The Postcard Read Online Free PDF

the day was ruined. She felt like a child with her nose up against the window, looking through the glass into something to which she was no longer party. She took a deep breath and
sat down: time to play the hostess, time to pin on a smile.
    ‘Isn’t this wonderful, all of us together? What a wonderful end to the day . . .’

3
    Callie couldn’t wait for the summer holidays to begin even though it was a turning out to be a time of sad farewells. The Laird family was moving to a bigger farm in the
Borders, and Marthe was going to visit her family in Belgium for the summer. Callie was to spend the whole time with Aunt Phee, travelling down to the south of France with her friends. They would
cross the Channel to Boulogne to tour Paris, then take a train right down to a place called Nice on the Mediterranean. Mrs Ibell was busy sewing cotton dresses and sunhats, putting liver salts in
her trunk in case the foreign food didn’t suit her. Marthe was escorting her on the train to London to meet Aunt Phee, then taking a steamer across to Ostend. In preparation, they had studied
their journeys on the map on the Nursery wall. Marthe spoke good French and made Callie practise some of the phrases from her language book.
    Marthe was packing her own suitcase and not saying much at all. A letter had come from Aunt Phee with all their instructions, but when she read it, Marthe had started to cry and stared out the
window, holding the new skirt she had made herself in the shorter style that showed off her slim legs. Her hair was bobbed and Callie thought she looked very pretty.
    ‘Are you sick?’ Callie rushed to hug her.
    ‘No . . . just sad.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Sometimes things have to end . . . But I’m being silly. Come on, let’s find some of your books to put in the trunk.’
    Callie wondered if Marthe had found a boyfriend who might carry her off somewhere far away from Dalradnor.
    It was up to Tam and Nan to see that Cullein got his walks because they couldn’t take him across the sea. Callie knew she’d miss him badly. Perhaps Sir Lionel might call in on his
annual holiday and check she was looking after Cullein well. He never brought his wife or daughter, which always upset Mrs Ibell. ‘It’s a gey queer state of affairs is that . . . they
stay not five miles from here with the Balfours, and have never called in here all the years I waited on them until now . . .’
    Callie liked the old gentleman. He brought her comics to read and sweeties in a pokey hat cone with half a crown hidden at the bottom for her to save or spend as she liked. He always looked sad
when he said goodbye. With the twins leaving, who would she play with when she got home? She was always falling in and out with girls who teased her for being Orphan Annie. It wasn’t her
fault she had no brothers or sister or parents. There were lots of girls in the school who had lost their fathers in the Great War. Aunt Phee lost her fiancé. She kept a picture of him in a
silver frame in her bedroom. He had a uniform on, and he was Sir Lionel’s son, too, with his name on the war memorial. Aunt Phee was always very sad when she looked at his picture.
    At last, the day came for the train journey down to London. It was a hot and dusty drive to Glasgow Central Station but she loved the bustle of the porters with their luggage, the crowds on the
platform waving off the travellers, the big paper stall where they bought a
Girl’s Own
and a Fry’s Five Boys for the journey. There was so much to see out of the window as the
train rattled its way south. Marthe brought out sandwiches and a Thermos at Carlisle, and they played hangman and noughts and crosses. Then at Lancaster Marthe got out her knitting and made Callie
read her book and try to nap. At every station, Callie asked if they were nearly there and Marthe laughed and said, ‘Be patient.’ Then they talked in Flemish just for the fun of it, but
soon Marthe grew serious.
    ‘Never forget it,