Sisterchicks Go Brit! by Robin Jones Gunn Read Free Book Online Page A

morning we were still in Olney. Like Ben Gunn who was marooned on Treasure Island, it appeared we might never get away from the well-meaning twins. At least I wanted to believe they were well meaning.

T he good news about our night at the Olney cottage was that we slept well. The layers of blankets on top of the twin beds in the upstairs dormer were wondrously heavy. They pressed us into deep sleep the way a leaded apron presses a patient into the dentist’s chair when x-rays are taken.
    Kellie and I stayed in bed as long as we could the next morning, whispering back and forth about our plans for the day. We decided that as soon as we were up and about, we would call a cab to take us to the train station. We would go straight to London, and even if we weren’t able to check into our hotel right away, we would leave our luggage there and start taking in the sights.
    Kellie was the first to slip out of bed. She tiptoed downstairs to the “loo,” as Opal had called the bathroom the night before. It was impossible to wash and flush without the sound of running water echoing throughout the house.
    Moments later I could hear Rose and Opal tottering down the hall, each telling the other to keep her voice low but issuing the instructions loud enough to stir the neighbors. I tried to picture the two of them sharing the rose-strewn double bed the night before. My imagination contrived a cartoon image of their round faces smiling, both positioned exactly the same way, with their billowy white hair on the pink pillows, and both of them holding the top fold of the covers with just their fingers showing, like kitten paws.
    Kellie slipped back into the room with a grin on her face. “Wait till you see this. They’re wearing matching bathrobes and matching hair scarves. I’m not kidding. It’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.”
    “How did they manage to come up with matching robes?”
    “Who knows? They certainly seem happy to be together, though. Oh, and Rose said she would have tea for us in the breakfast room ‘shortly.’ I’m not sure what
shortly
means, but I told her we were almost ready to leave.”
    “I wish they hadn’t gotten up. I didn’t want to wake them.”
    “I know,” Kellie said. “But it’s impossible to do anything quietly in this house.”
    We quickly finished getting ready and zipped up our suitcases. Kellie and I entered the breakfast room and discovered that Rose intended to serve us more than just tea. She had prepared soft-boiled eggs, and each of us had one waiting at our place, balanced pertly in a china eggcup. In the center of the table was asmall, upright metal rack. In between the rounded wire separators, Rose slid pieces of toasted white bread. She did it with such efficiency it almost looked as if she were “filing” the slices for us, the way file folders are placed alphabetically in a filing cabinet. Jars of marmalade and strawberry preserves were added to the assembly, and the teapot was filled with boiling water from the whistling electric kettle.
    Rose sat next to Opal and asked if we would like to join them in saying the morning grace. Kellie and I bowed our heads. In unison Rose and Opal repeated in a lyrical tone,
    “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest
and let these gifts to us be blessed
.
Amen.”
    “Amen,” Kellie and I said.
    “I trust you both slept well,” Rose said as I tried to spread jam on my slice of bread without getting the toasted crumbs all over the table.
    “Yes, we did,” I said.
    Kellie nodded. “Very well. And you?”
    “We both slept—”
    “Well enough.”
    “Thank you for your hospitality,” Kellie said. “It was very kind of you to let us stay.”
    “Yes, thank you,” I added.
    Opal gave a sweet little shake of her head and said something that caught Kellie and me off guard. “You Americans do tend to overstate everything.”
    That’s when we realized the twin we had supposed was Rose that morning was really Opal. Rose was the one who had