Cry to Dream Again , livre ebook

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2018

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From the number-one bestselling author of Travelling to Infinity: The True Story behind The Theory of EverythingIn 1930s Greater London, Shirley is a talented ballerina who dreams of becoming a principal dancer at the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company. Yet one summer, on the way back from staying with her grandparents in France, she meets a handsome young man, Alan, for a fleeting moment and her life changes for ever. Finding him becomes an obsession for Shirley and now she longs to fulfil her dreams in the ballet simply so that he might see her name in lights and know where to find her.With the outbreak of the Second World War, and those she loves in danger, Shirley's priority becomes to help in the war effort, but with Alan appearing once more in her life, and the war threatening to part them for a second time, she knows that she cannot cope if she were to lose him again.
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Date de parution

21 juin 2018

EAN13

9781846884535

Langue

English

immortal souls vol. 2
Cry to Dream Again
(The Prequel to Silent Music )
Jane Hawking



ALMA BOOKS


alma books ltd 3 Castle Yard Richmond Surrey TW10 6TF United Kingdom www.almabooks.com
F irst published by Alma Books Ltd in 2018
© Jane Hawking, 2018
Cover design: Jem Butcher
Jane Hawking asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
isbn : 978-1-84688-437-5
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.


Cry to Dream Again


f or my dear daughter lucy


1
“Chérie, Édouard! Where are you?” Jacqueline’s sing-song voice rang out from within the old farmhouse one morning towards the end of the summer holidays of 1937.
“We’re here, Maman!” her children called out in reply. “We’re outside – in the sun!”
“Ah! So there you are!” their mother said as she appeared in the kitchen doorway. Her son and daughter were sitting at the rickety table under the eaves finishing their breakfast. “Would you like to come out with me for the last time before we leave?” she asked. “Your grandmother says the bread oven won’t heat up because there must be a blockage in the flue, so I said we would go down to the village to fetch a loaf from the baker’s, then we might call in at the épicerie . I know Louise will be pleased to see us, but I must call on Madame de Grandval first; she’s very ancient now.”
She gave a light laugh and patted the boy on the shoulder. “Mother says we’re out of bread because you eat so much, Édouard! Thank goodness we still have a baker here in Trémaincourt; otherwise we would have to go all the way down to Séringy!” She sighed. “I do wish Mother would have the bread delivered, then she wouldn’t have to make it herself!”
Rocking from side to side on the metal seat that had seen better days, her teenage son shook his head as he scraped the last traces of the sweet, milky coffee from the sides of his empty bowl. “No, Maman , sorry. I can’t come. Grandfather and I are very busy this morning: I’m going to collect the rest of the straw bales, and the horses are already harnessed. Then I have to get started on the ploughing in Long Field. I promised him I’d try to get that done before we leave. He’s out there waiting for me.”
“ Ah bon , I understand – well, what about you, Chérie? It’s fine now, so let’s go soon,” Jacqueline asked hopefully, turning to her seventeen-year-old daughter who was always known as Chérie in France because the pronunciation of Shirley, her English name, presented the French palate with too great a challenge, whereas the translation of her brother’s name consisted only of a change in spelling from Edward to Édouard with scarcely any alteration in pronunciation. The major difference, however, was that in England no one ever called him Edward, simply Ted.
“Oh, yes, of course I’ll come!” Shirley agreed with a ready smile as she folded her napkin and pushed her bowl into the middle of the rusty old table. “I was intending to do some ballet practice, but I’ll come with you. I’d love to see Louise. I suppose I’ll have to wear my boots if we’re going to walk across the fields to see Madame de Grandval?”
“Yes, of course you will! We can come back via the village for the bread, say hello to Louise and then cut through the wood,” Jacqueline replied thoughtfully, surveying the remains of a puddle in the middle of the yard. “The ground is still damp from that heavy shower last night, but let’s go now before those clouds coming in from the coast arrive.” Musing aloud, she added, “And maybe we’ll stop at the château here in Trémaincourt to see if Madame de la Croix and the family have returned from their holiday. We ought to call on them before we leave.”
“Oh, Maman! Do we have to? She’s terrifying, and she’s so strict! I know she doesn’t like me,” Shirley protested, reacting with tongue-in-cheek horror. Her mock horror then turned to laughter and, tossing her blond curls, she said, “Oh well, I suppose she won’t eat us, but Madame de Grandval is so much gentler and nicer!”
Her mother indignantly took up the defence of Madame de la Croix, saying, “Oh, come on! You are exaggerating, Chérie. She is a formidable lady and you know that’s how she behaves to everyone, but she has a heart of gold – it’s her manner, that’s all.”
“Anyhow, at least she won’t want me to go inside the ch â teau in my boots, so that’s a relief,” said Shirley, comforting herself that for once her less-than-fashionable footwear would work to her advantage, and Jacqueline had to admit that her strong-minded daughter was right. Appearing before Madame de la Croix in wellington boots would not be well received, even if they were necessary for traipsing over the fields.
“All right, then, maybe we’ll just call in at the back door to say good morning to Céline, without seeing the Countess,” she agreed. Céline, the housekeeper at the château in Trémaincourt, was after all a relative, a cousin of Mémé’s, Shirley’s grandmother, so there was no reason why they should not stop by to see her.
Perhaps, Shirley decided, calling in at the ch â teau might not be so bad, since there was a chance that, today being a Saturday, Jean-Luc, the eldest son and heir to the title, might be home from Paris. She herself had just visited Paris for the first time, so that trip could provide a useful topic for a conversation that might renew the easy friendship that she and Ted had shared with Jean-Luc and his sister when they were children. In summer they had romped in the fields together, ridden home atop the bales of straw on the cart at harvest time and spread lavish picnics, prepared for them by Céline, on the grass down by the river. There came a time when adolescent shyness began to create a distance between Shirley and Jean-Luc, and this widened as a mutual awareness of the disparity in their backgrounds and their prospects grew. Undeterred, Shirley knew from the stories in her magazines that social differences counted for little where a pretty girl was concerned, and with her blue eyes and blond curls she was confident of being very pretty. After all, Pa was always saying so. “Ah, how’s my pretty girl?” was the first question he had always asked when he came home from work in the evening ever since she was quite little.
Nowadays Pa’s opinion was confirmed by the wolf whistles that greeted her wherever she went, so she had no doubt that she could easily catch Jean-Luc’s eye. Indeed, last summer, whenever the two families had come across each other out on a long walk, she had positively enjoyed holding his gaze, although at that time they had little to talk about and the Countess had cast a very suspicious glare in her direction. She told herself defiantly, when challenged by the older woman’s behaviour, that her prospects were not as modest as might have been supposed from her background. Not only was she pretty, she was talented as well. Although people were always telling her that with her looks she ought to be a film star, that was not her major ambition and, despite all its glamour, came second best in her scheme of things. She was determined to become a dancer, a ballerina, and that was the end to which she devoted herself in such waking hours as were not committed to tedious schoolwork.
Jean-Luc was good-looking and faultlessly charming in an old-fashioned way. These qualities he had certainly not inherited from his mother, who made up for her lack of charm and grace in the energetic direction of matters of local concern – to the irritation of the mayor, whose authority she constantly usurped. In the village she was respected and admired, if somewhat feared on account of her forthright manner, whereas her husband, from whom Jean-Luc probably did inherit his dashing looks and wayward charm, was scarcely ever seen in Trémaincourt. “He’s so busy in Paris,” Madame de la Croix always explained.
On the other hand, Madame de Grandval, over in Mont-Saint-Jean, a cousin by marriage of the de la Croix family, was much quieter and kinder, and treated the family with an affectionate courtesy. Her tumble down château , with its profusion of brambles and nettles, would have made such an appropriate setting for the Sleeping Beauty that Shirley sometimes imagined that she was Princess Aurora and Madame de Grandval was the good fairy, if somewhat elderly. While her mother chatted with the old lady, she would turn her back on them and indulge this fancy by appearing to study the rusting piece of machinery , left there by some regiment or other after the Great War in gratitude for the hospitality of the château , but in fact giving her imagination free rein in this magical place.
Ever since Shirley could remember, and certainly at least once during each of their stays at the family farm in northern France, Maman would insist on taking the track that emerged in the grounds of the château at Mont-Saint-Jean, and inevitably they would pass that monolithic piece of pockmarked equipment. “Ah, children,” she would say, if both her offspring were with her, “this old tank has been such a big part of my life. I have to come and see it to remind myself

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