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Turn Left at the Daffodils
Elizabeth Elgin
A stirring Second World War tale of love and loss set in Yorkshire from the author of The Linden Walk and A Scent of Lavender.Set during World War 2, TURN LEFT AT THE DAFFODILS tells two love stories – those of Nan and Carrie.Nan meets Charles, a gauche, young airman at a dance. Despite his stammer and inability to dance, Nan is captivated by her first romance, and takes him under her wing. When Nan learns that Charles is from the landed gentry, she refuses his offer of marriage fearing that their difference in social status will ruin their chances of happiness. But it is the war itself which seems to end any hope for them when Charles is reported missing in action, believed killed, in the skies over Germany.Carrie starts a passionate affair following a chance encounter with Todd Coverdale on a railway platform in Lincoln. When Carrie finds herself alone and pregnant after Todd disappears without explanation, her only option is to leave the ATS and move to Daffy Cottage, the home Todd inherited from his Aunt.Will either woman find happiness after being left alone at a time of war, loneliness and difficult decisions?
ELIZABETH ELGIN
Turn Left at the
Daffodils
CONTENTS
Turn Left at the Daffodils
Elizabeth Elgin
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
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Copyright
About the Publisher
Turn Left At The
Daffodils
Elizabeth Elgin is the bestselling author of All the Sweet Promises, I’ll Bring You Buttercups, Daisychain Summer, Where Bluebells Chime, Windflower Wedding, One Summer at Deer’s Leap, The Willow Pool, A Scent of Lavender and The Linden Walk. She served in the WRNS during the Second World War and met her husband on board a submarine depot ship. She lived in the Vale of York until her death in 2005.
Elizabeth Elgin
29.08.1924
03.09.2005
To everyone involved in her publications and her many loyal and special readers, we thank you and hope you cherish this, her final book. Remember her with the love that she put into writing her novels. And, Mum, we hope the ending is as you planned it.
We love and miss you more than words can ever say.
George, Jane, David, Gillian, James, Simon, Matthew, Martin, Tom, Katie, Grace and ‘baby Bump’, Dominique, Becky, Ellen, Emma (Your ‘clan’).
O DEUS DA NOITE, BOA BLESS, SONHOS DOCES.
Dedication
To Betty’s second great-granddaughter Grace Mair Elizabeth Hall and her third great-grandchild “Baby” Cheetham, expected in January 2007. Also, to a very dear friend, Mrs Edna Parkinson.
One
May 1941
She brought the doorknocker down twice, then prayed with all her heart that Auntie Mim was in because if she wasn’t, Nan Morrissey was in deep trouble. And stranded in Leeds.
This morning, she had walked out of Cyprian Court in high old dudgeon; this morning, her suitcases had not seemed so heavy. Now, hungry and tired, she wondered if she had done the right thing – not for walking out on the Queer One and her Georgie – but because maybe she should have thought things out, first. Like how she would get from Liverpool to Leeds when there were few trains into or out of Liverpool, no trams running, and few buses able to get into the city centre. Because of the bombing, that was.
She closed her eyes and whispered, ‘Auntie Mim – please?’ then heard the blessed sound of door bolts being drawn back and the grating of a key in the lock.
‘Well, if it isn’t our Nan!’ Miriam Simpson snorted. ‘Left home, have you?’
‘Sort of.’ Tears of pure relief filled Nan’s eyes. Then she took a shuddering breath and said, ‘Chucked out, more like. Can I come in, please?’
‘And what have you done to make your dad throw you out?’ Arms folded firmly, Auntie Mim barred the doorway. ‘Got yourself into trouble, then?’
‘Me dad didn’t throw me out. He’s dead. Funeral two days ago.’ Her bottom lip trembled with genuine sorrow. ‘It was Her threw me out, and not because I’ve got myself into trouble, because I haven’t!’
‘Come on in then, Nan. I’m sorry about your dad.’ She really was. Will Morrissey had been decent to her sister. ‘Leave the cases in the lobby and sit yourself down. Heart attack, was it?’
‘No. Air Raid. He was on duty at the hospital and it got a direct hit. Them bluddy Jairmans! They’ve made a right mess of Liverpool – I had to get out. And I won’t be a bother, honest, if you’ll let me stay till I get myself sorted.’
‘Oh, all right. But I can’t feed you Nan, rationing being what it is, and I don’t allow swearing.’
‘Sorry. And it’s all right. I took my ration book when I left.’
Indeed, she had taken everything she thought to be legitimately hers. Food coupons, her identity card and the large brown envelope marked Marriage Lines, Birth Certificates, etc. in her mother’s handwriting. And her clothes. Mind, she wished she had left the brown envelope at the back of the drawer, now she knew what was inside it.
‘Had words with your stepmother, then?’ Miriam filled the kettle and set it to boil.
‘Suppose so. Dad ought never to have married her. I couldn’t stand her, and that brat. And she couldn’t stand me, either. She was weeping and moaning over Dad, like she was the only one who mattered. Not a thought for me losing my father. And then she said she’d have to be the wage-earner now, and that she’d be working full-time and I would have to look after Georgie. That’s how it all started.’
‘Because you said you wouldn’t?’
‘Not exactly. But I said I was sick of her kid. D’you know, he wouldn’t go to bed on his own and I had to go with him. At half-past six at night, would you believe? And he was three, and still in nappies, and he always has a snotty nose, an’ all,’ she added, when her aunt remained silent.
‘I told her! “I’m sick and fed up of that kid,” I said. “I’ve got my certificate from night school for touch-typing and I want to go to work.” And she said nobody would employ the likes of me what couldn’t speak proper, and if I wanted to stay in her house, I’d do as I was told if I knew what was good for me.’
‘So you upped and offed? And now I’m landed with you. Are you sure you’re not in trouble?’
‘Sure, Auntie Mim. Cross my heart and hope to die. And I won’t be stoppin’ for long. I’m joining up, see. The Army.’
‘Now what do you want to do a thing like that, for? And anyway, you aren’t old enough.’
‘I’m nearly eighteen and they take you at seventeen and a half. And why shouldn’t I join up? What could be worse than stoppin’ at Cyprian Court, now me dad’s gone?’
‘You’d have to take orders and salute people…’
‘So do all the women in the Forces. What’s so special about me?’
‘But what would you do, in the Army? You’ve had no education to speak of and you’ve never worked.’
‘I’ve got my typing certificate, and I haven’t worked because it suited Her to keep me at home for a dogsbody. Can’t you see, Auntie Mim, that I’d be the same as everybody else, once I’d joined up. Same uniform, the same pay. I’d be – well -normal.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Miriam Simpson felt sorry for her sister’s child, even though she had seen little of her these last few years. It couldn’t have been a lot of fun, losing a mother when you were a child, then getting a stepmother, a couple of years later – and one who took a bit of getting on with, if what she had heard was true. ‘I suppose you’re hungry? Get this tea down you, then I’ll do you a slice or two of toast and jam. All right?’
‘Smashing.’ Nan sipped the tea gratefully. ‘And I can pay me way, till the Army sends for me. I’ve got money in the Post Office.’
‘We’ll have to think about that. I’ve got a gentleman lodger, see. He’s something to do with aeroplane engines and he’s gone to Derby on a course for a month. He gives me a pound a week, but you can have his bed for ten shillings if you’ll help in the house and do a bit of queuing for me. I can’t say fairer than that.’
‘It’s a deal – and thanks. I won’t be any trouble, Auntie Mim.’
‘You better hadn’t be, or you’ll be on your way back to Liverpool before you can blink! And you’d better get yourself to the Food Office in the morning – see about an emergency card for your rations.’
‘I will.’ And look for the nearest recruiting office, because the sooner she got herself into uniform, the better. She would have to have a next-of-kin, of course. You always did when you joined up, but that was all right, because Auntie Mim was her next-of-kin, now.
She thought about it that night as she lay in the bed that was hers for four weeks. It struck her like a thunder clap. What if it took longer than that to get into the Army? Where would she go when the lodger came back? Cyprian Court, would it have to be, tail between her legs?
She pushed so terrible a thought from her mind, closed her eyes and thought instead about her father, wishing he could know she was going to be all right. Poor dad. He hadn’t had much of a life. Losing Mum, then getting himself saddled with the Queer One, and Georgie.
And thinking about Mum, what about that birth certificate? But she would worry about it tomorrow. Beautiful tomorrow, when she would present her touch-typing certificate to the Recruiting Officer. Bright, shining tomorrow, when her new life would begin.
May, without any doubt at all, was the most beautiful of months; a green, blossom-filled goodbye to winter; to short days and blackouts that came too early, and fogs and cold houses and everything that was depressing.
Caroline Tiptree leaned on the gate, gazing over the cow pasture to fields green with sprouting wheat, and hawthorn hedges coming to life again and the distant blue haze that carpeted Bluebell Wood.
So precious, this Yorkshire hamlet in which she lived; in which Englishmen had lived since Elizabeth Tudor’s time. So comforting to know that wars had come and gone, yet still Nether Hutton remained unchanged. Twenty-one houses, and all of them built of rose-red brick; all of them with flower-filled gardens; most of them with chimney stacks twisted like sticks of barley sugar. She turned to lean her back against the gate, reluctant to go home, to face the recriminations and tears she knew would follow. When she told her mother, that was.
Sighing, she made for Jackmans Cottage, named for the long-ago sea captain who had built it with a purse of gold, given by a grateful queen. A house with low, beamed ceilings and wide fireplaces and two kitchens and small windows. A thick-walled house that had not and would not change.
She closed the gate carefully behind her, standing for a moment to take in the courtyard garden thick with the flowers of late spring, for this was the picture she would carry away with her, if she left it. When she left it.
‘Hello, darling. You’ve missed the News,’ Janet Tiptree called from the sitting room.
‘Sorry.’ Carrie hung up her coat, knowing she’d had no intention of getting home to hear it. She’d had enough of gloom and doom, was fed up with the war and living in a rural backwater whilst everywhere else seemed to be getting bombed, and Dover shelled every single day from across the Channel. ‘Don’t suppose there was anything worth listening to – like Hitler wants an armistice…’
Or perhaps two ounces on the butter ration? She would settle for an ounce, even.
‘Don’t be flippant, Carrie. And why the badly-done-to look? Missing Jeffrey – is that it?’
‘Not particularly, mother. After all, he wanted to go.’
‘Which was sensible, really. Better to volunteer now for the Navy than wait another year to be called-up and put in the Army or the Air Force. Jeffrey’s uncle fought at Jutland, don’t forget and with a name like Frobisner – well, what else could he join? And you are missing him – admit it – or why are you acting like a bear with a sore head.’
‘My head is fine, mother. It’s my conscience I’m more bothered about. I’ve got to accept that working in a bank isn’t doing much for the war effort. I’m not pulling my weight.’
‘But you are!’ She patted the sofa beside her. ‘Now come and sit beside your mother, and tell her what’s wrong – have a little cuddle, shall we?’
‘Mother! I’m too old for cuddles. I’m twenty-one, soon, and I’m not doing enough. I’m having an easy war, and it isn’t right.’
