30 лучших рассказов британских писателей / 30 Best British Short Stories

I was still bewildered when, by setting off the way he had come, he gave me the opportunity of going home.

Knowing from the talk of the club what the lower orders are, could I doubt that this was some discreditable love-affair of William’s? His solicitude for his wife had been mere pretence; so far as it was genuine, it meant that he feared she might recover. He probably told her that he was detained nightly in the club till three.

I was miserable next day, and blamed the deviled kidneys for it. Whether William was unfaithful to his wife was nothing to me, but I had two plain reasons for insisting on his going straight home from his club: the one that, as he had made me lose a bet, I must punish him; the other that he could wait upon me better if he went to bed betimes.

Yet I did not question him. There was something in his face that – Well, I seemed to see his dying wife in it.

I was so out of sorts that I could eat no dinner. I left the club. Happening to stand for some time at the foot of the street, I chanced to see the girl Jenny coming, and – no; let me tell the truth, though the whole club reads: I was waiting for her.

�How is William’s wife to-day?’ I asked.

�She told me to nod three times,’ the little slattern replied; �but she looked like nothing but a dead one till she got the brandy.’

�Hush, child!’ I said, shocked. �You don’t know how the dead look.’

�Bless yer,’ she answered, �don’t I just! Why, I’ve helped to lay ’em out.

�Is William good to his wife?’

�Course he is. Ain’t she his missis?’

�Why should that make him good to her?’ I asked, cynically, out of my knowledge of the poor. But the girl, precocious in many ways, had never had any opportunities of studying the lower classes in the newspapers, fiction, and club talk. She shut one eye, and, looking up wonderingly, said:

�Ain’t you green – just!’

�When does William reach home at night?’

�’Tain’t night; it’s morning.

�Who is Mr. Hicking?’

�Him as we’ve been speaking on – William. We calls him mister, ’cause he’s a toff. Father’s just doing jobs in Covent Gardens, but Mr. Hicking, he’s a waiter, and a clean shirt every day.