The Very Thought of You Read Online Free PDF Page B

We live in Fulham and I play in Bishop’s Park, usually. My father mends antiques and my mother helps him. He has gone away to the army. My mother can play the piano.
    A gong rang for lunch, once, twice. Everything now would be marked out by gongs and whistles, and handbells. Anna did not complain; she was longing to eat, after missing breakfast.
    In the afternoon, all the children were assembled in the Marble Hall to meet Mr Ashton for the first time.
    When she saw him from behind, Anna assumed he must be old, because he could not walk. He was sitting in a wheelchair. But when she faced him properly, she saw that he had a young face. He was handsome, even, and very polite, though his legs were oddly thin.
    Mrs Ashton wheeled him round to shake hands with all the evacuees. He had a lovely smile, bright and friendly,Anna noticed. Perhaps he was not really much older than her own father?
    When they reached Anna, Mrs Ashton paused.
    “And this is the girl who had stitches in her knee—”
    “Ah!” he said. “So you’re the young lady who lured the doctor from his village rounds?”
    “Yes, sir – sorry, sir,” mumbled Anna.
    “Well, I very much hope you’re feeling better now?” he asked with gentle eyes.
    “Yes, sir,” she said, and smiled. He was kind, not frightening – she could see that at once. More, she trembled with secret pleasure at being singled out by such a gentleman.
    The wheels of his chair squeaked a bit on the polished stone floor as he moved on, and quite suddenly Anna felt sorry for him and his wife. She worried that Mrs Ashton might not be happy being married to a cripple – they couldn’t go dancing together, and she could imagine Mrs Ashton dancing. That must make him sad, too, she thought.
    How could such a beautiful woman be married to a man who couldn’t walk?
    * * *
    That afternoon, the evacuees were allowed to play outside. Limping a little with her bandaged knee, Anna followed the others into the gardens on the south side of the house. There were lawns and yew walks, and woods to explore. Small, hedged gardens, and steep banks to roll down.
    On every side stretched the parkland, as far as Anna could see.
    Bands of children ran across the vast sunken lawn beyond the saloon, chasing each other up and down its banks. Therewas a subtle bloom to the air, and to the weather. Coming from a city, Anna had never seen such a wide sky; it stretched out above them all like something freshly opened.
    She couldn’t really fathom why she was here, or what sort of place it was. She hopped down a bank with her arms raised to the wind and her head thrown back, yelling as she went, like the others.
    From his study window Thomas Ashton watched the children playing tag on the lawn below. Their freewheeling grace touched him – all that spontaneity.
    A shiver of unknown emotion rippled through him. He wanted to strike the right note with these children: to encourage them, and enjoy their high spirits, as was proper for someone with an open heart. But he must not let them unsettle his hard-won balance, either.
    He wheeled himself away from the window and turned on the wireless to hear the latest news.
    The children, meanwhile, wandered through the grounds until supper time. They knew nothing of Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Nor did they ask any questions as they went upstairs to their dormitories.
    The slow, silent power of the house was beginning to reach them already.

6
    On the morning of 2nd September, Roberta Sands woke early, dressed herself and made some tea. She overfilled the pot, brewing for her absent husband, out of habit, then sat for a long time in the kitchen.
    She knew that all the other evacuees’ parents would also be suffering a weekend of eerie quiet – waiting to hear abouttheir children, wondering when war would be declared – today, tomorrow?
    All around her were the final shreds of summer. A vase of fading roses from the garden, dusty geraniums in a pot, a spattered back