75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

But the back door was blocked by cook, Sadie, Godber’s man and Hans.

Something had happened.

‘Tuk-tuk-tuk,’ clucked cook like an agitated hen. Sadie had her hand clapped to her cheek as though she had toothache. Hans’s face was screwed up in the effort to understand. Only Godber’s man seemed to be enjoying himself; it was his story.

‘What’s the matter? What’s happened?’

‘There’s been a horrible accident,’ said cook. ‘A man killed.’

‘A man killed! Where? How? When?’

But Godber’s man wasn’t going to have his story snatched from under his very nose.

‘Know those little cottages just below here, miss?’ Know them? Of course, she knew them. ‘Well, there’s a young chap living there, name of Scott, a carter. His horse shied at a traction-engine, corner of Hawke Street this morning, and he was thrown out on the back of his head. Killed.’

‘Dead!’ Laura stared at Godber’s man.

‘Dead when they picked him up,’ said Godber’s man with relish. ‘They were taking the body home as I come up here.’ And he said to the cook, ‘He’s left a wife and five little ones.’

‘Jose, come here.’ Laura caught hold of her sister’s sleeve and dragged her through the kitchen to the other side of the green baize door. There she paused and leaned against it. ‘Jose!’ she said, horrified, ‘however are we going to stop everything?’

‘Stop everything, Laura!’ cried Jose in astonishment. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Stop the garden-party, of course.’ Why did Jose pretend?

But Jose was still more amazed. ‘Stop the garden-party? My dear Laura, don’t be so absurd. Of course we can’t do anything of the kind. Nobody expects us to. Don’t be so extravagant.’

‘But we can’t possibly have a garden-party with a man dead just outside the front gate.’

That really was extravagant, for the little cottages were in a lane to themselves at the very bottom of a steep rise that led up to the house. A broad road ran between. True, they were far too near. They were the greatest possible eyesore, and they had no right to be in that neighbourhood at all. They were little mean dwellings painted a chocolate brown. In the garden patches there was nothing but cabbage stalks, sick hens and tomato cans. The very smoke coming out of their chimneys was poverty-stricken. Little rags and shreds of smoke, so unlike the great silvery plumes that uncurled from the Sheridans’ chimneys. Washerwomen lived in the lane and sweeps and a cobbler, and a man whose house-front was studded all over with minute bird-cages. Children swarmed. When the Sheridans were little they were forbidden to set foot there because of the revolting language and of what they might catch. But since they were grown up, Laura and Laurie on their prowls sometimes walked through. It was disgusting and sordid. They came out with a shudder. But still one must go everywhere; one must see everything. So through they went.

‘And just think of what the band would sound like to that poor woman,’ said Laura.

‘Oh, Laura!’ Jose began to be seriously annoyed. ‘If you’re going to stop a band playing every time someone has an accident, you’ll lead a very strenuous life. I’m every bit as sorry about it as you. I feel just as sympathetic.’ Her eyes hardened. She looked at her sister just as she used to when they were little and fighting together. ‘You won’t bring a drunken workman back to life by being sentimental,’ she said softly.

‘Drunk! Who said he was drunk?’ Laura turned furiously on Jose. She said, just as they had used to say on those occasions, ‘I’m going straight up to tell mother.’

‘Do, dear,’ cooed Jose.

‘Mother, can I come into your room?’ Laura turned the big glass door-knob.

‘Of course, child. Why, what’s the matter? What’s given you such a colour?’ And Mrs. Sheridan turned round from her dressing-table. She was trying on a new hat.

‘Mother, a man’s been killed,’ began Laura.

‘Not in the garden?’ interrupted her mother.

‘No, no!’

‘Oh, what a fright you gave me!’ Mrs. Sheridan sighed with relief, and took off the big hat and held it on her knees.

‘But listen, mother,’ said Laura. Breathless, half-choking, she told the dreadful story. ‘Of course, we can’t have our party, can we?’ she pleaded. ‘The band and everybody arriving. They’d hear us, mother; they’re nearly neighbours!’

To Laura’s astonishment her mother behaved just like Jose; it was harder to bear because she seemed amused. She refused to take Laura seriously.

‘But, my dear child, use your common sense. It’s only by accident we’ve heard of it. If someone had died there normally – and I can’t understand how they keep alive in those poky little holes – we should still be having our party, shouldn’t we?’

Laura had to say ‘yes’ to that, but she felt it was all wrong. She sat down on her mother’s sofa and pinched the cushion frill.

‘Mother, isn’t it terribly heartless of us?’ she asked.