Читать книгу House-at-the-Corner - Enid blyton - Страница 3

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Old Aunt Grace was coming to stay with her relations, the Farrells. She sat in the train, surrounded by her belongings.

Every now and again she counted them over. “My big brown bag. My little blue one. Sukie the parrot. My umbrella and sunshade. My electric kettle. My mackintosh. My odds-and-ends. Yes, they’re all there.”

The odds-and-ends were tied together with string. They were the things that Aunt Grace had decided to take with her at the last minute, after her bags were locked and packed—a packet of sunflower seeds for Sukie the parrot—a magazine and a book—a tin of toffees and a packet of sandwiches—and a few fading flowers from her garden.

“Yes, they’re all there,” said the old lady, and closed her sharp eyes, trying to sleep. But she couldn’t sleep. A journey always excited her. She thought of the Farrells one by one—John Farrell the father, Lucy the mother, and all the five children.

“And if that stuck-up Pam tries any of her high-and-mighty ways on me this time, she’ll be sorry,” thought the old lady, grimly. “And as for that boy, Tony, what he wants is a good spanking—always did. Lizzie’s the only one worth anything in that family. The twins are always too busy with this and that to know properly.”

She thought of all the five children. She was a sharp-eyed, sharp-witted old lady who didn’t at all mind saying what she thought. She went from one to the other of her relations, staying a month here and a week there, giving everyone what she called “a piece of her mind” if she thought they needed it. But she could be kind too, and though many of them feared her, some of her relations loved her and knew there was a great deal more to her than her sharp eyes and tongue.

“Let me see now,” she thought, as she sat with her eyes half-closed, “it’s nearly a year since I saw the Farrell children. They will have grown! My, Pam must be almost ready to leave school. Time she came home and helped her mother a bit, I think. Doesn’t even know how to make a bed properly!”

She gave a little snort, remembering how untidy Pamela was, how she forgot things, and how she never could sew on a button or hook that came off. Aunt Grace was as neat as a new pin, and even now could embroider beautifully without her glasses.

“Ah,” she said, sitting up, “there’s the house now, on the corner there. I always like that first glimpse of it.”

The train always passed by the Farrells’ house, half a mile before it reached the station. Aunt Grace looked at it, and her eyes softened. She loved “House-at-the-Corner” as it was called. She had spent a great deal of her own childhood there. There it stood, on a corner, facing the hills, an old rambling house, big and lovely, moss growing here and there on its old red tiles. Round it spread a garden as rambling as the house itself, full of flowers.

“It’s a lovely house,” said old Aunt Grace, “and a lovely garden. I’m glad to be going to stay there again. Maybe I’m not very welcome—too sharp-tongued, and I know Lucy doesn’t like Sukie the parrot—but they can put up with me for a little while!”

The train ran into the station. Aunt Grace began to gather up her things. She leaned out of the window and called the porter to take the parrot’s big cage. Sukie, who was always too frightened to utter even the smallest squawk when on a train, came to life and scratched her poll.

“Porter!” she said, in a voice so like Aunt Grace’s that the old porter jumped. “Hey, porter!”

Aunt Grace climbed out of the carriage and looked to see who had come to meet her. How nice if the whole family had come! That would be a welcome indeed.

At first it looked as if not one of the Farrell family were there to greet her. The old lady frowned. Then she caught sight of a girl of about sixteen coming towards her, a plain, rather gawky girl, with glasses on her nose, and wire round her front teeth to keep them straight.

“Lizzie!” said Aunt Grace. “How you’ve grown! My, I’d hardly have known you!”

Lizzie smiled and showed the wire round her teeth. She had nice teeth but they stuck too far forward, and the dentist was trying to put them right for her, but how Lizzie hated that wire round them! She hated wearing glasses too, but since she had had measles her eyes had been weak, and she had to wear the glasses.

“Where are the others?” said Aunt Grace, collecting the odds-and-ends. “Too busy to bother about their old aunt, I suppose?”

This was exactly right, but Lizzie couldn’t say so, of course. Nobody had wanted to come and meet Aunt Grace.

“Old bore!” Pam had said. “Always descending on people that don’t want her. I’m not going to meet her!”

Tony had simply disappeared. He knew so well how to do that when he didn’t want to do anything.

The twins had argued so heatedly about going to the station to meet Aunt Grace that their mother had given in and said they needn’t go. So there was only Lizzie left, and, as usual, she was the one to do something that nobody else would do. So there she was at the station, smiling her shy smile, and helping her great-aunt with her luggage.

Lizzie had a taxi outside and they got into it, Sukie looking disgusted at the idea of another trip on wheels. She hunched herself up and shut her eyes.

“Sukie will be glad to be home,” said Aunt Grace. “She hates journeys. So do I.”

“You make so many journeys, don’t you, Aunt Grace?” said Lizzie. “Always going here and there. If you hate them so much, why don’t you get a little cottage of your own and settle there with Sukie? Then you wouldn’t always have to be packing and unpacking, and travelling in trains and taxis!”

Aunt Grace looked at Lizzie sharply, wondering if the girl was hinting that a cottage-home would prevent Aunt Grace from imposing herself so much on her relations. But she saw that Lizzie was not thinking that at all. The girl’s warm brown eyes were candid and kind, not sly or mischievous as Pam’s and Tony’s so often were.

“Well,” said Aunt Grace, with a funny little sigh, “I’m afraid of living alone, with my thoughts and memories, Lizzie. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I remember them when I’m alone. I’m a lonely old woman, and I want life and friends around me—yes, even if people don’t want me, I still want to be with them!”

Lizzie didn’t know what to say. She had never thought of Aunt Grace feeling lonely. Her great-aunt was so talkative, so fond of arranging other people’s lives for them, so full of this, that and the other—how could she ever feel lonely? She looked in surprise at the old lady. Aunt Grace patted her hand.

“You’re a nice child,” she said, unexpectedly. “Not enough go in you, that’s your trouble. Do everybody else’s dirty work. Don’t think enough of yourself!”

“Well—Pam’s the pretty one, and the clever one,” said Lizzie, loyally. “I’ll never be pretty and I’m not very clever, I’m afraid. And I’m scared of people, and of trying anything new! I wish I could be like Pam.”

“Now don’t you wish that!” began Aunt Grace, and then stopped. It wouldn’t do to tell Lizzie what she thought of vain, conceited, clever Pam, with her hard little mouth and sarcastic tongue. No, it wouldn’t do.

“Here we are,” said Lizzie, as the taxi stopped, and she opened the door. The taxi-man got down and began to pull out the luggage. Lizzie’s mother came running down to the gate.

“Aunt Grace! Welcome to the House-at-the-Corner!” she said. “Come along in. Greta will bring in your things with Lizzie.”

Greta the maid came out, beaming. She was an Austrian, kind, generous and hot-tempered. Tomorrow she would be fuming and raging because of something Aunt Grace had said—but at this minute she was full of warm welcome, very pleasant to see.

“It is vairy nice to see you again, Madame,” she said, smiling all over her jolly, plump face. “I help Miss Lizzie wiz your zings.”

“Thank you, Greta,” said Aunt Grace, and went indoors with her niece. Lizzie and Greta struggled in with the bags, and then went out again to fetch Sukie the parrot in her big cage.

“Zis parrot I do not like,” said Greta, in a loud whisper to Lizzie. “She has an ugly voice, she go ‘sqwook, sqwook’ all the time. Why does not your aunt have a nice fat little cat, or a good good dog?”

Lizzie laughed. “Oh, I think a parrot is good fun,” she said. “Won’t the twins be pleased to see Sukie again? They love her! They taught her to say all kinds of things last time.”

“Polly put the kattle on,” said Sukie, at once.

“Kettle, not kattle,” said Lizzie. “Yes, the twins taught you to say that, didn’t they, Sukie. Good Polly!”

“Poor poor Polly,” said Sukie, cheerfully, very glad to think that she would at last be able to stand on a firm floor again, instead of on things on wheels that jolted and jerked all the time.

Aunt Grace had been taken up to her room by Mrs. Farrell. Lizzie had put vases of fresh flowers there, and the sun came in at the open windows. Aunt Grace sat down on the bed.

“This was always my room when I was a child,” she said, as she had said so many times before. “It’s nice of you to remember that, Lucy. There’s a new wall-paper, of course—and a new carpet—but the view is just the same, and the apple tree outside the window is the very same one!”

Mrs. Farrell had heard this so many times that she hardly needed to listen. She smiled at the tired old lady. “Yes, I knew you’d like Lizzie’s room,” she said. “Lizzie turned out for you, and went into the spare-room.”

“Nice child,” said Aunt Grace, shaking some lavender water on to her handkerchief and mopping her forehead with it. “Nice child—but very plain, Lucy. Must she wear those glasses still—and that wire round her teeth?”

“Just a little while longer,” said Mrs. Farrell. “Yes, poor Lizzie—she doesn’t shine beside Pam, I’m afraid. Pam’s so very pretty and so smart too.”

“Handsome is as handsome does!” said Aunt Grace. “Well, I’ll have a little rest before lunch, my dear, if you don’t mind. I’ll see the rest of the children then, if they’re in. Or maybe they’re keeping out of my way?”

This was the kind of sly thing that Aunt Grace so often said, and that was very near the truth. Mrs. Farrell laughed a little, and reddened.

“You’ll see them all at lunch-time,” she said. “You won’t know the twins! They’ve grown so. They’re wrapped up in one another, of course, just as they always were—have the same likes and dislikes, and go their own way. I don’t really feel that I know very much about them!”

She went out of the room and shut the door quietly. Aunt Grace took off her shoes and dress, drew back the bedspread and lay down, sniffing at her lavender-scented handkerchief.

“I expect Lizzie grumbled at having to turn out of her room,” she said to herself. “But it’s nice to be back again in the place I know. Yes, it’s nice to be back.”