The Secret Orphan
A division of HarperCollins Publishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk
HarperImpulse
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Glynis Peters 2018
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover photograph ©Stephen Mulcahey (girl), Fox Photos/Stringer/Getty Images (background)
Glynis Peters asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of 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, down-loaded, 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.
Source ISBN: 9780008300951
Ebook Edition © November 2018 ISBN: 9780008300944
Version: 2019-12-06
For my grandchildren
Finley – my handsome Canadian Bear Cub
Seren, and Palin, my beautiful English roses
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Elenor and Rose’s Story
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
1941
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
1942
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
14th November 1940: Coventry, England.
Boom.
Boom.
The ground vibrated with each explosion. Unfamiliar sounds surrounded Rose Sherbourne as her body received blow after blow from displaced items of furniture. She jumped when shattering glass hit falling bricks, and everything around her crashed under their weight. Boom.
Another explosion, followed by the sound of metal hitting metal, echoed out around Rose’s ears and her breath came thick and fast. Through the opening of what was once the front room, a sudden blast of hot air blew both her and her mother off their feet. Rose’s body fell against something hard and a searing pain shot through her back. For a few seconds she could not see, and she blinked, only to feel fine dust fall on her cheeks and into her eyes yet again. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and prepared herself to scrabble upright.
Boom.
A wall fell around her and, unable to move both with fear and because something was pinning down her right leg, Rose took a moment to catch her breath. Above her an intense whistling sound screamed from the sky, followed by an eerie whooshing sound. A continuous whistle followed. Rose held her breath. The sound meant only one thing; another bomb would explode within seconds and all she could do was pray it was away from her home.
Boom.
The rest of the wall fell, and she watched helplessly as brick after brick fell to the floor and her mother’s body bounced as it was forced into the air for a second time. Rose tried to move but she felt a crushing sensation, a gripping tightness across her chest. She tried to struggle free from the bricks pinning her to the ground. Her chest hurt each time she tried to cough free the dust she’d inhaled when she hit the floor.
A piercing sound screeched above and once again the planes dropped their unwelcome packages.
Thud.
Thud.
One by one.
Two by two.
Rose counted them down.
One by one.
Two by two.
She could hear return fire and engines drifting off into the distance.
The sky fell silent.
The enemy were heading back to wherever they’d come from and a stunned Rose blinked away the dust, trying to make sense of what had happened. Indescribable noises came from above and she raised her eyes skyward and saw a large bright moon taunting her with its white light. There was no roof.
Bombed. The bombs had hit her home.
Rose’s ears tingled inside and with each noise she felt a strange vibration along her jawline. With focus upon her face she sensed heat. Her cheeks burned as if it was a hot summer’s day.
There’d been a thick frost all day, but it did nothing to suppress the heat from the raging flames nearby. With relief, Rose noted they were not close enough to burn her, but they were fierce enough to make her skin tingle and sweat.
She set her mind to where she lay and which room she was in when the bombs had hit. She needed to work out an escape route before she suffocated. Fear raged through her tiny body, and a sense of loneliness overwhelmed her. She lay back with exhaustion and as she focused upon the light of the moon, questions raced around her mind.
Why hadn’t Mummy taken her to the shelter when they heard the siren sound out its warning?
Why, instead of running to safety like they usually did, did Mummy hum Rose’s favourite piano piece – Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata – and twirl around as if showing off a new dress? She’d acted excited – strange.
With a sob, Rose remembered how her mother had screamed at her to keep playing, and how her voice had growled it out with such a fierce urgency it had frightened Rose. When Rose pleaded for them to go to the shelter her mother cuffed her around the ears.
Rose’s body started to tremble until she thought her limbs would never stop no matter how hard she tried to control them. She tried to shut out the screams she could hear around her. High pitched wails of wounded neighbours. The endless shouts and pleas from the street, the screams of other children calling for their parents. Not everyone had made it to the shelters, or if they had, the shelters had failed to protect them. Either way, Rose drew no comfort from knowing she was not alone with her struggle.
She tried to turn her head away from her mother’s contorted face. Rose knew she was dead. A tear trickled down the side of Rose’s face. She was alone.
Eventually, after what seemed like many lonely hours of trying, she released an arm and began clawing at bricks and rubble. Her cries for help were suffocated by the louder voices and frantic sounds of motor engines and fire-engine bells. Rose recoiled at the pain when she scraped her skin against the shards of shattered glass and cement, but after a while she ignored the pain of bruises and gashes in her skin out of sheer desperation to survive.
When she pulled at the last of the bricks, nothing prepared her for the moment she clambered free into devastation and despair.
The moonlight lit the path for a man as he staggered past calling out a woman’s name. He gave Rose a glance, shook his head, and she saw pouring blood running from a gaping hole in his forehead. She turned away and looked across at what she assumed was once the other side of their street but was now nothing more than rubble heaps and bonfires. Seated on an upturned tin bath, she saw a woman screaming into what looked like a ragdoll lying limp in her arms. She pleaded for it to come back to life.
Rose started towards the woman, she wanted to tell her that ragdolls weren’t real and that the woman needed to go somewhere safe, but she took no more than four steps when a noise from behind distracted her. Confused and bewildered, Rose turned around and stumbled back to the hollow she’d made for herself. She called through the opening.
‘Mummy? Mummy? It’s all right, I’m coming. I’ll help you.’
She tugged at the obstacles in her way. Furniture and twisted pipes, hissing in the night air hampered her movements. Her hands bled and burned against hot bricks and pipes. She inhaled air which dried her mouth with ash. And then, despite wanting to save her mother, she sighed with bittersweet relief when a fireman lifted her to safety.
‘Come on love, let’s get you seen to. You’re safe now, little one.’ His husky voice sounded tired.
‘Put me down. Please, go and get Mummy. She’s under the bricks. I need you to save her. Her name is Victoria.’ Rose begged and squirmed in his arms.
The fireman pulled her closer to his body, running. He paid little heed to her high-pitched pleas, and after they turned a corner, Rose never saw Stephenson Road, or her mother again.
Rose called out and tried to pound the chest of the fireman but the pain in her hands brought about only more screams.
Even the violet-perfumed, comforting arms of a plump lady from the Women’s Voluntary Service did nothing to stop the trembling and terrors which surged through her body. The woman crooned words of comfort as she carried Rose to a makeshift medical tent, and stroked her head before unhooking Rose’s gasmask from around her neck. Rose could smell the difference between her and the nurse who dressed her wounds.
The slightest hint of perfume from violets or the smell of disinfectant could still take her back to that night, even now, after seventy-eight years.
23rd November 2018
Wartime nightmares and memories often caught up with Rose during her afternoon naps, and she jerked herself awake from this latest one. She wiped away a thin layer of sweat from her top lip, and despite feeling warm, she shivered and pulled her cardigan around her. Her knees creaked as she rose from her chair and shuffled into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she sat and remembered telling the woman her name and calling for Elenor.
‘Elenor. I want Elenor.’
‘Hush now, little one. We’ll find Mummy and your sister. You rest now.’
‘Elenor is not my sister. She’s on the farm. Mummy’s not coming back. I want Elenor.’
She remembered hearing the woman arrange for a cot-bed and blanket to be placed in the corner of the tent whilst she sought a place for Rose to stay until the rest of her family were found. Rose had tried to tell her she had no family and her daddy had died a long time ago, but the woman told her to rest. She’d lain there, clutching the wooden-framed photograph of her and her parents. The fireman who had rescued her brought it to the tent and Rose overheard him telling the nurse it was all that was left of her home and family.
The recollection of the cries of pain that had echoed around the tent, followed by the hushed voices of men taking away those who had not survived the night, never left Rose. One vivid memory was of how she had lain on the bed praying in hope she was not alone in the world. For the first time in her life, at nearly seven years old, Rose understood the pain of war and loss. She understood Elenor’s fears when the war was first declared, fears her mother brushed aside as a young woman’s hysterics.
A sob caught in Rose’s throat. She missed Elenor, the woman who’d given up her dreams to ensure Rose had a secure future.
For the first few years of her life, Rose knew Elenor more as a big sister than as the employer of her parents; or at least the niece of her mother’s employer. She’d filled Rose’s life with fun and laughter, and even today – 23rd November 2018 – on Rose’s eighty-fifth birthday, memories of birthday party fun were only of those which Elenor had arranged. Her parents had never bothered to celebrate her special day.
Food shortages and rationing were never obstacles for Elenor, and as Rose prepared to meet her own beloved children for a birthday feast, she smiled. Their vibrancy and love of life was passed on by her, but she’d only learned to live again thanks to the love of her adoptive parents.
In her bedroom Rose pulled on her favourite navy dress; a classic style in wool with the zip front for easy wear. She reached into her jewellery box and pulled out the piece which was known as her birthday gem. It was not an expensive piece but Elenor had designed it, and to Rose it was invaluable. It was a Celtic knot with a small maple leaf sitting in the centre and a rosebud resting in the middle of the leaf. There was also a small inscription on the back, C to C to C. This inscription connected her to the places she was born and brought up. Coventry, the town of her birth, Cornwall, her childhood home until she was nearly nine, and Canada, the country which had embraced and nurtured her through her last stages as a child, into her teenage and adult years. Sixty-four years had passed since the day she unwrapped the pewter brooch from her adoptive parents, Elenor and Jackson, for her twenty-first birthday.
Today, Rose cursed her arthritic hands as she fumbled with the clasp, her swollen knuckles screaming old age. Once set in place, she stroked her finger over the fretwork and was transported back to the day she’d received it and of how her parents had created a treasure trail for her to follow, ending in Elenor’s battered suitcase.
She glanced with affection at the case which now nestled in the corner of her bedroom; she’d refused to part with it even after Elenor had died. She remembered seeing Elenor arrive in Coventry carrying it and filling it with her papers to take back to Cornwall. It still housed paper memories of lives well lived. It also housed a letter which held the truth about Rose’s past life, and why Elenor had chosen to leave Britain and move to Canada. A secret Elenor had kept for so many years. A secret that had saved Rose’s life.
Chapter 2
‘Happy birthday, Mom!’
The doors of Rose’s small home burst open and her family filled the silent room with their laughter and birthday greetings. Hugs and kisses were showered upon her in abundance. Floral bouquets were thrust at her from all angles and Rose felt the love flow from each of her children and her three grandchildren who stood before her, and her heart swelled with pride.
‘You guys will be the death of me! And you, you are stronger than you look, Abraham. Snowboarding suits you. Come champ, give me another hug, but be gentle this time.’
The room erupted with laughter and shouts of affectionate banter and teasing. She held open her arms for the youngest of her grandchildren. At six-foot tall he overshadowed her by several feet, and his body was that of an athlete. As he gave her the hug she’d demanded and gripped her tight, she had another pang of nostalgia. She thought of the last time her biological father had waved her goodbye. He’d given her no loving hug farewell, no warm memories for her to hold close on a dark night while Hitler’s bombs fell around them. She realised with a stab to her heart that he and her mother had left behind only questions and cold memories. She could never recall their love.
Her teenage granddaughters found a corner of the sofa and began clicking away on their mobile phones, capturing the moment to share with whomever would be interested. Rose forgave them their modern ways. Any form of communication was a good one. They always remembered her and brought her joy. Her grandson perched on the window ledge quietly cursing his cousins each time they snapped his way. Rose fussed around her sons and daughter, offering an enthusiastic thank you for the presents heaped upon her. They in turn delighted in her expressions of gratitude as she opened each parcel, folding the paper and ribbon with care. A habit from a lifetime of going without, Rose kept many items to recycle.
‘Thank you all. You spoil me. Now, I’m famished and could eat a …’
‘Carrot, Mother?’ Her daughter quipped. And once again laughter filled the room. The joke referred to her small appetite, and the fact she’d overeaten carrots during the war and could no longer face eating them.
The banter and laughter continued throughout the family meal in Rose’s favourite restaurant.
‘You don’t appreciate half of what you have,’ Rose said when plates were pushed aside and bellies declared full.
‘You’ve never really told us much about your time during the war, Mom,’ her eldest son responded.
Rose sipped a glass of cool water.
‘There’s too much to tell, and some things are so unpleasant they need to remain buried in the past. I’ve told you about Coventry, my home, the death of my parents. That’s one lifetime of darkness and confusion, lit only by your grandma and Pops Jackson.’
‘I wonder what Gran was like when she was young,’ her daughter said.
Rose sighed.
‘I only remember her from when I was about five, the year before the Second World War started. My memories before that are all a little foggy. I can remember her brothers died and that she returned to the farm. She loved it, but not them. They were cruel to her. She missed her boyfriend, your grandfather – Pops. I think he’d returned to Canada and left Coventry. Her Aunt Maude had died; she’d been my parents’ employer, and we stayed in her house until the night it was bombed to the ground. Then I went to live in Cornwall with Elenor, who adopted me and the rest is your history.’
Everyone around the table nodded or muttered their agreement.
‘Tell us more, Mom.’
Their corner of the restaurant was empty aside from their long table, and Rose’s family sat back in their seats indicating interest in her tale. Rose rarely opened up about her past, but she’d caught their attention. Even her granddaughters stopped taking selfies and pouting out their smiles to listen.
She looked at their faces, all eyes turned her way, waiting, anticipating what happened next in her story.
‘One of Elenor’s birthdays, I remember. My birth mother, Victoria, made a cake. She wouldn’t have bothered if I hadn’t worn her down and Aunt Maude hadn’t insisted. My mother never expressed joy over birthdays. In fact, I don’t even know when my own parents were born. How about that? Their papers disappeared in the bombings, and the only birthdays I remember are mine and your grandparents’.’
‘Ah, a cake for a birthday in the war must have cheered everyone up though, Mom’.
‘Oh, it did, and I’d learned to play a tune on the piano, and your gran sang songs with me. She had a beautiful voice. It was a very low-key party, nothing like today’s affairs, but oh the joy we shared. I remember for my birthday I used to love receiving a new pencil, or a notepad …’
‘Wow, they had notepads back then?’ her grandson asked.
‘Not the sort you know, son. The paper ones are what Gran’s referring to, not electrical.’
‘Oh, right. Really? You got excited over a paper book?’ he said.
‘I did. We had very little back than and expected very little. Each gift was gratefully received and treasured.’
‘Hence the old battered suitcase full of wrapping paper and string.’ Her daughter laughed, teasing her mother with a longstanding family joke. When Elenor had passed away, they’d found wrapping paper they’d used on gifts to her for years, all neatly folded in a drawer, and Rose wouldn’t allow them to throw it away, but instead put it with her private papers in Elenor’s case.
Rose grinned at them all. ‘You have all the gadgets, and shelves full of treats but how would you cope without them? Or what if you could no longer buy soda and chocolate?’
‘I’d die,’ her youngest granddaughter declared with a dramatic sigh.
Rose looked at them all and gave a slow nod.
‘Many did die over shortages such as soda and chocolate. Merchant ships were sunk and the service men and women died to get any types of food to us, and we still went without.’ She said. ‘I was luckier than most due to the farm in Cornwall. Thank goodness for the kind heart of Elenor, or I could have been in an orphanage and not had the pleasures of limited foodstuffs and fresh air.’
A silence fell around the table, and Rose let her words linger in their thoughts. She had no intention of lecturing them, but felt it was good to remind them of how much in the way of material goods they were lucky enough to enjoy.
‘Anyone for another drink? No? I’ll call for the bill then.’ Rose’s eldest son said, and she watched him walk away from the table. The rest of the family shuffled in their seats.
‘Thank you all for a wonderful day. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable with my war talk.’
‘Hey Gran, no. We mustn’t forget that stuff. We learn it at school and forget you were part of it all. Besides, we love that you enjoy everything we give you, right down to the pretty ribbon on a gift. It’s kinda cool.’