on the horse, Bassett went for five hundred, and Oscar Cresswell two hundred. Lively Spark came in first, and the betting had been ten to one against him. Paul had made ten thousand.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘I was absolutely sure of him.’

Even Oscar Cresswell had cleared two thousand.

‘Look here, son,’ he said, ‘this sort of thing makes me nervous.’

‘It needn’t, uncle! Perhaps I shan’t be sure again for a long time.’

‘But what are you going to do with your money?’ asked the uncle.

‘Of course,’ said the boy, ‘I started it for mother. She said she had no luck, because father is unlucky, so I thought if I was lucky, it might stop whispering.’

‘What might stop whispering?’

‘Our house! I hate our house for whispering.’

‘What does it whisper?’

‘Why – why’ – the boy fidgeted – ‘why, I don’t know! But it’s always short of money, you know, uncle.’

‘I know it, son, I know it.’

‘You know people send mother writs, don’t you, uncle?’

‘I’m afraid I do,’ said the uncle.

‘And then the house whispers like people laughing at you behind your back. It’s awful, that is! I thought if I was lucky–’

‘You might stop it,’ added the uncle.

The boy watched him with big blue eyes, that had an uncanny cold fire in them, and he said never a word.

‘Well then!’ said the uncle. ‘What are we doing?’

‘I shouldn’t like mother to know I was lucky,’ said the boy.

‘Why not, son?’

‘She’d stop me.’

‘I don’t think she would.’

‘Oh!’ – and the boy writhed in an odd way – ‘I don’t want her to know, uncle.’

‘All right, son! We’ll manage it without her knowing.’

They managed it very easily. Paul, at the other’s suggestion, handed over five thousand pounds to his uncle, who deposited it with the family lawyer, who was then to inform Paul’s mother that a relative had put five thousand pounds into his hands, which sum was to be paid out a thousand pounds at a time, on the mother’s birthday, for the next five years.

‘So she’ll have a birthday present of a thousand pounds for five successive years,’ said Uncle Oscar. ‘I hope it won’t make it all the harder for her later.’

Paul’s mother had her birthday in November. The house had been ‘whispering’ worse than ever lately, and even in spite of his luck, Paul could not bear up against it. He was very anxious to see the effect of the birthday letter, telling his mother about the thousand pounds.

When there were no visitors, Paul now took his meals with his parents, as he was beyond the nursery control. His mother went into town nearly every day. She had discovered that she had an odd knack of sketching furs and dress materials, so she worked secretly in the studio of a friend who was the chief ‘artist’ for the leading drapers. She drew the figures of ladies in furs and ladies in silk and sequins for the newspaper advertisements. This young woman artist earned several thousand pounds a year, but Paul’s mother only made several hundreds, and she was again dissatisfied. She so wanted to be first in something, and she did not succeed, even in making sketches for drapery advertisements.

She was down to breakfast on the morning of her birthday. Paul watched her face as she read her letters. He knew the lawyer’s letter. As his mother read it, her face hardened and became more expressionless. Then a cold, determined look came on her mouth. She hid the letter under the pile of others, and said not a word about it.

‘Didn’t you have anything nice in the post for your birthday, mother?’ said Paul.

‘Quite moderately nice,’ she said, her voice cold and absent.

She went away to town without saying more.

But in the afternoon Uncle Oscar appeared. He said Paul’s mother had had a long interview with the lawyer, asking if the whole five thousand could not be advanced at once, as she was in debt.

‘What do you think, uncle?’ said the boy.

‘I leave it to you, son.’

‘Oh, let her have it, then! We can get some more with the other,’ said the boy.

‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, laddie!’ said Uncle Oscar.

‘But I’m sure to know for the Grand National; or the Lincolnshire; or else the Derby. I’m sure to know for one of them,’ said Paul.

So Uncle Oscar signed the agreement, and Paul’s mother touched the whole five thousand. Then something very curious happened. The voices in the house suddenly went mad, like a chorus of frogs on a spring evening. There were certain new furnishings, and Paul had a tutor. He was really going to Eton, his father’s school, in the following autumn. There were flowers in the winter, and a blossoming of the luxury Paul’s mother had been used to. And yet the voices in the house, behind the sprays of mimosa and almond-blossom, and from under the piles of iridescent cushions, simply trilled and screamed in a sort of ecstasy: ‘There must be more money! Oh-h-h! There must be more money! Oh, now, now-w! now-w-w – there must be more money! – more than ever! More than ever!’

It frightened Paul terribly. He studied away at his Latin and Greek with his tutors. But his intense hours were spent with Bassett. The Grand National had gone by: he had not ‘known,’ and had lost a hundred pounds. Summer was at hand. He was in agony for the Lincoln. But even for the Lincoln he didn’t ‘know,’ and he lost fifty pounds. He became wild-eyed and strange, as if something were going to explode in him.