Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean (бесплатные онлайн книги читаем полные .TXT) 📗

“I always thought you were a wonderful man, Marcus. I always I knew you weren’t what you said. You were always too distinguished to be an inhabitant of Grape Street!”

Too distinguished to be anything but a thief in fact.” he said.

Tell me,” said Carolan.

“Did you set my father up as a receiver of stolen goods?”

“I did. I must tell you both that he was very reluctant to enter into such a life. It was only starvation that drove him to it… not starvation for himself, but for his wife.”

Kitty began to cry softly. Marcus leaned over and filled her glass.

“Do not cry. Mamma.” said Carolan.

“I cannot bear it. Let us forget the past.”

“I am to blame for bringing it up,” said Marcus.

“I am a fool as well as a rogue!”

“I could not bear it,” said Kitty, ‘that he should be dishonest. He had always seemed to me so … noble. And then to know that he … even though he did it for me, which I do not doubt…”

“He was noble,” said Marcus. There are two kinds of roguery -his and mine. He becomes what the law calls a criminal, for the sake of his family; I, for the sake of___myself! Always remember that. This is a cruel world in which we live. For some it is impossible to live, impossible to eat. Those men have a right to have a family, but what can they do? What can they do? There is stealing and stealing. There are criminals and criminals. A society which is indifferent to so many of its members should not feel outraged if those of its members are indifferent to it. That is my law of life. It is wrong. I am wicked. But that is what I think. So, I cheat, I steal. And when I come to Newgate I see to it that I enjoy as much comfort as it is possible to enjoy; and I see that I entertain my friends.”

Carolan said: “I agree, I think. I am not quite sure, but I think I do.”

Esther spoke then for the first time. She lifted her head, and her blue eyes were brilliantly beautiful in her poor emaciated face.

“It is written “Thou shall not steal.” Therefore, whatever the provocation, it is wrong to steal.”

Marcus looked at her, and the colour rushed into her cheeks, and showed momentarily the beauty which health would have put into her face.

“Ah! You are an idealist, Miss Esther; I am but common clay. I adjust myself to the world in which I live; you dream of a society which could never be… at any rate not in our time.”

“It might be, were we all of the same mind,” said Esther.

“Esther,” said Carolan, ‘is a saint. Not all of us have her way of thinking. No, Esther, Marcus is right in a way. I did not think so until I came here, but here I have learned to think differently. A society which can tolerate this vile place…”

“People know little of it.” protested Esther.

“Did we know before we came?”

“Ignorance is no excuse. And come, can we say we had never heard of Newgate? We had, and we chose not to think of it; it was unpleasant. So we went on living our pleasant lives, and it is because of out indifference and the indifference of thousands like us that it exists. And so… innocent people, such as you and Mamma and Millie and I, can be forced to come here, to starve here, to freeze here, and perhaps to die here. We, the innocent, must suffer because we are poor and friendless, while the real criminal…”

Marcus bowed his head ironically.

“I’ll finish, Carolan. A real criminal can buy the best Newgate has to offer. That’s true! Life is a wicked old strumpet; she’s devishly sly and mercenary; but laugh with her and she’ll laugh with you. Even in Newgate, laugh at her and she likes it!”

“Your words hurt Esther,” said Carolan.

“I am sorry, Esther.” His eyes, Carolan noted, were almost caressing as they rested on the girl.

“But it is necessary always to face facts. Where shall we be if we do not? The answer is obvious… in Newgate most likely without a penny piece to buy a bit of extra bread. Carolan agrees with me. Carolan. I think you and I are of the same mind on lots of subjects. The thought warms me. You and I…”

Carolan broke in impatiently: “We are certainly not of the same mind! Do you think I admired your way of life? You are a thief You are … It is that people should be sent to this vile place before they have been found guilty …” She broke off angrily.

“Oh How I hate that creature, Crew.”

“Do not hate him. Carolan. He was following his trade. He probably relies on what he gets by these activities of his. I doubt whether he enjoyed the whole of the forty pounds he got for betraying an escaped convict; or even what he picked up on account of you and your mother and Millie. And he worked very hard for his reward and his Tyburn ticket.”

“You would make excuses for him!”

“For him and for us all.” said Marcus.

“Absurd!”

“Doubtless.”

“You wish. I think to be contrary. You excuse a man who has brought Mamma… to that!”

Tears filled her eyes; all the blazing indignation had left her; there was only hopelessness in her now.

“Carolan!” he said tenderly.

“Carolan…” The door was pushed open slowly, and a tousled head appeared. It belonged to a black-haired, black-eyed young woman with large gilt earrings swinging in her ears, and a red silk blouse stretched tightly across her full bosom. She raised heavy black brows, and surveyed them.

“Hello. Will.” she said in a drawling voice.

“Is it company then?”

“Rather an unnecessary question, Lucy, since I have always been led to believe you have a very sharp pair of eyes!”

His voice,was silky with suppressed anger; hers was rough with it. Instinctively Carolan guessed at the relationship between them.

“Well,” said Lucy, “I was never one to intrude. I will say goodnight!”

“Goodnight, Lucy.”

The door slammed.

Carolan met Marcus’s eyes; he smiled briefly.

“A friend of mine,” he said.

“In for passing counterfeit coin.”

“Obviously a monied friend,” said Carolan.

“Like you, she seems to enjoy her freedom!”

“She seemed angry with us,” said Esther.

“She seemed as if she knew we came from the Common Side.”

Carolan smiled tenderly at Esther. How innocent she was. It would not occur to her that this Marcus, who had been so kind to them, was a rake, a philanderer, a libertine. Poor Esther! Her upbringing had been such that the bad and the good were divided into two distinct lots all bad and all good. Esther had much to learn.

“I do not think I liked her very much,” said Kitty. Kitty had drunk a little too freely of the wine; she felt pleasantly drowsy. She leaned her head on her hands and closed her eyes. Esther had drunk but little of the wine, but she too was sleepy. Carolan felt wide-awake, excited by the change in her circumstances, by the presence of Marcus who now. more than ever he had. aroused in her mixed emotions.

He twirled the wine in his glass and leaned towards her suddenly.

He said: “Come, Carolan! Out with it! You are thinking with great disapproval of my friend, Lucy, are you not?”

“Why should I?”

“I do not know why. Carolan; I only know you do.”

“I cannot see why I should concern myself with your friends.”

“Darling Carolan,” he whispered, ‘you were so angry; you flew to such conclusion that you made hope soar in my wicked breast.”

“You talk in riddles.”

He caught her wrist; his fingers were warm. She looked down at them; his hands had always attracted her, the hands that picked pockets so deftly, that were his stock in trade.

“No, Carolan. We understand each other well enough. We might understand each other better. Carolan, it will grieve me very much to think of you and your mother and friend Esther, and poor Millie, going back to the foul felons’ side.”

She shuddered.

“Do not let us think of it. It has been a great treat for us to taste real food again, to eat it in comfort.”