‘Yes.’ He gave the pinned-up part of his trouser leg a morose glance. ‘I suppose I ought to be grateful to have escaped with my life. Still, I must admit that the future looks rather different than I expected it to.’
‘Anything you need, darling, you’ll have it. The best doctors, everything.’ She looked again at the maimed limb. ‘My poor boy,’ she whispered. ‘It must have hurt terribly when it happened.’
‘I don’t remember much apart from an explosion, then everything going dark. I suppose a magnetic mine got us, or one of those blasted U-boats.’ He bowed his head. ‘I don’t know what happened to the other chaps. If they’re dead or alive.’
Jack stood up and rested a hand on Bertie’s shoulder. Prue saw a look pass between them, one she had no share in: a bond of distinctly male understanding, forged by love and by war.
‘It’s good to have you back where you belong, son,’ Jack said in his quiet way. ‘I’ll leave you and your mam to have a talk.’
‘Well, this place certainly looks different,’ Bertie said when Jack had gone, glancing around the room. Jimmy’s canaries were chattering in their cage while the kittens engaged in rough-and-tumble under the piano.
‘A lot of things are different,’ Prue said.
‘So I see.’ He turned to her. ‘Mother, you look quite young and pretty again. Almost as you did when Father was alive.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly, Bertie. I’m an old lady now.’
He smiled. ‘Uncle Jack doesn’t think so, does he? He told me the two of you were planning on a wedding soon.’
Prue flushed. ‘Yes. I wrote to you, but I suppose you would have been in the hospital. Do you mind, dear?’
‘Nothing would make me happier. I always hoped he’d ask you one day.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘You know, Mother, if I’d bought it out there, and if I’d had a girl back home, I’d have wanted her to meet someone else. I wouldn’t want her to feel guilty if she fell in love again.’
‘Do you have a girl?’
He smiled. ‘You know perfectly well I’m talking about you and Father. You don’t need to feel guilty, you know. He’d want you to be happy.’
‘Yes, I believe he would, the generous old soul.’ Prue looked up at him. ‘You’re rather different yourself, Bertie. Ever so grown up. What happened to that boy I waved goodbye to?’
‘The war did, I suppose.’ He was silent for a moment. Then he roused himself and broke into a smile. ‘Anyhow, Mother, I’m jolly glad to be home.’
Epilogue
The day of the village treat was everything a fete day ought to be: a cloudless sky, the grass stirred only by a gentle summer breeze, the air filled with the sound of laughing children and the delicious scents of popcorn and candy floss. Edie was surveying the scene complacently when someone tapped her on the shoulder.
She turned to find Sam behind her, dressed in the denims of his new Home Guard uniform.
‘Well, doesn’t somebody look dapper?’ she said. ‘I’m glad you decided to join, darling.’
He grunted. ‘I’m only doing it so we can have a guard of honour at the wedding.’
‘No, you’re not, you big storyteller.’ She stood on tiptoes to give him a kiss. ‘A man in uniform. I always wanted one of my very own.’
He smiled as he put his arms around her. ‘Whatever do you see in a grumpy old sod like me, eh?’
She shrugged. ‘Mainly, I just wanted to get my hands on your sheep farm. But your rugged good looks have a certain charm.’
‘You’re a minx, London.’
‘That’s why you love me.’
‘I do. And on that note, I want to ask you something. Again.’
She stared as he got down on one knee and produced a gorgeous diamond ring.
‘Now then,’ he said. ‘I never quite seem to get this right, but I will this time because I’m not doing it again. Edie Cartwright, I’ve been desperately in love with you since the day you stood over me and told me what an arse you thought I was. And I know I’m only a rough country farmer, with nothing much to offer but a broken-down old farmhouse and an even more broken-down old heart, but if you’ll have me, sweetheart, then I promise I’ll do my best to make you happy, every day we spend together. So, would you please do me the honour of becoming my wife?’
‘Hmm, I don’t know. Can I have some time to think it over?’
‘No, you can bloody well say yes before my knee gives way.’
‘Well … all right, go on then.’
He stood up and slid the ring on, and she rewarded him with a kiss.
‘Thank you, Sam,’ she whispered. ‘That was just how I always imagined it. Perfect.’
Their tender moment was interrupted by Aggie and Jimmy, who came running over and crashed into Edie’s legs.
‘I won a peashooter on the tin can alley!’ Jimmy told her excitedly.
‘I went on the merry-go-round three times in a row and I wasn’t even sick!’ Aggie announced proudly.
Edie laughed. ‘It sounds as though you’re having an eventful afternoon.’
‘Edie, can we have a penny for a toffee apple?’
‘Another toffee apple? You’ve already had one each, not to mention all the candy floss and lemonade.’
‘It’s not for us, it’s for Bertie,’ Jimmy said. ‘We want to get him one ’cause he’s going to be sort of our brother soon, ain’t he? When we’re adopted.’
‘Ah, I see. It’s a gift toffee apple. In that case, I think I can spare the money.’
‘Here,’ Sam said, taking a couple of two-shilling pieces from his pocket and handing them one each. ‘This ought to buy a toffee apple and let you enjoy yourselves for a bit.’
‘Blimey!’ Aggie said, blinking at such unimagined riches. ‘Thanks a lot, Mister!’
‘And that’s how you deal with children,’ he said to Edie when they’d run away again. ‘Good old-fashioned bribery. Never fails when you want to get your girl all to yourself.’
‘I can see you’re going to be a wonderful father.’ Edie spotted Vinnie and Barbara a little way away near the brass band, talking to Prue and Jack. ‘Oh look, it’s those two. Come on, let’s go say hello.’
Sam sighed. ‘I’m never going to get you alone today, am I?’
‘No, sorry.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But I might be available for a kiss and a cuddle in the blackout later, if you’re a good boy all day.’
‘Then I suppose I’ll just have to bide my time and hope for better things to come.’
He followed her to the little group by the band tent.
‘Hello, ladies,’ she said, beaming at her Land Girl friends. ‘I didn’t know you were coming. What are you all talking about?’
‘Mrs Hewitt was just telling us the good news,’ Vinnie said.
Edie frowned. ‘Good news?’
‘Well, now you’ve ruined my surprise,’ Prue said, laughing. ‘Edie, I’ve offered the house to the Land Army. We have all those empty rooms, and of course after the wedding …’ She looked at Jack and blushed. ‘Well, there’ll be another one spare soon. I think we can accommodate all the girls and their warden, with a little shuffling and rearranging. A house this size really ought to be helping the war effort.’
Edie smiled. ‘I can recall saying something like that myself, once upon a time.’
Prue cast an affectionate glance at Bertie in the distance, clutching a toffee apple as he instructed Aggie and Jimmy in how to work the swingboats. ‘And you were absolutely right. Perhaps I only realised the importance of everything we’re fighting for after Bertie was injured. If my boy can sacrifice his leg and almost his life fighting the good fight, giving up a few spare rooms feels like the least I can do.’ She pressed Edie’s shoulder. ‘Of course you’re welcome to stay as long as you wish, dear, with the other girls. You’ll always have a home at Applefield Manor, whether single or married.’
Sam laughed. ‘Try not to talk her out of it, Prue. I still need to get her to the altar.’
‘I suspec
t that once you’ve been introduced to my Aunt Caroline, I’m going to be the one fighting to get you there,’ Edie said, grinning at him. ‘Don’t forget your tin hat when we visit her, will you?’
‘She doesn’t frighten me. I’m still going to be the happiest man in the country the day I get you up that aisle.’
‘That reminds me.’ She looked at Jack. ‘Jack, I wondered, um … would you give me away?’
Jack blinked. ‘Me?’
Edie nodded shyly. ‘I think my dad would approve, and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have.’
Jack looked pleased. ‘I’d be honoured, lass.’
‘What about all your animals, Mrs Hewitt?’ Barbara asked. ‘Edie tells me you’ve got quite a houseful. Will there be room for us Land Girls too?’
‘That’s our other piece of news,’ Jack said, smiling fondly at his future bride. ‘Do you want to tell them, Cheg?’
‘Jack and I have decided to modernise and expand the old stable building,’ Prue told them. ‘We want to turn the place into a sort of sanctuary, for animals made homeless by the war. I’m sure there are hundreds who need a home, and we have the land, of course.’
‘Oh, Prue, it’s a wonderful idea!’ Edie gave her a hug. ‘That’s the perfect thing to do with Applefield Manor. It’s been a sanctuary for so many of us already.’
‘I should thank you, Edie,’ Prue said as she returned the hug. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, I’d never have opened myself up to happiness a second time. Life has meaning and sweetness now in a way I never believed it could again. God bless you, dear. I hope you won’t ever forget us.’
Edie blinked away a tear.
‘Of course not,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t believe I ever had a home, a true home, until I came here.’ She glanced at Sam. ‘And thanks to Mr Nicholson’s generous offer, now I’ll always be near the people I love the most.’
She turned to look over the grounds as the band struck up the stirring notes of ‘Nimrod’. It felt like the whole village was there: Andrew and Patricia, the tweedy vicar’s wife smiling serenely for a change as she looked after the WI cake stall; Marco and Luca, given special permission to attend by their camp commandant so they could run the stall selling Applefield Manor’s jams and chutneys; Tilly with Baby Samantha in her arms, pretending to browse the jams so she could have a surreptitious conversation with her husband; Davy Braithwaite and the young lady he was courting, Ivy Constance, walking old Betty round as she gave sedate rides to some of the little ones; Bertie, leaning on his crutch as he watched his new siblings on the swingboats; Vinnie and Barbara, inseparable as ever, discussing their new lodgings; Prue and Jack, eyes for no one but each other and their little family, glowing with love and pride. And Sam, her Sam, tall and beautiful in his new uniform, smiling alongside her with his arm curled lovingly around her waist.
Since she’d been a little girl, Edie had wanted to do something great; something that would justify the life she felt her father had bargained so dearly for, like joining the Wrens and helping to win the war. But as she looked around the bustling, lively, joy-filled grounds of Applefield Manor and thought about how different it was, now, from the dismal place it had been when she arrived, she realised that it wasn’t the scale of your actions that mattered; it was the lives you changed along the way – and those you saved.
Edie experienced a warm glow of satisfaction as she looked around her at the sea of happy, laughing faces. It felt as though her work here, at last, was done.
Aggie’s Cheese Pudding
½ pt milk
2 eggs
4 oz grated cheese
1 cup breadcrumbs
¼ tsp dried mustard
Salt and pepper to season
Preheat oven to a medium heat. Beat milk and eggs together, then stir in breadcrumbs, cheese, mustard and seasoning. Bake in a greased ovenproof dish for 30 minutes until set and golden-brown. Serves four.
Acknowledgements
I absolutely loved telling Edie’s story and being part of her world! Thanks to all those who made this possible: my lovely agent Laura Longrigg at MBA Literary Agents, my fantastic editor at Avon, Tilda McDonald, and the rest of the brilliant team at Avon.
Thanks also to my live-in beta reader Mark Anslow for his sterling work in listening to me waffle on about characters as if they’re real people, bringing wine and snacks, and giving his helpful feedback on the story before anyone else is given a chance to read it. Huge shout-outs also go to all my talented and supportive author friends both online and off: Rachel Burton, Sophie Claire, Victoria Cooke, Jacqui Cooper, Rachel Dove, Kiley Dunbar, Helena Fairfax, Kate Field, Melinda Hammond, Elisabeth Hobbes, Jenni Keer, Marie Laval, Katey Lovell, Kim Nash, Helen Pollard, Rachael Stewart, Victoria Walters, Angela Wren and many others. Not to mention all my fellow Romantic Novelists’ Association members: this is such a wonderful, supportive organisation, of which I’m proud to be a part.
Waves and hugs to family, friends and colleagues: all the Firth, Braham and Anslow clans, Bob Fletcher, Nigel and Lynette Emsley, Amy Smith and my co-workers at Dalesman Publishing. Special thanks go to my grandad Eric Firth, to whom this book is dedicated, for sharing his experiences as an evacuee and of life on the Home Front with me, and to John Manning for his assistance with various queries regarding Cumberland dialect. Thank you all for being brilliant!
Keep Reading …
If you enjoyed this book, you’ll love The Clockmaker’s Wife by Daisy Wood
Coming July 2021.
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About the Author
Gracie Taylor grew up in rural West Yorkshire. After university she spent time in several different cities, but eventually returned to settle in the Dales. Gracie Taylor is a pen name for Lisa Firth, who also writes award-winning contemporary romantic comedies as Mary Jayne Baker and uplifting women’s fiction as Lisa Swift. Edie’s Home for Orphans is her first historical novel.
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