Evie’s Choice

Driving an ambulance through the mud in Flanders, aristocrat Evie Creswell is a long way from home. At Oaklands Manor all she had been expected to do was to look pretty and make a good marriage. But with the arrival of World War One everything changed…

And Evie, to the horror of her family, does not choose a husband from her blue-blooded set; instead she weds artist Will Davies, who works as a butcher’s apprentice. Soon she is struggling nightly to transport the wounded to hospital, avoiding the shells and gas attacks – her privileged home life, and her family’s disappointment at her marriage, a lifetime away.

And while Evie drives an ambulance in Belgium, Will is in the trenches in France. He withdraws from her, the trauma of his experience taking hold. Evie has the courage to deal with her war work, but it breaks her heart to think she is losing Will’s love. Can their marriage survive this terrible war? That is, if they both get out alive…

Evie’s Choice

Terri Nixon

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014

Copyright © Terri Nixon 2014

Terri Nixon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © July 2014 ISBN: 9781472096470

Version date: 2018-07-02

TERRI NIXON

was born in Plymouth, England in 1965. At the age of 9 she moved with her family to Cornwall, to a small village on the edge of Bodmin Moor, where she discovered a love of writing that has stayed with her ever since. She also discovered apple-scrumping, and how to jump out of a hayloft without breaking any bones, but no-one's ever offered to pay her for doing those.

Since her first short stories appeared in small-press paperback in 2002, Terri has appeared in both print and online fiction collections, and is proud to have contributed to the Shirley Jackson award-nominated hardback collection: Bound for Evil, by Dead Letter Press. Her first novel was Maid of Oaklands Manor, published by Piatkus Entice, and shortlisted in the "Best Historical Read" category at the Festival of Romance 2013.

Terri now lives in Plymouth with her youngest son, and works in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Plymouth University, where she is constantly baffled by the number of students who don’t possess pens.

I would like to thank everyone who has continued to support me over this past year, and I hope this new offering has been worth it! Special thanks to my youngest son, Dom, for his patient indulgence as I look blankly at him over the lid of my laptop while my mind struggles to re-connect with day-to-day reality.

Thanks also to my agent, Kate (Kate Nash Literary Agency), to my editor, and to everyone who has worked towards getting this book to publication; the support, professionalism and advice has been invaluable.

I would also like to publicly thank the editors of Lady Under Fire on the Western Front, (the wartime letters of Lady Dorothie Feilding) which I read over and over again while planning this book, along with many other first-hand accounts of those at the ‘sharp end’ during the Great War.

And finally, to all those fallen during that conflict, and those who gave everything to help them; a sacrifice beyond imagining, a debt beyond measure.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Endpages

About the Publisher

To my wonderful parents: Anne and Eddie Deegan. Your encouragement has been unstinting, as has your patience with my relentless blathering. This one’s for you.

Chapter One

Flanders, Belgium, February 1917.

The explosion was more than a noise, it was a pressure, and a fist, and a scream that started in the pit of my stomach and flashed outward through every nerve. Pulsing light from relentless shelling afforded glimpses through the dark of the uneven road ahead, and I had long ago learned to use this sinister glow as I guided the ambulance between dressing station and clearing station, but tonight it seemed Fritz was sending over all he had. Our chaps would give it back twice as hard though – at least that’s what I told myself, what we always told ourselves, and what we always made sure to tell the boys who looked to us for reassurance that their suffering was not in vain.

The wheels slid on half-frozen mud, and all my driving experience melted into mere hope; on a night like this it would come down to luck as to whether we stayed on the road or pitched off into the even rougher ground beyond, and luck has a famously capricious heart.

It occurred, not for the first time, that less than three years before, my prayers would have been no more intense than the wish that my mother would stop trying to marry me off to one of her friends’ “perfectly charming” sons. Even then I’d had no interest in, or need of, a husband, but it was a sobering thought that most of those adventurous and brightly confident young men would now be entrenched in mud, and finding their own prayers much altered.

Those who still lived.

I blinked hard to relieve my eyes from the strain of staring at the road, and a second later my heart faltered as I identified the cause of this latest, and loudest, of explosions. A moment later Kitty, the new girl, cried out in dismay as she saw it too: the large house ahead, and the sprawling collection of tents and outbuildings in its grounds that served as the casualty clearing station, was ablaze. Part of the roof was gone, a gaping mouth from which flames belched and licked ravenously at the overhanging trees, setting even the wettest canvas of the nearby tents alight. The painted red cross had collapsed inward, and while many of the staff retained their sense of duty, many more did not – chaos had the night in its grip now, and it was each man for himself. The two sister-stations, one empty and waiting and one already taking the overspill from the house, were in danger of catching too, and panic was evident in every silhouette that stumbled in search of safety, and in every cry that transcended the roar of flame and the crack of wood and glass.

Time was short, and I turned the wheel before we reached the road junction, sending silent but heartfelt apologies to my wounded, and then we were bumping over the roughly pitted grass towards the burning buildings. The moment I pulled to a stop, Kitty was in the back urging those more able to bunch up to make room, and explaining we must go another ten miles to the base hospital in the town. Exclamations of dismay followed me as I jumped down, and I understood every one of them; the men would have been blessing every turn of the wheels that brought us closer to help, and now they must hold on a little longer. There was little doubt that, for some, it would prove too long.

The intense heat stung every exposed inch of skin as I ran towards a group of evacuees, huddling as far away from the billowing smoke as they could get, and I drew a deep breath in readiness for shouting, feeling the moisture stripped from my throat the moment my mouth opened.

‘Two! We can take two –’ I broke off, coughing, bent double with it and unable to shout again, but one of the orderlies had seen me and when I rose, gasping and teary-eyed, he gestured me over.

In the end we took three; two more in the back, and one sitter up front with us, a boy no older than Kitty herself by his looks. He had just begun treatment for shrapnel wounds to the arm and shoulder, and moving at all must have jarred him terribly, but as soon as he was settled in his seat he began talking, with cautious relief, about being shipped back to England. I exchanged a glance with Kitty, and we both found wan smiles for what he considered his good luck before we rolled off once more towards the town. There was a harsh jerk and a new rattling sound as we rejoined the road, and I wondered how many more trips we could make before something else fell off the ambulance, or broke, and I would be required to spend the rest of this freezing night lying in the mud with my tool box.

When we got to the hospital we found one of the new blessés had died, and the shrapnel-wounded boy’s relief fell away, leaving him paler than ever and deeply subdued; I gathered they had been friends. We covered the dead man with his blanket and te boy hitched a breath, , and there was no more talk of Blighty while the VAD led him away to have his wounds redressed. Kitty and I hurriedly sluiced down the inside of the ambulance, and set off back to the dressing station for one more trip.

And one more.

When the night’s grim work was finally over we returned to our little cottage, and I went over the ambulance with my torch, checking carefully underneath. Gertie, as we’d named her, had been a godsend, but she was fast reaching the end of her useful life as an ambulance, and must soon be retired before she became a danger rather than an inconvenience. Rather like myself, it seemed at times. By the time she had been emptied of blood-soaked blankets and stretchers, there remained precious few hours in which to steal a bit of sleep.

Kitty went gratefully to the room we shared and fell into bed immediately, but I sat at the kitchen table, pen in hand, and a blank sheet in front of me. I never told my husband what I had been doing; he had his own worries, and his own dark stories, and to heap mine upon him would be cruel and unnecessary. Instead I wrote that Kitty Maitland was an absolute treasure, although nerves made her clumsy and she still kept knocking things down. Naturally we had immediately nicknamed her Skittles. I wrote that the weather here was as vicious as it was in France, and that I hoped he was making good use of the warm scarf I had sent him. I told him some of the girls in the ambulance corps were jealous of us because their commandant was utterly hard-hearted, and they wished they had set up alone as we had. I wished him a happy thirtieth birthday.

Then I laid my pen down, folded the letter ready to post, and burst into tears.

Chapter Two

Oaklands Manor, Cheshire, New Year’s Eve 1911.

I paused at the foot of the back stairwell and carefully rearranged my expression, then pushed open the kitchen door. Instantly all talk ceased, and only began again, in hesitant tones, as I nodded demurely in greeting and crossed to speak to the cook.

Mrs Hannah looked up. ‘Miss Evangeline. And what might we do for you this morning?’

‘I’m sorry for disturbing you,’ I said, in my most timid voice, ‘but I was just on my way out and Mother has asked me to pass on a message.’

‘Why ever didn’t she ring down?’

‘She knew you were busy, I expect,’ I said, gesturing at the table laden with vegetables.

‘Well, she’d be right,’ Mrs Hannah agreed, ‘and if Mercy leaves, like she’s saying, things will soon get even busier.’

I glanced at the scullery maid, who was on her knees with her head in the grate, and lowered my voice. ‘Poor Mercy. She was never happy here, was she?’

‘Ideas above her station, should you ask me,’ the cook opined, not bothering to match my discreet tones. If Mrs Cavendish had heard she’d certainly have given her one of her special “Head-Housekeeper” looks that usually sent the recipient scuttling away, although Mrs Hannah always ignored them. I liked Mrs Hannah.

She was looking at me now, knife paused mid-chop. ‘The message then, Miss Evangeline?’

‘Oh, yes. Well, you know how mother has given you that recipe for the loaf her grandmother used to make?’

‘The fruit loaf, yes.’

‘And you know how she specifically told you to follow it to the letter?’

‘I do.’ Mrs Hannah’s eyes narrowed, but I kept my expression carefully blank.

‘Well, it appears she made a little mistake. Where it says dates, it should say raisins. And where it says half a cup of sugar, she has asked me to make it particularly clear that she meant to write one whole cup.’

‘I see. Is that all then?’

I pretended to think for a moment. ‘There was one other thing, now you mention it. You’ll see Mother has specified almonds to be laid along the top?’

‘I expect you’ll be saying she didn’t mean that either.’

‘She didn’t, no.’

‘Would she have meant glazed fruit, do you think?’

I beamed. ‘Exactly. And it’s most important you don’t forget about the sugar, Mrs Hannah.’

Mrs Hannah raised an eyebrow and favoured me with a rare, amused little smile. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to follow the instructions to the letter.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure if she meant to follow the original instructions, or my own amendments; only time would tell, but I had done my best. Mother’s cake ideas always looked wonderful on their plates, but it was best they stayed there if the illusion of perfection was to be maintained. I paused on my way out, and turned back to make sure Mrs Hannah was absolutely sure about the swapping of dates for raisins, but was distracted by a knock at the side door.

Ruth, the kitchen maid, hurried into the hall to answer, and returned followed by two men. I recognised Frank Markham, the local butcher from Breckenhall, but behind him stood a young man I had never seen before; an attractive boy of around twenty, with tumbled brown hair and a faintly bemused look on his face. He was bowed under the weight of a large wooden box.

‘Morning, Ruth. Mrs Hannah.’ Mr Markham ushered the young man forward. ‘This is Will Davies, my new apprentice. He’ll be helping with deliveries from now on, so don’t you ladies go giving him a hard time.’ He winked at Ruth, who ignored him and greeted the apprentice with a good deal more enthusiasm than was proper; I saw Mrs Hannah roll her eyes, but she said nothing and went on with her work. I hoped someone would take Ruth aside one day soon, she was becoming quite the little madam from what I’d heard.

Will staggered to the table to relieve himself of his burden, and as he stood upright again his eyes found mine. It was hard to see what colour they were from this distance, but they crinkled when he smiled, and a dimple deepened in his cheek. I blinked in surprise at the casual nod he gave me, then realised he wouldn’t know I wasn’t just another of the kitchen staff, wearing my plain outdoor coat as I was. It was an interesting notion.

I watched as the apprentice went through the delivery order, enjoying the way he kept stealing glances my way, and that dimple kept reappearing. But before someone could address me by my title, and ruin the fun, I slipped back out into the corridor and up the stairs to the main front door, exploring the unexpected tingle I had felt when our eyes had locked. I’d quite liked it.

A week into the new year I saw the apprentice again, and this time there was no hiding who I was. I was wearing my best coat this time, and getting into the car with Mother and my younger brother Lawrence to go to church, when the butcher’s van rattled up the drive. Will was seated beside Mr Markham, wearing a fixed look of terror at the older man’s driving, and I hid a smile in my glove as I pictured how much paler he’d look if I was behind the wheel; the illicit lessons I begged whenever I went to stay with the London family were going well, but I tended to pay little attention to the words of caution that came with them, and people were starting to find urgent business elsewhere when they saw me approaching them with a hopeful expression.

Will’s eyes widened slightly on seeing me, and I saw realisation slip into place, then he grinned at me and winked. The tingle woke up again, stronger this time, and I was unable to prevent an answering smile from crossing my face. Just before I turned my head away I saw his expression soften, and he settled more happily back into his seat, all sign of nerves gone as the van pulled to a stop by the back gate. I glanced at Mother, but she was accepting the footman’s assistance into the car; neither the butcher nor his apprentice held any interest for her. It already felt like a rather delicious secret.

I found my thoughts straying to him more and more often. I’d look out for the van from my window and suddenly find some reason to be downstairs, or wandering along the drive, and when we glimpsed each other the smiles were quick to come, slow to fade, and warmer every time. Then one bright day in early March, the day before I was due to leave for London for two months, my mother’s maid and I were in Breckenhall, buying last-minute gifts for the London family.

Behind us was the open-air market, full of tantalising smells and sounds, brightly-coloured clothing, and bric-a-brac and old books. I compared it to the imminent wait in the stuffy post office while Alice bought stamps for about a hundred thousand letters, and eyed the busy stalls longingly.

Then I stiffened my backbone. ‘I’m going to just walk around by myself for a little while thank you, Peters.’

Peters was used, by now, to my impatience to be off alone, and it never seemed to ruffle her rather elegant feathers when I suggested it. But she had her orders. ‘Of course we’ll visit the market, but Lady Creswell told me I must stay with you.’

‘I’m sure she doesn’t mean you’re to be glued to my side,’ I protested.

‘No, of course not, but –’

I reminded myself of the difference in our positions, although I felt guilty doing it. ‘Just ten minutes,’ I said firmly. Then my façade slipped, and I reverted to the child I had been and, in her eyes at least, still was. ‘Please, Alice? After tomorrow I shan’t have a single minute to myself what with all those boring parties and dinners. People fussing over me morning, noon and night, dressmakers measuring –’

‘All right! Ten minutes.’ She looked resigned, but wore a reluctant smile. ‘I’ll be waiting by the cake stall.’ I was already walking away, and she raised her voice to call after me: ‘Just don’t tell your mother you were able to talk me into it!’ As if I would give Mother any reason to stop me coming into town.

After a happy few minutes spent enjoying the freedom, and sampling breads at a particularly delicious-smelling stall, I rounded a corner and saw, just ahead, a small boy standing alone. He looked to be around five years old, and he didn’t appear upset at first, but, as I watched, sudden realisation of his lonely state seemed to hit him and his lip began to tremble. I took a step closer but another figure appeared from behind a stall and crouched down in front of him, and my heart skipped as I recognised Will. He looked calm and competent, and, wrapped up warm against the hours he spent standing around in the early spring chill, he seemed older than I’d first thought.

The little boy was crying in earnest now, but Will paid no attention to the tears and instead kept up a cheerful chatter as he peeled the outer page off his newspaper. Still talking, his fingers worked quickly for a minute or two and then he held something out. The boy stopped snuffling and took the paper boat, and a bright smile spread over his face as he mimed its passage through an imaginary rough sea before showing it to a harried-looking nursery nurse, who seized his hand and pulled him away. She threw a brief ‘thank you’ at Will before vanishing into the crowd, and I went over to him, and found my voice.

‘Hello again.’

Will jumped, but when he turned to look at me there was no nervousness in his expression, just unabashed pleasure. Up this close I could see his eyes were a clear and lovely blue, beneath eyebrows a few shades darker than his hair, and his features were stronger and leaner than I had thought at first. Will Davies was evidently something of a charmer, and I found myself for once unable to think of anything else to say. I could only twist my fingers together and hope he would speak first.

He did, but it didn’t really help. ‘Miss Creswell,’ he said, nodding.

‘Mr Davies. That was…very clever, what you did for that little boy.’ He looked at me for a moment, and his eyes narrowed just a little bit and he took another sheet off his newspaper. He unfolded it, then his nimble fingers went to work again and a moment later he was handing me a rose, barely out of bud, with the petals curling outwards in the first welcoming hint of the full bloom to come.

I took it, and the expression on my face must have been much the same as the little boy’s. The fact that the rose was black and white, with smudgy print and a flimsy stem, meant nothing; it had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, just for me. ‘Thank you,’ I said, and tucked it into the band around my hat. ‘That should annoy Mother quite satisfactorily.’

Will laughed. The sound was lower than I’d expected it might be, and my response to it was a faint but pleasant confusion.

‘Talk in the kitchen says you’re off to London,’ he said.

‘I leave tomorrow. I’m expected to attend an awful lot of very dull parties with an awful lot of very dull people.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll have fun when you get used to it.’ But his expression said, clearer than words, that he hoped I would not. Something clicked into place between us in that moment, but it remained unspoken. It sat, quietly glowing inside me, and in him it manifested itself in a forced lightness of tone.‘What time is your train?’

‘Well, that’s the good part, at least,’ I said, ‘I don’t have to sit on the train and breathe in all that cigar smoke. Uncle Jack is going to be taking me down in his motor car.’

‘The Silver Ghost?’ Will whistled. ‘You are a very lucky girl, Miss Evangeline.’

‘Call me Evie.’ It suddenly seemed important that he not think of me as one of the Creswells, after all he wasn’t one of the servants. If I had expected a modest protest from him I was pleasantly surprised.

‘Evie,’ he said, pretending to mull it over. Then he nodded. ‘I approve. As long as you promise to call me Lord William, and to bow each time you see me.’

‘My Lord,’ I said, dropping into an elaborate curtsey. Rising, I saw his smile, just before it faltered and we fell into silence. We both looked away, casting about for something to say to prolong the meeting, and with a sinking heart I remembered my arrangement with Miss Peters.

‘I have to go. Although I would have loved to stand here all afternoon, even in this faintly awkward silence.’ Turning it into a joke made it a little easier, at least, and he was surprised into a laugh. ‘Thank you so much for the sweet gift,’ I added, my voice a little softer. I wanted him to know I meant it, that I wasn’t merely being polite.

His smile slipped, leaving his expression defiantly hopeful. ‘I’ll never make one for anyone else.’

‘Good. I’m glad.’ I looked at him for a long moment, and then, obeying an instinct deeper than both etiquette and good sense, I stepped close and placed a quick kiss on the edge of his mouth. I paused, then said, ‘I have a feeling I’m going to miss you, Will Davies. Why is that, do you suppose?’

‘Because I’m irresistible?’

I smiled. ‘Have a lovely spring, I’ll be thinking of you. And when the new scullery maid starts in a week or two just make sure you’re not too irresistible.’ I briefly wondered at my own boldness, at both the kiss and the implication behind my words, but it was an exhilarating feeling nevertheless, and the look on his face told me it was not unwelcome. When I left him standing there I was determined not to look back, but felt the weight of his gaze between my shoulder blades like a warm hand, and the smile on my face made people glance twice at me and give me quizzical little smiles in return. But it was with Will that my mind stayed from that moment on.

Those two months felt like two years. The London Creswells were charming company, and the house magnificent, but it wasn’t Oaklands. In the same way, there had been plenty of potential suitors, many of them handsome enough, all without a doubt extremely wealthy, and some of them even amusing, but there had been no Will Davies among them. Not one of them made me smile the way he did, or caused my chest to flutter the way his touch had. I arrived back at Breckenhall on a warm day in the middle of May, and would have loved to have found some reason to wander around the town, and past Frank Markham’s shop window a few times, but the train had been delayed so we were late arriving. At least I was back in the same town, and might see Will at any time, and I would have to be content with that for now.

Uncle Jack, who wasn’t my uncle at all but an old friend of my deceased father, was dressed in his usual casual clothes that we both knew would make Mother wince, and it cheered me so much to see him that disappointment was pushed to the to the back of my mind. My attention was taken up, for the moment, with the opportunity to put some of those clandestine driving lessons into practice: here was Uncle Jack in his marvellous motor, and no Mother to put her foot firmly down on the fun. But he was not to be moved.

‘Absolutely not. Your mother would never allow me to set foot in the house again if anyone were to see you. And as for what she would do to you, well –’

‘Then we shall keep each other’s secret.’

‘We shall do nothing of the sort. And you don’t know how to drive anyway.’

‘Oh, don’t I?’ I couldn’t help grinning.

‘Evie …’

‘For your information, Uncle Jack, I’ve been driving a good deal whilst in London.’

‘Why did you have to tell me that?’ he groaned. ‘Now I can’t pretend any more that I’d no idea.’

‘You knew?’

‘I’d heard. But if your mother knew she’d have you confined to your rooms until you turn sixty.’

‘Then it’s a good thing I know you won’t tell her,’ I said, though with less certainty than hope. ‘Besides,’ I went on, eyeing him up and down, ‘someone who dresses as you do can’t possibly tell tales to my mother and expect them to be believed.’

‘What’s wrong with the way I dress?’

‘Honestly, you never wear the right clothes! It’s why I love you, of course.’

I stopped as we reached the car, and stared in surprise. A girl of around my own age sat huddled in the back, looking at me with wide blue eyes, and a terrified look on her face.

I wasn’t quite sure what to say, but I had to say something, if only to make the poor girl feel better. ‘Hello, whoever you are! Uncle Jack, have you been out collecting waifs and strays, or are you going to tell me this is your latest conquest?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, you should know who this is, she works for you after all. In fact I’m taking her back to work now.’

I frowned, looking again at the girl. ‘I’ve never seen you before, and I do know the staff rather well, unlike my mother.’

‘I’m n-new. I’ve only been at Oaklands for two months.’ She must be the new scullery maid. Her voice was soft, a little husky-sounding, and had a very rustic accent.

‘Well then.’ I turned back to Uncle Jack in triumph. ‘You see? For all your disapproval, this girl began work after I’d already left for London.’ I looked at the girl again. ‘You’re very pretty, but you’re a skinny thing. We must make sure Mrs Hannah feeds you up. What’s your name?’

‘Mar…Lizzy.’

She’d been about to say Mary, which must have been her real name, but she’d have been made to change that, of course, since our housemaid was called Mary. ‘Mare Lizzy?’ I deliberately misunderstood, smiling. The smile faded as I considered that the girl might well find an audience for her escapades today, and that word would almost certainly get back to Mother. I should nip rumour in the bud now.

‘Well, Mare Lizzy, I know how words are thrown around in the kitchens, and when they’re caught they’re often fumbled. I’d hate for anyone to be under the mistaken impression I’d gone against my mother’s wishes whilst in London.’