Читать книгу Time and the Hour - Howard Spring - Страница 18

When Anthony Bromwich awoke the next morning it was to the silence of a snow-sheeted world. His room was full of pallid light that offered no invitation to be up and doing. He snuggled down into his warm bed like a rabbit into its burrow. His aunt bustled into the room. “Come on, lad.” You could be very fond of Aunt Jessie, and yet suffer from the feeling of being perpetually at the mercy of a call-boy.

The sound of a shovel rasping upon the pavement broke the quiet and took Aunt Jessie across the room to the window. “Well!” she exclaimed. “That beats the band! It’s young Chris Hudson clearing the snow.” After a moment’s cogitation she added: “See what that means? He must have slept there last night. She’s got him!”

Then there floated up the light clear voice of Lottie Wayland. “Bon jour, Christophe. Vous avez bien dormi?”

The shovelling ceased, and Aunt Jessie reported: “He’s looking at her like a stuck pig. Well, well! Dick Hudson’s started something now.” She came back from the window, and said as she went out: “Up you get. Don’t keep your uncle waiting.”

But when she was gone Anthony lay there for some time, listening to the scrape of the shovel that began again, and to the clear ring of Lottie’s voice that was like a note struck from the sharp crystal of the morning air. He heard Chris Hudson’s voice: “That’ll have to do. I’m cold. Why don’t you say something I can understand?” and Lottie’s reply, in English this time, “My word, you are a grumpy one. Let’s go in and have breakfast.”

Anthony leapt out of bed and into his clothes. There would just be time, before going to school, to make sure that the toboggan was in order. He would have fun with it in Ackroyd Park to-night.