Wind on the Heath: a moving wartime Yorkshire saga by Naomi Jacob

Author:Naomi Jacob [Jacob, Naomi]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: family saga, Yorkshire, romantic fiction, historical fiction, heartwarming, World War II
Publisher: Corazon Books (Historical/Saga)
Published: 2017-04-30T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

He was waiting when Liz telephoned saying that she would come to Green’s at half past ten. He protested that he would call for her, but she refused. ‘No, I’d rather come to you.’

He had paid his bill, distributed tips, and ordered coffee to be served in his sitting-room by the time she arrived. She looked immaculate, but there were shadows under her eyes, and her eyes themselves looked heavy.

‘You didn’t sleep,’ he said regretfully.

‘Not very much, Mike. I’d too much to think about. Yes, I should love some coffee. It’s cold this morning, there was hoar frost on the grass in the park.’

He held her hands in his, gently but very firmly. ‘Liz, you’re not to worry. It’s all pretty dreadful, but it’s happening to so many people .’

She cried almost wildly, ‘And you ‒ you say that you’re going the moment that you’re eighteen! Mike, you can’t, you mustn’t.’

Speaking slowly and rather heavily, Michael said, ‘Liz, my dearest, I promised you, I promised George that I’d wait until then. I’ll do that, but then ‒ it’s no use, Liz darling, I can’t hide behind other chaps. Maybe the damned war will be over by then, who knows?’

Impatiently she replied, ‘Mike, don’t be a fool! You know and I know that it won’t be over ‒ Churchill knows, Roosevelt knows, that beast Hitler knows. It may be mopped up in the desert, then it will break out somewhere else. Half the world will be in it before it ends!’

‘Drink your coffee,’ he said very quietly. ‘Then we’ll be off. I’ll drive ‒’ his mouth flickered into a smile, ‘this time.’

‘You’re tired after your drive yesterday ‒’

‘And you’re tired after a bad night, darling. Come, let’s go.’

In silence they drove North, Liz sat almost huddled in her seat, and Michael refrained from speaking. The long dark road was slowly ‒ far too slowly ‒ being eaten up. He wished they could go twenty times as fast. Once he turned to look at her, her eyes were closed, he wondered if she slept.

Liz, her eyes closed because she longed to shut out the thought of the last time she had taken this drive, only then it was from Yorkshire to London, and now the direction was reversed, tried to order her thoughts.

Back at Cummings, there would be letters to answer, there would be kindly people who called, and she would have to ‒ pretend. They would go away and say that she was admirably controlled as a soldier’s widow ought to be. In her heart she knew that all she longed for were Michael’s arms round her, his kisses, his words that he loved her more than anything else or anyone else in the whole world.

And Michael was already planning to leave her ‒ to leave them all, perhaps as George had left them. Not that George’s death meant a great deal to her, she had liked him, even at times admired him, she was sorry that he had died, that his Mavis and her child were left desolate.

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