"Mercedes Lackey - EM 3 - The Serpents Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

"I suppose we won't see much of you anymore," Amelia said wistfully,
as Maya dismounted from the hansom.
"Nonsense! You'll see me on Thursday at the latest, or have you
forgotten our luncheon date?" Maya replied instantly. "Not to mention
that you are welcome here at any hour of the day or night. Now, you
go back to your studies, while I see what Gupta has found for me."
She circled around to the driver, perched up above the passenger
compartment in the weather, and handed him a guinea-more than enough
for her fare and Amelia's with a generous tip. "London School of
Medicine for Women, please," she told him briskly. "My companion has
a class at two."
"I'll 'ave 'er there well afore, ma'am," the cabby said, impressed by
the guinea, if by nothing else. He chirruped to his horse, who
trotted off without needing a slap of the reins or a touch of the
whip. Amelia's gray-gloved hand waved farewell from the side of the
cab, and Maya turned to Gupta.
"Was this bravado or anticipation, my friend?" she asked in
Hindustani, touching the plaque.
"Neither, mem sahib," Gupta replied. "We knew, we all knew, you could
not fail." His round, brown face held an expression of such earnest
certainty that she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.
"Well, let us go in out of this miserable weather. Come to me in the
conservatory, and tell me what has happened to make you so sure of
me." She waited while he put a last polish to the plate with a rag he
stuffed back in his pocket, then moved past him into the little house
she had bought to shelter her odd little "family."
It had taken most of her inheritance to buy it and fit it up, and had
it been in better repair, or a better neighborhood, she could not
have managed it. But because it was so shabby and had required the
tearing out of walls, she had been able to install a great many
comforts that better dwellings could not boast. The house was lit by
electric light, which was much safer than gas. Hot water from a coal-
fired boiler in the cellar circulated through the house via pipes and
radiators, a luxury often used to keep conservatories and hothouses
warm in winter on the Great Estates. More hot water was available for
cleaning and bathing at all times, laid on in the bathrooms, without
the need to heat water on the stove and carry it up in cans. At last
she was warm enough so that she was able to throw off her coat as
soon as she entered the front hall.
She had arranged for the hallway to be painted, rather than papered,
in white. Furnished with pegs for coats, a bench for waiting
patients, and a small table holding a brass dish from India for
calling cards, she had hung prints of some of her father's favorite
paintings on the walls. The impression was warmer than that of a
hospital, but not "homelike"-wise, since this was the entrance to her
surgery as well as to her home.
It was scarcely possible that she would have any patients calling
yet, and she longed to shed her woolen suit with the coat and revert
to more comfortable garb.
Not yet. Not yet. But I shall be rid of these confounded shoes! Why