"Judith Merril - Death Cannot Wither" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

and left him everything, went straight home to the ancestral manse in Dutchess County. There they lived
comfortably and suitably, once Edna had wiped out the frowsty traces of Mr. Colby, Senior's, last years
of bachelor living. There was, of course, a great deal of continuing work for Edna to do, a gradual
transformation of both the house and the remainder of the property into a condition appropriate to
genteel country living, as distinct from the functional but often starkly unpainted working farm she had
found. For Jack, as a sort of gradually diminishing concession to his old habits, there were infrequent trips
into the city to tend to the Colby investments and the business requirements of modern fructiculture.
Except that, though all of Edna's other concerns prospered as if to prove the rightness of her planning,
Jack's trips into town did not diminish as they ought to have. Despite her best efforts, some elusively
stubborn streak in him would not relinquish its old ways, even after the passage of eight years.
And now, still circled by his mackinaw-sleeved arm, her neck prickled by the short brown beard he
had at her behest grown since their marriage, she realized she had completely forgotten what day it was.
Eight years—not long enough, it seemed, and yet perhaps already too long —and Jack had been out
since dawn, it developed, doing something special for the occasion, He wanted her to come out with him
after breakfast. Something to show her. A surprise ...
But he didn't immediately say where he'd been till dawn. As if he hadn't even seen the necessity to
make up a good story beforehand, and needed time to extemporize one now.
Over breakfast, he told her at last about the late poker game in the city, and losing track of time . . .
deciding not to phone and wake her up . . . the slow milk train ... getting home late, knowing he'd have to
be up early … napping downstairs on the living room couch so as not to bother her . . . up early, and out
...
She listened to him with careful gravity, then touched her lips to his forehead and went upstairs to
dress.
She dressed in a cold fury, putting on walking shoes and a bright red jacket—it was hunting
season—and realized only then that she had forgotten even to order anything special for today's dinner.
Well, the woods were full of rabbits. She knew a delightful recipe for rabbit, and it would add something
if they shot a couple for themselves.
It was inexcusable to have forgotten, she thought in a sort of additional annoyance; she had always
managed things so perfectly. The restoring and remodeling of the old house; the garden club and prize
flower growing; urging Jack to write little pieces for the Farm Journal; arranging for Jack to become an
advisor on farming and animal husbandry for the local 4-H club; having the house eventually selected for
photographing by a national magazine —these gradual shapings of a hundred details toward an enduring
whole of gracious living, firmly rooted in all the most admirable attitudes and ideals.
But: the bottle in the toolshed, though they'd agreed with utmost reason that alcohol, for some
people, was a disease.
But: the late homecomings, and the excuses, the glib and at first believable phone calls from the city .
. . and now not even a phone call.
She hadn't allowed for this continuing goatishness in him. Could it be that her careful management of
things was going to be overcome by the very person who was intended to crown them all? Was the
intended ideal husband suddenly going to destroy the intended perfection of her life's work as the ideal
wife?
Edna Colby saw herself on the brink of disaster, all because Jack, for all his excellent potential,
simply did not realize what a difficult thing she was trying to do—how few women had the singleness of
purpose successfully to take a man and mold him into everything he should be, and to provide the proper
mode of life to set him off, like a perfect work of art in a perfect frame.
There had been a lingering scent of alien perfume in Jack Colby's beard. Edna Colby clenched her
fists. "Oh, no," she whispered. "Oh, no, you're not going to lose me now, Jack Colby." And then she
turned and brightly went downstairs to look at Jack's surprise.
She found him waiting for her in the yard, gunning the motor of the jeep, a look of arch anticipation
on his face. Obviously, he thought he'd gotten away with it again. Obviously, he expected that even if she