Читать книгу Wait for Me - Caroline Leech, Caroline Leech - Страница 16

“Will you come back to my house for tea?” Iris asked as they left the school the next day. “William has a Scout meeting this afternoon, and Mum is at my grannie’s, so I have nothing better to do.”

Lorna studied Iris’s sweet smile and knew that her friend hadn’t meant to sound rude.

“I’m flattered,” she answered drily even so.

“Oh, you know what I mean.” Iris nudged her arm. “So will you come?”

Lorna shook her head.

“Maybe another day? I’ve got things to get done while it’s still light, but thanks.”

In fact, Lorna couldn’t face spending another hour or so with Iris as she prattled on about William, about school and Red Cross, and oh, about William some more. Lorna wanted to clear her head. The night before, she had lain awake for a long time thinking about how upset Paul had looked over that piece of the newspaper. She shouldn’t care if she saw him cry—she didn’t really know him, after all, and it wasn’t like he was her friend—but it had bothered her all the same.

Saying good-bye to Iris, Lorna decided to take the long way home through the woods. Though it would be a few weeks until the bluebells came into flower, she did love walking between the tranquil old trees. If she kept up a good pace, she wouldn’t be back too late to get the tea on the table at the normal time.

The wind had got up during school, and it whipped Lorna’s hair around her face as she walked. She pulled her scarf up over her head, tied it under her chin, and tucked the ends down inside her coat. Despite the wind, though, the sun felt warm on her face for the first time in months, and there was a mildness within the blustery air.

As she gave herself up to the rhythm of her feet on the path, Lorna allowed her mind to flit from Paul to Iris and William, to John Jo and Sandy, to Nellie and back to Paul again, and before she knew it, she was at the farthest end of Craigielaw’s land, beside the beach beyond the woods.

She barely noticed when a large droplet of water hit the ground right in front of her. However, when the next four or five cold drops hit her face, and one sneaked into the narrow gap between her scarf and her neck, she paid more attention. Above the far shore of the Firth of Forth, a quilt of thick black rain clouds had darkened the bright sky, and its shadow was steadily creeping toward her over the water. And from the way the waves were dancing and bursting with white horses on their crests, Lorna could tell that the storm was coming fast.

Suddenly the clouds were illuminated from behind by a burst of lightning. Before she could count the seconds—one alligator, two alligator—a boom shook the air. Lorna almost lost her balance, as if the thunder itself had tried to push her over, so she ran, bent low, toward the edge of the woods.

With the rain’s arrival, the last wash of daylight vanished and Lorna found herself in a soaking twilight. Sheets of water, woven stiff as canvas, swept her toward the trees as waves would wash a dinghy against a seawall. The lightning flashed and flashed again across the darkness, not waiting for the thundering fanfare to sound before crackling again.

By the time she reached the woods, she was drenched. The cold moisture seeped through her sodden coat, her tights were sopping inside her shoes. But the rain barely made it through the dense canopy of the old oaks, wych elms, and sycamores. Even though the thick branches were still mostly winter bare, with just the first pink buds coloring the brown bark, they still acted as soundproofing, deadening the earsplitting noise of the storm.

Wet and miserable, Lorna threaded her way through the familiar woods in the direction of the farm, skirting the nettle beds until she found the well-worn path. She stuffed her scarf into her pocket, then shrugged out of her coat, the fabric soaked through so that even her sweater and shirt were already wet. Trying to keep her coat tucked under one arm, she wriggled her damp sweater off over her head, then squeezed the single braid that lay down her back until water trickled through her fingers.

“Bloody rain!” she said, shaking the excess water from her hand.

“I agree,” said a voice behind her. “Bloody rain!”

Lorna spun around too quickly. Paul was sitting only ten yards away on the trunk of a tree that lay at a drunken angle to the ground.

Considering the deluge falling so near, he looked remarkably dry in his dark gray army sweater and the maroon scarf she had knitted. In contrast, Lorna knew she must look like a thoroughly drowned rat. Stray strands of hair were plastered to her face, and her white cotton shirt was sticking to her arms and shoulders.

Even though she knew—she hoped—that her wet shirt was not showing off anything more embarrassing than an unflattering undershirt, Lorna suddenly felt exposed under Paul’s scrutiny and tried to pull her sweater back over her head. She only succeeded in dropping both her coat and scarf onto the ground, and anyway, she knew she’d never get the damp sweater back on with any dignity.