Katie King - The Evacuee Summer - Heart-warming historical fiction, perfect for summer reading

At last Mabel was able to breathe an audible sigh of relief when Peggy decided that the dratted currants could wait for another day as June probably wouldn’t be doing any of this sort of baking on a Sunday as she’d be concentrating on getting large trays of cottage pies and Lancashire hotpots ready for the coming week. Finally Peggy got around to pushing the pram out through the back door and weaving it through the yard and onto the garden path to the road.

This was a huge relief because, try as she might, Mabel hadn’t been able to think of a convincing reason why she was hiding next to the large bowl of eggs from their hens at the bottom of the garden and a hessian sack of potatoes with its top rolled over so that the teddies were easy to get to. And Mabel knew that Peggy would almost definitely have smelt a rat of the Barbara-and-Ted-arriving variety if she had caught her sneaking about in the pantry with an armful of clean laundry and no plausible reason for doing so.

Now, as the others would all be making their way back from the station, Mabel only just had time to find Peggy a handful of clean hankies following the telephone call with Bill, and to make her cup of tea. She’d sneaked a surreptitious peek at a soggy and spent Peggy, and couldn’t decide if Barbara’s imminent arrival was a good or a bad thing. It could go either way, to judge by the look of her, Mabel thought.

Peggy remained closeted still in Roger’s study with a desolate expression on her face, staring with unfocused eyes into the distance, obviously dazed and emotionally exhausted after her unheralded display of temper following her highly wrought outburst.

Although Holly had been bawling, Mabel wasn’t sure that Peggy had even heard her daughter’s cries, as for the very first time her doting mother hadn’t raced across the corridor to attend to her, and this neglect had made Holly wail even more loudly.

Now, across the way in the kitchen and jollied along by Roger, Holly had finally ceased crying although she remained restless and a little snivelly, her eyelashes still wet with tears, following such a rude awakening from her nap caused by the clatter of things hitting the floor in the study.

Once the baby’s wails had abated, a too casual-seeming Roger replaced Holly back in her sleeping drawer and then quickly made himself scarce, leaving Mabel to pick the baby up again when Holly started to grizzle, as she did almost immediately.

Mabel had no choice other than to walk around the kitchen, jiggling Holly in her arms as she showed her what was in the kitchen cabinets, and the eggs and potatoes in the pantry, in an effort to prevent her from returning to her full-blown wailing of a few minutes earlier.

Holly was surprisingly heavy for such a little thing and she obviously wasn’t very convinced that what was in the various cupboards was very much for Mabel to boast about, and so Mabel was relieved to hear the sound of those returning to Tall Trees heading across the back yard.

The baby immediately stopped grumbling, at last fully engaged in her surroundings, and quickly swung her head with interest towards the door from the back yard into the kitchen to see who might be about to come in.

Mabel could hear Aiden pulling the bolt to the stable door across and then encouraging Milburn inside as he told Larry where the hay and straw was, and she saw Tommy push Angela’s chair to the back door. Mabel noticed the Ross family huddled together as they gave Tommy room to help Angela inside.

For a moment Mabel wondered at Ted Ross allowing Tommy to push Angela what looked like all the way back from the station to judge by Tommy’s pink face, but then she thought that actually for Tommy to have a bit of responsibility and to do something for somebody else wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, the episode to do with his bullying and the orchard affair being still rather a raw memory for all the Braithwaites, although the other children never seemed to refer to it.

Barbara bustled into the kitchen, which was smelling deliciously of the barm cakes baking for their dinner and Barbara could see what looked like a giant mixing bowl with bread dough proving on a warm part of the range.

Connie and Jessie stayed out in the yard in order to tug Ted, once he had set all the luggage down, good-naturedly across the yard and over to see for himself where Milburn was housed. Barbara undid her headscarf with one hand as with the other she plonked the wicker basket full of small thank-you gifts for Mabel – some homemade biscuits, a couple of new tea towels, a vest for Tommy and some hankies, several pork chops, some juicy-looking carrots and a very late dark-green Savoy cabbage that the caterpillars had only had the merest chomp on the outside leaves of – down on the rather battered kitchen table that had obviously seen many years of faithful service.

She and Mabel smiled in greeting at one another, and then Barbara raised her eyebrows in a quiet query as to where her sister Peggy might be.

Mabel put a finger in front of her mouth to signal silence, and then with Holly still in her arms she edged over to her guest and then stage-whispered in Barbara’s ear, ‘She’ll be jiggered, Barbara. There’s jus’ been an awful ding-dong on the telephone not more than twenty or so minutes ago betwixt her an’ Bill. She’s ’avin’ a quiet moment jus’ at present in t’ study wi’ a cup o’ tea to set ’erself to rights, but there no denyin’ it were right bad. She’ll be glad yer ’ere.’

‘Oh my goodness!’ Barbara hissed quietly back. ‘That’s unlike them. Poor Peggy… I can guess what he’s done, I suppose.’

Mabel said she hadn’t asked Peggy what the row was about, but she thought she’d heard Peggy moan the name Maureen as she had sobbed in her arms in the aftermath of the argument.

Then the two women shook their head at the thought of what was happening to a lot of couples during their enforced separations. Many relationships were suffering badly, and both of them were pretty sure that Peggy wouldn’t be the only woman in the land who had just had a big barney with her husband over another woman, while many men away from home drove themselves to distraction with dark thoughts of what their wives might be getting up to back on the home front without them. It wasn’t an ideal situation, no matter how one tried to look at it.

Barbara then saw that Holly was looking curiously towards her aunty and waving an arm in her direction, opening and closing her fingers, and so Barbara whispered to Mabel, ‘May I?’

With a rather relieved smile Mabel promptly handed her over, and after deeply inhaling the familiar scent of the young baby and then gently touching Holly on the head with her lips in a feather-light caress of hello, Barbara clutched her affectionately to her chest and went to find her sister.

She was taken aback a moment later to see how large and black the pupils in Peggy’s eyes appeared, and how pale her face was.

Peggy was totally still as she gazed with unseeing eyes out of the study window and down towards the hen coops on the far side of the garden, with the undrunk cup of tea by her elbow, and she didn’t notice that it was her sister who had come into the study.

It was only when Barbara said gently, ‘Peggy, my darling, whatever’s happened?’ that Peggy turned to face her.

For an instant Peggy’s brown eyebrows wrinkled in incomprehension and she looked confused as she gazed at Barbara.

And then she simply flung herself at her sister, leaving Barbara only a moment to move Holly out of the way. As Peggy broke once more into sobs, Barbara was able to feel hot tears on her neck as Peggy held her close in a vice-like grip. Barbara stood still as a rock and pulled her sister close.

The sisters didn’t say anything for a while, as Peggy was too upset to speak, and Barbara thought it best that this new wave of emotion be allowed to crest and then die of its own accord.