Читать «Crooked House / Скрюченный домишко. Книга для чтения на английском языке» онлайн - страница 3
Агата Кристи
One brother, one sister, a mother, a father, an uncle, an aunt by marriage, a grandfather, a great-aunt, and a step-grandmother.’
‘Good gracious!’ I exclaimed, slightly overwhelmed.
She laughed.
Of course we don’t normally all live together. The war and blitzes have brought that about—but I don’t know’– she frowned reflectively—‘perhaps spiritually the family has always lived together—under my grandfather’s eye and protection. He’s rather a Person, my grandfather. He’s over eighty, about four-foot ten, and everybody else looks rather dim beside him.’
‘He sounds interesting,’ I said.
‘He is interesting. He’s a Greek from Smyrna. Aristide Leonides.’ She added, with a twinkle, ‘He’s extremely rich.’
‘Will anybody be rich after this is over?’
‘My grandfather will,’ said Sophia with assurance. ‘No soak-the-rich tactics would have any effect on him. He’d just soak the soakers.’
‘I wonder,’ she added, ‘if you’ll like him?’
‘Do you?’ I asked.
‘Better than anyone in the world,’ said Sophia.
Chapter 2
It was over two years before I returned to England. They were not easy years. I wrote to Sophia and heard from her fairly frequently. Her letters, like mine, were not love letters. They were letters written to each other by close friends—they dealt with ideas and thoughts and with comments on the daily trend of life. Yet I know that as far as I was concerned, and I believed as far as Sophia was concerned too, our feelings for each other grew and strengthened.
I returned to England on a soft grey day in September. The leaves on the trees were golden in the evening light. There were playful gusts of wind. From the airfield I sent a telegram to Sophia.
A couple of hours later I was sitting reading the
On Sept. 19th, at Three Gables, Swinly Dean, Aristide Leonides, beloved husband of Brenda Leonides, in his eighty-eighth year. Deeply regretted.
There was another announcement immediately below:
LEONIDES—Suddenly, at his residence, Three Gables, Swinly Dean, Aristide Leonides. Deeply mourned by his loving children and grandchildren. Flowers to St Eldred’s
Church, Swinly Dean.
I found the two announcements rather curious. There seemed to have been some faulty staff work resulting in overlapping. But my main preoccupation was Sophia. I hastily sent her a second telegram:
‘Just seen news of your grandfather’s death. Very sorry. Let me know when I can see you. Charles.’
A telegram from Sophia reached me at six o’clock at my father’s house. It said:
‘Will be at Mario’s nine o’clock. Sophia.’
The thought of meeting Sophia again made me both nervous and excited. The time crept by with maddening slowness. I was at Mario’s waiting twenty minutes too early. Sophia herself was only five minutes late.
It is always a shock to meet again someone whom you have not seen for a long time but who has been very much present in your mind during that period. When at last Sophia came through the swing doors our meeting seemed completely unreal. She was wearing black, and that, in some curious way, startled me! Most other women were wearing black, but I got it into my head that it was definitely mourning—and it surprised me that Sophia should be the kind of person who did wear black—even for a near relative.
