Дом ста дорог

[129] The bed started twitching.

[130] Charmain jumped round to face it. The twitching was Waif, curled up comfortably in the mound of bedclothes, scratching for a flea. When he saw Charmain looking at him, he wagged his flimsy tail and groveled, lowered his frayed ears, and whispered a pleading whine at her.

[131] "You're not supposed to be there, are you?" she said to him. "All right. I can see you're comfortable—and I'm blowed if I'm sleeping in that bed anyway."

[132] She marched out of the room and opened the next door along. To her relief, there was another bedroom there almost identical with Great-Uncle William's, except that this one was tidy. The bed was clean and neatly made, the cupboard was shut, and when she looked, she found the drawers were empty. Charmain nodded approval at the room and opened the next door along the corridor. There was another neat bedroom there, and beyond that another, each one exactly the same.

[133] I'd better throw my things around the one that's mine, or I'll never find it again, she thought.

[134] She turned back into the corridor to find that Waif had come off the bed and was now scratching at the bathroom door with both front paws. "You won't want to go in there," Charmain told him. "None of it's any use to you."

[135] But the door came open somehow before Charmain got to it. Beyond it was the kitchen. Waif trotted jauntily in there and Charmain groaned again. The mess had not gone away. There were the dirty crockery and the laundry bags, with the addition now of a teapot lying in a pool of tea, Charmain's clothes in a heap near the table, and a large green bar of soap in the fireplace.

[136] "I'd forgotten all this," Charmain said.

[137] Waif put both tiny front paws on the bottom rung of the chair and raised himself to his full small length, pleadingly.

"You're hungry again," Charmain diagnosed. "So am I."

[138] She sat in the chair and Waif sat on her left foot and they shared another pasty. Then they shared a fruit tart, two doughnuts, six chocolate biscuits, and a custard flan. After this Waif plodded rather heavily away to the inner door, which opened for him as soon as he scratched at it. Charmain gathered up her pile of clothes and followed him, meaning to put her things in the first empty bedroom.

[139] But here things went a trifle wrong. Charmain pushed the door open with one elbow and, fairly naturally, turned right to go into the corridor with the bedrooms in it. She found herself in complete darkness. Almost at once she walked into another door, where she hit her elbow on its doorknob with a clang.

[140] "Ouch!" she said, fumbled for the doorknob, and opened this door.

It swung inward majestically. Charmain walked into a large room lit by arched windows all around it and found herself breathing a damp, stuffy, leathery, neglected smell. The smell seemed to come from the elderly leather seats of carved chairs arranged around the big carved table that took up most of the room. Each seat had a leather mat on the table in front of it, and an old, withered sheet of blotting paper on the mat, except for the large seat at the other end that had the arms of High Norland carved into the back of it. This one had a fat little stick on the table instead of a mat. All of it, chairs, table, and mats, was covered in dust and there were cobwebs in the corners of the many windows.

[141] Charmain stared. "Is this the dining room, or what?" she said. "How do I get to the bedrooms from here?"

[142] Great-Uncle William's voice spoke, sounding quite faint and far off. "You have reached the Conference Room," it said.

"If you are there, you are rather lost, my dear, so listen carefully. Turn round once, clockwise. Then, still turning clockwise, open the door with your left hand only. Go through and let the door shut behind you. Then take two long steps sideways to your left. This will bring you back beside the bathroom."

[143] And let's hope it does!, Charmain thought, doing her best to follow these directions.

[144] All went well, except for the moment of darkness after the door had swung shut behind her, when Charmain found herself staring into a totally strange stone corridor. An old, bent man was pushing a trolley along it, loaded with steaming silver teapot, jugs, and chafing dishes and what looked like a pile of crumpets. She blinked a little, decided that she would not do any good, either to herself or the old man, by calling out to him, and took two long steps to the left instead. And then, to her relief, she was standing beside the bathroom, from where she could see Waif turning round and round on Great-Uncle William's bed in order to get comfortable.

[145] "Phew!" Charmain said, and went and dumped the pile of clothes on top of the chest of drawers in the next bedroom along.