"House On Parchment Street" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

"Because you do hurt him," Father Malory said simply. There was a step beyond the door; his head turned. "Oh, good morning, Mrs. Simpson. Have you come to wash the altar linen?"
Bruce passed them wordlessly. Carol caught up with him, hurrying a little to match his long, quick strides through the graveyard. His head was lowered; he did not notice Alexander blocking the path with his bicycle until Carol slowed beside him, and Alexander said, "Bruce. How's your eye?"
Bruce's head jerked up. Alexander rocked back and forth on the wheels in a fragile balance. His face was unusually quiet; when Bruce's quick steps did not check, he looked startled.
"BruceЧ"
Bruce walked into his back wheel. He lost his bal-lance as the bicycle overturned and fell, half-kneeling on the spokes, his hands smacking on the walk. Alexander lay half-under the bicycle, blinking and catching his breath. He turned slowly and pushed the handlebars from under his ribs. Bruce got up. He stepped across the wheel and went on without a word. Alexander untangled himself; Carol heard the faint shaking of his breath. He rolled to his feet, half-crouched, and with a sudden lunge, caught Bruce's legs and brought him down flat on the walk.
"Will you listen?" His voice was breathless, oddly sharp. "Do you think I wanted that to happen to you that day?" Bruce struggled beneath him; Alexander got up, and Bruce rolled over, his breath coming in short, painful catches. Blood trickled from a raw scrape on Alexander's elbow; he touched it and winced. "I wouldn't do that to you. I wouldn't. I happen to like pictures of cows and Queen Anne's Lace, but you wouldn't listen if I told you. You're not very good at listening." He limped to his bicycle. Bruce stared at him, his face pinched, white. He got to his feet. Alexander picked up his bicycle. He turned before he mounted, in time to see Bruce ran down the walk, turn the comer toward the open field.
Alexander leaned against the railing. He looked at Carol. She stood gazing down the walk, her hands under her arms as though she were cold. Alexander
sighed. "I have one of his pictures. The flowers. He nearly stepped on it, fighting, so I rescued it. If he wants it, tell him." He mounted stiffly. She watched him go. She went slowly down the path toward the house, and the bells struck a half-hour behind her. She went through the front door, standing open to warm the flagstones, and into the kitchen where Aunt Catherine measured flour for a cake.
"We're going to London tomorrow," she said cheerfully. "Harold decided he needed a holiday. What do you feel like doing?"
"Throwing all Mrs. Brewster's teacups against the wall."
"What's the matter?" "Everything."
She waited alone in the afternoon, standing high in the tree by the gate, watching the field for Bruce. The bells rang a quarter to four, and she saw Father Malory walk down the graveyard path, his black suit speckled with sunlight from the windblown trees. She jumped down to meet him as he opened the gate. "Hello, Carol," he said. "Where is Bruce?" "I don't know. He ran away." He stood quietly a moment, the wind tugging at his sleeves, raising tufts in his hair. He smoothed them down absently. "Will he come back?"
"I don't know. I think so. Are you still coming down?" "Yes, of course."
"Then wait here a moment, and I'll see if the coast is clear." She stood in the doorway and listened. She heard the click of Uncle Harold's typewriter, and after a moment, Aunt Catherine's steps across the floor above her head. She beckoned to Father Malory, waiting patiently on the lawn, and he came to the door and followed her into the cellar. She cleared a place for him among Mrs. Brewster's what-nots, and he sat down on the table. A moment later the cellar door opened. They heard soft steps on the stones. Father Malory shifted uneasily on the table, and a little china shepherdess fell into a teacup behind him. He sat still. Then Bruce came through the doorway, and Father Malory sighed.
"I had a sudden vision," he murmured, "of you being Mrs. Brewster."
Bruce sat down on a pile of books. He said after a moment, "She would have to be polite to you." Then he blinked as a man moved between them in black cape and hat.
"I don't know why she would," Father Malory said meditatively. "Rules of etiquette don't cover the possibility of finding priests sitting among one's antiques in one's cellar."
The ghost turned, walked into the wall, and Bruce's eyes jumped to Father Malory's face. His mouth opened, closed again. Father Malory looked at him a moment. He looked at Carol, sitting beside him, her face turned to him, her mouth open, wordless.
"Did I miss something? I did, didn't I."
Bruce sighed. He stared at the floor, his shoulders slumped. A shadow fell over his face; a skirt rustled faint as the wind beyond the thick stones. A blue-eyed girl looked down at him.
"Edward," she said softly. "Come." And the stones she melted through reappeared firm and immovable behind her.
Carol slid off the table. Father Malory said surprisedly, "Is it over?"
"Yes. They came." She sat down suddenly on the floor, feeling the blood rushing to her face, a heaviness gathering in her throat. She put her head down on her knees; the first sob scraped her throat like a hiccup. "I wantedЧI wanted you to see themЧ"
"Don't cry. Please don't cry."
"I feel like it." The tears ran hot to her chin; she rubbed her face against her knees to dry it. "EverythingЧnothing is going rightЧyou could have told Uncle Harold you saw them, and thenЧand then Bruce wouldn't have to hate the houseЧand I don't know what to do with two ghosts nobody else can see; I don't know why they have to be there, and you'll think we're both barmyЧ"
"I don't think you're barmy," Father Malory said.
"I would if I were you." She felt a touch on her shoulder and lifted her head. Bruce knelt beside her, holding out a handkerchief. She took it and blew her nose.
"Just because everything is going wrong, that's no reason to give up," Bruce said.
"Well, I don't know what else to do."
"We'll think of what we should do, and then we'll do it. That's the only logical thing to do."
"You don't like thinking logically."
"Well sometimesЧsometimes it's the only thing left to do. When you only have one thing left to do, you do it. But I don't think sitting on the floor and crying is going to help."
"Well, running away this morning didn't help any either."
He was silent a moment. "I know." He stood up, looking at Father Malory sitting silently on the table. "What are you going to do? Tell Dad?"
"No," Father Malory said reflectively. "It's your problem. I expect you'll find a way to solve it. I didn't see or hear anything unusual. But I did see your faces as you watched, and I have been listening to you, and I don't blame you for feeling frustrated. I feel a bit left out. I don't know why you should be able to see something so exciting when I can't. But I can offer one comforting thought: unless the girl had a habit of wandering about when she was alive in clothes two hundred years out of her time, whoever painted that picture saw her as a ghost."
"But he didn't paint her in the cellar," Bruce said. "There was an archway. And I can't see any place in the wall that looks like an arch has been filled up. The
stones look like they've been solid for centuries."
Father Malory nodded, his eyes narrowed, searching the walls. "It is strangeЕ ." He looked at his watch and stood up. They walked slowly back through the rooms. He stopped at the foot of the steps and said, "I wonder. Do you suppose that's what Susan saw in the cellar? She saw the girl from the painting walk through the cellar wall, and then she ran to the study and looked at the painting and had hysterics."
"Poor Susan," Carol said. Bruce looked at her.
"You saw the same thing, and you didn't have hysterics."
"I would have," she said thoughtfully, "if I knew how." She opened the cellar door and peered out. The rich smell of fried chicken hung in the passage. They came out and closed the door softly, just as Uncle Harold came out of the study, his pipe in his mouth and paper in his hand.
"CathЧFather Malory! I didn't know you were here."
УI wasnТt.Ф
"You're just the person I need. I have been writing all afternoon, and suddenly nothing I have written makes any sense whatsoeverЧCan you spare me a moment?"
He led Father Malory to the study. Bruce stood watching them until the study door closed behind them. He stuck his hands deep in his pockets and looked at Carol.
"Have you got any ideas?"
"I had the last idea. It's your turn."
He looked down at the floor. "I don't think I'm thinking too well today," he said. "I wish my bicycle were fixed. Е I would ride so far away that by the time I came back I wouldn't even remember all the things that happened today." He turned away, going down the hall to the kitchen. "Oh, well. At least there's fried chicken."
"And we're going to London tomorrow."
"Are we?"