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

After a while Barbara contented herself with repeating ‘Sssssh, there now, there now. Sssssh, there now’ in the same way that she had comforted Jessie and Connie when they were colicky as babies.

Holly made some adorable snuffling noises and reached pudgy fingers towards her mother’s hair, but Peggy didn’t look at her and so Holly turned towards Barbara with a puzzled expression, causing Barbara to give her a jiggle of acknowledgement with her other arm and a smile, as she knew the baby would be feeling unsettled at these unfamiliar goings-on and the strange sounds coming from her mother.

When Peggy’s grip on her sister had reduced to less of a stranglehold, Barbara said, ‘Peggy, dear, we’ll have a long talk very soon, I promise. I want to hear all about it, really I do. But first why don’t you have a lie down and have a little rest? Take Holly up with you as to me she’s looking as if she still needs a bit more of a doze after her lunch, and then I’ll come and find you when I’ve got everyone else sorted and have caught up with Connie and Jessie. How does that sound, dear?’

Tiredly, Peggy untangled herself and then nodded a damp and exhausted smile of agreement, before she quietly slipped upstairs with her daughter cleaved tightly to her bosom. She felt done in, and now she could hear Connie and Jessie’s happy voices outside, she wanted to make sure that her tear-marked face wouldn’t dampen the party mood that was sweeping the rest of Tall Trees with Larry being back with them, and the pleasure of the unexpected visit from Barbara and Ted.

With a concerned expression, Barbara watched the sway of her sister’s disappearing world-weary steps with a tremendous pang of sympathy and trepidation, and then she sighed in empathy before she consciously made herself look happy as she turned to retrace her steps outside and find her husband and the twins.

Chapter Seven

Ted was full of surprises, it seemed.

‘Mother, you’ll never believe it,’ squeaked Connie breathily, her cheeks red with excitement as her mother joined her family. ‘But Father can drive a trap! And he’s going to teach us. He knows all about ponies, and he’s going to teach us everything !’

‘Oh, he can drive a trap, can he?’ Barbara raised an amused eyebrow in the direction of her husband, who winked in response. This was news to her, as was Connie’s use of the formal-sounding ‘mother’, but she supposed this was a sign of Connie getting older as perhaps ‘mama’ or ‘mummy’ seemed babyish, especially in front of the other children.

Ted grinned back at Barbara, causing her to shoot him a rueful, only half-amused grin in return. He’d never mentioned to his wife that as a child he had helped out at the local coal merchants, so much so that by the age of ten he had been allowed, after much begging, to take the reins on the delivery cart whenever he wasn’t at school.

Barbara prided herself on knowing all there was to know about Ted, and to learn this news so hot on the heels of discovering that something dire had happened with Bill that Peggy had had no idea about and therefore had been unprepared for, she felt now slightly peculiar and wrong-footed by Ted’s admission, harmless though it was.

The children were mightily impressed with Ted’s insouciant wink, however, to the extent that they were all pulling a variety of comical faces as they tried to outdo each other in the winking stakes, with Tommy and Larry trying the hardest, but Tommy getting the eventual thumbs-up from the others for a particularly showy double wink at the same time tipping his forefinger to his brow.

‘Okay, you lot,’ Barbara interrupted their fun, ‘let’s go in for some food as I believe Mabel is setting the table and has the kettle on, and then we’ll see if Roger minds Ted taking you all out later in the trap.’ Barbara sounded quite firm as she looked around at the children and pulled her best delicately scalloped beige cardigan together over her chest as if she meant business.

As one, Ted and the children all looked a bit crestfallen as they had clearly wanted to go out in the trap right away, but then they realised that Barbara wasn’t saying a firm no as such, but just that Roger had to give his seal of approval first.

Tommy summed up their thoughts with, ‘Let’s go in an’ see Pa – ’e’s always ready for ’is dinner, and I’ll bet ’e’ll like a bit of teachin’ too ’ow t’ ’andle t’ trap proper.’

And indeed when Roger learned that Ted had some experience with horses and would be very happy to spend a bit of time showing them what to do with Milburn, there was an unmistakable sigh of relief bubbling up from below his white dog collar. He’d not yet tried to go out in the trap on his own, not least as he wasn’t sure he could quite remember how to put the harness on Milburn or how to attach the trap to all the harness gubbins, although these were admissions that he didn’t particularly care to make in front of all the children.

Dinner was eaten hastily, with no one mentioning anything about Peggy and Holly not being there, most probably because it was only Barbara and Ted who noticed, and they contented themselves with acknowledging the absence of the two Delberts with the exchange of silent but nonetheless telling looks.

There was a scrag end of mutton stew Peggy had prepared the evening before, that was surprisingly tasty as she was picking up some good tips for flavoursome food over at June Blenkinsop’s, and Mabel had eked it out to make sure there was enough as of course she couldn’t say to Peggy that her sister and Ted would be joining them, seeing as this was a surprise. It was served along with fluffy dumplings and the unexpected gift of the Savoy cabbage to go with the runner beans that Roger was very proud he’d grown.

Once everyone had wiped their plates clean with a still-warm barm cake and sat back replete, Barbara announced that she wasn’t going to partake of the pony and trap session, which made the twins put on deliberately dejected faces in an attempt to get their mother to change her mind. But Barbara held firm, although she tried to sweeten the pill by saying that for this meal, as a special treat, the children could be let off their table-clearing and washing-up duties as she would put the kitchen to rights and everyone else could go out into the yard to practise tacking up Milburn. ‘Go on, out you scoot, and leave me to it,’ she said, waving a tea towel around as if to scurry them outside.

‘Please come and watch Daddy with us,’ said Jessie. Barbara noticed the ‘daddy’.

‘Oh, we so wanted to show you Milburn,’ Connie wheedled.

Barbara wavered for a moment but then she thought of Peggy, and held firm, their pleas being to no avail.

‘I’ve seen her and she’s a very eye-catching pony, right enough, and I’ll be there tomorrow when no doubt you will want to repeat it all again. I’m sure Milburn won’t mind if I watch you then. And I promise that tomorrow I will even let you drive me along in the trap, if it’s still sunny and Ted thinks you know what you’re doing,’ said Barbara. ‘But right now, there is something else that I really need to see to instead, and so you all vamoose.’

The children knew that Barbara never reneged on a promise and so they decided to make the best of it as it was really good to have Ted there to spend some time with. Mabel stepped in to ease the moment further with a vigorous call of ‘last one out there’s a sissy’ ringing in their ears as she bolted out of the back door before the children, with Roger hot on her heels. The children all scampered off happily enough to watch, along with Milburn’s quizzical expression, Ted untangle the harness as he muttered that they must hang it up properly when not being used, and not leave it in a heap like they had as to do so was to risk the leather perishing, before reminding them how it should be put on the pony.