Дом с привидениями. Уровень 2 / A Haunted House

Their laces quivered as they drank.

“It was a day like this, do you remember?” said old Miss Rashleigh. “They brought him home—a bullet through his heart. A bramble, so they said. Tripped. Caught his foot.”

She chuckled as she sipped her wine.

“And John…” said Miss Antonia. “The mare, they said, put her foot in a hole. Died in the field. The hunt rode over him. He came home, too, on a shutter.”

They sipped again.

“Do you remember Lily?” said old Miss Rashleigh. “A bad girl. With a scarlet tassel on her cane.

”

She shook her head.

“Rotten at the heart!” cried Miss Antonia.

“Do you remember the Colonel’s letter? Your son rode like twenty devils. Then one white devil—ah hah!”

She sipped again.

“The men of our house[25 - the men of our house – мужчины в нашем роду],” began Miss Rashleigh.

She raised her glass. She held it high. She paused. The guns were barking. Something cracked in the woodwork. Or was it a rat behind the plaster?

“Always women,” Miss Antonia nodded.

“The men of our house. Pink and white Lucy at the Mill—do you remember?”

“Ellen’s daughter at the Goat and Sickle,” Miss Rashleigh added.

“And the girl at the tailor’s,” Miss Antonia murmured, “where Hugh bought his breeches, the little dark shop on the right…”

“…that was flooded every winter. It’s his boy,” Miss Antonia chuckled, “that cleans the Church.”

There was a crash. The great log snapped in two.

Flakes of plaster fell from the shield above the fireplace.

“Falling,” old Miss Rashleigh chuckled. “Falling.”

“And who will pay?” said Miss Antonia.

They laughed like old babies. They were indifferent, reckless. They sipped the sherry by the wood ashes and the plaster. They fingered their glasses. They sat by the ashes. But they never raised their glasses to their lips.

“Milly Masters,” began old Miss Rashleigh. “She’s our brother’s…”

A shot barked beneath the window.

The rain began. Light faded from the carpet. Light faded in their eyes, too. Their eyes became like pebbles. Their eyes became like grey stones. And their hands gripped their hands like the claws of dead birds.

Then Miss Antonia raised her glass to the mermaid. It was the last drop.

“Coming!” she croaked.

A door opened. Then another. Then another.

“Closer! Closer!” grinned Miss Rashleigh.

Three great hounds rushed in.