Читать книгу Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm - Enid blyton - Страница 5

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Jack and Jane saw the car coming as they looked out from the sitting-room window. It swept into the drive and stopped. Jack yelled to his mother:

“They’re here! Quick, Mummy!”

Mrs. Longfield hurried down, the two children following her to the door. Uncle David was getting out, looking tired and grave and old, though he was younger than his brother, the farmer. Melisande got out, helped by Cyril, who was always very gallant and well-mannered.

“You poor things!” said Mrs. Longfield in her warm, kind voice. Melisande fell into her arms and burst into tears. Cyril looked as if he was about to weep too. Roderick stared stolidly in front of him, a pretty, girlish boy, too plump, and with a rather stupid look on his pale face.

Jane and Jack felt and looked most uncomfortable. They wished Melisande would stop crying. They didn’t know what to say to their uncle. They were even afraid of shaking hands with Cyril in case he too began to cry. So they looked at Roderick.

“Hallo, Roderick,” said Jack, and then felt that his voice was much too cheerful. He lowered it a little. “Er—hand me out those cases. I’ll take them in.”

Cyril began to help. Melisande was being taken indoors by Mrs. Longfield, who was trying to comfort her. Jane noticed that Melisande was dressed in a pale blue tailor-made suit, very pretty and smart. “It makes her look almost grown-up,” she thought, “and yet she’s hardly fifteen. And her hair is a mass of waves—just as if she’s spent hours over it this morning. And she’s even found time to put on a brooch. I bet if my house had burnt down yesterday, I wouldn’t have cared how I was dressed!”

Cyril too looked as if he had taken a lot of trouble with his clothes—much too much, Jack thought. And yet he looked sloppy, though probably he meant to look artistic. His tie was a floppy bow. His shirt was a peculiar colour. He wore sandals!

“Sandals!” thought Jack. “Gosh! Well, I suppose his shoes were lost in the fire. I’ll have to lend him a pair of mine—but my feet are twice his size.”

They all went indoors with the luggage. Jane wondered where Susan was. “Just like Susan to get out of welcoming them!” she thought, not knowing that Susan had gone out shopping, and was even then riding up the lane homewards.

Melisande had been taken upstairs to Jane’s room. Mrs. Longfield was trying to persuade her to go to bed.

“It must have been a terrible time for you,” she said gently. “And I don’t expect you slept much last night. I’ll help you undress, dear, and then you stay in bed to-day. You’ll feel better to-morrow.”

“It was dreadful,” wept Melisande. “I shall never forget it, never. No, don’t make me go to bed, please. I shan’t rest or sleep for ages.”

“How is your mother?” asked Mrs. Longfield, and immediately regretted asking the question, because it brought a fresh flood of tears at once.

“Poor Mummy! She had to be taken to hospital. She simply collapsed,” wept Melisande.

Mrs. Longfield sighed. She patted her niece and told her to wash, and dry her eyes, and come down to lunch if she really wouldn’t stay in bed.

“I couldn’t eat a thing,” said Melisande.

“Well, you shall do just what you like, dear,” said Mrs. Longfield. “I must go and see to Cyril and Roderick now. I’ll see you later. Shall I send Jane up to help you unpack?”

“Yes, please,” said Melisande. She began to cry afresh. “Not that there’s much left to unpack. We only saved a few of our clothes.”

Mrs. Longfield thought of the many cases and bags in the car. Half of them would be enough to pack the clothes of all five Longfields in! She gave Melisande another pat and went out of the room.

Cyril was unpacking in Jack’s room, and there was literally not enough room to stand up in. Jack sat on the window-sill, looking miserable. Whatever would his room be like when Cyril had finished?

Mrs. Longfield looked at Cyril. Well, thank goodness he wasn’t crying! He looked grave and rather important.

“Managing all right, Cyril?” she asked. “Aren’t you helping him, Jack?”

Jack got up unwillingly and tried to find a place to stand and help, but he couldn’t without treading on Cyril’s belongings.

“There are plenty of empty drawers, Cyril,” said Mrs. Longfield. “Put what you’ve unpacked into the drawers, and then you’ll be able to find room to unpack the rest.”

“Well, it’s only books that are left, and my papers,” said Cyril. “I simply don’t know where I’m going to put my books.”

“There’s plenty of room downstairs in the bookcase,” said Jack.

“Oh, I must have them up here,” said Cyril in his rather affected voice.

“I don’t see why,” said Jack, ready to argue. His mother frowned at him, and he stopped.

“Put them all at the bottom of the big cupboard for now,” she said to Cyril. “Then we’ll see what we can find for you to put them in later on.”

Roderick was upstairs with Susan, who had now arrived. She was still feeling rather sulky about the stupid hooting that had made Boodi rear, but she was really trying hard to be nice.

She had peeped into Melisande’s room, and retreated hurriedly when she saw Melisande dabbing her eyes and sniffing dolefully. She had then peeped into Cyril’s room, and looked in horror at the masses of clothes on the floor and on the two beds. She saw Jack sitting scowling on the window-sill, and decided to go away. She climbed up to the little boxroom and found Roderick there, looking very glum.

“Am I to sleep here?” he said to Susan, before she had even had time to say, “Hallo.”

“Yes. On this camp-bed. Aren’t you lucky to have a camp-bed to sleep on?” said Susan. “I’ve only got an enormous old double-bed.”

Roderick didn’t look as if he felt it was at all lucky to sleep on a camp-bed. He looked round the little room as if he thought it was a dreadful little hole.

“I don’t think much of this,” he said. Susan forgot all her good resolutions at once.

“What’s the matter with it?” she demanded.

“Well—it’s so small—and dark,” said Roderick. “And I’ve already heard peculiar noises up here.”

“Oh—that’s only the cistern,” said Susan. “It gurgles. Once I slept up here for a week, and I liked it when the cistern gurgled. It sounded sort of friendly.”

There was a pause. Susan heard a pattering of feet up the uncarpeted attic stairs, and in came Crackers the spaniel. He ran straight at Roderick and sniffed his legs. Roderick pushed him away.

“That’s Crackers,” said Susan. “We called him Crackers when he was tiny because he did such mad things. He really was crackers. I say—tell me about the fire. Did it burn everything in great hot flames?”

To Susan’s alarm, Roderick put his hands in front of his eyes and cried out loudly: “Don’t! Don’t ask me about it! I shall scream if you do.”

“But, Roderick—I only wanted to know,” said Susan. “Was it—was it so dreadful? Did you see the house burn?”

Roderick screamed. Crackers growled, and Susan jumped in surprise. Her mother came running up the stairs.

“What’s the matter with Roderick?” she asked Susan.

“I just asked him to tell me about the fire, and he screamed and said I wasn’t to ask him,” said Susan. She was puzzled. Roderick was shaking all over, and his hands were in front of his face.

“It looks as if he’s the shocked one!” said her mother in a curiously gentle voice. “Poor old Roderick! Susan, would you like to take a picnic dinner out with Roderick, and show him the three tame lambs up on the hill?”

“Not have dinner properly downstairs?” said Susan, delighted, though she would much rather have gone alone on a picnic than with this strange, shivering Roderick. Her mother had her arms round him now, and he was clinging to her as if he was a baby.

She spoke to him in a firm, kind voice. “Everything is all right now, Roderick. It’s all over. You’ll soon forget it. Look, I’m going to take off this nice suit of yours, and get you to put on a jersey and shorts. Those will be best for a picnic. You’ll like to see the pet lambs. We brought them up on the milk-bottles, you know. Susan fed them every day.”

“And they still know me,” said Susan. “They come running when I call them. Mummy, shall I go down and ask Dorkie for sandwiches?”

“Yes. You go,” said her mother, who was really worried over Roderick. It was quite clear that he had had a terrible shock, and because everyone had been too busy to take much notice of him, no one had known that the fire had affected Roderick most of all.

Susan sped downstairs, pleased at her mother’s suggestion. She looked in on Jane on the way.

“I’m going picnicking with Roderick,” she said.

“Who said so?” said Jane, at once.

“Mummy!” said Susan, and disappeared, leaving Jane to wish that she too was going to escape the family lunch with a weeping Melisande, a solemn Cyril and a sad, old-looking uncle.

Dorcas soon produced sandwiches and slices of cake and a bottle of creamy milk. Roderick came down with his aunt, looking a little better. He was now in jersey and shorts, and was no longer howling.

“Come on,” said Susan. “I’ll take you to the hill where the lambs are. I won’t ask you about the fire, I promise. We’ll see old Hazel, the shepherd. He’s got plenty of good stories to tell. Come on!”