There Will Come A Stranger Read Online Free PDF

salmon?”
    “I don ’ t know—I ’ ve never had it!”
    “High time to find out, then!”
    So they ate smoked salmon, followed by chicken cooked with mushrooms and sweet com, and finished up with chestnut cream piled on meringue biscuits. Then, revived, they started off again.
    Gradually, in the week that followed, they worked their way through Vivian ’ s list of all that Valerie would need, from shoes and underwear to an enchanting multi-coloured evening bag to “go” with her two dance frocks and the short ones she would wear for quiet evenings. With the advice and help of experts in the winter sports department at Harridge ’ s they chose their ski-ing outfits. Between bouts of shopping they did some leisurely sightseeing, and of an evening went to a play, or saw a film. Sometimes they ate in Soho, experimenting with dishes cooked as in France or Italy, Greece or Spain or India, sometimes in the restaurant of a big store, sometimes at some quiet little place tucked in a cul-de-sac or side street in the West End.
    So the last evening came. Vivian did her packing first, then went to write a letter to Hawthorn Lodge, to tell the family of their doings since they came to London. Valerie had their bedroom to herself, littered with clothes, and tissue paper, and exciting cardboard boxes.
    Blissfully she opened her neat grey cases, banded with navy and maroon for easier identification, light in weight for flying. Contentedly she sniffed up the smell of newness that emerged. The muted murmur of traffic mingled with the rustle of tissue paper as she began to pack her new belongings. She scarcely knew which gave her the most delight: the dance frocks, or the cocktail suit of grey-blue faille; the quilted dressing gown of turquoise lined with peach, or the little frock of primrose silk; the nylon underwear, delicate as gossamer, or the cosier garments she would wear under her ski-ing outfit, warm and light and soft as feathers; the shoes of supple suede, or sturdier shoes of gleaming calf—she had always loved good shoes, but never yet been able to afford them!
    Thanks to Vivian, the last week had been one long delight. Strange to think it had been no more than a prelude—an overture to a still more exciting tune!
    Valerie wondered, as she packed, what lay ahead. What friends unknown were waiting in the curtained future? Whose arms would hold her, when those drifts of pearly chiffon with the silver sequins sparkling in the misty folds floated about her in the dance?
    The engines drummed. Slowly the plane taxied along the runway, gathering speed, then smoothly took the air. Valerie, who had been smothering faint qualms of anxiety as to her possible sensations when they left the ground—qualms that had by no means been abated by the appearance of the hostess, trim in her uniform, offering a tray of glucose sweets—was relieved to feel no more than a thrill of gay excitement as the airport sank away below.
    A chilly drizzle had been falling. Now they were climbing steadily through low cloud. Valerie would have been faintly disappointed, had such a thing been possible in her blissful state: she had been looking forward to a bird ’ s eye view of southern England, then the Channel, and at last “Abroad”! She thought that it would be a thousand pities if they were to arrive at journey ’ s end having seen no more than drifting wreaths of cloud!
    For a moment her attention was distracted by the smiling hostess, who, having brought them little individual trays with breakfast—ham, and crisp rolls, and little rolls of butter, and marmalade in tiny plastic pots—was asking how she liked her coffee? No sooner was the matter dealt with than Vivian, smiling, said, “Look there!” — and following the direction of her eyes, Valerie saw that they had emerged out of the clouds into a vast immensity of sunlit space. Above and all around was fathomless blue; below, a floor of dazzling cloud that looked as solid as a gigantic