The Visitors Read Online Free PDF

great ballet class,’ she said, closing the door.
    Most afternoons, however tired I was, I fretted wakefully through these periods of enforced rest. I would try to read – Treasure Island ; my mother’s beloved Tennyson – or I’d write in my diary, or I’d simply lie there and stare at the ceiling, watching the ceiling fans inexorably revolve. That day I fell at once into a deep and dreamless sleep. So soundly did I sleep that the 4 o’clock tea-on-Shepheard’s-terrace deadline was well past when I woke. If Miss Mack regretted this lost opportunity for conversazione and celebrity spotting, she concealed it well.
    ‘Why, Lucy, you do look refreshed,’ she exclaimed in delight. ‘There’s some colour in your cheeks at last. Exercise and rest – and lots of new interests , I knew they would do you good! And since I have what I feel I may call extensive nursing experience, I know whereof I speak, dear… Now, we’ve just time to get you ready – Madame’s class begins in fifteen minutes. A quick wash and brush-up… Can you manage a little mint tea?’
    Closely supervised, I washed my face and hands and changed my petticoat. Miss Mack felt my forehead and took my temperature. Normal . I was back to Normal , and had been all day. I sipped the cool mint tea, hoping Miss Mack wouldn’t expatiate on her nursing experience. On the outbreak of war in 1914, with an impetuosity that was characteristic, she had taken the first available ship to England and enrolled as a VAD. After training in London, and a period in France at a military field station, she had been posted to Egypt, to the hospital at Alexandria where those men fortunate enough to survive the Gallipoli campaign had been transferred.
    Most were hideously wounded: over the past few weeks I’d heard long descriptions of amputations, septicaemia, gangrene – and the indomitable courage of dying British and Colonial servicemen. Miss Mack had a fascination with the gory, and a brisk manner when describing it. I wanted to hear no more. I’d had enough of death. Death had been stalking me for months and it was time he gave me up, took himself off and found some other prey. I’d imagine him hiding in my room, in its huge and sinister catafalque of a wardrobe; sometimes, at night, I’d smell his bandages, his mouldy mummifying bandages… I edged away as Miss Mack began to select fresh clothes for me, eased back the wardrobe door and peered inside. Empty apart from clothes. Nothing lurking. Death definitely not there today.
    Laid out for me on my bed was a clean outfit and yet another hat. I scowled at it, and Miss Mack sighed: ‘Now, don’t be difficult, dear. We can’t have sulks, not now. I want you to make a good impression. I thought, the Liberty print dress? It suits you charmingly. And the hat with the matching riband – now, don’t be silly, Lucy, look, I’m wearing a hat too, best bib and tucker, I hear Madame is a stickler for such things…
    ‘I wonder,’ she went on, somewhat nervously, ‘should I address her by her title? No, I guess I’ll stick to “Madame”; after all, we are meeting her in her professional capacity. People say she can be very grande dame , but the thing to remember, Lucy, is that before that terrible accident, she was a great artist, a prima ballerina, so a certain temperamentis only to be expected. And then she’s Russian, and in my experience all Russians are excitable. So we can’t be sure how she’ll react, Lucy, when we actually meet her. She is very choosy as to whom she admits to her classes, I hear – I believe she’s turned down several little girls of the most – well – irreproachable background, and for no good reason that anyone could see. But if she takes a shine to you, as I’m sure she will, dear, it should open doors. It will give you a chance to meet some girls your own age, to make some nice friends in Cairo… ’
    This lengthy speech took us out of our rooms, down the great central