"Gilman, Carolyn Ives - The Wild Ships Of Fairny" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilman Carolyn Ives)

"Are you better now, Mother?"

"She's just going to have some broth for supper, isn't that right?" Auntie said.

Mother Keer gripped Larkin's hand and said readily, "Jumber's coming."

"Yes, I know."

"Have you married him yet ?" Mother Keer asked, as if it were something she
might have missed.

"No. You'll know if I do."

Auntie Broil was rearranging the furniture with loud, purposeful thumps. "I wish
you'd hurry up and do it. You wouldn't need to be eating mutton and oatmeal all
winter long." Larkin heard the unsaid words: my mutton, my oatmeal.

"Your mother could have had an inland man," Mother Keer said.

"Yes, I know," Larkin said. She had heard the story at least four thousand
times.

"She turned him down," Mother Keer said, then added -- as Larkin recited the
often-heard words under her breath-- "and regretted it the rest of her life."

"I'm going to wash up," Larkin said. "I'll be back to help."

When Jumber arrived, he brought his foreign passenger with him. Auntie Broll
pretended to be honored at hosting someone who had come all the way from the
mainland, but was privately frantic at the impression her simple fare would
make. She kept whispering to Larkin, "I don't care what he thinks. This is how
we live. I'm too old to be putting on a show for guests."

Fortunately, the stranger flirted and flattered her in outrageously broken
language, and she gradually relaxed. After dinner, Larkin stoked up the
cast-iron stove with peat and lit the oil lamps so that the tiny cottage seemed
cozy and companionable. In the lulls of conversation they could hear the crash
of waves against the shore and the wind tugging and prying at the shutters. "The
Ashwin are in the air tonight," Mother Keer said.

Soon the uncles started to arrive, curious to have a look at the foreigner. They
took up seats on every chest, stool, and window sill, but left the chairs on
either side of the stranger vacant.

The room was already full when Larkin looked up to see her brother Runar at the
door. She nearly called out; she had scarcely seen him in a month. But the
greeting fled her mind as she saw the unkempt mats in his black hair, the
clothes that looked like they had been his bedding for many nights. His eyes
were deep sunk in shadow under his prominent brows; he glanced around as if he
were a trespasser.