Her Garden Angel - Book 4, The Porth Kerensa Series

Chapter Four

Porth Kerensa – 1940

“Evie, why are you hiding out there?” Judy called, from the porch of Anson House. “It’s almost midnight, and it’s freezing out here.”

“I was just getting some fresh air,” Evie replied. She wiped her eyes, turned her back on the sea and walked back up to the house.

“I’m sorry, was this too soon? I know you must be missing your family,” Judy said gently. “I hoped we were helping you to move on.”

“You are, but New Year is different. It’s a milestone, isn’t it? Another year behind us, and who knows what lies ahead in the coming year? I do like it here, Judy, much more than I thought I would, but I can’t help grieving for Mother and Granny, and worrying about my father.”

“I’m glad you don’t hate it here with us, Evie. Come on, let’s go and see the New Year in and pray it will be better than the year that’s just passed.”

The two young ladies hurried back into Anson House where, behind the blackout blinds, a party for the villagers, patients and staff was in full swing. Carolyn Anson handed them both a glass of weak elderberry wine to toast midnight with. Judy sashayed off and joined a couple of young soldiers. Evie followed along more demurely and stopped next to an RAF man, Tommy Jenkins, who was going back to his base on the 2nd of January. They linked arms shyly and sang Auld Lang Syne by candlelight, in the hall of Anson House.

Many of them strangers to each other, yet all of them brought together for this moment in time by a war that was killing thousands every day. There was no guarantee that any of them would be alive the following year, but they sang with gusto and tears in their eyes. All of them thinking of the ones they had lost and their loved ones that were away, fighting for their freedom to celebrate and live their lives.

Evie turned seventeen, ten days later. She received cards from lots of the villagers, her family in Porth Kerensa and a big card signed from all the staff and patients at Anson House. It touched her deeply that all these people she hadn’t known a few months before had gone to such an effort to make her feel wanted and part of their lives. Her most cherished missive though, was the letter that arrived from somewhere in Africa. She kept the letter from her father in her purse and she read it so often she knew it off by heart.

Winter seemed to take forever to go away. Every morning, except Sundays, Evie trudged up the cliff road to Anson House. Doris, the cook, always greeted her with a hot cup of tea to start her day. Evie worked hard at Anson House and fell into bed every night utterly exhausted, but she loved her job. She enjoyed seeing the patients get better, although it saddened her that most of them went straight back to the frontline.

Judy walked up the cliff every evening to meet Evie from work, never failing to ask Evie if she’d met any young men that she fancied yet. She seemed eager for Evie to meet ‘The One’ and join her in the ‘Engaged’ club. The conversations bored Evie and she usually tried to deflect them with questions about Judy’s fiancé. It wasn’t that Evie had no interest in men, she just wasn’t fixated on finding the one who would marry her. The truth be told, she didn’t mind if she never got married or had children. She thought there might be more to life than just being someone’s wife and mother.

Evie liked Judy a lot, but she didn’t understand Judy’s obsession with getting married and having a family. Perhaps it was what came from living in a small village? Was there truly so much pressure to marry somebody? Was it really so shameful to live alone rather than settle for someone you didn’t really love? Sometimes when Judy spoke of her fiancé away fighting in Europe Evie found herself wondering if Judy loved him for who he was, or if she simply enjoyed the status symbol of being engaged.