Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
Then one Friday afternoon she opened her drawer and there lay a blue enamel box with 'Garrards' in gold lettering on the lid. She opened it with her back turned to the class, and she started uncontrollably and almost dropped the box as she realized that it contained a brooch of white gold. The centrepiece was a large star sapphire, and even Clare, who was no judge of gems, realized that it was an exquisite stone. It was surrounded by small diamonds set in a star pattern. Clare experienced a giddy rush of avarice. The brooch must certainly be worth many hundreds of pounds, more money than she had ever had in her hand at one time, more than a year's salary at her present parsimonious rate of pay.
Sean had taken the piece from his mother's dressing-table and hidden it in the thatch of the saddle room behind the stables until the furore had died down. All the house servants had been interrogated, first by Shasa, who was outraged by this breach of faith. Nothing, apart from liquor, had ever been stolen by his employees before. When his own investigations ran into a dead end, Shasa called in the police.
Fortunately for Sean, it transpired that one of the junior maids had previously served a six-month sentence for theft from an employer. She was obviously guilty and the Wynberg magistrate gave her eighteen months, her offence compounded by her obstinate refusal to return the stolen brooch. Since she was now over twenty-one years, the maid was sent to the Pollsmoor Women's Prison.
Sean had waited another ten days for the incident to be forgotten before presenting the gift to the object of his passion. Clare East was mightily tempted. She realized that the brooch must have been stolen, but on the other hand she was, as usual for her, in serious financial difficulty. This was the only reason she had taken on her present employment. She looked back with nostalgic regret on the idle days of eating and drinking and painting and making love which had led her into her present embarrassed circumstances. The brooch would solve it all'. She had no scruples of conscience, but a terror of being convicted of theft. She knew that her free and creative soul would wither behind the bars of a women's prison.
Surreptitiously she returned he brooch to her desk drawer and for the rest of that art period she was distracted and withdrawn. She chain-smoked cigarettes and kept well clear of the rear of the art room, where Sean made a fine picture of innocence as he applied himself with unusual industry to his easel. She did not have to tell him to remain behind when the bell rang at the end of the period.
He came to where she sat at her desk.
'Did you like it?" he asked softly, and she opened the drawer and placed the enamel box in the centre of the desk between them.
'I cannot accept it, Sean,' she said. 'You know that very well." She didn't want to ask him where he had obtained it. She didn't want to know, and involuntarily she reached out to touch the box for the last time. The enamel surface felt like a new-laid egg, smooth and warm to the touch.
'It's all right,' Sean said quietly. 'Nobody knows. They think somebody else took it. It's quite safe." Had the child seen through her so easily? She stared at him. Was it one amoral soul recognizing another? It made her angry to be found out, to have her greed so exposed. She took her hand off the box and placed it in her lap.
She drew a breath, and steeled herself to repeat her refusal, but Sean stilled her by opening his art book and taking out three loose leaves. He placed them beside the blue enamel box, and she drew a hissing breath. They were her own drawings from her fun folder, signed by herself.
'I took these - sort of fair exchange,' Sean said, and she looked at him and truly saw him for the very first time.
He was young in years only. In the museum in Athens she had been enchanted by a marble statue of the great god Pan in his manifestation as a young boy. A beautiful child, but about him an ancient evil as enthralling as sin itself. Clare East was not a teacher by vocation, she felt no innate revulsion at the corruption of the young. It was simply that she had not thought of it before. With her hearty sexual appetite she had experienced almost everything else, including partners of her own sex, although those had been unsuccessful experiments long ago put behind her. Men she had known, in the biblical sense, in every possible variation of size and shape and colour. She took and discarded them with a kind of compulsive fervour, seeking always an elusive fulfilment which seemed to dance for ever just beyond her grasp. Often she was afraid, truly terrified, that she had reached the point of satiety, when her pleasure was irreparably blunted and jaded.
Now she was presented with a new and titillating perversion, enough to reawaken the lusty response that she had thought lost for ever. This child's loveliness contained a wickedness that left her breathless as she discovered it.
She had never been paid before, and this mannikin was offering her a prostitute's fee that was princely enough for a royal courtesan.
She had never been blackmailed before, and he was threatening her with those unwise sketches. She knew what would happen if they ever fell into the hands of the school governors, and she did not doubt that he would carry out the unspoken threat. He had already hinted that he had placed blame for the theft of the sapphire brooch on an innocent party. Most tantalizing, she had never had a child before. She let her eyes run over him curiously. His skin was clear and firm, with the sweet gloss of youth on it. The hair on his forearms was silky, but his cheeks were bare. He was using a razor already, and he was taller than she was, a man's outline emerging from boyhood in his shoulders and narrow hips. His limbs were long and shapely, strange that she should never have noticed the muscle in his arms before. His eyes were green as emeralds, or-of crbme de menthe in a crystal glass and there were tiny flecks of brown and gold surrounding the pupils. She saw those pupils dilate sightly as she leaned forward, deliberately letting the top of her blouse gape open to expose the swell and cleavage of her breasts. Carefully she picked up the enamel box.
'Thank you, Sean,' she whispered hoarsely. 'It's a magnificent gift and I shall treasure it." Sean picked up the lewd sketches and slipped them into his art book, hostage to the unspoken pact between them.
'Thank you, Miss East." His voice was as rough as hers. 'I am so glad you like it." It was so exciting to see his agitation that her own loins melted and she felt the familiar pressure build up swiftly in her lower body.
With calculated cruelty she stood up, dismissing him to the exquisite torture of anticipation. Instinctively she knew that he had planned it all. No further effort would be required from her, the boy's genius would providd the means and the moment, and it was part of the excitement, waiting to see what he would do.
She did not have long to wait, and though she had expected something unusual, she was surprised by the note he left on her desk.
Dear Miss East, My son, Sean, tells me that you are having difficulty in procuring suitable lodgings. I do understand how difficult this can be, particularly in the summer when the whole world seems to descend upon our little peninsula.
As it happens, I have a furnished cottage on the estate, which at the present time is standing empty. If you find it suitable, you are welcome to the use of it. The rental would be nominal. I should say a guinea a week would satisfy the estate bookkeeper, and you would find the cottage secluded and quiet with a lovely view over the Constantia Berg and False Bay, which will appeal to the artist.
Sean speaks highly of your work, and I look forward to seeing examples of it.
