House of Strangers (12 page)

Chapter 26

‘It’s ridiculous,’ said Aunt Mina crossly. ‘Leaving that huge house to Flora. What will she do with it, I ask you?’ She picked up the letter again. ‘Just like Chris. She could have sold that house, got a good price for it. And now what - Flora says she’s going to keep it on as a boarding house, a home for the lodgers. A boarding house. I ask you!’ She sniffed. ‘None of our family has ever run a boarding house.’

She went on. ‘Well, I don’t need to have anything more to do with her. I wash my hands of the whole affair.’

Her daughter Nancy sighed. She had heard all this before.

‘And as for that husband…’

‘He sounds a very suitable young man,’ put in her daughter mildly.

‘That’s as may be. I don’t know. I wasn’t invited to the wedding,’ said Mina crossly. ‘Not that I would have gone,’ she admitted.

It had been a very quiet affair, Flora had explained. Neither Aunt Mina nor Will’s aunt had been invited. After all, it was only a few months since Cousin Chris’s death, and she and Will had wanted a simple wedding, especially as war now seemed inevitable. In the city tearooms, businessmen shook their heads and wondered what the outcome might be. In comfortable drawing rooms, their wives began to talk of getting up work parties, making shirts and knitting socks for soldiers. Throughout the country, mothers looked at sons who worked in the shipyards or in the factories, and worried about the future.

But for all that, Flora and Will’s wedding was a happy occasion. Flora wore dark red silk—‘no mourning for me,’ Chris had insisted. ‘Don’t go into black, Flora.’

Some people disapproved: ‘her cousin gone just a few months ago and not even a black crepe armband.’ Some people had no sense of decorum.

But Flora didn’t care. She stood beside Will, holding her bouquet of white carnations and maidenhair fern and repeated the words after the minister, with a sense of wonder that all this should have happened in only a few short years.

Afterwards there was a wedding breakfast. Nelly had toiled for days to produce a spread to fit the occasion. Mr Turnbull proposed a toast ‘to the happy couple—and to the memory of Miss Dunbar.’

Looking round at them all, Mr Turnbull, Margery Craig, Arabella (who had insisted that she would sing), Nelly, Will’s friend Dave, and the neighbours who crowded in to wish the couple well, Flora felt a warm glow of affection surround her and Will.

Then it seemed only weeks later everything had changed. All through the summer, Flora felt unreasonably happy, and hardly noticed that Will looked serious and read the newspaper with more concentration than he had ever shown before.

‘It is war,’ he said that August evening.

‘But,’ Flora put her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder. ‘It will all be over by Christmas.’

Will shook his head. ‘That’s what they say...’

Flora felt afraid for him. She knew Will so well, and when he spoke of enlisting, she didn’t say a word, simply gave him a fierce hug. And watched him as he jumped down the front steps, leaping over the last two steps as he always did.

‘You do realise, don’t you,’ said Will gently later that day, ‘that I have to go. I enlisted today.’

Flora took a deep breath. ‘I know,’ she said softly.’ How long would the war last, Flora wondered. A year, two years? Even longer?

Upstairs, she could hear Arabella singing, her voice swooping up and down in a patriotic song. She had already told Flora, ‘I can do my bit to cheer the troops. People are getting up concerts, and I have offered to sing.’

Mr Turnbull, up in his attic, looked at the pages he had written. But the words meant nothing to him today. How long would the war last? he wondered. He had grasped Will by the arm when he heard that the young man had enlisted. ‘We’ll look after her while you’re away,’ he’d said gruffly.

Margery Craig, who might well become Mrs Turnbull before long, had said nothing, just a brief, ‘Good luck!’ to Will.

Flora shook herself. She would go down to the kitchen and see that Nelly had everything she needed to make Will’s favourite pudding, a dumpling boiled in a cloth. She must check that there were enough sultanas. In a day or two he would be gone. She must make sure he had cheerful memories to take away.

So she wiped her eyes, put on a smile and went downstairs to the kitchen.

If you enjoyed
House of Strangers
check out Endeavour Press’s other books here:
Endeavour Press - the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books
.

For weekly updates on our free and discounted eBooks
sign up to our newsletter
.

Follow us on
Twitter
and
Goodreads
.