Travels with my aunt / Путешествие с тетушкой. Книга для чтения на английском языке

) Пей до дна!] I was looking at another of a man in hospital saying to a surgeon, “But I said circumcision, doctor,” when my aunt came out. “It’s just here,” she said. “I knew I wasn’t far wrong,” and in the window of the very next house a card in front of some net curtains read HATTY’s TEAPOT. BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. There were photographs by the door of Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra and the Duke of Edinburgh which seemed to have been signed by their subjects, although it seemed unlikely in the case of the Duke.

We rang the bell and an old lady answered it. She was wearing a black evening dress and a lot of jet objects jangled when she moved. “You’re too late,” she said sharply.

“Hatty,” said my aunt.

“I close at six-thirty sharp except by special appointment.”

“Hatty, it’s Augusta.”

“Augusta!”

“Hatty! You haven’t changed a bit.”

But remembering the young girl in tights carrying the whip and looking sideways at Curran, I thought there had been greater changes than my aunt made out.

“This is my nephew Henry, Hatty. You remember about him.” They exchanged a look which I found disturbing. Why should I have been discussed all those years ago? Had she let Hatty into the secret of my birth?

“Come on in, the two of you. I was just going to have a cup of tea – an unprofessional cup of tea,” Hatty added and giggled.

“In here?” my aunt asked, opening a door.

“No dear, that’s the waiting-room.

“Here’s my den, dear,” Hatty said, opening another door. It was a small overcrowded room, and everything seemed to be covered with fringed mauve shawls, the table, the backs of chairs, the mantel – there was even a shawl dangling from a studio portrait of a stout man whom I recognized as Mr. Curran.

“The Revered,” Aunt Augusta said, looking at it.

“The Revered,” Hatty repeated, and then they both laughed at some secret joke of their own.

“The Rev. for short,” Aunt Augusta said, “but that, of course, was only a coincidence. You remember how we explained it to the police. They’ve still got a photo of him, Hatty, stuck up in the Star and Garter.”

“I haven’t been there for years,” Hatty said. “I’m off the hard liquor.”

“You are there and the elephant too,” Aunt Augusta said.