The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden

Author:Rumer Godden
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781447210276
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2011-12-22T01:36:30+00:00

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CHAPTER 15

IT WAS a morning filled with absences. That sounds contradictory, but it was the absences that made themselves felt. There were two chars-à-bancs parties for breakfast, Americans on their way from Germany to Paris, and we saw once again how hard hotel people worked. Mauricette told us that when the Brass Instruments Ball had finished it had been past one o’clock, but she, Madame Corbet and Paul had had to set to work, sweep out the dining-room and hall and lay sixty places for breakfast . . . “And they will not have coffee and rolls,” Vicky told us. “They will have grapefruit, bacon and eggs, hot rolls, jam, coffee and tea and milk.” Monsieur Armand, Madame Corbet and Mauricette had to get up at half past six; we knew that because we were woken by cries for Paul.

A long time had gone by last night before I had taken myself out of that room and got into my own bed with Joss and Willmouse. All I could think of was how heavenly warm she was.

“Well?” She had been wide awake.

Why did I not tell her what I had seen? ‘I have seen nothing, nothing at all’, that was what I was saying over and over again in my head, and aloud I said briefly, “He has gone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.”

I had imagined myself lying awake, seeing it over and over again, but at once I had fallen asleep.

“Paul. Pa-ul. Paul!” That was Mauricette. Then came Madame Corbet’s steps and she flung open our door, ‘without knocking’, as Joss observed. Madame Corbet was too hurried to see we were three in the bed together and she did not scold us. “Have any of you children seen Paul . . . Paul Brendel?” She always spoke as if we did not know him.

It was a relief to see Madame Corbet. If she wanted Paul I could not believe he would not come. “When did you see him?” she asked.

“At the party last night,” said Joss.

“Tscha!” and Madame Corbet shut the door.

Wakened by the noise Hester and Vicky came in. We were all awake now, in spite of our late night, wide awake except Willmouse, who was fast asleep on the far side of our bed. Nor would he wake.

“Madame Corbet, Willmouse, our little brother, hasn’t woken.”

“Then wake him.”

“We . . . we can’t.”

Everyone was out of temper that morning and Madame Corbet snapped, “What is wrong with him?”

Nothing was wrong with him except that he was asleep, fast asleep, pale, but he was often pale. When we shook him his head rolled, when we opened his eyelids his eyes showed the whites. “I don’t like that,” said Hester. It certainly looked alarming. We sat him up, but he sagged back on the pillow. He was cold and breathing a little strangely. “Is he ill or asleep?” I asked.

“I don’t think you sleep when you are ill,” said Joss. “He is just . . . too asleep.”

That was what we told Madame Corbet.

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