The Mennyms by Sylvia Waugh

Author:Sylvia Waugh [Sylvia Waugh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RHCP
Published: 2002-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

21

* * *

Letters

IT WAS A very wet morning. Even the letters lying on the floor in the hall were damp. Tulip picked them up and scrutinised them. Only two letters this post – one a thin blue airmail addressed to Miss Appleby Mennym in the handwriting she immediately recognised as Albert Pond’s, the other a very thick, long envelope with Sir Magnus’s name on it. Tulip turned the thick letter over. On the back it said, “If undelivered please return to Cromarty, Varley and Thynne, Solicitors . . .”

“Mmm!” said Tulip to herself. “I wonder what that’s about.”

At that moment, Appleby came down the stairs, still dressed in her dressing-gown, although it was eleven-thirty and the letters had come in the second post.

“Letter for you,” said Tulip curtly. She looked at her lazy grand-daughter more closely. “I might feel like asking you why you’ve still got your dressing-gown on at this time of day, madam, but, what’s more to the point, why on earth are you wearing your jeans underneath it? Surely you haven’t slept in them?”

Appleby snatched the letter.

“None of your business, but, as it happens, I was half-way dressed when I heard the postman and I thought there might be a letter for me. It is at least eight weeks since I wrote to Albert Pond and I knew he would be writing back some time soon.”

“If that is the way you talk to your grandmother, don’t bother speaking again. It’ll be a long time before I speak to you!” Tulip’s crystal eyes glittered behind her little spectacles. She was very, very angry.

Appleby looked doubtful, even perhaps a little bit scared. As the years had gone by, she had grown more and more uppity, but it was not wise to have a big confrontation with Tulip. Even Appleby knew that.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a not very convincing voice. “It is just that everybody is always on at me. I can’t please any of you. You all think you can say what you like to me.”

“Very well,” said Tulip drily. “Apology accepted. Now read your letter and let us know what Albert has to say this time.”

“What’s that one?” asked Appleby looking at the bulky envelope Tulip was still holding in her hand.

“Letter for Granpa. I’m just going to take it up to him.”

She didn’t bother to mention the solicitor and Appleby took no further interest. Her own letter was far more important. She tore open the envelope.

“Listen, Gran, listen!” she cried, forgetting her earlier animosity. “Albert Pond wants me to pay them a visit in Australia. He says he’ll send me the fare and I’ve just got to name the date when I can go. Isn’t that marvellous?”

Vinetta came out of the kitchen to see what the excitement was about. Soobie swivelled round in his chair by the window and gazed in amazement through the lounge door at his dotty sister. Well, dotty was the only word he could think of at that moment to describe a rag doll who imagines that she could really take a trip to the antipodes.

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