Endless night pdf download

To this he always made answer, 'The book is official, man's observation errs. They invariably elected me to be 'the Germans,' and locked me up in the old garage while they rained a stock of sun-dried clay bombs upon the roof and then came with a rush to 'batter down the walls of Berlin' by breaking in the door, while I, muttering strange guttural oaths, would be led forth to be 'exterminated.

The first map was labelled 'The Age of Nations,' and showed the black spot of Germany, like in size to many of the surrounding countries, the names of which one recited in the history class. Synopsis City Of Endless Night PDF Free Download When but a child of seven my uncle placed me in a private school in which one of the so-called redeemed sub-sailors was a teacher of the German language.

Related books. Agatha Christie - Dumb witness. Endless Night. Agatha Christie - Regata Mystery. Recommend Documents. Every Morn and every Night Some ar Your name.

Close Send. Remember me Forgot password? Our partners will collect data and use cookies for ad personalization and measurement. Learn how we and our ad partner Google, collect and use data. Things people who want a dream come true want. Something wonderful. Yes, this would be a lovely place to live. Everything one has dreamed of come true. One could live here and be free, not hampered, not tied round by people pushing you into doing everything you don't want, keeping you from doing anything you do want.

Oh, I am so sick of my life and the people who are round me and everything! Me with my dreams and she with her revolt against her life. We stopped talking and looked at each other. This didn't seem to take us much farther but we went on looking at each other. We both wanted to see each other again - but just for the moment we didn't know how to set about it. Chapter 5 Well, that's how it began between Ellie and myself.

It didn't really go along so very quickly, I suppose, because we both had our secrets. Both had things we wanted to keep from the other and so we couldn't tell each other as much about ourselves as we might have done, and that kept bringing us up sharp, as it were, against a kind of barrier.

We couldn't bring things into the open and say "When shall we meet again? Where can I find you? Where do you live? Fenella looked apprehensive when she gave me her name. So much so that I thought for a moment that it mightn't be her real name. I almost thought that she might have made it up!

But of course I knew that that was impossible. I'd given her my real name. We didn't know quite how to take leave of each other that day. It was awkward. It had become cold and we wanted to wander down from The Towers - but what then? Rather awkwardly, I said tentatively: "Are you staying round here?

That was a market town not very far away. It had, I knew, a large hotel, three-starred. She'd be staying there, I guessed. She said, with something of the same awkwardness, to me: "Do you live here? I'm only here for the day. She gave a faint shiver. A cold little wind had come up. Are you have you got a car or are you going by bus or train? She seemed a little nervous. I thought perhaps she wanted to get rid of me but didn't quite know how to manage it.

I said: "We'll walk down, shall we, just as far as the village. We walked slowly down the winding road on which so many car accidents had happened. As we came round a corner, a figure stepped suddenly from beneath the shelter of the fir tree. It appeared so suddenly that Ellie gave a start and said "Oh! She looked a great deal wilder today with a tangle of black hair blowing in the wind and a scarlet cloak round her shoulders; the commanding stance she took up made her look taller.

Gipsies' land this used to be. Gipsies' land and they drove us off it. You'll do no good here, and no good will come to you prowling about Gipsy's Acre. She said gently and politely, "I'm very sorry if we shouldn't have come here. I thought this place was being sold today. There's a curse on this land, a curse put on it long ago, many years ago. You keep clear of it. Don't have naught to do with Gipsy's Acre.

Death it will bring you and danger. Go away home across the sea and don't come back to Gipsy's Acre. Don't say I didn't warn you. Lee," I said, "don't frighten this young lady.

Lee lives in the village. She's got a cottage there. She tells fortunes and prophesies the future. All that, don't you, Mrs. It's born in me. We all have it. I'll tell your fortune, young lady. Cross my palm with silver and I'll tell your fortune for you. Know something about the future. Know what to avoid, know what's coming to you if you don't take care. Come now, there's plenty of money in your pocket.

Plenty of money. I know things it would be wise for you to know. I've noticed it before with girls I knew. I nearly always had to pay for them to go into the fortune tellers' booths if I took them to a fair. Ellie opened her bag and laid two half-crowns in the old woman's hand. You hear what old Mother Lee will tell you. She looked down at it, muttering to herself.

What do I see? Go - and don't come back! That's what I told you just now and it's true. I've seen it again in your palm. Forget Gipsy's Acre, forget you ever saw it. And it's not just the ruined house up there, it's the land itself that's cursed. She's only here for a walk today, she's nothing to do with this neighbourhood. She said dourly, "I'm telling you, my pretty. You can have a happy life - but you must avoid danger. Don't come to a place where there's danger or where there's a curse.

Go away where you're loved and taken care of and looked after. You've got to keep yourself safe. Remember that. Otherwise - otherwise -" she gave a short shiver.

It sounded like "It's cruel. It's cruel, what's going to happen. She just wants to frighten you off. They've got a sort of feeling, I think, about this particular piece of land. Have bad things happened? Look at the curve and the narrowness of the road. The town council ought to be shot for not doing something about it. Of course there'll be accidents here. There aren't enough signs warning you.

There are plenty of disasters always to collect. That's the way stories build themselves up about a place. Locally, that is. But I don't suppose it'll be sold locally. I expect it'll be bought for developing. You're shivering," I said. Come on, we'll walk fast. Of course not. I - I suppose - I don't know whether you'll still be there. I mean, would there be any chance of - seeing you?

I got rather red, I think. But if I didn't say something now, how was I going to go on with this? It's quite nice," I said. Then Ellie laughed. I suppose it sounded rather peculiar nowadays. I'll come. About half past four, will that be right? We had come to the last turn of the road where the home began. And - don't think again about what that old hag said. She just likes scaring people, I think. She's not all there," I added.

No, I don't," I said. I said it perhaps a trifle too decidedly, but I didn't think it was frightening. I thought as I'd thought before, that it was a beautiful place, a beautiful setting for a beautiful house Well, that's how my first meeting with Ellie went.

I was in Market Chadwell the next day waiting in the Blue Dog and she came. We had tea together and we talked. We still didn't say much about ourselves, not about our lives, I mean. We talked mostly about things we thought, and felt; and then Ellie glanced at her wrist watch and said she must be going because her train to London left at 5.

She looked slightly embarrassed then and she said no, no, that hadn't been her car yesterday. She didn't say whose it had been.

That shadow of embarrassment came over us again. I raised a finger to the waitress and paid the bill, then I said straight out to Ellie, "Am I - am I ever going to see you again? She said, "I shall be in London for another fortnight. It was a fine day. We had some food in the open air restaurant and we walked in Queen Mary's garden and we sat there in two deckchairs and we talked.

From that time on, we began to talk about ourselves. I'd had some good schooling, I told her, but otherwise I didn't amount to much. I told her about the jobs I'd had, some of them at any rate, and how I'd never stuck to things and how I'd been restless and wandered about trying this and that. Funnily enough, she was entranced to hear all this. Sometimes looking at people who seemed to be enjoying themselves, when she wasn't.

Her mother had died when she was a baby and her father had married again. And then, not many years after, he had died, she said. I gathered she didn't care much for her stepmother. She'd lived mostly in America but also travelling abroad a fair amount. It seemed fantastic to me listening to her that any girl in this age and time could live this sheltered, confined existence.

True, she went to parties and entertainments, but it might have been fifty years ago it seemed to me from the way she talked. There didn't seem to be any intimacy, any fun! Her life was as different from mine as chalk from cheese.

In a way it was fascinating to hear about it but it sounded stultifying to me. I've got Greta. But anyway I'd had a French girl who lived with us for a year, for French, and then Greta came from Germany, for German. Greta was different. Everything was different once Greta came. She arranges so that I can do things and go places. She'll tell lies for me. I couldn't have got away to come down to Gipsy's Acre if it hadn't been for Greta.

She's keeping me company and looking after me in London while my step-mother's in Paris. I write two or three letters and if I go off anywhere Greta posts them every three or four days so that they have a London postmark. She suggests ideas. She can do anything. Ellie laughed. I'm sure you would. She's very clever, too.

I like small girls with hair like autumn leaves. You're very fond of her, aren't you? She's made all the difference in my life. Why, I wonder? There's not much to see or do in that part of the world. I find it rather mysterious. Tell me. She doesn't ask questions. She knows I'm happy. Her stepmother had come back from Paris, also someone whom she called Uncle Frank and she explained almost casually that she was having a birthday, and that they were giving a big party for her in London.

But after that - after that, it'll be different. It used to make Ellie laugh the way I talked about Greta. She'd say "You're so silly to be jealous of her. One day you must meet her. You'll like her. She's always busy arranging something. That's why my stepmother relies on her so much. She said, "I don't know him really so very well. He was my father's sister's husband, not a real relation. I think he's always been rather a rolling stone and got into trouble once or twice.

You know the way people talk about someone and sort of hint things. Financial ones. And trustees and lawyers and people used to have to get him out of them.

Pay up for him. I expect I'd get on better with him than I would with the paragon Greta. It's just that sometimes, oh I can't explain it. I just feel I don't know what he's thinking or planning. She didn't ever suggest that I should meet any of her family. I wondered sometimes if I ought to say something about it myself. I didn't know how she felt about the subject. I asked her straight out at last. I mean they'd make a fuss. I can't stand a fuss. It puts me in a rather bad light, don't you think?

When I am twenty-one I can have my own friends and nobody can stop me. But now you see - well, as I say there'd be a terrible fuss and they'd cart me off somewhere so that I couldn't meet you. There'd be - oh do, do let's go on as we are now. It's just having a friend one can talk to and say things to.

It's someone one can -" she smiled suddenly, "one can make-believe with. You don't know how wonderful that is. More and more our times together were to turn out that way. Sometimes it was me. More often it was Ellie who'd say, "Let's suppose that we've bought Gipsy's Acre and that we're building a house there. I tried to describe to her the kind of houses they were and the way he thought about things.

I don't think I described it very well because I'm not good at describing things. Ellie no doubt had her own picture of the house - our house. We didn't say "our house" but we knew that's what we meant So for over a week I wasn't to see Ellie.

I had taken out what savings I had there weren't many , and I'd bought her a little green shamrock ring made of some Irish bog stone. I'd given it to her for a birthday present and she'd loved it and looked very happy. She didn't wear much jewellery and when she did I had no doubt it was real diamonds and emeralds and things like that but she liked my Irish green ring. Then I got a hurried note from her. She was going abroad with her family to the South of France immediately after her birthday.

But anyway we'll meet again then. I've got something special I want to talk to you about. I had a bit of news about the Gipsy's Acre property too. Apparently it had been sold by private treaty but there wasn't much information about who'd bought it.

Some firm of London solicitors apparently were named as the purchasers. I tried to get more information about it, but I couldn't. The firm in question were very cagey. Naturally I didn't approach the principals. I palled up to one of their clerks and so got a little vague information. It had been bought for a very rich client who was going to hold it as a good investment capable of appreciation when the land in that part of the country was becoming more developed.

It's very hard to find out about things when you're dealing with really exclusive firms. Everything is as much of a deadly secret as though they were M. Everyone is always acting on behalf of someone else who can't be named or spoken of! Take-over bids aren't in it!

I got into a terrible state of restlessness. I stopped thinking about it all and I went and saw my mother. I hadn't been to see her for a good long time.

Chapter 6 My mother lived in the same street she had lived in for the last twenty years, a street of drab houses all highly respectable and devoid of any kind of beauty or interest. The front doorstep was nicely whitened and it looked just the same as usual.

It was No. I pressed the front-door bell. My mother opened the door and stood there looking at me. She looked just the same as usual, too. Tall and angular, grey hair parted in the middle, mouth like a rat-trap, and eyes that were eternally suspicious.

She looked hard as nails. But where I was concerned there was a core of softness somewhere in her. She never showed it, not if she could help it, but I'd found out that it was there. She'd never stopped for a moment wanting me to be different but her wishes were never going to come true. There was a perpetual state of stalemate between us.

She followed me and stood looking at me. How have things been with you? Then she said abruptly, "What have you come for? Is that your idea of seeing the world?

Not if you throw up the job at a day's notice and go sick, dumping your clients in some heathen town. They wanted to know if I knew your address.

Anyway, I couldn't help it if I went sick, could I? Her view clearly was that I could have helped it. She raised her eyebrows.

More wild ideas? What jobs have you been doing since? Mechanic in a garage. Temporary clerk washer-up in a sleazy night-club restaurant. My plan! I've got both. I've grown out of the tea drinking habit. We sat there with our cups in front of us and she took a home-made cake out of a tin and cut us each a slice. What's happened? What should have happened? She was not in the mood to be amused.

She merely said, "No, I'm not afraid of your doing that. Seems a very easy way of getting rich quickly nowadays. More brainwork than you'd like to have to do. Not safe enough, either. I don't really know anything about you, because you and I are as different as chalk and cheese. But I know when you're up to something. You're up to something now. What is it, Micky? Is it a girl? I've had lots of girls. It's only been the way of a young man with nothing to do. You've kept your hand in with girls but you've never been really serious till now.

I looked away and said, "In a way. I don't want to hurt your feelings but -" "You're not hurting my feelings. You don't want me to see her in case I should say to you 'Don't'. Is that it? It would shake you somewhere inside because you take notice of what I say and think. There are things I've guessed about you, and maybe I've guessed right and you know it.

I'm the only person in the world who can shake your confidence in yourself. Is this girl a bad lot who's got hold of you? You make me laugh. You want something. You always do. What do you want it for - to spend on this girl? It's the thing I always feared, that you'd choose the wrong girl.

I was angry. I went out of the house and I banged the door. Chapter 7 When I got home there was a telegram waiting for me - it had been sent from Antibes. Meet me tomorrow four-thirty usual place. Ellie was different. I saw it at once. We met as always in Regent's Park and at first we were a bit strange and awkward with each other.

I had something I was going to say to her and I was in a bit of a state as to how to put it. I suppose any man is when he comes to the point of proposing marriage. And she was strange about something too. Perhaps she was considering the nicest and kindest way of saying No to me.

But somehow I didn't think that. My whole belief in life was based on the fact that Ellie loved me. But there was a new independence about her, a new confidence in herself which I could hardly feel was simply because she was a year older.

One more birthday can't make that difference to a girl. She and her family had been in the South of France and she told me a little about it.

And then rather shyly she said: "I - I saw that house there, the one you told me about. The one that architect friend of yours had built. We went there to lunch one day. Does your stepmother know the man who lives there?

Well - not exactly but she met him and - well Greta fixed it up for us to go there as a matter of fact. So she arranged that you and your step-mother -" "And Uncle Frank," said Ellie. Greta must resent being treated that way sometimes. There are lots of words. I know now what you mean about your friend Santonix. It's a wonderful house. It's it's quite different. I can see that if he built a house for us it would be a wonderful house.

Us, she had said. She had gone to the Riviera and had made Greta arrange things so as to see the house I had described, because she wanted to visualise more clearly the house that we would, in the dream world we'd built ourselves, have built for us by Rudolf Santonix.

She said: "What have you been doing? I put every penny I had on it and it won by a length. Who says my luck isn't in? Not the kind of thing it meant in mine. After all, one grows up and - outgrows parents. Mothers and fathers. She knows the worst of me, I mean. Perhaps everyone ought to have a valet.

It must be so hard otherwise, always living up to people's good opinion of one. I took her hand. She said it quite calmly and simply. That's different. But I know quite well what you are like, you yourself. I went on, "It sounds rather silly saying I love you. It seems too late for that, doesn't it? I mean, you've known about it a long time, practically from the beginning, haven't you?

It's not going to be easy, Ellie. You know pretty well what I am, what I've done, the sort of life I've led. I went back to see my mother and the grim respectable little street she lives in.