"Judith Merril - Shadow on the Hearth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

luncheon alone. I'll be there of course, but Phil didn't get back last night, and I have
to go to the bank this morning. I could come back, of course, but . . . well, the bank
is so close to the Cortlands' . . . of course if you can get away early enough you
could come along with me . . ."
Gladys explained rapidly about Veda and the laundry. It was going to be hard to
get ready on time, let alone early.
Edie listened sympathetically, but of course she couldn't reallyunderstand. "You
won't be late, will you? I've reserved a place for you."
Gladys was stung by the implied rebuke. She had an errant impulse to leave the
laundry after all. The luncheon was something she'd been looking forward to for
days—actually for months, but the invitation had not been forthcoming until two
weeks ago. The luncheon was a monthly affair held at a different woman's home
every time, and the circle was limited. It was the first chance she had had to meet any
of the Crowells' friends, and if she were late today it might be the last.
But she couldn't let Barbie down. And Ginny really needed some clean socks.
And Jon's field trip—was it tomorrow or Wednesday? He didn't have any clean
khakis. If it was tomorrow, then they had to be done today. If she had to do that
much she might just as well do all of it. Defiantly she thought that she had done more
than that in a day's work before—with two small babies on her hands and no
washing machine.
Just a shade too sweetly she promised Edie that she'd be on time, and dashed off
to answer the ringing of the telephone. Somebody wanted to speak to Miss Barbara
Mitchell. Gladys took the woman's name and telephone number, jotted them down,
and ex-plained that the sitting service's hours were before eight-thirty and after
three-thirty. Miss Mitchell, she said, would call back.
She finished up in the kitchen without any more dawdling and started downstairs.
Of course this had to be the morning that she would get a splinter groping along the
rough board for the cellar light. The switch was just too far out of reach, and the
stairs too precarious to manage in the dark. Jon had promised a hundred times to fix
the switch—but now she had to take time out to remove the splinter and patch up
her finger.
By the time she got down to the laundry she was saving seconds. She sorted
things out swiftly, stuffed the first washing of white things into the machine, and let it
run while she went back upstairs to tear through the bedrooms, whirling sheets,
blankets, duster, and broom in a tornado of determined energy. Still, when she
passed
through the kitchen again on her way back downstairs, the toy clock on the wall
told her it was after ten-thirty. She pulled towels and underwear out of the machine,
and filled it again with light-colored wash clothes, compromising with conscience by
deciding to leave the flatwork for Veda to do when she got a chance. But by the time
the first load was in the drier she realized there just weren't enough corners to cut.
She couldn't bathe, dress, and get to the other side of town by twelve-thirty. She
shouldn't have tried to do it all; she could have done Barbie's things, and Jon's, and
let the rest go. But now she had started it, she couldn't very well leave it. And after
the exchange with Edie this morning she would rather not go than risk being late.
It would be the better part of courtesy to let Edie know right away. She went
upstairs to call but the Crowells' phone didn't answer. Of course—Edie was at the
bank. Mrs. Cortland, luncheon hostess for the day, was formal and distant on the
telephone. Ap-parently household emergencies did not come under the heading of
acceptable excuses for these affairs.