The September Garden Read Online Free PDF Page A

her best blouse, thinking, she still hates me, she still hates me.
    ‘There you are at last,’ said her mother downstairs in the hallway. ‘Sylvie’s in there waiting for you to come and say hello. I’ve given her some squash. If you want some, you’ll have to make your own. Mrs Bunting’s busy with the dinner.’
    Nell slipped in to the room. The French doors were open to the garden and through them blew the breeze scented by Boule de Neige roses. Long slants of sunlight threw rectangles over her mother’s Aubusson rug. Occasional tables were polished to the depth of golden syrup by the girl from the village who ‘does’. In the silence, a leaf from the dried-flower arrangement in the fireplace fell with a surprisingly loud, crisp sound onto the hearth. Nell peered at her cousin. Sylvie was sitting primly on the sofa, her face concealed by the large glass of squash from which she drank deeply. Nell’s eyes rested on the long midnight-black hair held back with an Alice band. In the face of her poised beauty, envy nudged her. She shrugged it off and moved forward across the rug until her favourite photograph of her father on the occasional table came into view. There he was: young and clear-eyed in his old-fashioned uniform. The photograph was brown-tinged, just like the war into which Ullis and Tatillon and Monsieur Androvsky’s brother disappeared. The ‘hell’ her father went through all those years ago was only ever referred to by her mother in hushed whispers. And now, Nell sensed with a creeping discomfort, a new war was spoken of in a fresh urgent way. Only yesterday, she’d heard her father say, ‘I can’t face another one,’ and her mother reply, rather cuttingly, ‘ You won’t have to.’
    Nell watched as Sylvie set the empty glass down on a coaster. For the first time in a whole year, Nell looked into her violet-black eyes.
    ‘ Bonjour , Sylvie,’ Nell said, queasy again, and awkward.
    ‘I’ve got to speak English,’ Sylvie said, bluntly, ‘ Maman has warned me. And Auntie Mollie is going to monitor me. So I will be grateful if you don’t try to speak French.’ Sylvie fixed her with a narrowed stare. ‘You were never that good anyway. We all had to make a huge effort to speak English last year, you were so bad.’
    Nell said that she thought she’d done all right.
    ‘Not really. Anyway, it helped me to learn better English. More fool you.’
    Nell, disgruntled, opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by her mother rushing back in.
    ‘What are you two still doing inside on such a lovely day?’ Mollie demanded. ‘Nell, take Sylvie round the garden. Show her the tree house.’
    Sylvie said brightly, ‘That sounds like fun, Auntie Mollie.’
    ‘What’s for dinner?’ Nell asked.
    ‘That’s all you ever want to think about – food. Mrs B has told me that the last of her Victoria sponge has disappeared. I think I can take a flying guess who the culprit is. Dinner is a surprise, something special for our visitor’s first evening. You girls will have to wait and see.’
     
    Nell led the way down the terrace steps, across the lawn, past the high wall to the September Garden – there was no way on earth she was going to take Sylvie in there – past her mother’s herbaceous borders where lanky hollyhocks were alive with bees, and where Mr Pudifoot, gardener and general handyman, stood leaning on the handle of his fork, listening to birdsong. He doffed his hat to them.
    ‘Afternoon, young ladies. Fine afternoon, innit? Where you off to, then?’
    ‘We’re going down to the bourn. We’re going to go up in the tree house,’ Nell piped up. ‘I’ve got to show her the tree house. This is my cousin Sylvie. She’s French.’
    ‘Half French,’ snapped Sylvie.
    ‘Welcome to Lednor Bottom, maddy-mo-selle ,’ chuckled Mr Pudifoot. ‘Pleased a meet you. You ladies take care. Don’t get wet now, French miss. Ha!’
    They set off again, following the long path that wound