Читать книгу Ring O' Bells Mystery - Enid blyton - Страница 8

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The three children didn’t wake quite so late the next day. In fact, they were down for breakfast with Miss Pepper and Miss Hannah, though rather on the late side.

And by Roger’s plate was a letter in Barney’s characteristic handwriting—large, sprawling, slanting all over the envelope! Good, good, good!

Roger snatched it up. “I say—a letter from old Barney! Funny we should have been talking about him last night. I wonder if there’s any chance of seeing him.”

He tore open the envelope and read the letter aloud, with Diana and Snubby hanging on every word.

“Dear Roger,

Just to say I’m out of a job again after a very good one indeed. What do you think I’ve been doing? Looking after a troupe of monkeys in a circus! Right up my street, of course. Miranda’s had a grand time—she’s been cock of the walk, putting on no end of airs, and bossing all the monkeys in the troupe.

Well, I made a good bit of money, and I thought it would be nice to see you all again. The only thing is—won’t you have gone back to school by now? If you have, it’s no use, of course, and I’ll have to try and see you all in the summer. But if you’re not back yet, let me know, and I’ll hitch-hike along to you, no matter how many miles it is. Can’t neglect my old friends like this too long, else they’ll be forgetting me!

So long—and here’s hoping to see you.

Barney.

Miranda sends warm love.”

All three looked at one another in glee. “Good old Barney! Dear old Barney! We’ll have to get him along here to Ring O’ Bells Village, and see him again for a bit. What a bit of luck we aren’t back at school yet!” Roger rubbed his hands joyfully.

“Barney can’t come here with his monkey,” said Miss Hannah firmly. “I’m having no monkeys in my house. If the boy likes to ask someone to look after his monkey for him, I’d be pleased to have him here, for your sake—but no monkey. That’s flat.”

“Oh!” said all three. They knew perfectly well that nothing in the world would persuade Barney to leave Miranda with anyone else. It was quite unthinkable.

“He could perhaps lodge somewhere in the village,” said Miss Pepper, seeing the children’s disappointed faces.

“Yes. Though as it’s May and so fine and warm he’d probably just as soon sleep out of doors,” said Diana, remembering that Barney didn’t need a roof over his head, as ordinary people did. “He’ll find a barn or haystack or something.”

“Very well,” said Miss Hannah. “But I will not have the monkey here. Becky, you’ll see that it doesn’t come here, won’t you?”

Miss Pepper nodded at her cousin. “Yes, Hannah. Don’t worry—the monkey shan’t come here—though it’s not a bad little thing at all. I didn’t mind it after a bit.”

Miss Hannah gave a mild snort. “Well, I should never, never take to a monkey,” she said. “And at my time of life I’m not going to try.”

The children went out into the garden after they had made their beds and tidied up. Diana took her fountain pen, and Roger had note-paper and envelopes. Snubby, as usual, merely looked on and made unhelpful remarks about what to say to Barney.

“Dear Barney,” wrote Diana:

“Thanks awfully for your letter. You’ll be surprised at our address, but we’ve had ‘flu, and we’ve all been sent away here for a change, Snubby and Loony too. Loony didn’t have the ‘flu though, of course. There’s a dog here, called Loopy, who’s very good company for Loony, because he’s just as idiotic.”

“Tell Barney how he takes all the mats out,” put in Snubby.

Diana took no notice. “I wonder if I’ve spelt ‘idiotic’ right,” she said. “Yes, I think I have. I’ll go on now.”

She went on with the letter, with Roger and Snubby looking over her shoulder, breathing down her neck.

“We all felt pretty awful after the ‘flu, and ...” she went on writing. Snubby interrupted.

“Tell him my legs felt just like jelly,” he said.

“Do you think that would interest him?” said Diana scornfully. “Who cares about your jelly-legs? And do stop panting down my neck. You feel like Loony.”

Loony heard his name and bounced up at her, so that her pen made a deep mark across the letter. “Blow you, Loony—it was such a nice neat letter, and now look what you’ve done. Anyway, Barney will guess it was you. Get down!”

“Go on, Di—you’ve just written: ‘We all felt pretty awful after the ‘flu,’ ” said Roger. “Are you going to tell him how to get here? He won’t have any notion of where this place is.”

“If he’s going to hitch-hike, what’s the good of telling him?” asked Diana. “I’ll just say, ‘Show this address to anyone you’re hitch-hiking with, and they’ll tell you if you’re going in the right direction or not.’ ”

“Tell him about the secret passage,” said Snubby. “He’ll like that.”

“You seem to think I’m writing a book or something,” said Diana, exasperated. “And will you stop breathing down my neck. I’m going to end the letter now. It’s long enough already.”

She finished it. “We’re here with Miss Pepper, you remember her, don’t you? We’re staying with her cousin, Miss Hannah, who doesn’t like monkeys, so you won’t be able to stay with us, worse luck. But we can arrange something when we see you. Lots of love to darling Miranda.

Your friends,

Diana, Roger and Snubby.

P.S.—Loony sends his best woof.”

They all signed their names, and Diana heaved a sigh of relief. “There—that’s done. I do hate writing letters, but it’s nice to be able to tell Barney to come. What a bit of luck we’re not back at school!”

They posted the letter, and speculated for some time as to when Barney would get to them. “He’ll get our letter to-morrow,” said Roger. “And maybe he’ll start straight away. If he hitch-hikes as cleverly as he usually does, he might be here any time after to-morrow.”

This was very cheering. Everyone felt much better somehow, now that they could look forward to seeing Barney and Miranda.

They pictured Barney’s wide-set startlingly blue eyes in his brown face, and Miranda’s dear little monkey face. Yes—it really would be fine to see them both again.

On the way back from the post, they passed Mother Hubbard’s Cottage. The old lady was out in the garden, picking polyanthus. She smiled at them.

“Good morning, Mother Hubbard,” said Snubby, quite forgetting it wasn’t her real name. Roger and Diana gave him a punch, one each side. He was taken aback. “Oh—er—I mean—well, good morning, Mam!”

The old lady laughed. “Call me Mother Hubbard if you like,” she said. “It’s no matter to me what I’m called. And I’ve certainly a cupboard, though it isn’t bare.”

“Is your Grandad asleep to-day?” asked Roger, remembering the old, old man with his fierce, shaggy eyebrows and fluff of white hair round his head.

“I’ll see,” said Mother Hubbard, and disappeared. She soon came back. “No, he’s not asleep,” she said. “You go out and talk to him. He’s got a wonderful memory, though he repeats himself sometimes. He remembers what happened years ago, better than what happens these days. Why, he forgets what he had for dinner as soon as he’s eaten it, poor old man!”

They had to leave Loony and Loopy tied up outside, of course. Old Grandad didn’t like dogs. Mother Hubbard took them out of her back door into the little garden beyond. Old Grandad was there, sitting up in his cushioned chair, smoking the long clay pipe.

“Good morning,” said the three children, marvelling again at his immense eyebrows. They could hardly see his eyes because of them. They wondered how he could see. Diana secretly thought that he looked a little like an old English sheep-dog, with its shaggy hair over its eyes!

“Good morning to you all,” said Old Grandad, and pointed with his clay-pipe to the ground. “Set you down, and tell me your names and who you be. I’ve not set eyes on you before.”

They told him their names. He chuckled when he heard Snubby’s. “Ah, they call you that acause of your turn-up nose, don’t they? And do you see my nose? Button of a thing it is—and so they used to call me Button. And Button I be now, to my old pals—Button Dourley, I am, and Button Dourley I’ll die. I misremember my rightful name. Mebbe it was John, mebbe it was Joe. But my nose named me, just like your nose named you!” And the old fellow pointed his pipe at Snubby and went off into a peculiar cackle of laughter, rather like a hen makes when she has laid an egg.

What he said interested the children very much. They sat up, all ears, when he told them his name. It wasn’t the “Button” so much, it was the surname—Dourley. Where had they heard it before? It rang a bell in the mind of each of them.

Diana remembered first. “Hugh Dourley!” she said, out loud. “Of course—Hugh Dourley.”

The old man heard her, and his shaggy eyebrows drew down even farther over his eyes. He pointed his pipe at Diana.

“That’s my name you said just now, young lady! It was Hugh—that’s right. It wasn’t John or Joe—it was Hugh. How come I forgot it? But how do you know that, young lady?”

Diana was remembering how she had heard the woman at Ring O’ Bells Hall telling the history of the old mansion. What was it she had said? Oh, yes! “In 1645 Hugh Dourley lived in this Hall, and it was he who first caused it to be called Ring O’ Bells,” she had droned.

Diana answered Old Grandad. “We heard there was a Hugh Dourley who put in the bells at Ring O’ Bells Hall,” she said. “It’s such an unusual name—Dourley—I remembered that long-ago Hugh Dourley, when you said your surname was Dourley. That’s all.”

The old man had sunk back into his chair. His eyes were closed all but a slit.

He opened them suddenly and leaned over to the children as if he had a secret to tell. “Hugh Dourley was my Great-great-great-great-grandad,” he half-whispered. “I don’t know how many Greats. Yes, I’m one of the Dourleys of Ring O’ Bells. I know all about that old place—I know things nobody else knows. Maybe I’ll tell you a few—just a few. Shall I?”