"Brenchley, Chaz - The Keys To D'esperance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Benchley Chaz)

- I believe that this will reach you at the proper time; I hope you may
learn to view it as good news.

In plain, you are now the master of D'Espщrance, at least in so far as such
a house may ever be mastered by one man. The deeds, I regret, you may not
view; they are kept otherwhere, and I have never had sight of them. The
keys, however, are enclosed. You may be sure that none will challenge your
title, for so long as you choose to exercise it.

I look forward to making your acquaintance, as and when you see fit to call
upon me.

Yours, etc.

-------------------

His first impulse was to laugh, to toss the letter down, his resolution
quite unchallenged, quite unchanged. Just another house, and what did he
want with it? He had one already, and meant to leave it tonight and
forever.

But he was a boy, he was curious; and while he would welcome death, while
he meant to welcome it, come, sweet Death, embrace me, he was very afraid
of water.

His hands came back to the keys and played upon them, a silent music, a
song of summoning. Death could surely wait a day, two days. So could the
river. It was going nowhere; he'd be back.

-------------------

And so the train, trains, taking him slow and dirty into the north country.
Soon he could be anonymous, no name to him, just a lad too young to have
been in the war, though he was old enough now. That was odd, to have people
look at him and not know him. To have them sit just across the compartment
and not shift their feet away from his, not lour or sniff or turn a cold,
contemptuous, ostentatious shoulder.

One woman even tried to mother him, poor fool: not knowing what a mother
meant to him, bare feet knocking at his eyeballs, knocking and knocking,
knock knock. He was cold himself then, he was savage, gave her more reason
than most had to disdain him, though still she wouldn't do it.

And at last there were sullen moors turned purple with the season, there
was a quiet station with a single taxi waiting and the locals hanging back,
no, lad, you take it, it's only a ten-minute walk into the town for us and
we know it well, it's no hardship.

He wouldn't do that, though. Their kindness was inappropriate, born of
ignorance that he refused to exploit; and he had no need of it in any case.