Читать книгу Six Cousins Again - Enid blyton - Страница 5

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The next excitement was moving-in, of course. Everyone at Mistletoe Farm was thrilled with this, not only Cyril, Melisande and Roderick. Even Dorcas got “all worked-up,” as she called it, and went over to see if she could do any scrubbing.

Mrs. Longfield went with Jane to hang the new curtains that had arrived in good time. They looked very nice indeed. “Aunt Rose certainly has good taste,” said Jane, as she looked at the new hangings, half wishing that she had such pretty curtains at her bedroom window too. She didn’t even know what colours hers was supposed to be, they were so old!

“Mummy, wouldn’t you like some new curtains sometime?” she asked suddenly, watching her mother look admiringly at the blue ones she had just hung in Aunt Rose’s bedroom.

“Yes. I’d love some,” said her mother. “But things like that have to wait, if you run a farm—there always seems to be something much more important to buy—machinery, or new hens, or feeding-stuff. I’ve kept meaning to make you some new ones, Jane—yours are the ones I had in my bedroom at my own home when I was a girl! It’s a shame that I can’t give you a pretty, dainty bedroom like Melisande is going to have. Especially now that you have got so much tidier in your ways!”

Jane grinned. She had had to share her small bedroom with Melisande for eight months and Melisande had grumbled bitterly at the way Jane scattered her things everywhere. She had even threatened once to throw Jane’s “smelly old jodphurs” out of the window if she left them lying about the bedroom any more.

“Yes. I am better now,” said Jane. “But I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up my good ways when my bedroom is my own again, without Melisande there to grumble if I’m too untidy.”

“Oh, don’t say that, Jane,” said her mother with a groan, unpacking some brown-red curtains for Cyril’s bedroom. “It’s been such a pleasure not to have to grumble at you so much. Dear me—how we shall all miss your three cousins now.”

“Yes. But it will be lovely to have you all to ourselves again,” said Jane. “I don’t like sharing you with so many people.”

“Don’t I take enough notice of you, when I’ve six children instead of three?” said her mother, with a chuckle. “All right, you wait—I’ll begin to notice all kinds of things when I’ve more time—your dirty shoes—buttons off....”

Jane laughed. She climbed up on the window sill to slide the curtain rings on to the rod there. Out in the yard Roderick and Susan and Crackers were unpacking a big crate, performing peculiar feats with a chisel and a screwdriver. Mrs. Longfield, looking down too, thought it all looked very dangerous indeed.

“I suppose they think they’re helping,” she said. “But all that will happen is that the chisel will slip and cut somebody’s hand—or jab Crackers’ nose. He sticks it into everything!”

They had planned to lay the linoleum and the carpets, and hang the curtains before the new furniture came in. It wouldn’t take long then for everything to be straight, and Aunt Rose hoped to have the children in their new home at five o’clock on the afternoon of moving-in day.

“Who’s going to help Aunt Rose?” asked Jack, wandering in to see how his mother and Jane were getting on. “Is she going to have somebody like Dorcas?”

“She’s bringing someone,” said his mother, shaking out another curtain. “And Dorcas has got her niece to come in every day and help. So Aunt Rose should be very comfortable indeed—she’ll lead the life of a lady—quite different from mine! She’ll be able to keep her hands nice, for one thing, and she’ll be able to look pretty when Uncle David comes in from his work—which I never do when Daddy comes in! I’m always too busy!”

“Oh Mummy—why, I think you always look nice!” said Jane, surprised. “I’m sure Daddy does too—even if he doesn’t say it. Anyway I’d rather have you than Aunt Rose any day.”

“Sh!” said her mother, as Melisande came into the room, looking flushed and pretty with excitement at helping to get her new home ready. “Hallo, Melisande—finished putting up Roderick’s curtains yet?”

“Yes. And I’ve helped Cyril to put down the carpet in my room and in his,” said Melisande. “Isn’t it fun, Aunt Linnie? I’m just longing to move in.”

“We’ll feel queer without you all,” said her aunt. “But it will be nice for you to have your mother and father again and be one united family. That’s what families are meant for—to live together in friendship and love.”

“Like yours, Aunt Linnie,” said Melisande unexpectedly. “I wish we were going to live a bit nearer to you—not two or three miles away. I’ve a sort of feeling we’ll want to keep popping in and out to ask how we do this and how we do that! It’s a good thing Mother has someone she’s bringing here to help—and Dorcas has got her niece to come. She couldn’t manage like you do.”

“Well, my dear, if you’re in difficulties, you know quite a bit about household and farm affairs now, you and Cyril and Roderick,” said her aunt. “You can surely help in all kinds of ways. You can’t live on a farm like Mistletoe Farm for eight months without knowing a good deal of its running!”

By the time they left that day, Holly Farm-house looked quite homely! The carpets down on the floor and the curtains hanging at the windows gave the house a friendly look. Melisande looked back at it, and felt very glad they were all going to live there.

“Daddy will love it,” she thought. “He’ll be really happy in the country. So shall I, though I never thought I would. How lovely to have Christmas Day in our own house!”

Moving-in day came at last. It was on a Friday, so Cyril, Melisande and Roderick were all at school. They begged to help, but their father said no. “You’ll be better out of the way!” he said. “Your mother’s seen the house and she’s got the plan of it—she has arranged exactly where all the new furniture is to go. We’ll manage fine.”

In great excitement the three children took a different bus from their usual one that Friday afternoon, rode in the opposite direction, and got out at the end of their lane. Up the lane they raced in the darkening evening. The sky was very clear, and the evening star hung low and bright. They crunched their way over frosted puddles, and looked out for the first glimpse of their new home.

“There it is!” said Roderick, suddenly, as he saw a light shining out from a window, and then from another. “Oh—doesn’t it look nice and welcoming! Mother will be there.”

They raced in at the gateway and up to the front door. It had been left ajar for them. They tore into the little hall, feeling the warmth at once—for Holly Farm actually had central heating, and the whole house was warm from top to bottom. What a change from the chilly rooms at Mistletoe Farm!

“Mother! Where are you?” shouted Roderick, impatiently, and flung open the sitting-room door. And there was his mother, sitting by a bright log fire, waiting, looking as young and pretty as ever.

The three children flung themselves on her, and both Melisande and Roderick thought the same thing at the same moment. “Why! We’re bigger than Mother is now!”

Their mother gasped at the onslaught of the three hefty children, and pushed them back, laughing. “One at a time, dears! Melisande, how you’ve grown—and you really are fat! Cyril—you don’t look the same!”

“Well—I’ve grown too,” said Cyril, marvelling at the slightness of his mother.

“No—it’s the way you’ve had your hair cut,” said his mother. “It’s so terribly short! We’ll let it grow long now, just as it used to be. And how is mother’s boy, my darling little Roderick?”

Roderick was so delighted to have his mother again that he didn’t even mind being called “mother’s boy”. He tried to sit on the arm of her chair, and hugged her.

“Oh dear—how you rumple me!” said his mother. “What enormous children I’ve got now. Well, how do you like your new home, dears?”

“It’s lovely,” said Melisande, at once, looking round at the sitting-room, and marvelling how different it was from the rumpled, untidy room she knew so well at Mistletoe Farm. “Oh Mother—it’s so nice to have pretty cushions about again—and flowers everywhere—and the fire-irons shining—and everything so tidy!”

“And a fine wireless!” said Cyril, joyfully. “I was hardly ever allowed to put the wireless on at Mistletoe Farm, because Uncle wanted to read the paper, or something. Even though he knew that Aunt Linnie might like to hear a concert!”

“He’s such a boor, your dear uncle,” said his mother’s soft voice. “Well, you can turn on the wireless whenever you like now. This is your own home and you can do what you please. No cross uncle to say you mustn’t do this and you mustn’t do that—and no busy Aunt Linnie rushing round with a red face, sending everyone to do jobs!”

Roderick drew back a little. He was very fond of his Aunt Linnie. “She’s awfully nice, all the same,” he said, loyally.

“Oh, of course,” said his mother, and pulled him towards her again. “But surely I’m the kind of mother you want, aren’t I? Just look at me and see!”

They all looked at her. She laughed up at them, as pretty as a picture, her hair shining. The little pearly ear-rings in her ears caught a spark of fire-light as they swung.

“You look so young!” said Cyril. “And you smell so nice—and you’ve got a pretty new dress on. Yes—you’re the kind of mother we want!”

“But Aunt Linnie’s nice all the same,” said Roderick in a small voice. “You’re much prettier, Mother—but Aunt Linnie is nice!”