ELEPHANTS
Three GREAT AUNT ALICE’S GUIDE TO KNOWLEDGE
“Can you find my address book for me, Miss Livingstone?”
“It’s on your desk, Mrs. Oliver. In the left-hand corner.”
“I don’t mean that one,” said Mrs. Oliver. “That’s the one I’m using now. I mean my last one.
The one I had last year, or perhaps the one before that again.”
“Has it been thrown away, perhaps?” suggested Miss Livingstone.
“No, I don’t throw away address books and things like that because so often you want one. Imean some address that you haven’t copied into the new one. I expect it may be in one of thedrawers of the tallboys.”
Miss Livingstone was a fairly new arrival, replacing Miss Sedgwick. Ariadne Oliver missedMiss Sedgwick. Sedgwick knew so many things. She knew the places where Mrs. Oliversometimes put things, the kind of places Mrs. Oliver kept things in. She remembered the names ofpeople Mrs. Oliver had written nice letters to, and the names of people that Mrs. Oliver, goadedbeyond endurance, had written rather rude things to. She was invaluable1, or rather, had beeninvaluable. “She was like—what was the book called?” Mrs. Oliver said, casting her mind back.
“Oh yes, I know—a big brown book. All Victorians had it. Enquire2 Within Upon Everything. Andyou could too! How to take iron mark stains off linen3, how to deal with curdled4 mayonnaise, howto start a chatty letter to a bishop5. Many, many things. It was all there in Enquire Within UponEverything.” Great Aunt Alice’s great standby.
Miss Sedgwick had been just as good as Aunt Alice’s book. Miss Livingstone was not at all thesame thing. Miss Livingstone stood there always, very long-faced with a sallow skin, lookingpurposefully efficient. Every line of her face said “I am very efficient.” But she wasn’t really, Mrs.
Oliver thought. She only knew all the places where former literary employers of hers had keptthings and where she clearly considered Mrs. Oliver ought to keep them.
“What I want,” said Mrs. Oliver, with firmness and the determination of a spoilt child, “is my1970 address book. And I think 1969 as well. Please look for it as quick as you can, will you?”
“Of course, of course,” said Miss Livingstone.
She looked round her with the rather vacant expression of someone who is looking forsomething she has never heard of before but which efficiency may be able to produce by someunexpected turn of luck.
If I don’t get Sedgwick back, I shall go mad, thought Mrs. Oliver to herself. I can’t deal withthis thing if I don’t have Sedgwick.
Miss Livingstone started pulling open various drawers in the furniture in Mrs. Oliver’s so-calledstudy and writing room.
“Here is last year’s,” said Miss Livingstone happily. “That will be much more up-to-date, won’tit? 1971.”
“I don’t want 1971,” said Mrs. Oliver.
Vague thoughts and memories came to her.
“Look in that tea caddy table,” she said.
Miss Livingstone looked round, looking worried.
“That table,” said Mrs. Oliver, pointing.
“A desk book wouldn’t be likely to be in a tea caddy,” said Miss Livingstone, pointing out toher employer the general facts of life.
“Yes, it could,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I seem to remember.”
Edging Miss Livingstone aside, she went to the tea caddy table, raised the lid, looked at theattractive inlaid work inside. “And it is here,” said Mrs. Oliver, raising the lid of a papier-m?chéround canister, devised to contain Lapsang Souchong as opposed to Indian tea, and taking out acurled up small brown notebook.
“Here it is,” she said.
“That’s only 1968, Mrs. Oliver. Four years ago.”
“That’s about right,” said Mrs. Oliver, seizing it and taking it back to the desk. “That’s all forthe present, Miss Livingstone, but you might see if you can find my birthday book somewhere.”
“I didn’t know. .?.?.”
“I don’t use it now,” said Mrs. Oliver, “but I used to have one once. Quite a big one, you know.
Started when I was a child. Goes on for years. I expect it’ll be in the attic6 upstairs. You know, theone we use as a spare room sometimes when it’s only boys coming for holidays, or people whodon’t mind. The sort of chest or bureau thing next to the bed.”
“Oh. Shall I look and see?”
“That’s the idea,” said Mrs. Oliver.
She cheered up a little as Miss Livingstone went out of the room. Mrs. Oliver shut the doorfirmly behind her, went back to the desk and started looking down the addresses written in fadedink and smelling of tea.
“Ravenscroft. Celia Ravenscroft. Yes. 14 Fishacre Mews, S.W.3. That’s the Chelsea address.
She was living there then. But there was another one after that. Somewhere like Strand-on-the-Green near Kew Bridge.”
She turned a few more pages.
“Oh yes, this seems to be a later one. Mardyke Grove7. That’s off Fulham Road, I think.
Somewhere like that. Has she got a telephone number? It’s very rubbed out, but I think—yes, Ithink that’s right—Flaxman .?.?. Anyway, I’ll try it.”
She went across to the telephone. The door opened and Miss Livingstone looked in.
“Do you think that perhaps—”
“I found the address I want,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Go on looking for that birthday book. It’simportant.”
“Do you think you could have left it when you were in Sealy House?”
“No, I don’t,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Go on looking.”
She murmured, as the door closed, “Be as long as you like about it.”
She dialled the telephone and waited, opening the door to call up the stairs: “You might try thatSpanish chest. You know, the one that’s bound with brass8. I’ve forgotten where it is now. Underthe table in the hall, I think.”
Mrs. Oliver’s first dialling was not successful. She appeared to have connected herself to a Mrs.
Smith Potter, who seemed both annoyed and unhelpful and had no idea what the present telephonenumber might be of anyone who had lived in that particular flat before.
Mrs. Oliver applied9 herself to an examination of the address book once more. She discoveredtwo more addresses which were hastily scrawled10 over other numbers and did not seem wildlyhelpful. However, at the third attempt a somewhat illegible11 Ravenscroft seemed to emerge fromthe crossings out and initials and addresses.
A voice admitted to knowing Celia.
“Oh dear, yes. But she hasn’t lived here for years. I think she was in Newcastle when I lastheard from her.”
“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I’m afraid I haven’t got that address.”
“No, I haven’t got it either,” said the kindly12 girl. “I think she went to be secretary to a veterinarysurgeon.”
It did not sound very hopeful. Mrs. Oliver tried once or twice more. The addresses in the latestof her two address books were no use, so she went back a bit further. She struck oil, as you mightput it, when she came to the last one, which was for the year 1967.
“Oh, you mean Celia,” said a voice. “Celia Ravenscroft, wasn’t it? Or was it Finchwell?”
Mrs. Oliver just prevented herself in time from saying, “No, and it wasn’t redbreast either.”
“A very competent girl,” said the voice. “She worked for me for over a year and a half. Oh yes,very competent. I would have been quite happy if she had stayed longer. I think she went fromhere to somewhere in Harley Street, but I think I’ve got her address somewhere. Now let me see.”
There was a long pause while Mrs. X—name unknown—was seeing. “I’ve got one address here. Itseems to be in Islington somewhere. Do you think that’s possible?”
Mrs. Oliver said that anything was possible and thanked Mrs. X very much and wrote it down.
“So difficult, isn’t it, trying to find people’s addresses. They do send them to you usually. Youknow, a sort of postcard or something of that kind. Personally I always seem to lose it.”
Mrs. Oliver said that she herself also suffered in this respect. She tried the Islington number. Aheavy, foreign voice replied to her.
“You want, yes—you tell me what? Yes, who live here?”
“Miss Celia Ravenscroft?”
“Oh yes, that is very true. Yes, yes she lives here. She has a room on the second floor. She is outnow and she not come home.”
“Will she be in later this evening?”
“Oh, she be home very soon now, I think, because she come home to dress for party and goout.”
Mrs. Oliver thanked her for the information and rang off.
“Really,” said Mrs. Oliver to herself, with some annoyance13, “girls!”
She tried to think how long it was since she had last seen her goddaughter, Celia. One losttouch. That was the whole point. Celia, she thought, was in London now. If her boyfriend was inLondon, or if the mother of her boyfriend was in London—all of it went together. Oh dear,thought Mrs. Oliver, this really makes my head ache. “Yes, Miss Livingstone?” she turned herhead.
Miss Livingstone, looking rather unlike herself and decorated with a good many cobwebs and ageneral coating of dust, stood looking annoyed in the doorway14 holding a pile of dusty volumes.
“I don’t know whether any of these things will be any use to you, Mrs. Oliver. They seem to goback for a great many years.” She was disapproving15.
“Bound to,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“I don’t know if there’s anything particular you want me to search for.”
“I don’t think so,” said Mrs. Oliver, “if you’ll just put them on the corner of the sofa there I canlook at them this evening.”
Miss Livingstone, looking more disapproving every moment, said, “Very good, Mrs. Oliver. Ithink I will just dust them first.”
“That will be very kind of you,” said Mrs. Oliver, just stopping herself in time from saying—“and for goodness’ sake dust yourself as well. You’ve got six cobwebs in your left ear.”
She glanced at her watch and rang the Islington number again. The voice that answered thistime was purely16 Anglo-Saxon and had a crisp sharpness about it that Mrs. Oliver felt was rathersatisfactory.
“Miss Ravenscroft?—Celia Ravenscroft?”
“Yes, this is Celia Ravenscroft.”
“Well, I don’t expect you’ll remember me very well. I’m Mrs. Oliver. Ariadne Oliver. Wehaven’t seen each other for a long time, but actually I’m your godmother.”
“Oh yes, of course. I know that. No, we haven’t seen each other for a long time.”
“I wonder very much if I could see you, if you could come and see me, or whatever you like.
Would you like to come to a meal or?.?.?.”
“Well, it’s rather difficult at present, where I’m working. I could come round this evening, ifyou like. About half past seven or eight. I’ve got a date later but. .?.?.”
“If you do that I shall be very, very pleased,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“Well, of course I will.”
“I’ll give you the address.” Mrs. Oliver gave it.
“Good. I’ll be there. Yes, I know where that is, quite well.”
Mrs. Oliver made a brief note on the telephone pad, and looked with some annoyance at MissLivingstone, who had just come into the room struggling under the weight of a large album.
“I wondered if this could possibly be it, Mrs. Oliver?”
“No, it couldn’t,” said Mrs. Oliver. “That’s got cookery recipes in it.”
“Oh dear,” said Miss Livingstone, “so it has.”
“Well, I might as well look at some of them anyway,” said Mrs. Oliver, removing the volumefirmly. “Go and have another look. You know, I’ve thought about the linen cupboard. Next door tothe bathroom. You’d have to look on the top shelf above the bath towels. I do sometimes stickpapers and books in there. Wait a minute. I’ll come up and look myself.”
Ten minutes later Mrs. Oliver was looking through the pages of a faded album. MissLivingstone, having entered her final stage of martyrdom, was standing17 by the door. Unable tobear the sight of so much suffering, Mrs. Oliver said,“Well, that’s all right. You might just take a look in the desk in the dining room. The old desk.
You know, the one that’s broken a bit. See if you can find some more address books. Early ones.
Anything up to about ten years old will be worth while having a look at. And after that,” said Mrs.
Oliver, “I don’t think I shall want anything more today.”
Miss Livingstone departed.
“I wonder,” said Mrs. Oliver to herself, releasing a deep sigh as she sat down. She lookedthrough the pages of the birthday book. “Who’s better pleased? She to go or I to see her go? AfterCelia has come and gone, I shall have to have a busy evening.”
Taking a new exercise book from the pile she kept on a small table by her desk, she enteredvarious dates, possible addresses and names, looked up one or two more things in the telephonebook and then proceeded to ring up Monsieur Hercule Poirot.
“Ah, is that you, Monsieur Poirot?”
“Yes, madame, it is I myself.”
“Have you done anything?” said Mrs. Oliver.
“I beg your pardon—have I done what?”
“Anything,” said Mrs. Oliver. “What I asked you about yesterday.”
“Yes, certainly. I have put things in motion. I have arranged to make certain enquiries.”
“But you haven’t made them yet,” said Mrs. Oliver, who had a poor view of what the male viewwas of doing something.
“And you, chère madame?”
“I have been very busy,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“Ah! And what have you been doing, madame?”
“Assembling elephants,” said Mrs. Oliver, “if that means anything to you.”
“I think I can understand what you mean, yes.”
“It’s not very easy, looking into the past,” said Mrs. Oliver. “It is astonishing, really, how manypeople one does remember when one comes to look up names. My word, the silly things theywrite in birthday books sometimes, too. I can’t think why when I was about sixteen or seventeenor even thirty, I wanted people to write in my birthday book. There’s a sort of quotation18 from apoet for every particular day in the year. Some of them are terribly silly.”
“You are encouraged in your search?”
“Not quite encouraged,” said Mrs. Oliver. “But I still think I’m on the right lines. I’ve rung upmy goddaughter—”
“Ah. And you are going to see her?”
“Yes, she is coming to see me. Tonight between seven and eight, if she doesn’t run out on me.
One never knows. Young people are very unreliable.”
“She appeared pleased that you had rung her up?”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Oliver, “not particularly pleased. She’s got a very incisive19 voice and—I remember now, the last time I saw her, that must be about six years ago, I thought then thatshe was rather frightening.”
“Frightening? In what way?”
“What I mean is that she was more likely to bully20 me than I would be to bully her.”
“That may be a good thing and not a bad thing.”
“Oh, do you think so?”
“If people have made up their minds that they do not wish to like you, that they are quite surethey do not like you, they will get more pleasure out of making you aware of the fact and in thatway will release more information to you than they would have done if they were trying to beamiable and agreeable.”
“Sucking up to me, you mean? Yes, you have something there. You mean then they tell youthings that they thought would please you. And the other way they’d be annoyed with you andthey’d say things that they’d hope would annoy you. I wonder if Celia’s like that? I reallyremember her much better when she was five years old than at any other age. She had a nurserygoverness and she used to throw her boots at her.”
“The governess at the child, or the child at the governess?”
“The child at the governess, of course!” said Mrs. Oliver.
She replaced the receiver and went over to the sofa to examine the various piled-up memories ofthe past. She murmured names under her breath.
“Mariana Josephine Pontarlier—of course, yes, I haven’t thought of her for years—I thoughtshe was dead. Anna Braceby—yes, yes, she lived in that part of the world—I wonder now—”
Continuing all this, time passed—she was quite surprised when the bell rang. She went outherself to open the door.
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收听单词发音
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1
invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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2
enquire
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| v.打听，询问；调查，查问 | |
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3
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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4
curdled
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| v.（使）凝结( curdle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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7
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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8
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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9
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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10
scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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11
illegible
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| adj.难以辨认的，字迹模糊的 | |
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12
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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13
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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14
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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15
disapproving
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| adj.不满的，反对的v.不赞成( disapprove的现在分词 ) | |
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16
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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17
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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18
quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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19
incisive
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| adj.敏锐的，机敏的，锋利的，切入的 | |
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20
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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