Виктор Королев – The Life and Surprizing Adventures of Archibald Kerr, British Diplomat (страница 4)

The house was gigantic. A wide wooden staircase led up to a huge veranda, where a long table on holidays gathered numerous relatives. On weekdays, the children were fed here, which every year became more and more. Children in the Robertson-Clark family were named after grandparents, so the names Margaret, James or John, for example, were answered by several people at once. Archibald in this sense was lucky.

He remembered his Australian grandfather John for life. And his Scottish grandfather James died before he was born. So Archie's childhood memories were the most vivid: a formidable grandfather, a huge house with many bedrooms on the second floor, a lawn in front of the main entrance and fun games with brothers and sisters in the Indians.

One day my grandfather brought with him a thin, bearded guest. He looked like an Egyptian, or even an Indian, but not a Scotsman or an Australian.

‘Here are my Penates, my dear Nicholas!’ Grandpa John said, trying to avoid strong language. ‘Come, women, we'll have a table in a jiffy! Do not make a mistake before the Russian scientist, and then I will…’

Guest – Russian! Wow! From that far and wide country where there are no roads at all, and bears easily approach doors, as if postmen. The kids immediately clung to the table, opening his mouth, looking at the strange guest. But grandfather drove them away:

‘All of you get out!’

The three of them remained: the owner himself, the Russian scientist from bear's corner, and Aunt Margaret-Emma. That's how it all started. Five minutes later the visitor had nothing to say to the chief Minister of state. He and Aunt Margaret looked at each other and asked and asked and told. She talked about what she had read recently, about wanting to study singing in Italy, about her last trip to London. He talked about the construction of a biological station not far from here, about traveling far from here, about what he had seen in distant countries and where he was going to go again.

Then they laughed that they had double surnames: she had Robertson-Clark, he had Miklukho-Maklay. Then they gasped that they had a mutual acquaintance in London- the eldest daughter of a famous Russian revolutionary. They did not know yet about the tragic fate of this delicate nature: Natalia Herzen will put an end to the intricate love triangles of her father and his faithful friend, confessing her love for Ogarev, and soon she will go mad.

There was much they did not know, young Margaret and Nicholas. Only six months later, leaving on business in St. Petersburg, he will leave her a letter with a proposal of marriage. And her answer would be waiting for Nicholas in the Russian capital before his ship docked in the Gulf of Finland. The answer was short:

‘I agree. I will wait for you from all your travels.’

He would return to Australia and they would marry. He will then return to the island of New Guinea, where only the Papuans lived, and Nicholas would describe their life in diaries and in detailed letters to his wife. She read them aloud in the evenings, sitting at the long table on the veranda. Sir John Robinson was not at home till late, and all the children sat down next to Aunt Margaret, and eagerly listened to every word from so far and wild a country.

‘The natives of the coast on which we landed had never before come in contact with a white race,’ Aunt Margaret read slowly. ‘These Papuans live in the stone age. They do not know how to make a fire and always keep the log burning, lit once from a tree that was struck by lightning. When they travel, they carry this burning log with them…’

Night was falling. The children were put to bed, but neither Archie nor his siblings could sleep for a long time. And the next morning in the bushes near the old Fig tree, the action began. The older ones whittled spears, the younger ones made new clothes out of burdocks and smeared their faces with soot and clay. An hour later, a band of bedraggled savages were whooping around the house. Archibald's brother Robin, as the eldest, pounded his chest with his fist:

‘I'm Maklay!’

No one argued with him. And each had to give his Indian name. Archie became Mikl-Ukho… And in the evening all, already washed, again, holding their breath, listened to the letters of Uncle Nicholas. They were so afraid that the savages would eat him, as they had done to cook, the traveler, a hundred years ago. Aunt Margaret was most afraid of it. But Nicholas reassured her in his letters:

‘They love me here; they call me the man from the moon. Nobody's going to eat me, don't worry. I was bitten by huge fish, bees and wasps, orangutans and monkeys, stung by poisonous plants and insects. But all is well, I am well, and I really missed you and the children.’

He and Aunt Margaret had two sons. But they were still small and could not play with all. And all made caches and secrets, hid in them matches, glass, beads, needles, knives- everything that could be useful in future battles.

‘No wars!’ the sisters, Margaret-Emma and Kat Louise, said sternly.

And they began to tell how once the Papuans gathered with spears, axes and bows to fight with a neighboring tribe. They did it every year – and there was no other reason. When Uncle Nicholas heard this, he silently filled a bowl with water, added a little kerosene, and set it on fire. He said: ‘I will set fire to the sea if you start a war.’ They threw down their spears and buried their axes in the sand. So-never any wars, children…

And the children obediently laid down their spears and sat around the table on the veranda.

‘Read on, Aunt Margaret, read on!’

‘When I looked back, I saw a man who seemed to have grown out of the ground, who looked in my direction for a second and ran into the bushes,’ Aunt Margaret continued to read. ‘I followed him almost at a run down the path, waving the red ribbon I had in my pocket. When he saw that I was alone, without any weapons, he stopped. I slowly approached the savage, silently handed him a red cloth, he took it with pleasure and tied it on his head…’

In the morning all the young tribe ran with red ribbons on their heads.

Who to thank for a happy childhood? Why childhood ends quickly, but in the memory of a person remains until the last day? Why in old age it is impossible to remember the name of a neighbor, and children's nicknames are remembered forever? Everything in this life is strange. It was strange that Nicholas Miklukho-Maklay had died so young, and Aunt Margaret was a widow again. It is strange that at school it's not as interesting as in the house of my grandfather. It was there that Archie found the answer to the question “Who to be?” He wants to visit different countries.

The dream of becoming a traveler was not supported by Archie's mother. She considered herself a matron, worthy of a high position in London society. They can't live in Australia with drunken cattlemen. It's a shame to baptize a child in the street, under an old Fig tree!

Sir John Robertson was not so fierce and terrible, he had grown old. Shortly before his death, Archibald's mother and father announced their decision to return to England. He could no longer curse or order.

In Britain his parents bought a house. Archie followed his brother Robin to the local College.

The years went by. Before graduation, his mother asked if he would like to become a diplomat, because they also travel a lot around the world. He willingly and with complete seriousness said:

‘There are very difficult exams, but I think I'll be able to prepare. It won't take a year, but you and dad won't be ashamed of me. I promise to work hard to get my statue in Trafalgar Square!’

Chapter 2

Two Secretaries and the Third Secretary

It’s decided: he will be a diplomat! It is clear that one College is not enough – it is necessary to study, study and study again. Those wishing to serve the United Kingdom in the field of foreign policy must pass difficult entrance exams. Some foreign languages need to know at least four, plus other subjects.

It would take Kerr a long six years to get that knowledge. He spent a year in France, another year at a private College in London, where his family moved to support him in his chosen profession, and then years of study in Germany, Italy, Spain and again in France.

To support a son is to pay for his studies. Tutors and then cost a lot of money. And even if he had successfully passed the entrance examination, his parents would have had to pay another four hundred pounds-a guarantee that the choice of the young man and his parents is as firm as their purse.

And if will accept, then the first time salaries him at all not in sight. A diplomat is entitled to two hundred pounds a year from the position of third Secretary alone. It's only two hundred a year, half a pound a day. Such rules, for a long time and they were invented not by us…

Even during the summer holidays Kerr did not forget about cramming, surprising seriousness of all relatives. The ancestral home in Inverchapel, the low Scottish mountains, lakes, forests