THE THREE C'S (Illustrated Edition). Эдит Несбит
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Название: THE THREE C'S (Illustrated Edition)
Автор: Эдит Несбит
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788027221776
isbn:
And a large green-seated chair, whose mahogany back was inlaid with a brass scroll pattern, was wheeled to the empty space on the fourth side of the table.
‘Now we must none of us look at her—in the picture, I mean. And then we can’t be sure that she isn’t sitting in that chair,’ said Caroline.
After dinner Caroline looked up ‘Remorse’s regret’ in The Language of Flowers. It was agreed that Mrs. Wilmington had better have a bouquet.
‘Brambles,’ Caroline said, her finger in the book, ‘they’re Remorse—but they wouldn’t make a very comfortable nosegay. And Regret’s verbena, and I don’t even know what it is.’
‘Put pansies with the brambles,’ said Charlotte; ‘that’ll be thoughts of remorse.’
So the housekeeper, coming down very neat in her afternoon dress of shiny black alpaca, was met by a bunch of pansies.
‘To show we think we’re remorsish about the secret stairs,’ said Charlotte; ‘and look out, because the brambles are the remorse and they prick like Billy-o!’
Mrs. Wilmington smiled, and looked quite nice-looking.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I am sure you will remember not to repeat the fault.’
Which wasn’t the nicest way of receiving a remorse bouquet; but, then as Charlotte said, perhaps she couldn’t help not knowing the nice ways. And anyhow, she seemed pleased, and that was the great thing, as Charlotte pointed out.
Then, having done something to please Mrs. Wilmington, they longed to do something to please some one else, and the Uncle was the only person they could think of doing anything to please.
‘Suppose we arranged all the books in the dining-room bookcase, in colours,—all the reds together and all the greens, and the ugly ones all on a shelf by themselves,’ Charlotte suggested. And the others agreed. So that the afternoon flew by like any old bird, as Caroline put it; and when tea came, and the floor and sofa and chairs were covered with books, and one shelf was gay with red books and half a shelf demure in green—
‘Your uncle isn’t coming in to-day,’ said Mrs. Wilmington, ‘and I’m sure it’s just as well. What a mess! Here, let me put them back, and go and wash your hands.’
‘We’ll put them back,’ the children said, but in vain. They had to go to wash their hands, and Mrs. Wilmington continued to put the books back all the time they were having tea. Patiently and carefully she did it, not regarding the colours at all, and her care and her patience seemed to say, more loudly than any words she could have spoken, ‘Yes; there you sit, having your nice tea, and I cannot have my tea, because I have to clear up after you. But I do not complain. No.’
They would have much rather she had complained, of course. But they couldn’t say so.
Chapter IV.
In Thessalonians
Now you may say it was Chance, or you may say it was Fate; or you may say it was Destiny, or Fortune; in fact, you may say exactly what you choose. But the fact remains unaltered by your remarks.
When Mrs. Wilmington placed a fat brown volume of sermons on the shelf and said, ‘There, that’s the last,’ she, quite without meaning it, said what was not true. For when tea was over the children found that the fat sermon-book had not been the last. The last was Shadoxhurst on Thessalonians, a dull, large book, and Mrs. Wilmington had not put it back in its place because she had not seen it. It was, in fact, lying on the floor, hidden by the table-cloth. If Charles had not happened to want his handkerchief, and gone down to look for it on the floor—its usual situation when it was needed—they would not have seen the book either.
Charles picked up Thessalonians, and the cover ‘came off in his hand,’ as the handles of cups do in the hands of washing-up maids.
What was inside the cover fell on the floor with a thump, and Caroline picked that up.
‘Shadoxhurst on Thessalonians,’ Charles read from the cover.
‘This isn’t,’ said Caroline, looking at what had been inside. ‘It’s—I say! Suppose it was the book—’
She looked up at the picture.
It was certainly like the painted book.
‘Only it hasn’t any brass clasps,’ said Caroline; ‘but look—it used to have clasps. You can see the marks where they used to go.’
You could.
‘Glory!’ cried Charlotte. ‘Fancy finding it the very first day! Let’s take it to Uncle Charles.’
‘Perhaps it isn’t it,’ suggested Charlotte. ‘Then he’d be furious perhaps.’
‘We’ll soon see.’ Charles reached out a hand. ‘Let’s have a squint. It ought to be all magic and Abracadabra and crossed triangles like in Ingoldsby Legends.’
‘I’ll have first look any way,’ said Caroline. ‘I found it.’
‘I found it,’ said Charles. ‘You only picked it up.’
‘You only dropped it. Oh, bother——’ she had opened the book, and now let her hands fall, still holding it.
‘Bother what?’ asked the others.
‘It isn’t English. It’s French or Latin or something. Isn’t that just like things! Here, you can look.’
Charles took the book. ‘It’s Latin,’ he said. ‘I could read it if I knew a little more Latin. I can read some of it as it is. I know quam, or apud, and rara. Let’s take it to the Uncle.’
‘Oh no,’ said Caroline. ‘Let’s find out what it is, first.’
It was not easy to find out. The title-page was missing, and quam, apud, and rara, though quite all right in their way, gave but little clue to what the book was about.
‘I wish we’d some one we could ask,’ said Charles. ‘I don’t suppose the Wilmington knows any Latin. I don’t suppose she knows even apud and quam and rara. If we had the Murdstone chap handy he could tell us, I suppose.’
‘I’m glad we haven’t,’ Charlotte said. ‘I don’t suppose he’d tell us. And he’d take it away. I say. I suppose there’s a church somewhere near. And a clergyman. He’d know.’
‘Of course he would,’ Caroline said with returning brightness. ‘Let’s go and ask him.’
Half an hour later the children, coming down a deep banked lane, saw before them the grey tower of the church, with elm-trees round it, standing among old gravestones and long grass.
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