The Painted Veil / Узорный покров. Уильям Сомерсет МоэмЧитать онлайн книгу.

---

Скачать книгу

---

met. It was a curio dealer’s[4]; and the Chinese who were sitting about stared at her unpleasantly. The old man took her to the back of the shop and then up a dark flight of stairs. The room into which he led her was dirty and the large wooden bed against the wall made her shudder.

      “This is disgusting, isn’t it?” she said to Charlie the first time she met him there.

      “It was till you came in,” he answered.

      Of course the moment he took her in his arms she forgot everything.

      Oh, how hateful it was that she wasn’t free, that they both weren’t free! She didn’t like his wife, Dorothy Townsend. She was thirty-eight at least. But Charlie never spoke of her. Of course he didn’t care for her; she bored him to death. But he was a gentleman. Kitty smiled with affectionate irony: it was just like him, silly old thing; he might be unfaithful to her, but he would never allow a bad word of her to cross his lips. She was a tallish woman, taller than Kitty, neither stout nor thin, with light brown hair; her features were good enough but not remarkable, and her blue eyes were cold. And she dressed like – well, like what she was, the wife of the Assistant Colonial Secretary at Hong Kong. Kitty smiled and gave her shoulders a faint shrug.

      Of course no one could deny that Dorothy Townsend had a pleasant voice. She was a wonderful mother, Charlie always said that of her, and she was what Kitty’s mother called a gentlewoman. But Kitty did not like her. The fact was, Kitty supposed, that she cared for nothing but her children: there were two boys at school in England, and another boy of six whom she was going to take home next year. Her face was a mask. She smiled and in her pleasant, well-mannered way said the things that were expected of her; but she held you at a distance. She had a few intimate friends in the Colony and they greatly admired her. Her father had been a Colonial Governor and of course it was very grand while it lasted – every one stood up when you entered a room and men took off their hats to you as you passed in your car – but what could be more insignificant than a Colonial Governor when he had retired? Dorothy Townsend’s father lived on a pension in a small house at Earl’s Court. Kitty’s mother would think it a dreadful bore if she asked her to call. Kitty’s father, Bernard Garstin, was а К. C.[5] and it was more prestigious. Anyhow they lived in South Kensington.

      IV

      Kitty, coming to Hong Kong on her marriage, had found that her social position was determined by her husband’s occupation. Of course every one had been very kind and for two or three months they had gone out to parties almost every night; but she had understood quickly that as the wife of the Government bacteriologist she was of no particular importance. It made her angry.

      “It’s too absurd,” she told her husband. “Why, there’s hardly any one here that could be invited by Mother to dine at our house.”

      “You mustn’t let it worry you,” he answered. “It doesn’t really matter, you know.”

      “Of course it doesn’t matter; it only shows how stupid they are.”

      “From a social point of view the man of science does not exist,” he smiled.

      She knew that now, but she had not known it when she married him.

      Perhaps he felt the reproach behind her words, for he took her hand and shyly pressed it.

      “I’m awfully sorry, Kitty dear, but don’t let it annoy you.”

      “Oh, I’m not going to let it do that.”

      V

      No, it had not been Walter that afternoon. Probably it had been one of the servants and after all they didn’t matter. Chinese servants knew everything anyway. But they held their tongues.

      She turned away from the verandah and went back into her sitting-room. She threw herself down on the sofa and stretched out her hand to get a cigarette. Suddenly she saw a note lying on the top of a book. She opened it. It was written in pencil.

      Dear Kitty,

      Here is the book you wanted. I was just going to send it when I met Dr. Fane and he said he’d bring it himself as he was passing the house.

V.H.

      She rang the bell and when the boy came asked him who had brought the book and when.

      “Master brought it after lunch,” he answered.

      Then it had been Walter. She rang up the Colonial Secretary’s office at once and asked for Charlie. She told him what she had just learned. There was a pause before he answered.

      “What shall I do?” she asked.

      “I’m in the middle of an important consultation. I’m afraid I can’t talk to you now. My advice to you is to sit tight[6].”

      She put down the receiver. She understood that he was not alone.

      She sat down again, at a desk, and decided to think over the situation. Of course Walter probably thought she was sleeping: there was no reason why she should not lock herself in. She tried to remember if they had been talking. Certainly they had not been talking loud. And there was the hat. But it was no use blaming Charlie for that, it was natural enough, and there was nothing to tell that Walter had noticed it. He was probably in a hurry and had just left the book and note on his way to some appointment. The strange thing was that he had tried the door and then the two windows. If he thought she was asleep it was unlike him to disturb her. What a fool she had been!

      Charlie had said that he would stand by her, and if the worse came to the worse, well… Let Walter kick up a row[7] if he chose. She had Charlie; what did she care? Perhaps it would be the best thing for Walter to know. She had never cared for Walter and she had loved Charlie Townsend. After all, she might tell her husband the truth.

      VI

      Within three months of her marriage she knew that she had made a mistake; but it had been her mother’s fault even more than hers.

      There was a photograph of her mother, Mrs. Garstin, in the room and Kitty’s eyes fell on it. She did not know why she kept it there, for she was not very fond of her mother; there was one of her father too, but that was downstairs on the grand piano. He was a little man, with tired eyes, a long upper lip, and a thin mouth; a witty photographer had told him to look pleasant, but he had succeeded only in looking severe. Mother’s photograph showed her in the dress in which she had gone to Court when her husband was made a King’s Counsel. She was very impressive in the velvet gown, with feathers in her hair and flowers in her hand. She held herself straight. She was a woman of fifty, thin, with flat chest, prominent cheek-bones and a large, well-shaped nose. She had a great quantity of very smooth black hair, and Kitty had always suspected that it was dyed. Her fine black eyes were never still and this was the most noticeable thing about her. They moved from one part of you to another, to other persons in the room, and then back to you; you felt that she was criticizing you, watchful meanwhile of all that went on around her, and that the words she spoke had no connection with her thoughts.

      VII

      Mrs. Garstin was a hard, cruel, managing, ambitious, parsimonious, and stupid woman. She was the daughter, one of five, of a solicitor in Liverpool, and Bernard Garstin had met her when he was on the circuit[8]. He had seemed then a young promising man and her father said he would go far. He hadn’t. He was scrupulous, industrious, and capable, but he had not the will to advance himself. Mrs. Garstin despised him. But she recognized, though with bitterness, that she could only achieve success through him. She nagged him without mercy. She discovered that if she wanted him to do something which his sensitiveness revolted against she had only to give him no peace and eventually, exhausted, he would give up. She cultivated the people who might be useful. She flattered the solicitors who would send her husband briefs[9] and was familiar with their wives. She made much of promising politicians.

      In

---

Скачать книгу