There May Be Danger Read Online Free

Mander. “You might see’er. It’s wild where she is, all right. Gives ’er the willies properly. Not many bombs in Wales, that’s one thing. There was a bomb on a farm, though, near where my sister-in-law’s daughter’s staying—killed nine sheep, it did. Bombing sheep, what next. Well, dear, I mustn’t hinder you. If you do see Edna—I’ll give you her address, in case—you tell her from me not to be a fool, and to stay where she is!”
    Purchasing, packing, letter-writing and tidying up her room, left Kate no time to reflect in cold blood upon what she was doing. But in the small hours of the night, when even the most impulsive blood runs somewhat tepid, she awoke and contemplated her project without enthusiasm, and even began to wonder whether there was insanity in her family, and her mother and father had kept it from her.
    She consoled herself by recalling other small-hour watches, before first-nights, when the most careful preparations would look like muddles, brilliant plays like hog-wash, and the rosy prospects of a run tinged all over with the grey hues of the bird. As usual, these vapours were dispelled by the sunrise.
    They returned to her in some measure, however, when she found herself on the last stage of her long journey, in a little train-coach with its seats arranged sideways, like a tube-train, puffing slowly out on the single line from Llanfyn to Hastry. The day, which had started with sunshine, was closing in with a thin, driving rain. The wooded hills on either side of the long valley looked flattened against the grey sky. Kate looked at those grey, wet hills, and thought of Sidney Brentwood, unseen for three weeks, and her folly in supposing there was anything she could do to find him almost overcame her.
    There were only two passengers in the coach beside herself, and both were sitting facing her. One was a small, round-faced woman in glasses, with a knitted wool cap on her head, who sat up in the corner nursing a shopping-basket on her knees, and looking at Kate and Kate’s haversack whenever Kate was looking elsewhere. The other was a tall, large-featured, rather good-looking young woman in the brown uniform of a children’s nurse, who sat with her elbow resting on the small suitcase on the seat beside her, looking in a rather melancholy fashion out of the window. Kate surmised that she was on her way to a new job in strange country, and that the sight of the wet, wild hills made her apprehensive for her comfort.
    â€œWild country, isn’t it?” said Kate, happening to catch her pensive eye. Kate had scarcely spoken a word all day, except to an elderly evacuee who had not been able to decide whether her destination was Malvern Link or Great Malvern until it was too late to get out at either of them, and she had had to descend at Malvern Wells.
    â€œI’ll say it is,” replied the children’s nurse feelingly. “I’ve never been in this part before.”
    â€œNor have I,” said Kate. They both glanced at the little woman in the corner, who had the look of a native. But she was looking straight in front of her, with an untouchable, wooden expression on her prim round face.
    â€œGoing to a new job?” inquired Kate.
    â€œYes. Place called the Vault. At least, I suppose that’s how you pronounce it. It’s spelt V-e-a-u-l-t.” 
    Again they glanced at the little woman in the corner, but she did not enlighten them.
    â€œYes, isn’t it? It’s a nursery-school for evacuated babies, or going to be. I don’t like nursery-school work much, it’s all running about and no thanks for it, but private work’s all over the place nowadays. And I suppose one ought to pull one’s weight when there’s a war on. And at any rate,” added the young nurse frankly, “I shall be away from the bombs. I’m not keen on bombs, are you?”
    Kate was about to agree that bombs