"Patricia A. McKillip - The House on Parchment Street" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

"Not Carol, tooтАФ"
"He wasn't with them."
"It doesn't matter that I wasn't," Bruce said. "I probably would have done it, if I didn't know who you
were."
"That's a marvelous welcome to give to guests in your own country," Aunt Catherine said tartly. "It's a
wonder she didn't turn around and go home." "She wanted to." "I was going to." "Well, what stopped
you?" "Bruce!"
"I'm not being rude, I'm being curious. I would have gone."
"Well, I don't like running away from things. Or people."
Uncle Harold said distinctly, "Will you please apologize to her."
"I'm sorry," Bruce said tightly. He looked at Uncle Harold. "If you see that circle again, there won't be
me in it. Ever."
He turned and left. Uncle Harold dropped his head into one hand. Aunt Catherine washed dishes with a
harsh, rhythmic clatter. Then she slowed and turned to Carol, sitting mute in her chair with her hair
hiding her face. Aunt Catherine wiped her hands on her apron. She sat down beside Carol. "I'm glad you
didn't go," she said softly. Carol's shoulders moved in a little shrug. "I'm used to being teased. I'm
skinny, and I'm taller than half the boys in my class, and my hair looks like a haystack on fire, and I can't
walk up to the blackboard at school without stepping on somebody's lunch. But most of the time, I don't
let people bother me. I can't fight all of them." "Well, you're wiser than I was at your age. I
couldn't go down the aisle either without tripping over my big bony feet."
Uncle Harold dropped his hand. "Your feet aren't big and bony." His voice was tired.
"They were then," Aunt Catherine said. "I don't know what's troubling Bruce these days. He rarely talks
to us, and we can't read his mind. The only thing I can do is leave his fish and chips in the oven for him
and remember that once he had a very sweet smile."
Uncle Harold's mouth relaxed. He looked at Carol. "Well," he said gently, "are you still in the mood for
a guided tour?"
Carol sighed. "Yes. If I wake up hungry in the middle of the night, I don't want to get lost."
There were four large rooms on the ground floor: the kitchen; a room across from it that Uncle Harold
said had been the morning room where the vicars had once eaten their breakfast, but which was now
Aunt Catherine's laundry room; the living room connected to the kitchen, with a great, fat-legged round
table, and a fireplace built of huge squares of grey stone and dark, heavy, smoke-blackened beams; and
the room across from it, Uncle Harold's study, with his desk and papers and endless shelves of books.

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Upstairs were four bedrooms.
"It's a bit big for us," Uncle Harold said, "but I like old things. Most of the furniture belongs to Mrs.
Brewster. She was born in the house. Her father bought it when the church across the way turned
Catholic
again after four hundred years, and the new priests decided they didn't want to support a large, rather
chilly historical monument. Mrs. Brewster lived here until her husband died, and then she began to rent
the house. I've had my eye on this house for several years, but it wasn't until last winter that we were
able to rent it from her."
"Why did the church turn Catholic? I didn't know churches did that."
"The old Protestant parishioners died or moved away until there weren't enough people to support the
church. Sometimes, when that happens, the church is destroyed to make room for something else. But
the Catholic population in the town had grown out of its own little modern church, so they bought this
one instead of building a new one. It was Catholic, of course, when it was built first, because it is nearly
eight hundred years old."