A Girl in Winter Read Online Free PDF Page A

stooped and took her thin arm. Together they crossed to the green and went up the path to the shelter, crushing a light layer of frozen snow. The benches were dusty with frost and the laurel-bushes rustled. She got Miss Green up the steps into the dingy interior, and sat her on a wooden seat. The place was bitterly cold, but built substantially : it had a drinking-fountain let into the wall, and a plaque saying it was to commemorate a coronation. There seemed nothing for the moment Katherine could do, so she leant in the doorway with her back to Miss Green, to give her time to recover herself, and stared out at the grey tracing of branches and the dark buildings beyond, their upper storeys sprinkled with lighted windows . It looked as if after all she would have to take Miss Green home. Then there would be no time to go to her room before returning to work: indeed, if they went on at this present pace it was doubtful whether it would be worth going back to work before lunch at all. She wasworking eight hours a day this week, from nine till one and three till seven, when the Library closed. In any case she could call at her rooms at lunchtime: it wouldn’t make more than an hour’s difference. The longer she put off making sure there was a letter or not, the longer she had something to look forward to. In the meantime she lolled in the doorway as if on guard, surprised at finding herself in this strange place, while behind her Miss Green pressed her hands to her eyes, letting her spectacles lie on the smooth wooden bench. There was one-way traffic round the square, and she watched the taxis and saloon cars go by at a distance, the noise of them sharpened on the cold air like a knife on a whetstone.
    After a while she glanced round.
    “How are you feeling now?”
    Miss Green rubbed her forehead. She had taken off her gloves.
    “A bit better, I think.”
    She blinked at Katherine: without her spectacles she did not look nearly so disagreeable. Her lips were childish and pouting.
    “Is there anything you’d like to do? Would you like to have something hot to drink somewhere?”
    “Oh, no, that would make me feel worse.”
    “Brandy would do you good.”
    “No.”
    “Well, rest a bit longer, then. There’s plenty of time.”
    “A drink of water, perhaps,” said Miss Green, timidly, after a pause.
    “Water!” Katherine looked round. “Well, there is a drinking-fountain here.”
    “Oh, but they’re filthy,” said Miss Green, wrinkling her nose.
    “Well, it may be frozen.” She pressed the button experimentally , and an uneven trickle of water came out of the lion’s mouth. She passed her hand through it, and wasamazed at its coldness. It might have been a stream drained from plateau after plateau of ice, running down tracks of stones still above cloud level. She withdrew her hand quickly.
    “It works, but it’s terribly cold.”
    “Oh, but it’s not healthy. All sorts of people use them—old tramps and——”
    Katherine looked at the chained iron cup. “Well, if there are any germs the frost will have killed them.” She ran the water again momentarily, to test it once more. It numbed her hand, like a distillation of the winter. “But you needn’t use the cup—you could drink from your hands.”
    Miss Green got up very gingerly and came over to stand by her as if walking barefoot on ice.
    “I don’t like to,” she said, with a deliberate expression.
    “Why not? Make a cup of your hands. I’ll keep the water running.”
    Miss Green ducked her narrow shoulders, cupping her palms together. She gave a gasp as the water touched them but sipped at it. Then she dabbed her forehead with wet fingers.
    “It’s so cold it almost stops my tooth hurting.”
    She bent to drink again, and Katherine saw as she raised her head afterwards that she was gasping at the chill of the water and half-smiling, the tiny hairs around her mouth wet. Katherine, who ever since she had got up that morning had been thinking of