The whispering gallery │ Uč sa angličtinu pomocou príbehov

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Text:

‚Now, if you will just come this way…‘

The voice was smooth and silky. It suggested that wonders existed which would make all you had seen so far become thin and flat and forgotten. Amazing things lay just around the corner and the voice knew the way.

But Frederic was five years old and therefore he knew what voices really said and it wasn’t always what the words seemed to mean. This voice said, really, ‚I hate you all, especially the boy, and this is the way out and I shall be glad to see the last of you.‘

The voice did not intend, after all, to lead the way up the secret stairs to the golden ball.

The guide was a tall thin man, with a yellow hollowed face and eye-holes so deep and shadowed you could not be sure whether there were eyes in them or not. Not unless you looked hard into them, and so far Frederic had not found the courage to do that.

Now and then he glanced up at the guide’s face but each time he was frightened away by the sight of the strangely small nose and the almost lipless mouth with the big white teeth that seemed to be fixed in a bitter grin.

Yesterday was the magic morning when Jim was driving him around London in the open-top car. Just him and Jim. They were stopped in busy traffic in Fleet Street.

‚Look!‘ said Frederic, pointing over the front of the car. ‚That must be the biggest building in the world!‘

The driver looked up at the Cathedral.

‚It looks big from here because it’s standing on top of a hill – Ludgate Hill,‘ he said. ‚But it’s not as big as the Empire State Building in New York, and you’ve been up that.‘

Frederic tipped his head back as far as it would go. The great dome was like an enormous bubble, and on top stood a high tower with a golden gallery around the bottom. And at the top of this tower was a golden ball with a golden cross on it. All the golden things shone in the sunlight but the ball shone brightest of all.

‚Don’t be stupid, Jim,‘ said Frederic. ‚It’s much higher than the Empire State Building. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen. And look at that lovely golden ball! I wish I had it to play with. I wonder if it – comes off?‘

‚Would you like me to climb up there and fetch it for you?‘ asked Jim with a smile.

‚Would you?‘ said Frederic, eagerly. ‚Would you?‘

Jim laughed. There was a time when he would have sighed and murmured under his breath, ‚These rich people are all alike! Get me this, get me that, they say. Look, the moon shines pretty – get me that!‘

But he had been driving for them for a long time now and he knew that they were always wanting something. Not only to have something but to go somewhere, see something new, have someone praise them, do things for them. They were always hoping to discover something that shone bright and new to fascinate them. Like the golden ball on the top of St Paul’s Cathedral on a sunny day when you were five years old.

‚Jim! You’re not listening. Get me the ball, Jim.‘

‚It’s much, much bigger than you think, Freddy. When you’re small, you don’t realize the size things are. Six grown-up men could get inside that ball.‘

‚It’s no bigger than an apple!‘ said Frederic. ‚Perhaps it is an apple – a golden apple. I’ve always wanted a golden apple. I wonder if it is, Jim? Do you think it is?‘

Jim Bates opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had often done that in the service of the Staggs. Mrs Stagg frequently found the truth unpleasant. Her son also believed only what he wanted to believe.

‚I don’t know, Freddy. We must go back to the hotel now,‘ said Jim, quickly but firmly. ‚Your mother said that you were to be back at one o’clock for lunch.‘

‚Oh,‘ said Frederic, disappointed.

The car turned left at Ludgate Circus, then went through the side streets to Holborn and back to the hotel at Marble Arch. Frederic kept looking back, but he could not see St Paul’s again because of the shops and office buildings. He couldn’t understand how such little buildings could hide it.

***

‚But I can’t, Frederic – not this afternoon,‘ said Mrs Stagg. ‚We’re having tea with Lady Cornford.‘

‚Can we go tomorrow then, Mom?‘

‚No, we’re going home tomorrow.‘

The corners of Frederic’s mouth turned down. There were tears in his eyes.

‚Oh, dear!‘ said Mrs Stagg, anxious to prevent her son’s noisy screams. ‚Well, look, I could just spare half an hour – no more.‘

Frederic smiled. ‚Thanks, Mom.‘ Half an hour was a long time. Easily long enough to reach the golden apple.

It was a long time but Skeleton-face, as Frederic silently named the guide, wasted it. When he had taken the little group around the Cathedral, Frederic hoped that now they would go up to the golden ball.

But the quiet, cold voice said, ‚Now, if you will just come this way…‘

And it led them down the stairs into the underground rooms were some of England’s most famous people were buried. This cold, shadowy place seemed like the natural home of the voice. It seemed to Frederic that the voice wanted none of them to leave, it wanted them all to stay here. It would talk smoothly and quietly until it sent them to sleep and then, somehow, it would get them to lie stiff and dead with the others under the hard stone floor.

‚I want to go upstairs,‘ Frederic said.

That was when the voice began to hate him.

‚Now, if you will just come this way…‘

They went upstairs, past a notice saying ‚To the Golden Gallery and Ball‘ and up some more stairs, up and up and up.

As they climbed behind the guide, Frederic became excited. Maybe this guide wouldn’t give him the ball (which, of course, was really an apple) but if Mom saw how much he wanted it she would buy it for him. It didn’t matter how much it cost – Mom was the richest lady in the world. She could buy him the whole Cathedral if she wanted to. But he only wanted the apple.

The richest lady in the world was breathing heavily as she climbed. ‚Oh dear! I didn’t know it was going to take as long as this,‘ she said.

They got to the top of the stairs and Frederic followed the guide through the only doorway there.

‚Ooh!‘ they all said when they found they were standing on a narrow ledge which went right round the inside of the great dome. Only an iron rail stood between them and the ground, far, far below, where tiny people the size of insects moved around.

Frederic looked up and saw that, although he was very high up, the golden apple was at least as high again above him. There must be more stairs somewhere that led up through the dome. Perhaps some secret stairs.

He hesitated and tried to go back but the heavy grown-ups around him pushed him forward. And then they stopped because the guide had stopped.

Skeleton-face said. ‚This is the famous Whispering Gallery. If you would please move around to the opposite side and stand listening against that wall…‘

‚I don’t want…‘ began Frederic. But Mrs Stagg grabbed his hand and said in a low, annoyed whisper, ‚Oh, come on!‘

The group moved slowly round, with the fearful drop on its right-hand side. Some glanced down, but others dared not look. All were silent. Frederic wanted to run, but the Cathedral was a place where you neither ran nor shouted.

At last they reached the side of the Gallery opposite the doorway where the guide had remained standing, made tiny by distance. They arranged themselves in a line, kneeling with one knee on the seat, putting one ear close to the wall.

Frederic did not put his ear very close. He did not wish to hear that voice again. But he did hear it, loud and clear, as if the guide were standing beside him – yet he could see him, a long way away with all the width of the dome between them.

‚I am speaking only in a whisper, yet you hear me clearly. The pictures you can see on the inside of the dome were painted by Sir James Thornhill. They show events in the life of St Paul…‘

‚Frederic put his mouth close to the wall. ‚We don’t want to stay here,‘ he said. ‚We want to go up to the golden apple.‘

‚Frederic!‘ said his mother, shocked and alarmed. Her voice sounded amazingly loud under the great hollow dome.

The guide’s voice had stopped. There was a moment’s awful silence, during which Mrs Stagg’s face became redder and redder.

Then – ‚Now, if you will just come this way…‘

The voice was smooth and silky. It suggested that wonders existed which would make all you had seen so far become thin and flat and forgotten.

But Frederic was five years old and therefore he knew that the voice really said, ‚I hate you all, especially the boy, and this is the way out and I shall be glad to see the last of you.‘

The voice did not intend, after all, to lead the way up the secret stairs to the golden ball.

The group moved round the great half-circle back to the door and to Skeleton-face. Frederic would not look up. He knew that deep in those dark eye-holes hatred burned like a flame and if the other people hadn’t been there… He was glad now that he was in the middle of a group of grown-ups who could protect him.

Staying close he watched his feet and his mother’s feet descending the stairs. And soon they were crossing the black-and-white floor, then the dirty black steps outside the Cathedral.

He saw the car and Jim’s smiling face, and the fear inside him slowly disappeared.

‚Get in, Frederic, don’t just stand there,‘ said his mother, pushing him. ‚Go as fast as you dare, Bates. We’re ten minutes late now. What will Lady Cornford think of us?‘

Frederic’s behaviour was not at its best at Lady Cornford’s. He was silent and, when forced to speak, rude – very rude.

When they got back to the hotel, Mrs Stagg punished him by sending him straight to bed. But he did not feel any guilt, only an aching regret that tomorrow they would be leaving London and leaving the golden apple behind. Someone else would come along and take the golden apple away while he was on the silly ship back at the silly school in Boston.

He got out of bed and went to the window. He watched the buses moving in and out of Park Lane, and the people in Hyde Park. It was summer and there was still an hour or two before it would be dark.

Suddenly it seemed as if someone else had taken control of his body and was making it do things he hadn’t yet decided to do. He found himself putting on his clothes and opening the door quietly. Then he was at the open window at the back of the building, climbing through it and descending the iron steps of the fire escape.

It was a straight road back to St Paul’s, but it was a very long road and his feet were tired as he climbed the dirty steps in the pale, rose-coloured light coming up the hill from the sinking sun.

He entered through the big doors and heard the sound of singing. At the other end of the building he saw the two lines of singers, and the people watching them.

No one noticed him move quickly between the chairs and up the stairs which led to the Whispering Gallery. All the guides should have left, including Skeleton-face. All he had to do was find a place to hide for a little while until everyone went home.

Up the stairs he had noticed a corner where he could hide. He hoped he could reach it soon because his legs were aching and he was very tired…