A Girl in Winter Read Online Free

lived. She was not certain who this Miss Green was. There were several juniors, and she only knew the pretty one by name, Miss Firestone. The others were not remarkable and she had nothing to do with them.
    She waited impatiently. After a time a girl came out and moved slowly up to her, dressed in her outdoor clothes. She would be about sixteen, and Katherine recognized her face.
    “Are you Miss Green? I’m coming along with you.”
    Miss Green nodded stiffly. She was thin and dressed in a beige coat that did not suit her: her face was poorly-complexioned and she wore spectacles. Her mouth was held as if her teeth were stuck with toffee.
    Katherine looked at her uncertainly, wondering how ill she was. It happened that Miss Green was the first member of the staff she had ever spoken to, for when she had come to work on her first morning she had met Miss Green in the entrance hall, and had asked her where Miss Feather was. Miss Green had stared and answered in off hand nasal tones that she would be in the cataloguing room, without saying where that was, and had disappeared. That had been nine months ago and they had not spoken since. She worked mainly in the Junior Department.
    “Is your toothache very bad? Do you feel well enough to start?”
    Another nod, as if crossly asserting she had no need of dependence. Katherine, feeling some sympathy was called for, said:
    “I’m sorry it’s so bad.”
    “Oh, that makes it feel better already,” replied Miss Green sarcastically, with a huddled movement of the lips as if eating a sweet. She pushed out of the double doors without holding them open afterwards.
    Exasperating brat, thought Katherine, following her, but it was a relief not to have to pretend sympathy. Theystood for a second on the top of the steps, the cold rising up their skirts, and began to walk down as a clock struck ten-fifteen. It was a Branch Library and stood on one corner of a crossroads, a residential avenue and the fag-end of a long street lined with small shops that ran, gathering importance and size as it went, nearly to the centre of the city. The Library was an ugly old building built up on a bank, where laurel bushes grew: the bank was now covered with snow and littered with bus-tickets. A newspaper had been carefully folded and thrust into a drift, where it was frosted stiff. A cart creaked past, from which an old man was flinging shovelfuls of gravel, swinging the spade in an arc that spun the gravel thinly. As they went down the steps Katherine looked disproportionately strong and dark beside Miss Green.
    At the bottom they were met by an urchin with very red face and hands, who eyed them suspiciously, saying in a hoarse voice:
    “Is this where the books are?”
    Miss Green walked on without replying, so Katherine had to stop and give directions. The boy shrank from her foreign voice: in his left hand he held a sixpence. Glancing round while she hurried after Miss Green, she saw him go up to the main entrance though she had specially told him to go round to the Junior Department.
    “I say, where do you live?”
    “Lansbury Park.”
    “You’re catching a bus here?”
    A nod.
    “Then we shall change at Bank Street?”
    “There’s no need for you to,” said Miss Green shortly, as they reached the bus-stop. “I can go home alone quite well.”
    “I shall go with you as far as I can,” said Katherine. “I’m not coming back before I have to.”
    “Well, that’s your business.”
    “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
    “Perfectly.”
    Lansbury Park was excellent: it would take them right across the centre of the city, and her room was quite near Bank Street. She could easily call there on her way back. In fact, as Miss Green seemed so independent she might leave her at Bank Street as she suggested, and spend the rest of the time in her room, in a café, or looking round the shops. Would there be a letter? Robin surely must have had time to write by now, if he wanted to. Perhaps