The Far Country by Nevil Shute Read Free Book Online Page B

the rain.
    She went up the steps of the shabby old brick house that was her home, spacious with its eight bedrooms, its four reception-rooms, and its range of basement kitchens, and she let herself in at the front door with her latch-key. As she took off her wet coat her landlady climbed up the stairs from the kitchen.
    “There was a telephone call for you about an hour ago,” shesaid. “A personal call. I told them you’d be back about five-thirty.”
    Jennifer looked up in surprise. “Do you know who it was from?”
    The woman shook her head. “They didn’t say.”
    Jennifer went to the telephone booth and told the exchange that she could take the call, and learned that it was a call from Leicester. She hung up, and stood uncertain for a moment, hoping there was nothing wrong at home. Presently she went up to her room on the first floor and changed out of her wet shoes, and then she stood looking out of the window at the glistening lamplight in the wet suburban street, waiting and listening for the call. In the yellow lamplight the plane trees in the street waved a few stray leaves that still held to the twigs.
    The call came through at last, and she hurried downstairs to take it. It was her mother, speaking from their home. “Is that Jenny? How are you, dear?”
    “I’m all right, Mother.”
    “Jenny dear, listen to this. We had a telephone call from the district nurse, at Ealing. She said that Granny’s ill. She had a fall in the street, apparently, and they took her to the hospital, but they hadn’t got a bed so they took her home and put her to bed there. The nurse said somebody would have to go there to look after her. Jenny, could you go to Ealing and see what’s the matter, and then telephone us?”
    Jennifer thought quickly. Ealing was on the other side of London; an hour up to Charing Cross if she were lucky with the trains, and then an hour down to Ealing Broadway, and a ten minutes’ walk. She could get something to eat on the way, perhaps. “I can do that, Mummy,” she said. “I’ve got nothing fixed up for tonight. I could be there by about half-past eight.”
    “Oh, my dear, I
am
so sorry. I think you’ll have to go. She oughtn’t to be living alone, of course, but she won’t leave the house. We’ll have to fix up something better for her, after this. You’ll be able to get back to Blackheath tonight, will you?”
    The girl hesitated. “I think so, Mummy. If I leave by about half-past nine I should be able to get back here. It sounds as if somebody ought to stay the night with her, though, doesn’t it?”
    There was a worried silence. “I don’t know what to say,” her mother said at last. “You’ve got to be at work tomorrow. Oh dear!”
    “Has Daddy heard about this yet?”
    “He’s out still on his rounds. I couldn’t get hold of him.”
    “Don’t worry, Mummy,” said the girl. “I’ll go over there and give you a ring when I’ve seen the nurse. We’ll fix up something between us.”
    “What time will you be telephoning, dear?”
    “It may be very late, if I’ve got to hurry to catch trains,” the girl said. Her grandmother was not on the telephone. “It may be after midnight when I get back here.”
    “That’ll be all right, Jenny. I always hear the bell.”
    “All right, Mummy. I’ll go over right away and ring you back tonight, probably very late.”
    She did not wait for supper, but started for the station straight away. She travelled across London to the other side and came to Ealing Broadway station about two hours later. It was raining here in earnest, great driving gusts of rain blown by a high wind down the deserted, shimmering, black streets. Her stockings and her shoes were soaked before she had been walking for three minutes.
    Her grandmother lived in a four-bedroomed house called Maymyo, built in the somewhat spacious style of fifty years ago, a house with a large garden and no garage. Her husband had bought it when they had retired from Burma