Читать книгу Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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Jane, Jack and Susan, with Crackers listening nearby, got together to talk over the news as soon as they could. They were horrified to think they were to have their three cousins with them for so long.

“Dorkie said this would happen,” said Susan, fondling Crackers’ silky ears. “I bet she isn’t pleased about this either.”

“She’ll back Mummy up, though,” said Jane. “She always does. Anyway, she doesn’t like Melisande or Cyril. She doesn’t mind Roderick so much. Oh dear—I do think it’s all frightful. I wish I could have my room to myself. That’s what I mind most of all.”

“I’m going to hate telling everyone at school that Cyril’s my cousin,” said Jack gloomily. “He’s such an ass.”

The other three cousins were also having a meeting about this dreadful idea. Melisande was sniffing as usual, and Roderick looked scared and miserable.

“Why doesn’t Mummy come to us?” he kept saying. “Is she really ill? Why can’t she come here and help to look after us all? I want her back.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” said Melisande. “Susan’s right when she calls you a mother’s boy! I don’t wonder they all think you’re too silly for words.”

Roderick felt worse than ever. It was bad enough to have his cousins looking at him scornfully, but it was worse still having his own brother and sister unkind to him too.

“I must say I don’t like being here,” said Cyril rather pompously. “So primitive! I do like a hot bath every day—but it’s such a business carrying those pails of water up each time. We shall soon be like Jack and the others if this goes on—real farm-clods!”

“It’s awful sharing a bedroom with Jane,” said Melisande. “She’s no idea of being neat and tidy. I hate having to step over all her things when she throws them about on the floor. I can’t think why her mother allows it. And she grumbles so when I object. But I’m jolly well not going to tidy up her things for her!”

“I should think not,” said Cyril. “One of the things I hate is not being able to read in bed at night unless I take up my torch. Who can read by candle-light? Fancy having candles these days! How can Aunt Linnie and Uncle Peter live like this?”

“I don’t know! And how can Uncle Peter stand seeing Aunt Linnie looking so flustered and red-faced as she rushes about?” said Melisande. “Our mother never looked like that! I must say that Aunt Linnie seems to me to look a lot like old Dorcas sometimes!”

“But she’s nice,” said Roderick suddenly. “I do like her. And she’s got a lot to do now.”

The others took no notice of this. “How Aunt Linnie can allow Uncle Peter to come in out of the farmyard smelling of cows like he does, I don’t know!” went on Melisande. “I can hardly bear it sometimes. I know I shall hold my nose and go out of the sitting-room one day!”

“Gosh! You’d better not!” said Cyril in alarm. “Uncle Peter’s got a frightful temper. You should have heard him flare out at me the other day when I wanted to put the wireless on for something. Just because he was reading his newspaper!”

“I think I shall tell Jane she ought not to come into meals wearing those smelly old jodhpurs of hers,” said Melisande. “If she does, I shan’t sit next to her.”

The three looked at one another. They were all cross and miserable. Oh, for life at Three Towers again, with a beautiful, easy-going mother, and a charming father who never said “No” to anything!

“Well, we’ve got to put up with things, I suppose,” said Cyril.

“We needn’t put up with them too much,” said Melisande spitefully. “You can bet the others won’t try to make things easy for us—so I don’t see why we should make things easy for them!”

“I’d rather be friends with them, really,” said Roderick timidly.

“Oh you! You’re always so afraid of everyone and everything!” said Melisande, scornfully. “You’ll be sucking up to them before you know where you are! See what they say to that! They’ll see through that all right and laugh at you just the same.”

“I wish I didn’t sleep alone,” said Roderick suddenly. “I keep having awful dreams about the fire, and when I wake up I feel awfully afraid. Couldn’t you ask if I could sleep in Jack’s room instead of you, Cyril—and you could come up to the box-room?”

“No thanks! Catch me sleeping next door to a cistern that warbles all night!” said Cyril. “You’re a dreadful ninny, Roderick. No wonder people laugh at you.”

Roderick said no more. He really did have terrifying dreams about flames and fire, and when he woke up he was trembling with fright. And there was nothing and nobody to turn to for comfort—not even a light-switch to put on. He didn’t dare to strike a match and light his candle, because he was afraid his shaking hands would drop the match—and then up would come those terrifying flames again, this time real, and not a dream!

It was just no use the six cousins grumbling and grousing. They had got to put up with one another. It was a great pity they were not more alike and friendly, because they could have had plenty of games and fun. As it was, the trios kept apart as much as possible.

The next excitement, of course, was going back to school. Jane, Jack and Susan loved school, though they always groaned when the holidays were over and their nice long days on the farm were finished. Still, they had Saturdays and Sundays, so that was something.

Cyril was secretly rather scared of going to school with Jack. He was no good at games, and he had never been very popular with other boys. Melisande was very frightened indeed of going to school, but that was understandable, because she had never been before.

Roderick was already so miserable that he felt it wasn’t worth while worrying about school. He knew he would do everything wrong. The school he had been to before was very small and select. Jack’s school was large, and Roderick was afraid of the boys that they sometimes met, who yelled out to Jack and exchanged their news.

“How are we going to get to school?” asked Melisande the day before. “We can all ride, you know. Has Uncle Peter any horses he can lend us?”

Her three cousins stared at her. “You’ve been here two weeks already—and yet you don’t know what horses we’ve got!” said Jane scornfully.

“Perhaps Melisande would like to ride Clip or Clop,” said Susan with a giggle.

Jane roared. Clip and Clop were the two large shire horses used for farm-work. They were well-matched bays, with lovely shaggy hooves. Roderick grinned too. He knew Clip and Clop, because Susan had told him about them.

“One of your feeble jokes, I suppose, as usual,” said Melisande.

Jane backed up Susan. “A joke all right, but not feeble,” she said. She turned to Susan. “Do you suppose Daddy would lend dear Melisande his grey cob?” she asked solemnly, winking at her little sister.

Susan looked solemnly back. “What, Sultan, do you mean?” she said. “Melisande could ask Daddy and see.”

Melisande fell straight into the trap, and actually did ask her uncle. “Uncle Peter, may I have Sultan to ride to school on?” she said. “I’m sure I could ride him all right.”

Uncle Peter exploded. “Have Sultan? The horse I use to ride round the farm every day! Lend him to you to take off to school all day long! Are you mad?”

Melisande retreated hurriedly in alarm. She saw her three cousins bursting with suppressed laughter, and she was very angry indeed.

“Sorry, Uncle,” she said, scarlet with anger at having fallen into such a silly trap.

“I should think so. Where’s your common-sense?” boomed her uncle. “Asking for the farm-cob to take your lazy bones to school! What should I ride, I should like to know? I never in my life ...”

“It’s all right, Peter. Melisande didn’t understand,” said Mrs. Longfield soothingly. She sensed that her three had been up to something. Melisande went out of the room, angry and humiliated. She would pay her cousins out for that!

It was decided that the three cousins should walk to the bottom of the hill and catch the bus that passed fairly near the schools. Jane and her brother and sister would ride their ponies as usual.

“I’m not going to offer to give that lazy Melisande a loan of Merrylegs ever,” said Jane.

“And I wouldn’t dream of letting that fathead of a Cyril handle Darkie,” said Jack. “He’s always dreaming. You’ve got to be alert if you’re going to handle a horse like Darkie in the town.”

“Nobody but me can ride Boodi,” said Susan, exultantly. “So I’m safe! Boodi would just love to play one of his tricks on Melisande or Cyril. He’d stop suddenly and throw them off. He’d scrape their legs along the hedge. He’d stand still and refuse to budge. He’d ...”

“I don’t know why you like Boodi so much,” said Jane. “Fat little barrel! I wish he wouldn’t nibble other horses’ tails. Merrylegs just hates it when Boodi gets behind him. It makes him fidgety and cross.”

“I love Boodi best of all our horses,” said Susan obstinately. “And I’m very glad nobody else wants to ride him.”

Mrs. Longfield heaved a sigh of relief when school began. She would get rid of the six children for five whole days every week! No big dinner to prepare in the middle of the day now, except on Saturday and Sunday. What a relief!

Dorcas was glad too. She had taken as much of the load from her mistress’s shoulders as she could, and had been on her feet from six o’clock in the morning till ten o’clock at night. She was fond of all the children except Cyril and Melisande. Susan was her favourite. She was sorriest for Roderick, and wondered why all the good farm food and open air did not bring a little colour into his chalk-white face.

“Misses his mother, I expect,” she said to Mrs. Longfield. “Though what a boy of ten or eleven is doing, missing his mother like that, beats me! He should have left her apron-strings long ago.”

“Of course he should,” said Mrs. Longfield. “Oh, Dorcas, what peace in the house to-day! All of them off to school. Poor old Crackers looks so terribly miserable, doesn’t he?”

So he did. He sat at the garden-door, his ears drooping almost to the ground, his soft spaniel eyes sad and sorrowful. He could never understand this school business. He would sit there patiently nearly all day, waiting till he heard the first clip-clop of hooves up the lane. Then off he would dart madly, barking at the top of his voice, his tail wagging like a black feather.

“It certainly is peaceful,” Dorcas agreed. “Always bickering with one another, aren’t they? And that Miss Melisande, she does turn on the tap easily! Cries if she so much as has to carry up a pail of hot water!”

“They’ll go on bickering till they all shake down,” said Mrs. Longfield. “If they ever do!”

That first day at school was terrible for Melisande and her brothers. Melisande had decided to be rather scornful and aloof. She was certain that she knew far, far more than the other girls of her age. She was put into Jane’s class, and was rather thankful to have her there to ask what to do.

Jane had plenty of friends. They chattered and laughed and exchanged news, whilst Melisande looked on rather coldly. What awful loud-voiced girls! And no manners at all. Well, certainly Melisande did not want to mix with them!

The other girls, having been introduced to Melisande, were quite prepared to be nice to her for Jane’s sake. They talked to her and tried to draw her into their conversations. But Melisande soon froze them.

“Stuck up, isn’t she?” whispered one girl to another. “Leave her alone! She’s not a bit like Jane.”

So they left Melisande severely alone after a bit, and she didn’t like that either!

Cyril was not getting on much better. The boys nudged each other and giggled when they saw his long hair and languid ways. Jack had warned him not to say what his Christian name was. He was afraid that the joint effect of the name and Cyril’s appearance would be too much for the boys. He was to give his second name, if he was asked. This was Graham.

“What’s the matter with my first name?” asked Cyril indignantly. “I’m not the only fellow that ever had that name! You can’t tell me there’s nobody else with that name in your school, Jack!”

“I’m not telling you that. I’m only saying that if you’re called Cyril you shouldn’t look like a Cyril, or you won’t carry it off,” said Jack impatiently.

“And what does a Cyril look like, if you’ll be good enough to tell me?” inquired Cyril coldly. “I can’t help my name, can I? And, personally, I can’t see anything wrong with it.”

“No. That’s just the trouble,” said Jack. “If you could, you’d jolly well get your hair cut as short as possible, you’d talk properly instead of in that namby-pamby fashion, and you wouldn’t wear floppy bows and spout poetry!”

This was a long speech from Jack, and he probably would never have made it if he hadn’t been afraid that the boys would tease him about Cyril’s looks and ways.

Cyril was very obstinate and very touchy. He went white with rage and walked off, determined that nothing on earth would make him have his hair cut as short as Jack’s, or talk any differently. Neither would he hide the fact that his name was Cyril. Anyway, he would be called Longfield at school, and it was probably all Jack’s make-up that anyone would ever snigger at his name or ways.

He soon found that, unlike his other school, there was no little clique of boys like himself—no little band of would-be poets and painters and musicians—no easy rules that let out those who didn’t want to play games every day. He was one on his own, and that wasn’t easy to bear. At first, as in Melisande’s case, the class had been willing to welcome Cyril because he had a cousin to vouch for him. But it wasn’t long before Cyril found himself ignored, or, more unpleasant still, hauled into the limelight and well and truly criticized.

Roderick fared the best of the three cousins. He didn’t pose and think a lot of himself, like his brother and sister. He only wanted to remain unnoticed, and to try to feel his feet before any great catastrophe overwhelmed him. Fortunately for him, there were three other new boys in his class, all a little scared and eager to keep together until they knew a bit more about the ways of the school.

Roderick stuttered with fright when a master asked him a question—but then so did the other new boys. Nobody took much notice of that. The master was a young and kindly fellow, and he left the new boys to find their feet. Roderick found to his great relief that the work was about his standard, and that he hadn’t got into any trouble at all in his first week.

“How are you all getting on at school?” asked Mrs. Longfield on Friday evening. “You’ve had three days—time enough to know!”

“All right,” said Melisande, Cyril and Roderick cautiously, trying not to look at their cousins. And that was all that their aunt could get out of them, though she knew there was quite a lot more to be said!