Cassandra By Chance. Betty Neels

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СКАЧАТЬ chipped in: ‘We don’t know, but I heard Daddy tell Mummy, he said. “He can’t see, poor beggar.” That means,’ he explained, just in case his aunt hadn’t quite grasped the point, ‘that he’s not got any money—not if he’s a beggar.’

      Cassandra nodded; it seemed hardly the time to start a dull explanation about figures of speech, and even if the poor ogre had enough to live on, it seemed a dreary enough existence. She turned her back on the gap, shivering a little. ‘Let’s go home,’ she said.

      She took the children down to the village school the next morning and then went back to give Mrs Todd a hand in the house; but Mrs Todd assured her that she needed no help, so she retired to the kitchen and set about preparing their midday dinner. There was more than enough to choose from; she delved into the deep-freeze and settled on lamb chops and by way of afters she made a queen of puddings, adding homemade strawberry jam with a lavish hand and wondering as she did so if the poor ogre really had enough to eat. She found herself thinking about him as she worked; one day soon, while the children were at school, she would climb the path behind the house and call on him—he might be glad of a visitor, but perhaps he didn’t like callers, so it might be a good idea to walk up the hill and spy out the land first. Still busy with her thoughts, she started on a cake for tea, for the chocolate one had been demolished for all but two slices. She made the coffee, called to Mrs Todd to join her and they sat together in the kitchen, consuming the rest of the cake between them. Mrs Todd, Cassandra discovered, was a perfect fount of knowledge; she was told all about the pastor and the pastor’s sister, who according to her companion, was a proper old termagant. ‘No wonder the puir man has never taken a wife,’ she observed. ‘Who’d want to with him, knowing she’s landed with his sister too?’

      Cassandra, her mouth full of cake, agreed fervently, ‘And the man who lives in the cottage behind us on the hill?’ she wanted to know casually.

      ‘Och, him. Now, there’s a tale I could tell ye…’

      And never to be told, for the doorbell rang at just that moment. It was the lad from a neighbouring farm who brought the eggs each week; he had to be paid and given a cup of coffee, too, and by the time he had gone again Mrs Todd had no time left to talk. She still had to do the kitchen, she told Cassandra rather severely, and perhaps Miss Cassandra would like to go to the sitting-room or take a walk?

      It was almost time to fetch the children from school; she chose to go for a walk, going the long way round to the school and calling in at the shop to buy stamps—Rachel would expect letters.

      During their dinner Rachel telephoned; they were on the point of catching their flight to Athens, she told them, talking to each of them in turn and then making way for Tom, who promised that they would telephone that evening. Cassandra, who had expected the children to be tearful, was agreeably surprised to find that although they were excited to hear from their parents, they showed no signs of being unhappy. Just in case they were, she promised, rather rashly that they would play cards that evening.

      The first few days went quickly and she enjoyed them; she missed the busy hospital life and the urgent work in theatre, on the other hand it was delightful to have time to read and sew and knit. Besides, she enjoyed cooking; she found a cook book and between the three of them, they chose something different each day, very much influenced by the colourful illustrations of dishes with exotic names and an enormous number of ingredients. They made toffee too and went for long rambles, so that it was almost a week before Cassandra had the opportunity of going to the cottage on the hill. The children had been invited to a birthday party in the village, a protracted affair which would last well into the evening. She had walked down with them just after two o’clock on the Saturday afternoon and seen them safely into the cottage where the party was to be held and then, her mind made up, went back through the village. She had almost reached the track leading to her sister’s house, when John Campbell came out of the Manse front door.

      She stopped because he had called a greeting as she went past and it would have been rude not to have stopped, and he quite obviously wanted to talk. They stood together, chatting about nothing in particular for five minutes or more until she said: ‘Well, I’ll be getting along…’

      ‘I wondered if you would care to come to tea—today, perhaps?’ he smiled at her. ‘My sister would like to meet you.’

      Cassandra, normally a truthful girl, lied briskly, ‘I’m so sorry, I promised Rachel that I would do some telephoning for her this afternoon—family, you know—she hadn’t time before she went. Besides, I’ve a simply enormous wash waiting in the machine.’ She smiled at him kindly, quite unrepentant about the fibbing, because she was determined that she would climb the hill and take a nearer look at Ogre’s Relish—and nothing was going to stop her.

      It was further away than she had thought and the path became steeper as she went. It petered out at length in a small clearing from which several smaller paths wound themselves away into the trees all around her. She could see no sign of the cottage now and it took her a few moments to decide which path to take. The wrong one, as it turned out, for it led to a small enclosed patch of wild grass and thistles and heather, so she went back again and this time chose the path opposite, pausing to look about her as she went. All the same, she was taken completely by surprise when it turned a corner and opened directly into a quite large garden, very tidy and nicely sheltered by the trees. A path led to the cottage front door, set sturdily between two small windows with another two beneath its slate roof. She looked around her; the place seemed to be deserted, so perhaps it wasn’t the right one. She crossed the grass with the idea of peering in through one of its windows and then let out a small gasp when a voice from behind her said:

      ‘You’re trespassing, my good woman.’

      The ogre! She forced herself to turn round slowly, filled with a ridiculous, childish fear which was instantly dispelled when she saw the dark glasses and the stick. For an ogre, she thought idiotically, he was remarkably handsome; tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair greying at the temples, the dark glasses bridging a long straight nose beneath thick brows. His mouth was well shaped and firm too, although at the moment it was drawn down in a faint sneer. Probably, she told herself with her usual good sense, she would sneer too if she had to wear dark glasses and carry a stick… She found her tongue: ‘Good afternoon. I’m sorry if I’m trespassing—I didn’t mean to come into your garden, it was unexpected…’

      The dark glasses glared at her. ‘Only to spy out the land, perhaps?’

      Cassandra flushed. ‘Well, yes—at least, you see, I knew you lived here—the children told me about you.’

      ‘Indeed?’ The dark glasses bored a hole through her, the voice was icy. ‘And should I be flattered?’

      ‘Why?’ she asked matter-of-factly, and went on: ‘The children—my nephew and niece, were telling me.’

      ‘I’m all agog,’ he said nastily.

      ‘Well, they’re only small children and imaginative—they call this cottage Ogre’s Relish.’

      His lips twitched. ‘So I am an ogre?’

      ‘No, not really. They’ve heard about you and they made up stories.’

      ‘Really?’ His voice was cold and she gave him an apprehensive look and said uneasily: ‘You’re not offended?’

      ‘What does it matter to you?’ he wanted to know coolly. ‘Don’t let me keep you.’

      He might not be an ogre, but certainly he had the disposition of one! Cassandra retreated down the path СКАЧАТЬ