Читать книгу The Path Through the Trees - Peggy Dymond Leavey - Страница 6

At first, Norah thought the woman who answered the door of the dreary, stone house was very tall. Later, she realized that was due to the straightness of her posture. She wore a long, black skirt, polished shoes of the same colour and a grey blouse with a high throat, buttoned to the top. Her white hair was pulled back in a severe style behind her head. A pair of rimless spectacles perched halfway down a long, narrow nose.

Norah wiped her hand on her jeans and extended it towards the woman. “I’m Norah,” she announced with a smile. The door closed behind her.

“Of course you are.” The woman stepped back and took a long look at Norah’s wet shoes. “You may hang your things there,” she said, indicating a hallstand, the kind with a seat that opened and a place for umbrellas.

Norah dropped her hand. “Is my Aunt Caroline home?” she asked.

“I am Caroline Stoppard,” declared the woman, unsmiling.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Norah exclaimed. “It’s just, you know, with a house as big as this, I thought you might be...”

“The maid?” Cold, blue eyes peered at Norah over the spectacles. “Perfectly understandable. How could you be expected to know me, when we have never met?”

Feeling it was better to say nothing at all, Norah hung her jacket over one of the hooks on the hallstand and stepped out of her shoes.

Once that was properly done, Caroline Stoppard walked briskly across the hall to the foot of the stairs. “Come along now,” she said. “There are no servants in this house. I will show you to your room.”

Lugging the suitcase, Norah followed the erect figure up the stairs, sneaking a look at her surroundings as she climbed. The stairs were painted black, uncarpeted, and they swept in a wide arc to a landing, halfway to the second floor. A circular window of red and blue glass spilled a watery stain onto the hardwood at their feet. There were no paintings, no family portraits on the grey walls as Norah might have expected. The house appeared as cold and unadorned as its owner.

“Your mother is coming when, exactly?” Aunt Caroline asked, waiting for Norah to catch up.

“The day after tomorrow,” Norah puffed. “She was called away on business.”

“Well, I suppose that can’t be helped,” was the comment.

At the top of the stairs, they turned into a dark hallway. Aunt Caroline opened a door to a room at the front of the house and stepped aside to allow Norah to enter first. It was cold as a tomb inside.

“This will be your room,” the woman announced. “I’ve put some towels in here for you to use. The bathroom is down the hall, on the left. You may put your clothes in the bureau over there.”

Wheeling the suitcase to a spot inside the door, Norah scanned the room. There was one, curtainless window in the opposite wall. A massive oak dresser that Aunt Caroline had called a bureau occupied most of the wall on the left. The floor of the room was bare except for a rectangle of beige carpet next to the bed. That bit of carpet, the mirror over the dresser and a small lamp on top of the bookcase were the room’s only decorative touches.

Hands clasped primly at her waist, Aunt Caroline watched as Norah’s eyes swept the room. “I am not used to children,” the woman said. “So we’ll just try to get along the best we can, shall we?”

“I’m not exactly a child,” Norah pointed out. She was trying to be polite, although her great-aunt’s words had stung. “I was thirteen on my last birthday.”

A smile flickered briefly over the colourless lips. “Supper is at six.” And with that she was gone, leaving Norah with only the sound of her sensible shoes descending the stairs.

Norah crossed the room to the window. She looked out at the muddy lane she had just travelled and an overgrown lawn, matted with soggy, brown leaves. She had not expected to be relegated to her room so soon. Shouldn’t there be a few little welcoming gestures first? Make yourself at home; have some milk and cookies? This was the person her mother thought would spoil her?

The big bed in the middle of the room was so high that Norah had to hop up to sit on it. From there she could reach the lamp on the bookcase. Norah switched it on. The yellow light it shed seemed to soften some of the sharp angles of the room.

She checked out the shelves of the bookcase and found them crammed with old books, their cloth spines faded to one monotonous shade of rust. Nothing interesting there.

Sliding off the bed, Norah closed the door to the hall and stood leaning against it, angry at her mother and even more angry at herself for going along with Ginny’s plan. She should have fought harder against it. She could have been on her way to Ashley’s right now.

Norah carried the suitcase to the wide sill of the window and unzipped it. She had already made up her mind that she would not unpack. Not yet, not if there was any chance of an early escape.

Looking at her familiar old clothes, the books she had tucked in along the edge of the suitcase, and remembering her mother carefully folding everything for her, filled her with a sudden ache of loneliness. How was she ever going to put in two whole days by herself in this awful place?

The drawers of the dresser, which Norah pulled open out of curiosity, were all lined with clean, white paper. She was relieved to discover in the bottom drawer a folded, woollen blanket. Maybe she could sleep the rest of this horrible afternoon away.