Элинор Портер - Pollyanna Crows up / Поллианна вырастает. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“Hm-m; I see, I see. Too bad, too bad!”

“But that isn’t all. It was about two months after Tom’s death that I saw Mrs. Chilton and Pollyanna in Rome, and Mrs. Chilton then was in a terrible state. In addition to her sorrow, she had just begun to get an inkling of the trouble with her finances, and she was nearly frantic. She refused to come home. She declared she never wanted to see Beldingsville, or anybody in it, again. You see, she has always been a peculiarly proud woman, and it was all affecting her in a rather curious way. Pollyanna said that her aunt seemed possessed with the idea that Beldingsville had not approved of her marrying Dr. Chilton in the first place, at her age; and now that he was dead, she felt that they were utterly out of sympathy in any grief that she might show. She resented keenly, too, the fact that they must now know that she was poor as well as widowed. In short, she had worked herself into an utterly morbid, wretched state, as unreasonable as it was terrible. Poor little Pollyanna! It was a marvel to me how she stood it. All is, if Mrs. Chilton kept it up, and continues to keep it up, that child will be a wreck. That’s why I said Pollyanna would need some kind of a game if ever anybody did.”

“The pity of it! – to think of that happening to Pollyanna!” exclaimed the young man, in a voice that was not quite steady.

“Yes; and you can see all is not right by the way they are coming to-day – so quietly, with not a word to anybody. That was Polly Chilton’s doings, I’ll warrant. She didn’t WANT to be met by anybody. I understand she wrote to no one but her Old Tom’s wife, Mrs. Durgin, who had the keys.”

“Yes, so Nancy told me – good old soul! She’d got the whole house open, and had contrived somehow to make it look as if it wasn’t a tomb of dead hopes and lost pleasures. Of course the grounds looked fairly well, for Old Tom has kept them up, after a fashion [95] after a fashion – ( разг. ) до известной степени . But it made my heart ache – the whole thing.”

There was a long silence, then, curtly, John Pendleton suggested:

“They ought to be met.”

“They will be met.”

“Are YOU going to the station?”

“I am.”

“Then you know what train they’re coming on.”

“Oh, no. Neither does Nancy.” “Then how will you manage?”

“I’m going to begin in the morning and go to every train till they come,” laughed the young man, a bit grimly. “Timothy’s going, too, with the family carriage. After all, there aren’t many trains, anyway, that they can come on, you know.”

“Hm-m, I know,” said John Pendleton. “Jim, I admire your nerve, but not your judgment. I’m glad you’re going to follow your nerve and not your judgment, however – and I wish you good luck.”

“Thank you, sir,” smiled the young man dolefully. “I need ’em – your good wishes – all right, all right, as Nancy says.”

As the train neared Beldingsville, Pollyanna watched her aunt anxiously. All day Mrs. Chilton had been growing more and more restless, more and more gloomy; and Pollyanna was fearful of the time when the familiar home station should be reached.

As Pollyanna looked at her aunt, her heart ached. She was thinking that she would not have believed it possible that any one could have changed and aged so greatly in six short months. Mrs. Chilton’s eyes were lusterless, her cheeks pallid and shrunken, and her forehead crossed and recrossed by fretful lines. Her mouth drooped at the corners, and her hair was combed tightly back in the unbecoming fashion that had been hers when Pollyanna first had seen her, years before. All the softness and sweetness that seemed to have come to her with her marriage had dropped from her like a cloak, leaving uppermost the old hardness and sourness that had been hers when she was Miss Polly Harrington, unloved, and unloving.

“Pollyanna!” Mrs. Chilton’s voice was incisive.

Pollyanna started guiltily. She had an uncomfortable feeling that her aunt might have read her thoughts.

“Yes, auntie.”

“Where is that black bag – the little one?”

“Right here.”

“Well, I wish you’d get out my black veil. We’re nearly there.”

“But it’s so hot and thick, auntie!”

“Pollyanna, I asked for that black veil. If you’d please learn to do what I ask without arguing about it, it would be a great deal easier for me. I want that veil. Do you suppose I’m going to give all Beldingsville a chance to see how I ‘take it’?”

“Oh, auntie, they’d never be there in THAT spirit,” protested Pollyanna, hurriedly rummaging in the black bag for the much-wanted veil. “Besides, there won’t be anybody there, anyway, to meet us. We didn’t tell any one we were coming, you know.”

“Yes, I know. We didn’t TELL any one to meet us. But we instructed Mrs. Durgin to have the rooms aired and the key under the mat for to-day. Do you suppose Mary Durgin has kept that information to herself? Not much! Half the town knows we’re coming to-day, and a dozen or more will ‘happen around’ the station about train time. I know them! They want to see what Polly Harrington POOR looks like. They – ”

“Oh, auntie, auntie,” begged Pollyanna, with tears in her eyes.

“If I wasn’t so alone. If – the doctor were only here, and – ” She stopped speaking and turned away her head. Her mouth worked convulsively. “Where is – that veil?” she choked huskily.

“Yes, dear. Here it is – right here,” comforted Pollyanna, whose only aim now, plainly, was to get the veil into her aunt’s hands with all haste. “And here we are now almost there. Oh, auntie, I do wish you’d had Old Tom or Timothy meet us!”

“And ride home in state [96] ride home in state – ( разг. ) приехать домой с помпой , as if we could AFFORD to keep such horses and carriages? And when we know we shall have to sell them to-morrow? No, I thank you, Pollyanna. I prefer to use the public carriage, under those circumstances.”

“I know, but – ” The train came to a jolting, jarring stop, and only a fluttering sigh finished Pollyanna’s sentence.

As the two women stepped to the platform, Mrs. Chilton, in her black veil, looked neither to the right nor the left. Pollyanna, however, was nodding and smiling tearfully in half a dozen directions before she had taken twice as many steps. Then, suddenly, she found herself looking into a familiar, yet strangely unfamiliar face.

“Why, it isn’t – it IS – Jimmy!” she beamed, reaching forth a cordial hand. “That is, I suppose I should say ‘MR. PENDLETON,’” she corrected herself with a shy smile that said plainly: “Now that you’ve grown so tall and fine!”

“I’d like to see you try it,” challenged the youth, with a very Jimmy-like tilt to his chin. He turned then to speak to Mrs. Chilton; but that lady, with her head half-averted, was hurrying on a little in advance.

He turned back to Pollyanna, his eyes troubled and sympathetic.

“If you’d please come this way – both of you,” he urged hurriedly. “Timothy is here with the carriage.”

“Oh, how good of him,” cried Pollyanna, but with an anxious glance at the somber veiled figure ahead. Timidly she touched her aunt’s arm. “Auntie, dear, Timothy’s here. He’s come with the carriage. He’s over this side. And – this is Jimmy Bean, auntie. You remember Jimmy Bean!”

In her nervousness and embarrassment Pollyanna did not notice that she had given the young man the old name of his boyhood. Mrs. Chilton, however, evidently did notice it. With palpable reluctance she turned and inclined her head ever so slightly.