Endless Night / Бесконечная ночь. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Why should I?’

I made a desperate plunge[24 - desperate plunge – (зд.) отчаянный шаг].

�Look here,’ I said, �I shall be in Market Chadwell tomorrow. I – I suppose – I don’t know whether you’ll still be there… I mean, would there be any chance of – seeing you?’ I shuffled my feet and turned my head away. I got rather red, I think. But if I didn’t say something now, how was I going to go on with this?

�Oh yes,’ she said, �I shan’t be going back to London until the evening.

�Then perhaps – would you – I mean, I suppose it’s rather cheek —’

�No, it isn’t.’

�Well, perhaps you’d come and have tea at a cafe – the Blue Dog I think it’s called. It’s quite nice,’ I said. �It’s – I mean, it’s —’ I couldn’t get hold of the word I wanted and I used the word that I’d heard my mother use once or twice —�it’s quite ladylike,’ I said anxiously.

Then Ellie laughed. I suppose it sounded rather peculiar nowadays.

�I’m sure it’ll be very nice,’ she said. �Yes. I’ll come. About half past four, will that be right?’

�I’ll be waiting for you,’ I said. �I – I’m glad.’ I didn’t say what I was glad about.

We had come to the last turn of the road where the houses began.

�Goodbye, then,’ I said, �till tomorrow. And – don’t think again about what that old hag said. She just likes scaring people, I think. She’s not all there,’ I added.

�Do you feel it’s a frightening place?’ Ellie asked.

�Gipsy’s Acre? No, I don’t,’ I said. I said it perhaps a trifle too decidedly, but I didn’t think it was frightening. I thought as I’d thought before, that it was a beautiful place, a beautiful setting for a beautiful house…

Well, that’s how my first meeting with Ellie went. I was in Market Chadwell the next day waiting in the Blue Dog and she came. We had tea together and we talked. We still didn’t say much about ourselves, not about our lives, I mean.

�I thought you had a car down here,’ I said.

She looked slightly embarrassed then and she said no, no, that hadn’t been her car yesterday. She didn’t say whose it had been. That shadow of embarrassment came over us again.