"Henry Kuttner - Vintage Season" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

VINTAGE SEASON

by Henry Kuttner

THREE PEOPLE came up the walk to the old mansion just at
dawn on a perfect May morning. Oliver Wilson in his pyjamas
watched them from an upper window through a haze of con-
flicting emotions, resentment predominant. He didn't want
them there.
They were foreigners. He knew only that much about
them. They had the curious name of Sancisco, and their first
names, scrawled in loops on the lease, appeared to be Omerie,
Kleph and Klia, though it was impossible as he looked down
upon them to sort them out by signature. He hadn't even been
sure whether they would be men or women, and he had
expected something a little less cosmopolitan.
Oliver's heart sank a little as he watched them follow the
taxi driyer up the walk. He had hoped for less self-assurance
in his UEtwelcome tenants, because he meant to force them
out of the house if he could. It didn't look very promising
from here.
The man went first. He was tail and dark, and he wore his
clothes and carried his body with that peculiar arrogant assur-
antfe that comes from perfect confidence in every phase of
one's being. The two women were laughing as they followed
"mm. Their voices were light and sweet, and their faces were
beautiful, each in its own exotic way, but the first thing Oliver
thought of when he looked at them was. Expensive!
It was not only that patina of perfecton that seemed to
dwell in every line of their incredibly flawless garments. There
are degrees of wealth beyond which wealth itself ceases to
have significance. Oliver had seen before, on rare occasons,
something like this assurance that the earth turning beneath
their well-shod feet turned only to their whim.
It puzzled him a little in this case, because he had the
feeling as the three came up the walk that the beautiful cloth-
ing they wore so confidently was not clothing they were ac-
customed to. There was a curious air of condescension in the
way they moved. Like women in costume. They minced a
little on their delicate high heels, held out an arm to stare at
the cut of a sleeve, twisted now and then inside their garments
as if the clothing sat strangely on them, as if they were ac-
customed to something entirely different.
And there was an elegance about the way the garments fitted
them which even to Oliver looked strikingly unusual. Only an
actress on the screen, who can stop time and the film to adjust
every disarrayed fold so that she looks perpetually perfect,
might appear thus elegantly clad. But let these women move
as they liked, and each fold of their clothing followed
perfectly with the movement and fell perfectly into place