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

"Do you want some supper, Alexander?" Aunt Catherine said. "Yes, please."
She filled a plate for him. "I think the whole thing sounds very logical."
"Perhaps, butЕ ." Uncle Harold's voice trailed away. He stared down at his teacup.
Alexander said mildly, "We aren't trying to play a trick on you. None of us would do that. Not even me."
"All right. I'm sorry, but it had occurred to me. You and Bruce are occasionally unscrupulous."
Alexander blushed. "I know," he said. "But we aren't trying to hide anything from you. We could have said the mortar was a different color where they filled the tunnel opening. That's much easier to say than that we saw ghosts walking through walls."
"I think," Aunt Catherine said, sitting down, "it's a shame that on Carol's first visit here she has to be troubled by ghosts."
"It disturbs me," Uncle Harold said, "that neither Father Malory nor I could see them. Has anyone else you know seen them?"
"No."
Uncle Harold sighed. He unfolded his napkin. "Well, Perhaps someone has been playing an elaborate trick on you. But it did result in a tunnel, and you must have had a few rough days opening that. I'll talk to Bruce about it tomorrow; perhaps he can shed some light on the mystery."
"Somebody," Aunt Catherine said, "has to tell Mrs. Brewster she now owns a cellar with a hole and a tunnel in it."
"Oh, lord," said Uncle Harold. "I suppose I must."
He brought Bruce home the next morning. Carol watched him hobble down the walk with a crutch under one arm. His face was pulled into a scowl to hide the pain that twitched at it occasionally. Uncle Harold walked slowly beside him, wincing at every shift of the crutch. Aunt Catherine met them at the door.
"There's a nice fresh bed ready for you," she said. "I'll bring you some aspirin when you lie down; that'll ease the pain."
"I don't want to stay in bed for a whole week," Bruce said. He sounded close to tears.
Aunt Catherine said grimly, "You're lucky you don't have to stay in bed the rest of your life." She felt his flushed face. "And I don't want to see you downstairs until you can walk down on your own two feet."
"What did Mrs. Brewster say about the tunnel?"
"She hasn't, yet," Uncle Harold said. Bruce glanced at him doubtfully. He looked at Carol, and she said, "We told him."
"Oh." His breath gathered and loosed in a long, slow sigh. He went to the stairs and began his slow, halting progress up them. Uncle Harold went to his side.
"Let me carry your crutch," he said gently. "I don't
know where to touch you without hurting you, but perhaps if you lean on me it won't be so difficult."
Bruce gave him the crutch. He put his arm around Uncle Harold's shoulders. Aunt Catherine stood at the foot of the stairs and watched them until they disappeared around the bend in the stairs and Bruce's door clicked open. Then she stirred herself. She looked at Carol.
"He'll be cross for the next few days. If he snarls at you, snarl back."
Carol smiled. The movement of her face felt strange, as though she had not smiled for a long time. Aunt Catherine's arm dropped lightly across her shoulders.
Carol said slowly, "Do you believe us? About the ghosts?"
She was silent a moment, her brows tugging together. "Yes," she said finally. "This house is very old, and I think that must be only one of the strange sad things that may have happened in it. I don't know anything about ghosts, but I hope that somehow opening the tunnel will put the girl's mind at rest, because three hundred years is too long a time to spend haunting a cellar. I wouldn't want to do it."
"Bruce says ghosts might be only reflections of people living."
"Perhaps."
"But I don't think that's what we saw yesterday. It was more than a reflection, and I think she knew we were there." She shivered suddenly, and Aunt Catherine's hold tightened.
"I think she chose the right people to appear to. Under the circumstances, you behaved very sensibly, in your own fashion, and I hope Mrs. Brewster appreciates that."
"I suppose she'll ask how we found it."
"I think she might enjoy having ghosts in her celkr. After all, she does like old things."
"I suspect she might draw the line at three-hundred-year-old people," Uncle Harold said, coming back down the stairs. "Bruce is in bed. I think he's feverish. They prescribed some medicine that will help him sleep." He took a bottle out of his sweater pocket and gave it to her. "I'll call Mrs. Brewster now."
He went to the kitchen. Aunt Catherine went upstairs with Bruce's medicine. Carol sat down on the bottom step and watched the huge pendulum in the grandfather clock trace its silent path back and forth, back and forth. The closed door and the thick stones of the house muffled the drilling. The hall was cool and changeless. She wondered for a moment what the house had looked like out of the blue eyes of a young girl three centuries before, as she came down the stairs in her long dress with its lace collar. The stairs creaked behind her and she jumped. Aunt Catherine came down.
"He's asleep," she said softly, as if the sound of her voice might wake him. The kitchen door opened, and they turned. Uncle Harold came out. His mouth was crooked; he ran his fingers through his hair and sighed.
"Some people," he said, "have no historical perspective."
"She didn't like it," Aunt Catherine said. He shook his head.
"She wants it closed."
Carol stared at him. Her breath caught in a gasp. "She can'tЧshe can't close it upЧshe can'tЧnot after
all that work! It's not right! We spent hours opening it, and my hands are all blistered, and it's our tunnel, and if she closes it the girl will keep coming back for another three hundred years, and where eke is she going to find people who won't get hysterical and run like Susan didЧ" She began to sob helplessly. Uncle Harold drew her against him; she felt the soft wool of his sweater, smelling of pipe-smoke, against her face.
"We won't give up that easily," he said soothingly.
"BruceЧBruce couldn't take it being closed upЧhe couldn'tЧHe'd run away, or something."
Uncle Harold found a handkerchief in his pocket and gave it to her. "I hope not," he said. She straightened, wiping her face, her breath catching in quick jerks. "Carol, when I called Mrs. Brewster, she was upset at something the boys had done to her garden, and that's whyЧ"
"Bruce didn't do it; neither did Alexander. He told me about it. Sandy squashed her flowers."
"I know, but Bruce has been in trouble with her before, and if he's reformed, she hasn't found out yet. She was in no mood to appreciate anything any of the boys had done. She was too upset with them to understand properly that she has the only priest tunnel in England. If she begins to understand that, she might change her mind."
"Perhaps if she sees it, she'll change her mind," Aunt Catherine said. Uncle Harold sighed.
"The problem will be to get her down here. I think
she expects me to wall it up personally. I can't do that; it goes against all my principles."
"What are you going to do, then?" Carol said.
"The only thing I can do. Procrastinate."