Читать книгу Joan and Peter - H. G. Wells - Страница 43

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But here Mary was to astonish Lady Charlotte. “Why couldn’t they tell me?” she asked Unwin when she grasped the situation.

“It’s all right, Joan,” she said. “Nobody ain’t killing Peter. You come alongo me and see.”

And it was Mary who stilled the hideous bawling of Peter, and Mary who induced Joan to brave the horrors of this great experience and to desist from her reiterated assertion: “Done wan’ nergenelman t’wash me!”

And it was Mary who said in the carriage going back:

“Don’t you say nothing about being naughty to yer Aunt Phyllis and I won’t neether.”

And so she did her best to avoid any further discussion of the matter.

But in this pacific intention she was thwarted by Lady Charlotte, who presently drove over to The Ingle-Nook to see her “two little Christians” and how Aunt Phœbe was taking it. She had the pleasure of explaining what had happened herself.

“We had them christened,” she said. “It all passed off very well.”

“It is an outrage,” cried Aunt Phœbe, “on my brother’s memory. It must be undone.”

“That I fear can never be,” said Lady Charlotte serenely, folding her hands before her and smiling loftily.

“Their Little White Souls!” exclaimed Aunt Phœbe, and then seizing a weapon from the enemy’s armoury: “I shall write to our solicitor.”