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    Keep the Home Fires Burning: Part Two: A Woman's Work
    Keep the Home Fires Burning: Part Two: A Woman's Work
    Keep the Home Fires Burning: Part Two: A Woman's Work
    Ebook114 pages1 hour

    Keep the Home Fires Burning: Part Two: A Woman's Work

    By S. Block

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    About this ebook

    In Britain's darkest hour, an extraordinary community of women strives to protect the Home Front. When an plane crashes in the village, every one of their lives will change forever . . .

    PART TWO in a brand new FOUR-PART ebook serial from the creator of ITV's smash hit series, Home Fires. The story continues . . . The women of Great Paxford are no strangers to hardship, but as the war progresses they encounter challenges they never imagined. Pat Simms found a moment of happiness, but her husband's scheming brought that to an end. Yet Pat can't help but hope for another chance. Teresa thought all her troubles would disappear when she married Nick, but chance encounters with a young pilot leave her torn and conflicted. Still reeling from the death of her husband, Frances Barden worries she's made the wrong choice in sending her young ward away. Anything could happen to a boy at war time . . . And all the while the Campbell family struggle to hold their family together as illness takes a toll. Don't miss a minute of this enthralling new series. Keep the Home Fires Burning - Part One: Spitfire Down! is available now. Search 9781785763564. Ready for the next instalment? Keep the Home Fires Burning - Part Three: Strangers Amongst Us is out now! Search 9781785763588. Perfect for fans of Call the Midwife, Granchester and Foyles War. If you adore the novels of Nadine Dorries, Diney Costello and Daisy Styles then this is an unmissable series for you.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherZaffre
    Release dateMay 15, 2018
    ISBN9781499861617
    Keep the Home Fires Burning: Part Two: A Woman's Work

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      Book preview

      Keep the Home Fires Burning - S. Block

      Chapter 24

      ‘Mrs Barden . . . ’

      Dr Derek Nelms, MA (Oxon), the headmaster of Noah’s boarding school, already sounded defensive, and the conversation was only two words in. It would not have mattered what time of day Frances telephoned, Nelms’s tone became immediately wary the moment his secretary informed him Mrs Barden was on the line.

      ‘Good morning, Headmaster. How are you today?’

      Frances knew he didn’t look forward to her telephone calls but it didn’t deter her from making them. Her priority was Noah, and how he was getting along. Was he happy? Was he making new friends? Was he coping with the workload? Could she speak to him? To which Dr Nelms’s responses were: ‘Yes’, ‘Yes’, Yes’, and ‘I think that would be a little destabilising at this moment in time.’ That she called every day was the issue.

      ‘I am feeling well, thank you for asking, Mrs Barden. As is young Noah.’

      Frances could tell he was trying to pre-empt her enquiries. She didn’t appreciate being ‘managed’ at the best of times by men who saw her as an irritant, least of all by one who barely concealed his growing antipathy to her calls.

      ‘I’m very glad to hear it, Headmaster. Could you be a little more specific?’

      Was that a sigh? Is the man now openly sighing down the telephone at me? Is he trying to be confrontational?

      ‘How specific would you like me to be, Mrs Barden? For example, would you like me to itemise what Noah ate at breakfast this morning? Or—’

      Frances didn’t appreciate his tone.

      ‘There’s really no need to be facetious, Headmaster. I am simply a concerned parent telephoning to make sure the child for whom I am responsible is not unhappy. It would help us both if you would treat me with a little less annoyance, and a little more respect.’

      There was silence on the other end of the line while Dr Nelms ran through his options. He had run through them before on several occasions, but none of them had worked out as he might have wanted. Being indulgent merely encouraged Frances to keep calling. Being brusque merely got her gander up.

      ‘I’m not trying to be facetious, Mrs Barden,’ he said, trying to sound emollient.

      ‘If that’s true, you’re not trying very hard.’

      ‘It is just that, as I have explained several times since Noah began at the school, you call far more frequently than the parent of any other child. Consequently—’

      ‘Could that be because I care more about my child than they do about theirs?’

      Frances knew this was unlikely to be the case, but she regarded ‘care’ and ‘anxious’ as interchangeable.

      ‘I don’t think that would be a fair assessment, Mrs Barden. And I suspect, neither do you.’

      Frances didn’t want to have an argument. She never wanted to have arguments with all sorts of people she eventually had arguments with; it was simply her nature to be more challenging of other people’s positions than they were used to. It put them on the defensive, and an argument would inevitably ensue.

      ‘I don’t wish to be confrontational—’

      There was a sudden snort at the other end of the line. Like the sound of someone choking on their tea, perhaps.

      ‘Is everything all right, Headmaster?’ Frances asked.

      ‘Everything is fine, Mrs Barden. A piece of biscuit went down the wrong way, that’s all. Do continue. You were telling me how non-confrontational you wish to be.’

      Frances caught the faintly mocking tone in his voice and decided a different strategy was called for. All she wanted was to be taken seriously as Noah’s guardian, and receive the information she requested, without editorial comment from Dr Nelms.

      ‘Dr Nelms, I know I am a great deal older than many of the parents who leave their children in your charge. And I am a widow, which means I perhaps lack the advantage of other couples, in that I have no one at home who can assuage my anxieties about Noah when they spring up. I suppose I am – to some extent – using you in this regard. If you find that onerous I apologise.’

      Frances could hear a clock ticking in the background.

      ‘It isn’t you I find onerous, Mrs Barden. You are evidently a highly intelligent, delightful woman. But the frequency of your calls is – if I may be frank – becoming counterproductive. Because—’

      ‘I understand that,’ Frances interrupted.

      ‘It doesn’t help that you scarcely allow me to respond to one point before you jump in with something else.’

      Frances felt chastened.

      ‘I do apologise. Please, finish whatever it was you were saying before we get back to the subject of Noah’s well-being.’

      That probably sounds more antagonistic than I want to sound. But I don’t care any more. Let the man waffle on if he must. I won’t be diverted.

      ‘Your daily calls, Mrs Barden, are entirely unnecessary. And, if I am completely honest, they eat away into time I need to be spending on other issues.’

      ‘Is that so, Headmaster? Such as?’

      ‘The school is home to many boys whose fathers are away, fighting. Some of those boys mask their anxieties admirably and try and get on with life here. Others are not so adept, and need a lot more consideration. Only yesterday one little chap in the fourth form learned that his father had perished in the Atlantic, protecting a food convoy targeted by a German U-boat patrol. The boy was distraught, as you can imagine. His mother was too . . . ’

      Dr Nelms’s voice trailed off for a few moments. Clearly, the episode had affected them all. Frances felt awful. She waited for the headmaster to speak, but he did not.

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, softening her tone. ‘I didn’t realise.’

      ‘There is no reason why you should. Under any other circumstances I would try and respond to your concerns as they present themselves, but with a lot of our younger housemasters gone off to the Forces—’

      He broke off at this point. Frances wondered what was happening.

      ‘Headmaster?’

      When he came back on the line, his voice was less assured than it had been a moment ago.

      ‘It isn’t only boys we have here, Mrs Barden. Since the outbreak of war we have lost three outstanding members of staff in the fight against the Luftwaffe. Again, I don’t wish to minimise your concerns over Noah, but that has had a tremendous effect on the morale of my remaining staff. These brave young men were much admired by their colleagues when they signed up, and loved by the pupils . . . ’

      Frances felt sick with remorse.

      ‘I’m so sorry, Dr Nelms.’

      ‘I really didn’t want to get into this with you. But—’

      ‘I left you with no choice.’

      ‘Well—’

      ‘I’m so sorry, I interrupted you again.’

      The line went quiet.

      You’re such an idiot. Let the man speak.

      ‘We have a great amount to deal with on a day-to-day basis – let’s just leave it at that.’

      Frances nodded, sympathising greatly with everything the headmaster was telling her. When she next spoke, her voice was soft, almost pleading for him to help her deal with her own personal crisis of confidence about having sent Noah away.

      ‘But I can’t just leave it, Headmaster, can I? How can we find a happy medium with my concern for Noah?’

      ‘Can we agree that I will telephone you directly if there is any cause to? And if I have had no cause to, why don’t we arrange a round-up conversation at the end of each week, if only to completely set your mind at rest?’

      Frances could be horribly stubborn when she wanted to be. Yet terribly understanding when the mood struck her. She finally realised that calling every day was, indeed, counterproductive.

      ‘I’m willing to try that, certainly.’

      ‘Thank you, Mrs Barden. I cannot begin to tell you how much of a weight off

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