Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 7. Karel Čapek
Читать онлайн книгу.
boy! you look hard-worked and suffering,” laughs the duke, as he eyes the bright, healthy, handsome face of the youthful complainant; “but seriously, Bernie, can I trust you to overlook everything for me?”
“Of course you can, Evie,” replies Bernard, with a look of importance. “I promise you I will see to everything tiptop. I suppose if you’re away I shall have to take in the Princess to supper, sha’n’t I. Do you think Her Royal Highness will put up with a jackanapes like me?”
“I think so, Bernie. Anyhow, you must do your best. Go and make my excuses to the Prince. A sudden business calls me away; I will be back as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, my boy, do your best to take my place. I am sure I can trust you.”
He lays his hand gently on the boy’s shoulder as he turns to go. Bernie Fontenoy idolises his brother, but he feels at this moment as if there is nothing in the wide world he would not do for him, if it were in his power.
Evie Ravensdale passes quickly down the beautiful grand staircase towards the front door. Pompous servants are hurrying to and fro. A big portly butler with a magnificent white waistcoat and ponderously heavy gold chain, is giving his orders in a voice the importance of which can only be measured by the value he puts upon himself. As he sees the duke descending, however, he moderates his tone, and is all obsequiousness in a moment.
“Repton, give me my cloak and hat, please,” commands the duke in a quiet, civil voice, and the magnificent functionary hastens to obey. He is wondering all the time, however, what it can be that takes his Grace out at such a time.
“A hansom, Repton, please.”
Repton turns to a crimson-plushed, knee-breeched, white-silk-stockinged subordinate.
“Call a hansom, John,” he says loftily. It would be quite impossible for himself, the great Mr. Repton, to perform such a menial office; no one could expect it of him. The whistle rings through Whitehall. Rumbling wheels answer the summons. In a few minutes a hansom dashes up. The great Mr. Repton holds open the front door; Evie Ravensdale passes out. One of the crimson-plushed, knee-breeched menials unfolds the cab doors, and stands with his hands over the wheels while his master springs in; then he closes them to.
“Where to, your Grace?” he inquires respectfully.
And Evie Ravensdale, looking up at his brilliantly lighted luxurious mansion above him, answers somewhat absently, “Whitechapel.”
The fit is on him to see and contrast the misery of some of London’s quarters with the wealth and the luxury which he has just quitted. Hector D’Estrange’s telegram has brought it to his mind. He remembers his last conversation with that dearly beloved friend, and how it had turned on that very point. The splendour of his own mansion, the brilliancy that he saw around him a few minutes since is about to be changed for cold, dark, ill-lighted streets, narrow alleys, and filthy courts. He wants to see it all for himself
The hansom rattles through the streets It goes at a good pace, but it seems a long time getting to its destination. At length it pulls up.
“What part of Whitechapel, sir?” inquires the cabman, looking through the aperture in the roof of his vehicle.
“You may put me down here, cabby,” answers the young duke, handing him half-a-sovereign; “and if you like to wait for me, I may be about an hour gone. I’ll pay you well, if you will.”
“You’re a genelman, I can sees that pretty plainly,” answers the cabman glibly, as he touches his hat, and pockets the half-sovereign. “I’ll wait, sir; no fear.”
Evelyn Ravensdale wanders through the gloomy, ill-lighted streets. Midnight has chimed out from Big Ben; it is getting on towards one o’clock, and he does not meet many people. A policeman or two saunter along their beats, and turn their lights upon him as he passes. Sometimes a man and woman flit past him, or a solitary man by himself. He passes a dark, gloomy-looking archway into which the light from a flickering gas-lamp just penetrates. He can see a boy and girl with white, pinched faces asleep in an old barrel in one corner, a shivering, skinny dog curled up at their feet. The sight is terrible to him. He steps into the archway, and touches the boy on the shoulder. With a frightened cry the lad starts up and eyes him beseechingly.
“Ah, bobby! Don’t turn us out to-night,” he says pleadingly. “Maggie’s so poorly and sick, she can hardly stand up. See, she’s asleep now. Don’t wake her, please, bobby, don’t.”
He starts suddenly, and pulls his forelock as he perceives that it is not a policeman he is talking to. “Beg pardon, sir,” he says, “thought it was a bobby.”
“Have you no better place than this to sleep in, my poor lad?” inquires the duke pityingly, his hand still on the boy’s shoulder.
“Ah, sir! this is a gran’ place. We don’t allays gets the likes o’ this. Poor Maggie, she was so pleased when we found this ’ere barrel. See, sir, how she do sleep.”
“Is Maggie your sister?” asks the young duke, with a half-sob.
“No, sir, she’s my gal. Maggie and me, we’ves been together a long time now, we has.”
“And what do you do for a living”, boy? “continues Evelyn Ravensdale gently.
“Anything, sir, we can get to do. It’s not allays we can get a job, and then we have to go hungry like.”
“My God!” bursts from the young man’s lips, but he says no more. The next moment he has pressed a couple of sovereigns into the poor lad’s hand, and is gone.
He wanders on through the same street. He takes no note of the name of it. His thoughts are far too busy for that. He is approaching another street, less lonely and better lighted than the one he is in. There are more people about, and he sees several women loitering up and down near the corner. Instinctively he crosses the street so as to avoid them. Two of them are making off after two men that have just passed by, the third is left alone. She spies the young duke at once, and runs across the street to cut him off. He sees he cannot avoid her, and pulls himself together. In another moment she is by his side, with one hand on his arm.
“Won’t you come home with me, dear?” she says softly. “Won’t you”
“Peace, woman!” he almost shouts, as he flings off her hand from his arm. She starts back with a low cry, and he sees a face, young still, with traces of great beauty, but careworn and haggard with suffering. His heart is filled with a great pity; he feels that such sights as these are unendurable to him. He feels that he cannot face them.
“Poor thing, poor thing,” he says gently; “forgive me if I was rough to you. This is no place for you, my child. You look a mere child; are you not one?”
“I am eighteen,” she stammers.
“Eighteen, and so fallen!” he exclaims in a horrified tone. “Ah, child! get away out of this.”
“And starve?” she ejaculates bitterly. “Easy for you to talk; you are not starving.”
“Starving!” He utters that word with a peculiar intonation. It tells her what pity there is in his heart for her.
“Oh, sir!” she exclaims, “I would not be here if I were not driven to it. I don’t want to be here. I hate it; I hate it! It is my hard, hard fate, that I am here.”
“Have you no father, no mother to care for you?” he asks sadly.
“No, sir, not to care for me,” she answers, with a sob. “Father’s in gaol. Mother walks the streets like me, to make her bread. She told me I’d better do so too, unless I wanted to starve. That’s how it is, sir.”
He covers his face with one hand, and groans aloud. His thoughts have rushed back to the luxury he has but lately quitted; he compares it with the misery he has just witnessed. Once more his hand is in his pocket.
“If I give you this, my child,” he says, drawing out a five-pound