Eva Ibbotson - The Morning Gift

But at three o’clock Ruth handed the baby to Miss Maud and went upstairs to keep a tryst with the four men who all through the war had travelled, clad in the khaki of the Pioneers, to bring music to soldiers in outlying barracks, to tired office workers and housewives in the Blitz… and who today were performing in a ruined church in a ravaged city in England’s heartland to celebrate the peace.

She turned the knob of the wireless, and they were playing the Schubert Quartet which she had heard that night at Thameside when she believed a miracle had happened and Biberstein was, after all, alive.

And yet… Perhaps, it had occurred, this miracle. It was the chauffeur from Northumberland who now took the melody from Ziller, but as the ravishing, transcendent music filled the room, Ruth seemed to see a plump and curly-headed figure who leant out from heaven and lifted the bow of his Amati in salute — and smiled.

Making her way back into the café through the kitchen, she checked on the threshold and her hand went to her heart. He was coming! He hadn’t been sure if he could get away, but here he was walking across the square, and she knew that there could be no greater happiness in the wide world than seeing him come like this towards her.

But others had noted the arrival of Commander Somerville. Katy slid off Leonie’s knee and came to pluck at her mother’s skirt; even the children fell silent. Ruth had not thought it necessary to keep her husband’s exploits to herself. Everyone knew that the circles of gold braid on his sleeve denoted an ever-increasing eminence; that he had been twice torpedoed; that he had housed twelve Jewish orphans and an experimental sheep at Bowmont and been awarded the DSO.

For such a hero something was due and Mrs Weiss was against the hothouse family embrace she could see developing. Stilling Ruth with a wave of the hand, she manoeuvred herself to her feet — and as Quin entered, she pointed at him with her rubber-tipped walking stick.

‘I buy you a cake?’ said Mrs Weiss.