Онлайн чтение книги Лавка древностей The Old Curiosity Shop
21

“Hem!” croaked a strange voice. “What’s that about six pound a year? What about six pound a year?” And as the voice made this inquiry, Daniel Quilp walked in with Richard Swiveller at his heels.

“Who said he would have six pound a year?” said Quilp, looking sharply round. “Did the old man say it, or did little Nell say it? And what’s he to have it for, and where are they, eh?”

The good woman was so much alarmed by the sudden apparition of this unknown ugly dwarf, that she hastily caught the baby from its cradle and retreated into the furthest corner of the room.

“Don’t be frightened, mistress,” said Quilp, after a pause. “Your son knows me; I don’t eat babies; I don’t like them. Now you Kit, why haven’t you come to me as you promised?”

“What should I come for?” retorted Kit. “I hadn’t any business with you, no more than you had with me.”

“Here, mistress,” said Quilp, turning quickly away, and appealing from Kit to his mother. “When did his old master come or send here last? Is he here now? If not, where’s he gone?”

“He has not been here at all,” she replied. “We don’t know where they have gone.”

Quilp glanced at Richard Swiveller, and assumed that he had come in search of some information of the fugitives. He supposed he was right?

“Yes,” said Dick, “that was the object of the present expedition.”

“You seem disappointed,” observed Quilp.

“It baffles description[62]it baffles description – это не поддаётся описанию, sir, that’s all,” returned Dick.

The dwarf looked at Richard with a sarcastic smile, but Richard continued to deplore his fate with mournful and despondent looks.

“I am disappointed myself,” said Quilp, “I have friendly feeling for them; but you have real reasons, private reasons I have no doubt, for your disappointment, and therefore it comes heavier than mine.”

“Why, of course it does,” Dick observed, testily.

“Upon my word, I’m very sorry, very sorry. But as we are companions in adversity[63]companions in adversity – товарищи по несчастью, shall we be companions in the surest way of forgetting it? If you had no particular business, now, to lead you in another direction,” urged Quilp, plucking him by the sleeve and looking slyly up into his face out of the corners of his eyes, “there is a house by the water-side where they have excellent gin. The landlord knows me. There’s a little summer-house[64]summer-house – беседка overlooking the river, where we might take a glass of this delicious liquor, Mr. Swiveller, eh?”

As the dwarf spoke, Dick’s face relaxed into a compliant smile, and his brows slowly unbent. Off they went.

The summer-house of which Mr. Quilp had spoken was a rugged wooden box, rotten and bare to see, which overhung the river’s mud, and threatened to slide down into it. The tavern to which it belonged was a crazy building, undermined by the rats. The rooms were low and damp, the clammy walls were pierced with chinks and holes. To this inviting spot Mr. Quilp led Richard Swiveller.