Letters From the Past by Erica James

Author:Erica James [James, Erica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409173885
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2020-04-15T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Fifty

Chelstead Cottage Hospital, Chelstead

December 1962

Evelyn

It had been a particularly trying day for Evelyn.

A large part of her morning had been devoted to reasoning with an indignant parent who refused to believe her daughter might be dyslexic. The way the mother reacted to Evelyn’s carefully worded proposal that the girl be referred to a specialist for testing, anyone would think she had recommended seeking help from a witch doctor.

No sooner had Mrs Bridgewater taken her leave and Evelyn had eaten a hurried lunch, than she had received a telephone call from a furious school governor. He had just learned of the existence of a well-thumbed copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover in the school library – the full unexpurgated version, no less. The book had been discovered by the librarian, Mrs Woods, and the general consensus was that it had been put there as a prank by one of the girls. Evelyn had read the novel shortly after the ruling two years ago that it could be published here in Britain, and had not found it half as salacious as the press and the Church of England had made out.

The school day now over, Evelyn was on her way to the hospital to visit Hope. She remained in a coma and the police still had no idea who had run her over.

Darkness had fallen early this evening, due in part to the smog; it had spread out of London and across the country. Those who suffered with weak chests and heart complaints were advised to stay indoors. Evelyn had begged Kit not to go out when she’d kissed him goodbye this morning. Every year he succumbed to a shocking chest infection, just as he had as a boy, and subjecting his battered lungs to the current foul air was to be avoided at all costs. She suspected he would have ignored her advice and gone to see his sister anyway.

With her gloved hand, Evelyn wiped at the windscreen. The heater, such as it was, wasn’t working and it was so cold inside the car her breath was misting the glass. She kept wriggling her toes in a vain attempt to keep them warm. Bill Noakes – the school caretaker, and general seer and clairvoyant – claimed the weather was set to take a turn for the worse. No doubt he knew this by conferring with a shrivelled-up piece of seaweed.

At the hospital, Evelyn parked alongside Romily’s Lagonda. Switching off the engine, she took a moment to collect her thoughts. She hadn’t seen Romily since the night of Hope’s awful accident, and when Evelyn had learned that her sister-in-law had received an anonymous letter just as she had. Knowing that she wasn’t alone in being singled out had initially given her a sense of relief.

Finding it impossible to be entirely truthful with Romily, especially with Stanley present, Evelyn had made vague noises about some person with whom she had worked during the war being the culprit. She had not revealed the true nature of the accusation made either, only that she was accused of betraying Kit.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.