A Girl in Winter Read Online Free PDF

the Fennels and herself with increasing excitement, was suddenly startled to sympathy for her. Till then she had seen only her ugliness, her petulance, her young pretensions. Now this faded to unimportance and she grasped for the first time that she really needed care, that she was frail and in a remote way beautiful. It was so long since she had felt this about anyone that it came with unexpected force: its urgency made her own affairs, concerned with what might or might not happen,bloodless and fanciful. This was what she had not had for ages, a person dependent on her: there were streets around that she must help her to cross, buses she must help her on and afterwards buy the tickets, for the pain the girl was suffering had half-obliterated her notice of the world. In the dull suburb was her home, and she must help her to reach it safely, and hand her over to whoever would take care of her next. It was so unusual that she knew it to be linked with the thankfulness she had been feeling for the last few days: it was the unconsidered generosity that follows a rare gambling-win; for the first time in months she had happiness to spare, and now that her passive, pregnant expectation had suddenly found its outlet, it was all the more eager for having come so casually and unexpectedly, leading her to this shelter she never knew existed in the very centre of the city.
    She gently took her arm.
    “Would you like to rest a little longer? But we shall be cold if we stay long.”
    They sat together on the seat under the scrolled plaque, Miss Green huddled into herself, and Katherine glancing first at her then out through the doorway; there was a path outside where chance heelmarks seemed eternally printed in the frost. Through the light mist she could see the ornamental front of the Town Hall under the flat shield of the sky, dark and ledged with snow. But all the white-grey patches were not snow, for as she watched they revealed themselves as pigeons, a score of them launching off into the air and hanging with a great clapping of wings. Then the whole flight dropped, rose over the intervening trees across the traffic, and landed on a stretch of snow not fifteen yards from where the two of them sat, coming up as if they expected to be fed.

4
    They remained silent for a few minutes, while Miss Green finally composed herself, putting on her spectacles and looking at her face in a handmirror. After this she powdered her nose and chin, making herself no less unattractive . The bones of her wrists were prominent and her hair, done to resemble the fashion, seemed lifeless. Katherine looked at her anxiously.
    “Do you feel better now?”
    “Yes, a bit.” Miss Green swallowed. “This tooth has always been a trouble.” Her voice had no volume, and sometimes rose to a whine to make itself heard.
    “What’s the matter with it?”
    “Well, there was a time when I didn’t go to a dentist for nearly two years. Then it got very bad, and I had to go, and he filled it so that it was nearly all filling. Then some time ago all the filling came out and it started to hurt. He filled it again, but it went on hurting, so he gave me some stuff to put on it, and that stopped it hurting. But now it’s started again.” She looked at Katherine with weak, self-pitying eyes. “Last night was terrible. I didn’t get to sleep till four, and then I woke up before seven. It was awful. All my face—the whole of my head seemed to be aching.”
    “A headache? The one starts the other.”
    “Yes, I suppose so, but I do get terrible headaches in any case. And when I’ve got one, I just can’t do anything. Mother knows there’s nothing for it but to keep me in bed with aspirins in hot milk. And very often I’m sick too.”
    “But do you have them at work?”
    “They don’t come on during the day as a rule. At night sometimes. Most often I wake up with them. Then I don’t go to work, I just stay in bed.”
    “Perhaps you should have stayed in bed