Crooked House / Скрюченный домишко. Книга для чтения на английском языке

’

�You mean he was a crook?’ I asked.

Taverner shook his head.

�No, I don’t mean that. Crooked, yes—but not a crook. Never anything outside the law. But he was the sort of chap that thought up all the ways you can get round the law. He’s cleaned up[30 - to clean up – сорвать куш] a packet that way even in this last war, and old as he was. Nothing he did was ever illegal— but as soon as he’d got on to it, you had to have a law about it, if you know what I mean. But by that time he’d gone on to the next thing.

’

�He doesn’t sound a very attractive character,’ I said.

�Funnily enough[31 - funnily enough – как ни странно], he was attractive. He’d got personality, you know. You could feel it. Nothing much to look at. Just a gnome—ugly little fellow—but magnetic—women always fell for him.’

�He made a rather astonishing marriage,’ said my father. �Married the daughter of a country squire—an MFH[32 - MFH – Master of Foxhounds; хозяин гончих (титул главы охотничьего общества и владельца своры гончих)].

’

I raised my eyebrows. �Money?’

The Old Man shook his head.

�No, it was a love match. She met him over some catering arrangements for a friend’s wedding—and she fell for him. Her parents cut up rough, but she was determined to have him. I tell you, the man had charm—there was something exotic and dynamic about him that appealed to her.

She was bored stiff with her own kind.’

�And the marriage was happy?’

�It was very happy, oddly enough. Of course their respective friends didn’t mix (those were the days before money swept aside all class distinctions) but that didn’t seem to worry them. They did without friends. He built a rather preposterous house at Swinly Dean and they lived there and had eight children.’

�This is indeed a family chronicle.’

�Old Leonides was rather clever to choose Swinly Dean.

It was only beginning to be fashionable then. The second and third golf courses hadn’t been made. There was a mixture of Old Inhabitants who were passionately fond of their gardens and who liked Mrs Leonides, and rich City men who wanted to be in with Leonides, so they could take their choice of acquaintances. They were perfectly happy, I believe, until she died of pneumonia in 1905.’

�Leaving him with eight children?’

�One died in infancy.