| He had won the esteem of Governor Steed, and - what is even more important - of Governor Steed's lady, whom he shamelessly and cynically flattered and humoured. |
Всем этим он был обязан подагре губернатора Стида и, что еще более важно, мигрени его супруги, которой губернатор во всем потакал. |
| Occasionally he saw Miss Bishop, and they seldom met but that she paused to hold him in conversation for some moments, evincing her interest in him. |
Изредка Блад видел Арабеллу Бишоп. Каждый раз она разговаривала с ним, что свидетельствовало о наличии у нее какого-то интереса к доктору. |
| Himself, he was never disposed to linger. |
Сам Блад не проявлял склонности к тому, чтобы затягивать эти встречи. |
| He was not, he told himself, to be deceived by her delicate exterior, her sapling grace, her easy, boyish ways and pleasant, boyish voice. |
Он убеждал себя, что не должен обманываться ее изящной внешностью, грациозностью молодости, мальчишескими манерами и приятным голосом. |
| In all his life - and it had been very varied - he had never met a man whom he accounted more beastly than her uncle, and he could not dissociate her from the man. She was his niece, of his own blood, and some of the vices of it, some of the remorseless cruelty of the wealthy planter must, he argued, inhabit that pleasant body of hers. |
За всю свою богатую событиями жизнь он не встречал большего негодяя, чем ее дядя, а ведь она была его племянницей, и какие-то пороки этой семьи - быть может, так же безжалостная жестокость богачей-плантаторов могла перейти и к ней. |
| He argued this very often to himself, as if answering and convincing some instinct that pleaded otherwise, and arguing it he avoided her when it was possible, and was frigidly civil when it was not. |
Поэтому он избегал попадаться на глаза Арабелле, а когда уж нельзя было уклониться от встречи, то держался с ней сухо и вежливо. |
| Justifiable as his reasoning was, plausible as it may seem, yet he would have done better to have trusted the instinct that was in conflict with it. |
Какими бы правдоподобными ни казались ему свои предположения, Блад поступил бы лучше, если бы поверил инстинкту, подсказывающему ему совсем иное. |
| Though the same blood ran in her veins as in those of Colonel Bishop, yet hers was free of the vices that tainted her uncle's, for these vices were not natural to that blood; they were, in his case, acquired. |
Хотя в жилах Арабеллы и текла кровь, родственная полковнику Бишопу, у нее не было его пороков, к счастью, этими пороками обладал только он, а не вся их семья. |
| Her father, Tom Bishop - that same Colonel Bishop's brother - had been a kindly, chivalrous, gentle soul, who, broken-hearted by the early death of a young wife, had abandoned the Old World and sought an anodyne for his grief in the New. |
Брат полковника Бишопа - Том Бишоп, отец Арабеллы, был добрым и мягким человеком. Преждевременная смерть молодой жены заставила Тома Бишопа покинуть Старый Свет, чтобы забыться в Новом. |
| He had come out to the Antilles, bringing with him his little daughter, then five years of age, and had given himself up to the life of a planter. |
С пятилетней дочкой приехал он на Антильские острова и стал вести жизнь плантаторов. |
| He had prospered from the first, as men sometimes will who care nothing for prosperity. |
С самого начала его дела пошли хорошо, хотя он мало о них заботился. |
| Prospering, he had bethought him of his younger brother, a soldier at home reputed somewhat wild. |
Преуспев в Новом Свете, он вспомнил о младшем брате, военном, служившем в Англии и пользовавшемся репутацией вздорного, жестокого человека. |
| He had advised him to come out to Barbados; and the advice, which at another season William Bishop might have scorned, reached him at a moment when his wildness was beginning to bear such fruit that a change of climate was desirable. |
Том Бишоп посоветовал ему приехать на Барбадос, и этот совет подоспел как раз в то время, когда Вильяму Бишопу из-за необузданности его характера потребовалась срочная перемена климата. |
| William came, and was admitted by his generous brother to a partnership in the prosperous plantation. |
Вильям приехал на Барбадос, и брат сделал его совладельцем плантаций. |
| Some six years later, when Arabella was fifteen, her father died, leaving her in her uncle's guardianship. |
Шесть лет спустя Бишоп-старший умер, оставив пятнадцатилетнюю дочь на попечение дяди. |
| It was perhaps his one mistake. But the goodness of his own nature coloured his views of other men; moreover, himself, he had conducted the education of his daughter, giving her an independence of character upon which perhaps he counted unduly. |
Пожалуй, это была единственная его ошибка, но, будучи добрым и отзывчивым человеком, он приукрашивал и других людей. Он сам воспитывал Арабеллу, выработал в ней самостоятельность суждений и независимость характера, но, видимо, все же преувеличивал значение своего воспитания. |
| As things were, there was little love between uncle and niece. |
Обстоятельства сложились так, что в отношениях между дядей и племянницей не было ни сердечности, ни теплоты. |
| But she was dutiful to him, and he was circumspect in his behaviour before her. |
Она его слушалась; он в ее присутствии вел себя настороженно. |
| All his life, and for all his wildness, he had gone in a certain awe of his brother, whose worth he had the wit to recognize; and now it was almost as if some of that awe was transferred to his brother's child, who was also, in a sense, his partner, although she took no active part in the business of the plantations.
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