There Will Come A Stranger by Dorothy Rivers Read Free Book Online Page A

’ t tell us wrong, of course, but all the same I did keep seeing a horrid sort of mental Bateman picture — you and me attired in different clothes from anybody else, shrinking and pale, with hanging heads, surrounded by a crowd of superior beings in the proper kind of outfit, staring with bulging eyes of scorn!”
    “Me, too!” Valerie confessed, as giggling they began to dress. For the first time since they had tried them on at the shop they put on their ski-ing clothes: thick socks, windproof trousers fastened beneath their feet under their heavy boots. Strong colours would look best against the snow, so Vivian had black trousers, while her pullover was glowing red, matching the windproof jacket and gloves and peaked cap with earflaps fastening alternatively on top of one ’ s head or under one ’ s chin, that she would add before they went out. Valerie ’ s trousers were navy, the remainder of her outfit brilliant azure.
    “ Isn ’ t it lucky,” Valerie remarked when they had finished dressing and were inspecting the results, “that you and I have both got flat behinds!”
    “Yes, thank goodness—more than quite a lot of people I ’ ve noticed passing by can say!”
    “Still, theirs may be a better shape for falling on.”
    “Oh, dear—I hadn ’ t thought of that. Never mind—better a bruise than a bulge, don ’ t you think?”
    “Depends upon how vain one is, or otherwise.” Laughing, they went down to breakfast, glad of one another ’ s company, for even Vivian, for the first few minutes, felt self - conscious in her unaccustomed garb.
    Though there were still a number of people in the dining-room many of the tables were already laid for lunch, among them the one where the Prescotts and John Ainslie had been sitting the previous night. Probably they had all three gone out some time ago, and Vivian was well pleased it should be so. She had no intention of presuming on that earlier meeting with John Ainslie by joining them again this evening; if they suggested it she would be ready with some excuse—but none the less there would doubtless be an opening for letting them know how nicely she and Valerie had managed on their own.
    So she was taken by surprise when, as they came down in due course ready to go out, they found a solitary figure in the lounge, reading The Scotsman, and John Ainslie rose to greet them with “Good morning! Ready for the fray?”
    An instant later Madame Jourdier, who had welcomed them last night, came bustling from the kitchen premises and on seeing John came to an abrupt halt. The two girls were not in her range of vision, so she was unaware of interrupting as she exclaimed, “Ah—Monsieur Ainslie, it is not like you to be so late in starting out! I thought I saw you going off some time ago?”
    “You did! But only on an errand. However, I really am off now!” he told her.
    Madame, now seeing her two other guests, lingered to say she hoped that they were rested after their long journey, and had all they wanted — then disappeared into her office.
    John Ainslie took his windproof gloves and jacket from the chair where they were lying, put them on, and joined the two girls as they stepped out into the brilliance of the sunlit snow, hastily putting on their dark glasses. Evidently he too was going to the ski lift, which stopped, Susan had told them, for beginners to leave it at the nursery slopes, then continued to the heights with those of more experience.
    The calm, still air was cold and dry and keen as peppermint, but the sun beat warmly on their backs while they stood a moment taking their bearings. “By midday,” John told them, “when you ’ re sitting in some sheltered corner sipping aperitifs and recovering from your exertions, you ’ ll be warm enough to shed your gloves and caps and jackets.”
    “We want to stay a month,” Vivian told him, “so I ’ m afraid our currency won ’ t run to aperitifs as well as hiring skis and paying for lessons and all