“Thirty-eight—seven,” commenced to blunder the terrified Mrs. Korner.
“Know your nine tables or don't you?” thundered Mr. Korner.
“I used to,” sobbed Mrs. Korner.
“Say it,” commanded Mr. Korner.
“Nine times one are nine,” sobbed the poor little woman, “nine times two—”
“Goron,” said Mr. Korner sternly.
She went on steadily, in a low monotone, broken by stifled sobs. The dreary rhythm of the repetition may possibly have assisted. As she mentioned fearfully that nine times eleven were ninety-nine, Miss Greene pointed stealthily toward the table. Mrs. Korner, glancing up fearfully, saw that the eyes of her lord and master were closed; heard the rising snore that issued from his head, resting between the empty beer-jug and the cruet stand.
“He will be all right,” counselled Miss Greene. “You go to bed and lock yourself in. Harriet and I will see to his breakfast in the morning. It will be just as well for you to be out of the way.”
And Mrs. Korner, only too thankful for some one to tell her what to do, obeyed in all things.
Toward seven o'clock the sunlight streaming into the room caused Mr. Korner first to blink, then yawn, then open half an eye.
“Greet the day with a smile,” murmured Mr. Korner, sleepily, “and it will—”
Mr. Korner sat up suddenly and looked about him. This was not bed. The fragments of a jug and glass lay scattered round his feet. To the tablecloth an overturned cruet-stand mingled with egg gave colour. A tingling sensation about his head called for investigation. Mr. Korner was forced to the conclusion that somebody had been trying to make a salad of him—somebody with an exceptionally heavy hand for mustard. A sound directed Mr. Korner's attention to the door.
The face of Miss Greene, portentously grave, was peeping through the jar.
Mr. Korner rose. Miss Greene entered stealthily, and, closing the door, stood with her back against it.
“I suppose you know what—what you've done?” suggested Miss Greene.
She spoke in a sepulchral tone; it chilled poor Mr. Korner to the bone.
“It is beginning to come back to me, but not—not very clearly,” admitted Mr. Korner.
“You came home drunk—very drunk,” Miss Greene informed him, “at two o'clock in the morning. The noise you made must have awakened half the street.”
A groan escaped from his parched lips.
“You insisted upon Aimee cooking you a hot supper.”
“I insisted!” Mr. Korner glanced down upon the table. “And—and she did it!”
“You were very violent,” explained Miss Greene; “we were terrified at you, all three of us.” Regarding the pathetic object in front of her, Miss Greene found it difficult to recollect that a few hours before she really had been frightened of it. Sense of duty alone restrained her present inclination to laugh.
“While you sat there, eating your supper,” continued Miss Greene remorselessly, “you made her bring you her books.”
Mr. Korner had passed the stage when anything could astonish him.
“You lectured her about her housekeeping.” There was a twinkle in the eye of Mrs. Korner's bosom friend. But lightning could have flashed before Mr. Korner's eyes without his noticing it just then.
“You told her that she could not add, and you made her say her tables.”
“I made her—” Mr. Korner spoke in the emotionless tones of one merely desiring information. “I made Aimee say her tables?”
“Her nine times,” nodded Miss Greene.
Mr. Korner sat down upon his chair and stared with stony eyes into the future.
“What's to be done?” said Mr. Korner, “she'll never forgive me; I know her. You are not chaffing me?” he cried with a momentary gleam of hope. “I really did it?”
“You sat in that very chair where you are sitting now and ate poached eggs, while she stood opposite to you and said her nine times table. At the end of it, seeing you had gone to sleep yourself, I persuaded her to go to bed. It was three o'clock, and we thought you would not mind.” Miss Greene drew up a chair, and, with her elbows on the table, looked across at Mr. Korner. Decidedly there was a twinkle in the eyes of Mrs. Korner's bosom friend.
“You'll never do it again,” suggested Miss Greene.
“Do you think it possible,” cried Mr. Korner, “that she may forgive me?”
“No, I don't,” replied Miss Greene. At which Mr. Korner's face fell back to zero. “I think the best way out will be for you to forgive her.”
The idea did not even amuse him. Miss Greene glanced round to satisfy herself that the door was still closed, and listened a moment to assure herself of the silence.
“Don't you remember,” Miss Greene took the extra precaution to whisper it, “the talk we had at breakfast-time the first morning of my visit, when Aimee said you would be all the better for 'going it' occasionally?”
Yes, slowly it came back to Mr. Korner. But she only said “going it,” Mr. Korner recollected to his dismay.
“Well, you've been 'going it,'” persisted Miss Greene. “Besides, she did not mean 'going it.' She meant the real thing, only she did not like to say the word. We talked about it after you had gone. She said she would give anything to see you more like the ordinary man. And that is her idea of the ordinary man.”
Mr. Korner's sluggishness of comprehension irritated Miss Greene. She leaned across the table and shook him. “Don't you understand? You have done it on purpose to teach her a lesson. It is she who has got to ask you to forgive her.”
“You think—?”
“I think, if you manage it properly, it will be the best day's work you have ever done. Get out of the house before she wakes. I shall say nothing to her. Indeed, I shall not have the time; I must catch the ten o'clock from Paddington. When you come home this evening, you talk first; that's what you've got to do.” And Mr. Korner, in his excitement, kissed the bosom friend before he knew what he had done.
Mrs. Korner sat waiting for her husband that evening in the drawing-room. She was dressed as for a journey, and about the corners of her mouth were lines familiar to Christopher, the sight of which sent his heart into his boots. Fortunately, he recovered himself in time to greet her with a smile. It was not the smile he had been rehearsing half the day, but that it was a smile of any sort astonished the words away from Mrs. Korner's lips, and gave him the inestimable advantage of first speech.
“Well,” said Mr. Korner cheerily, “and how did you like it?”
For the moment Mrs. Korner feared her husband's new complaint had already reached the chronic stage, but his still smiling face reassured her—to that extent at all events.
“When would you like me to 'go it' again? Oh, come,” continued Mr. Korner in response to his wife's bewilderment, “you surely have not forgotten the talk we had at breakfast-time—the first morning of Mildred's visit. You hinted how much more attractive I should be for occasionally 'letting myself go!'”
Mr. Korner, watching intently, perceived that upon Mrs. Korner recollection was slowly forcing itself.
“I was unable to oblige you before,” explained Mr. Korner, “having to keep my head clear for business, and not knowing what the effect upon one might be. Yesterday I did my best, and I hope you are pleased with me. Though, if you could see your way to being content—just for the present and until I get more used to it—with a similar performance not oftener than once a fortnight, say, I should be grateful,” added Mr. Korner.
“You mean—” said Mrs. Korner, rising.
“I mean, my dear,” said Mr. Korner, “that almost from the day of our marriage you have made it clear that you regard me as a milksop. You have got your notion of men from silly books and sillier plays, and your trouble is that I am not like them. Well, I've shown you that, if you insist upon it, I can be like them.”
“But you weren't,” argued Mrs. Korner, “not a bit like them.”
“I did my best,” repeated Mr. Kor
ner; “we are not all made alike. That was my drunk.”
“I didn't say 'drunk.'”
“But you meant it,” interrupted Mr. Korner. “We were talking about drunken men. The man in the play was drunk. You thought him amusing.”
“He was amusing,” persisted Mrs. Korner, now in tears. “I meant that sort of drunk.”
“His wife,” Mr. Korner reminded her, “didn't find him amusing. In the third act she was threatening to return home to her mother, which, if I may judge from finding you here with all your clothes on, is also the idea that has occurred to you.”
“But you—you were so awful,” whimpered Mrs. Korner.
“What did I do?” questioned Mr. Korner.
“You came hammering at the door—”
“Yes, yes, I remember that. I wanted my supper, and you poached me a couple of eggs. What happened after that?”
The recollection of that crowning indignity lent to her voice the true note of tragedy.
“You made me say my tables—my nine times!”
Mr. Korner looked at Mrs. Korner, and Mrs. Korner looked at Mr. Korner, and for a while there was silence.
“Were you—were you really a little bit on,” faltered Mrs. Korner, “or only pretending?”
“Really,” confessed Mr. Korner. “For the first time in my life. If you are content, for the last time also.”
“I am sorry,” said Mrs. Korner, “I have been very silly. Please forgive me.”
FB2 document info
Document ID: 4982493c-fce6-4c21-b7e6-185fb5a335be
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Document creation date: 14 December 2011
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OCR Source: Produced by Ron Burkey, Amy Thomte, and David Widger. Project Gutenberg
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Quae
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1.0 — создание файла (Quae, 14.12.2011)
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