Until the War is Over by Until the War is Over (retail) (epub)

Author:Until the War is Over (retail) (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912973330
Publisher: Hera
Published: 2020-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Larchbury and Cambridge, September

‘You can leave Beth with us for the weekend when you visit Cambridge,’ Mother suggested one afternoon when Amy was visiting Sebastopol Terrace.

‘Are you sure she won’t be too much work for you?’ She looked at her lively daughter crawling across the carpet.

‘We’d simply love to look after her, now you’ve weaned her.’ Mother’s hair was whiter now; her ageing was more noticeable since they had lost Bertie.

‘How’s Aunt Louisa getting on, back in London?’ Amy’s aunt had been nervous of returning to her west London home for a while, before becoming convinced that the air raids were a horror of the past.

‘She seems very content in her letters. Now she’s made the move she’s seeing her London friends and settling back.’

Amy was relieved, though she often shuddered at the memory of the terrifying night in February when they had experienced the raid which had killed Katherine.

‘Will there be the usual fête at The Beeches?’ Mother asked, for the Derwents traditionally held a charity fête in their grounds at the end of summer.

‘At first they weren’t going to hold it this year.’ Young men were abroad or fallen, and many families were disrupted or in mourning as the result of the war. ‘It was Edmond who persuaded his parents that it would help raise morale, and bring in money for the war effort. We decided we’d invite the school children to take part, and maybe the Scouts.’

While she was speaking Father came in, looking weary from weeding the garden. It was the last day of his summer holidays. ‘What are the children supposed to do for the fête?’ he asked her, slumping down into an easy chair. Mother poured him a cup of tea from the pot she had made a few minutes earlier. ‘I met the headmaster yesterday and heard about it.’

‘Singing folk songs would be fine, or something patriotic,’ she said.

‘Right. We must start practising. We haven’t long to prepare.’ He considered. ‘There’s lots of garden produce in September. Villagers can bring in their spare fruit and vegetables to sell cheaply to raise funds.’

Soon he was talking about the school again. ‘I hope young Florence will settle to teaching again after exploring France,’ he said. Amy’s parents had been intrigued to hear of Florence’s trip there. They understood why she had not been able to visit Bertie’s grave. It seemed she had cheered up James by visiting him, and the pair were exchanging letters regularly.

‘I’m sure she’ll soon get back into her routine,’ Amy said, though she had noticed a difference in her friend since her audacious trip. She seemed more confident and less apt to sit quietly at home with her parents.

Amy could not resist talking about their house. ‘I’m longing to see it,’ she told them. Edmond had found it on a visit to Cambridge with his father, and the coming weekend they were taking her to approve it before completing the arrangements.

Father looked at her in a serious fashion, his grey eyes probing hers.

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