Holly sighed and forced a few spoonfuls down and, satisfied that she had at least made an effort, Ivy carried the tray back down to the kitchen leaving Holly sitting in the chair by the window staring vacantly at the grey, overcast sky.

Although she had only gone home the day before, Emma was back mid-afternoon to check on her.

‘Walter was saying at lunchtime that they’re going to turn Weddington Hall into a hospital for injured servicemen,’ she told her daughter. ‘And I was thinking that if you insist on going back to work when you’re well enough you could perhaps consider working there? At least I wouldn’t be fretting about you all the time if I knew you were a little closer. What do you think?’

Holly shrugged. She didn’t want to think about anything at the moment. It was as if she was trapped inside a little bubble of relentless pain.

And then suddenly, quite out of the blue two weeks later, something happened that gave them all heart again. Emma came bounding in one morning with a smile that lit up the room, waving a telegram.

‘Ivy! Where’s Ivy? I must speak to her straight away.’

Holly and her grandfather, who was reading the newspaper to her, frowned. ‘She was in the kitchen feeding Alice the last time I saw her,’ Gilbert told her but before Emma could leave the room Ivy appeared in the doorway with Alice perched on her hip.

‘Did I hear my name?’

‘Oh my darling, darling girl. The most wonderful, wonderful thing has happened.’ Emma was so excited that she could barely get her words out. ‘This telegram came this morning. Marcus is alive! He’s in a military hospital in Plymouth.’

Ivy stood staring at her, her face impassive, wondering if this was some sort of cruel joke. But then it slowly dawned on her that Emma would never be like that and her face slowly crumpled as tears of joy fell from her eyes. ‘Are you quite sure? There can’t have been a mistake can there?’

Emma shook her head. ‘There’s no mistake, I promise you. Apparently he was injured in battle but managed to drag himself to the side of the field where a French family found him and gave him shelter until he could be safely moved to a field hospital. Unfortunately his eye had become very infected by then and the doctors had no option but to remove it and then he was kept there until he was well enough to be shipped home. Walter has already spoken to the matron at the hospital in Plymouth but … well, I have to tell you … Marcus has suffered a breakdown as well as being blind in one eye.’

‘But he’s alive!’ Ivy cried joyously as she swung Alice into the air. ‘When can we go and see him?’ she asked next. The fact that he might never be the man she had seen march off to war again didn’t seem to bother her at all. He was alive and that was all that mattered and to her it was a miracle.