The Greengage Summer Read Online Free PDF

“Don’t worry,” she said in a moment, “one is not sent anything one
can’t bear,” but she had to bite her lips again. I remember, too, that Willmouse disappeared. “Il est parti voir les locos,” said the attendant, but there was a new Vogue on a kiosk and he had gone to look at that.
    I do not remember the train, only that Mr Stillbotham had been wrong and there were no taxis at the station. “Mais c’est pas bien loin,” said the porter, and we took the
handcart.
    “But Mother can’t walk,” said Hester.
    “She must.” A terrible hardness had come upon us. We took her by her arms. She moaned and stumbled, and Hester wept. At last we came to the gates.
    As we waited after the porter rang the bell I moved away from the others. I had had the sudden sense of a garden, sharp because it cut me from them. Through the gates I could see a courtyard
with gravel round a square of grass in front of the house. To the side, paths led away into the trees; the light was almost gone now and trees showed dimly, grey-green along the wall, while the
garden was black in the depth of the shadows. There was a steady light pattering sound—I did not know then that French sound of poplar leaves. A bird gave a sleepy call; an owl answered it,
that strange night noise that I recognised though I had not heard it before.
    I could smell a summer smell of cut grass and, near me, some flower scent that was heady and sweet; a white flower, I thought, jessamine or syringa. After the city and train my skin was
cinder-dry and the air was gratefully cool against my face. I was filled with a sense of peace; all the fears and ignorance of the day seemed to drop away. This was the Hotel des Oeillets, real,
not the mirage we had held in front of us through the travelling; we had arrived.
    “L’hôtel n’acccepte pas les malades,” said Madame Corbet.
    “Does that mean she won’t take sick people?” I asked Joss.
    “I think it does.”
    The office at Les Oeillets was off the stairs, it was not big enough to be called a room; steps led up from the hall to an entresol with a landing and doors; the office was an annexe to this
landing, separated from it by a counter and brass grille. There was just room behind the counter for a safe, a keyboard with pigeon-holes for letters, and Madame Corbet’s desk with its
telephone and account books. Now we, Joss, Hester, Willmouse, Vicky and I, stood in front of the grille; Willmouse’s eyes were just level with the counter; only the top of Vicky’s hat
showed.
    The staircase was panelled in pale green, riddled with curious holes, but the holes did not take away from its elegance. The hall was elegant too. It was odd that we, who had never seen elegance
before—though it was our favourite word—immediately recognised it—except Hester. “It isn’t like the Metropole or Cavendish,” she said regretfully. They were the
big hotels on Southstone’s grand parade, but instinctively I liked this better. The staircase made a graceful shape as it led up to the floor above. The banister-rail was dark polished wood,
the banisters thin and white; halfway up was a round window that showed a glimpse of trees, and in the wall were crystal wall lamps that matched the chandelier in the hall. We looked at that,
amazed, for we had never seen a chandelier in a house. The hall had a squared marble floor; its chairs were gilt with faded brocade cushions; four small tables stood against the walls. “But
they are only halves,” said Willmouse in surprise. We had never seen console tables either.
    In that hall our fibre suitcases looked cheap. We had other luggage even more vulgar; a basket, the bag that had held the oranges, a brown-paper parcel of the Littles’ Wellington boots, an
untidy heap of raincoats with their belts hanging; and we all carried treasures. Joss’s, of course, were neat, a drawing-board strapped to her wooden paintbox. Hester had her camera,
Willmouse his scrapbooks and