‘I know exactly what she likes and doesn’t like.’ Holly grinned. ‘We’ve been through her whole daily routine at least a dozen times. Now, downstairs with you!’

The family stood on the steps and waved goodbye until the happy couple had disappeared from view.

‘I think those two are going to be very happy together,’ Emma said contentedly as she leaned back into her husband’s chest.

He nodded in agreement. ‘I think you’re right, almost as happy as us.’ He grinned.

Emma blushed as she glanced towards Holly and her father. ‘Er … as it happens we’ve got a bit of good news to share with you too. At least we hope you’ll think it’s good news! We didn’t want to take the shine off Ivy and Marcus’s day so we thought we’d wait to tell you after they’d left but …’ She glanced at Walter for reassurance and when he smiled and nodded she rushed on, ‘The thing is … and I know this is mad because I’m not going to see forty again but … well me and Walter have just found out that we’re going to have a baby.’

‘A baby!’ Holly and her grandfather looked shocked then overjoyed.

‘Why, how wonderful, when is it due?’ Holly screeched excitedly.

‘We think it might be a Christmas baby,’ Emma told her and somehow the news was the perfect end to a perfect day.

Chapter Fifty-Two

December 1918

‘There will be another group of eight patients arriving later this afternoon, Nurse Farthing,’ the matron informed Holly.

Holly nodded. ‘Yes, Matron, more prisoners of war?’

‘I’m afraid so, there should have been eleven of them this time but the captain of the hospital ship has sent word to inform me that three of the poor souls did not survive the journey.’

‘Very well, I shall see that their beds are ready for them,’ Holly answered efficiently.

The last few years had been busy ones for Holly and she was now a fully qualified nurse and the matron’s right hand. It had been extremely hard work fitting in her training and working at the hospital as well but somehow she had managed it, although she’d had to sacrifice a lot of visits home, because any spare time she’d had had been spent studying. But it was done now and she felt that it had all been worth it, although she hadn’t decided as yet what she would do when this military hospital was no longer needed and was handed back to its rightful owners. She had toyed with the idea of getting a place in a hospital nearer to home so she could spend more time with her adorable little brother Alfred, or Alfie as he was affectionately known, and with Ivy’s latest addition to the family, a little girl called Lucy. Only months before she had stood as godmother to Lucy in the church where Ivy and Marcus had been married and it had been yet another wonderful day. More good news had come soon after, when the war had finally come to an end. Now the patients they were receiving were mainly prisoners of war who had been rescued from the camps and the terrible condition most of them were in when they arrived was testament to what they had suffered at the hands of the Germans. They were generally lice-ridden and so emaciated and weak that they couldn’t even stand. Others were suffering from the effects of poisonous gas, which meant that all the nursing staff could do was make them as comfortable as possible until their inevitable end. Once they had breathed the gas and the lungs had been affected there was little that could be done for them.