The Brass Bed
- Автор: Флора Флетчер
- Год: 1956
- Язык: английский
- Год: Lion Books
- Жанр: Романы для взрослых
Электронная книга - «The Brass Bed». Краткое содержание книги:
...and the root of it all lay hidden in the secret of THE BRASS BED.
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
It was the old thing that kids say when they’re trying to convince someone that they’ll keep their word about something. At least they used to say it, and I guess they still do, and I’ve said it myself a thousand times. Once I said it and later broke my word and was in a sweat for days about it, and saying it now brought it all back to mind, the kid stuff, and made her sound somehow small and sad and terribly appealing. After bringing in my line, I turned and looked at her, and she was wearing white shorts and a blue-and-white-striped jersey and a pair of blue sandals with flat heels, and the shorts and the jersey were quite snug.
We stood and looked at each other, and my resolution was all shot to hell, and pretty soon she said, “I promised, and I will keep my promise. Are you going to tell me to go?”
“No.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t.”
“I think you were damn sure I wouldn’t.”
“No. That isn’t true. You sounded very determined.”
“Why in God’s name did you come out here?”
“Well, Kirby and I were out on the back terrace at home and were quite bored, which is a terrible thing to be so early in the day, and pretty soon Fran and Sid came along and stopped, and we all got to talking about what we might do that would be interesting for a change, and I just happened to remember about Harvey and you being out here fishing, and I mentioned it, and immediately everyone thought it would be a good thing to drive out and see how you were getting along.”
“We were getting along very well.”
“And now it’s ruined. Is that what you mean?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m truly sorry. I never wanted to ruin anything for you. All I want is to make you happy. Is there anything at all I can do to make you happy?”
“Sure. Let’s go up and join Kirby and be happy all together. We’ll make a nice cozy little triangle, and it will be just like in a God-damn fairy tale or something. We’ll all live happily in a triangle ever after.”
“You’re bitter, and I wish you wouldn’t be. It makes me miserable when you’re bitter.”
“I know it’s unreasonable of me.”
“Kirby has changed. I think his conscience must be bothering him, and he’s decided that he ought to be pals with me. You know what I mean. That we ought to do things together and all like that. He’s being very congenial.”
“That’s fortunate, isn’t it? Now you need have practically no fear at all of being hit in the eye.”
She didn’t even wince. “That’s true. Kirby’s quite sorry about hitting me. Quite penitent really. It’s absolutely touching to see how penitent he is.”
“I’ll bet. Anyhow, now that you and Kirby are being pals, it will no longer be necessary for you to wish he would die.”
“What do you mean?”
“You and Kirby being reconciled and all. Fine pals and everything.”
“Well, I don’t see what that has to do with it.”
“You still consider him an impediment?”
“Certainly. It is obvious that he is a handicap to you and me.”
“That’s true, but don’t you think it’s a sort of dirty way to feel about a guy when he’s working so hard at being congenial?”
“I don’t understand why you keep going over that, as if it would be any different one time from another.” She scowled at me.
“Honestly? You honestly can’t see that it would be any different?”
“No, I can’t. I absolutely can’t. I must say, Felix, that you have the strangest way of looking at things. You seem to see everything distorted or something.”
I started to laugh and couldn’t stop. She stood and looked at me with a tiny crease of puzzlement between her eyes and a small smile on her lips, and it crossed my mind that starting to laugh and not being able to stop, especially when you didn’t feel like laughing at all, was a bad sign of something happening to you. I wasn’t sure just what it was, but it was apparently psychological and had something to do with Jolly and goliards and nothing ever getting anywhere, and after a while I managed to stop the laughter with an effort that was painful and left a kind of constricted feeling in my throat.
“What’s funny?” Jolly said.
“Nothing. There is nothing funny at all.”
“Then why were you laughing?”
“Merely to exercise my laughing muscles. I laugh so seldom any more that I find it necessary to exercise the muscles periodically.”
“It sounded to me like maybe you were hysterical,” Jolly said.
“Really? The idea is fantastic.”
“Well, I’m glad you weren’t, because I don’t believe I could stand a hysterical man. Not even you. There is something so sickly about it.”
“There is indeed. Sickly is the word, and I don’t blame you at all for your attitude.”
Up on the bank by the cabin, Fran squealed happily about something that had been said or done, and Harvey invited everyone in a loud voice to stay for a lunch of good fried bullheads and in the meanwhile to have a beer.
“If you were to kiss me,” Jolly said, “I wonder if anyone would see us.”
“That would depend on whether anyone walked over to the edge of the bank and looked down at us,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “I don’t consider it likely that anyone will do that in the immediate future, do you?”
“I don’t know. It seems to me to be something that might or might not be done, depending upon circumstances.”
“I consider it unlikely myself, and in any event I am perfectly willing to take the chance.”
I had turned down an invitation yesterday, and it was entirely too much to expect that I should be so resolute two days in a row, so I took a step across the bar and put my arms around her and kissed her for a long time without stopping, and we were in close and extensive contact that would have left no question of our enthusiasm in the mind of an observer. I know this is true because it didn’t, the observer being Fran, and I will say for her that she was at least considerate enough not to interrupt, but stood watching us politely until we had finished and stopped of our own accord, and as a matter of fact we didn’t even know that she had come over to the edge of the bluff and seen us until a minute or two later.
“That was very pleasant,” Jolly said. “I admit that I enjoyed it a great deal.”
“I’m glad I was able to give satisfaction.”
“You did, Felix. You really did. It was a very satisfying kiss.”
“Would you care for another?”
“Yes, I would. I was just about to ask you.”
I kissed her again, and Fran remained polite and silent for the duration of this one also, but then she decided that she had made sufficient concession to courtesy, short of going away and not looking, so she cleared her throat, and we stepped apart and looked up at her.
“Hey, you guys,” she called, “we’re all about to have a beer. You better come up.”
“All right,” I said. “We’ll be right up.”
Fran turned and disappeared and we could hear her telling the others that we were coming and that Harvey might as well plug two more cans.
“I guess we’d better,” I said.
“Go up? Yes, I guess we had.”
“Fran saw us kissing, you know. Does it matter?”
“Oh, no, not at all. Fran knows all about how it is between us. She’s very loyal, and I tell her positively everything.”
“Everything? Even things like what happened that one night in the spring?”
“Do you mind?”
“Strangely enough, I believe I do,” I said.
“I consider that rather odd, Felix. I had no idea you were so reticent about things. If anything like that happens again, I promise not to tell her about it.”