“So why haven’t you?”

Emily chewed on her lip. “My parents. They won’t let me go. They are worried that something will happen to me.” It sounded silly when she said it. Weak. Pathetic. “My brother was killed, you see,” she added, trying to explain. “And my parents . . .”

“They were worried they’d lose you, too.”

“Yes.”

“I suppose I can understand that. My mum was really upset when I said I was joining up.”

“But that’s different. You were going a long way from home, going to fight. I only want to find some useful volunteer work in a town.”

“Then perhaps they are worried about unsuitable young men and you being brought up so sheltered.” His eyes were holding hers. “Not realizing that unsuitable young men were lurking in your own bushes.”

Emily laughed. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

He shrugged. “I suppose no parents want their babies to leave the nest. So what are you going to do about it?”

“Until now, I’ve played the devoted daughter. My father made me promise to take care of my mother; not to do anything to upset her any more. But it’s gone on long enough. I’ll turn twenty-one soon, and then I’m free to make my own decisions, so I’ll make my escape.”

“Good on yer,” he said. “You have to find the courage to take your life into your own hands. So where will you escape to?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’d rather like to volunteer as a nurse, like my friend Clarissa.”

“Oh, good idea,” he said. “Volunteer here. I’d like you as my nurse. I’d get better a lot quicker, I’m sure. And we wouldn’t have to be introduced. So when can we meet, before you turn twenty-one?”

Emily felt her pulse quicken. It had been so long since a young man had looked at her in this way, especially a man like Robbie. Had a man ever looked at her like that, she wondered? Then a picture flashed into her mind. A boy with red hair and light blue eyes, not unlike Robbie, and also deemed unsuitable by her mother. A boy who had been killed at the front a month after Freddie. And she had promised herself never to feel anything for a young man again. She tried to sound measured and in control as she answered. “I do have to walk past your hospital to go to the nearest pillar box. And I do write letters to my best friend.”

“So if I happened to be near the gate at a certain time . . .” He gave her a knowing grin.

“At eleven o’clock, say?”

“That would be good. After morning rounds. They’d approve of my taking a gentle stroll up the driveway.”

Emily beamed at him. “All right. Eleven o’clock then. Now please do go before my mother sees you.”

“Rightio,” he said. “See you tomorrow then, Emily.” He reached out his hand to touch her, then thought better of it. “You’re the first good thing that’s happened to me in quite a while.”

And me, too, she thought, as she watched him disappear between the rhododendron bushes.

She walked back to the house with a smile on her face.

“Where have you been?” Her mother was in the front hall, adjusting the flower arrangement on the side table, as Emily came in through the front door, slightly breathless. She glanced down at the empty wooden basket in Emily’s hand. “I thought you went to pick strawberries.”

“They weren’t quite ripe,” Emily said. “I thought I’d give them another day or two.”

And she walked past her mother and was conscious of her critical stare as she went down the hall towards the kitchen.

CHAPTER THREE

Dear Clarissa,

I finally have some news. I’ve met a fascinating chap. He’s an aviator with the Royal Air Force and he’s Australian. He’s quite different from any boy I’ve met so far. He says what he thinks, completely oblivious to any of our conventions, and he’s obviously very brave, but he came to see our garden to have something uplifting to describe to his mother, who tries to grow flowers in the most inhospitable place. Isn’t that sweet? And he’s awfully good-looking, too. I’m sure my mother wouldn’t approve of him, so we’re meeting in secret, which of itself makes life a little more spicy.

My mother is in full planning mode as my twenty-first birthday is next month. I don’t suppose you have any leave coming to you, do you? Mummy wants to invite all sorts of awful, snobby people—like Daphne Armstrong, because she’s married a viscount! So it would be lovely to have you there for moral support. Also because I haven’t seen you for over a year, and I’m dying to hear everything. I’m thinking of signing up myself after I turn twenty-one, so you can give me all the grim details.

Emily finished the letter, put a stamp on it and went downstairs, to find her mother sitting at the small Queen Anne desk in the morning room. She looked up, frowning.

“I don’t know where to find a band these days,” she said. “I might have to put out feelers in Plymouth, or even Exeter. There are those old men who play at the Grand Hotel in Torquay . . .”

Emily gave a despairing laugh. “Mummy, they are at least ninety, and they play Strauss waltzes.”

“Nothing wrong with a good Strauss waltz. But I agree, they are a trifle doddery. Ah well. Perhaps I’ll send Daddy on the quest. He’s got the assizes in Exeter next week.”