"Barbara Hambly - Benjamin January 4 - Sold Down the River" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

next to the kitchen. It was there that his mother caught him, before he could be across the yard
again, through the passway to Rue Burgundy and gone.
"Benjamin, I have never been so mortified in my life."
If the statement had been true he would have heard it in her voice, but it wasn't. She wasn't
mortified. She was angry. Thwarted and angry.
"Neither have I, Maman, that he'd even think I'd do such a thing as he asks."
"Don't be silly." Her hands were clasped tight, like a little sculpture of seashell and bronze, at her
belt buckle. Her mouth was hard as sculptor's work. "I assumed you'd welcome the first chance
that came to you, to pay back what you owe me. The quarter-interest in that property the Widow
Delachaise is selling is still open for fifteen hundred, and I don't think I need to remind you that
because of those new clothes of yours, and all that music, not to mention getting the piano
retuned last month, I'm in no position to-"
"No, Maman." January forced his voice level, as he had with Fourchet. "You don't need to remind
me."
"Don't interrupt me, Benjamin."
Their eyes met: old wanting, old needing, a thousand griefs never comforted, a thousand things
never said. January remembered her-one of his earliest memories-being beaten for stealing eggs
for him and for Olympe, when a fox had killed the three chickens that constituted the only
livestock they possessed. Remembered her silence under the lash.
"We need that money," Livia said, in a voice that took into account nothing of the other property
she owned, or the funds in three separate banks. "You can't possibly think Monsieur Fourchet
would use this opportunity to take advantage of your position and kidnap you to sell to dealers,
for heaven's sake. If he told that animal Shaw about hiring you, he can't intend-"
"No, Maman," said January. "That's not what I think."
"Then what? It's not as if you know any of those people. And it's not as if you're going to make a
sou more this season than last season, teaching piano and playing at balls. Really, Benjamin, I
don't know what to make of your attitude."
She looked up at him, her expression and the set of her head waiting for an explanation, and those
great brown eyes like dark agate forbidding him to make her wrong by giving one.
Anything he said, he knew, he would still be wrong.
"I'm going for a walk," he said. "Can we talk about this when I get back?"
"I think it's something we need to settle now." She followed him across the hard-packed earth of
the yard. "I told Monsieur Fourchet I'd talk to you. You can't judge the man by his speech. You
remember how rough-spoken he always was, it's his way. Financial opportunities like the Widow
Delachaise selling up don't remain available for long. Monsieur Granville at the bank said he'd
hold the negotiations open as long as he could, but they won't last forever."
"I'm sorry, Maman," said January. The cool sun of early afternoon flashed on yesterday's rain
puddles, on the leaves of the banana plants that clustered around the gate and along the wall.
From the street came the clatter of some light vehicle, a gig or a fiacre, and a woman's voice
lifted in a wailing minor key the slurry, half-African gombo patois:
"Beautiful callas! Beautiful callas, hot!" the melismatic notes elongated, embellished like a
Muslim call to prayer, as if the words were only an excuse, a vehicle for what lay in her heart.
"I need a little time to think. We can talk about this when I get back."
"And when will that be?" Livia stepped beside him into the open gate. Always wanting the last
word. To have his retreat, even, on her terms.
"At sunset," said January, and walked away, not knowing if he'd be back by sunset or not.
TWO

"Rough-spoken, she said." January turned the coffee cup in his hand, and gazed out past the
square brick pillars that held up the market's vast, tiled roof. Beyond the shadows, slanting