‘Sit down, Margaret. Let yourself absorb this terrible news. Are you feeling unwell yourself? You seem to have lost a lot of weight, when you could ill afford to lose any.’

Backing into the chair behind her, Mags tried to control the shaking of her limbs.

‘You’ve never spoken of the horrors you must have witnessed in Belgium. I thought you had recovered from them, but something has knocked you back. At the winter ball, with your nice young man by your side – Harold, that’s his name, isn’t it?’ Mags nodded. ‘You seemed your old self. But since returning from your stay at his home, I have seen a change in you each time I have visited your mother.’

Something had indeed knocked Mags back. Something that gave her nightmares. Memories flooded her mind: the war, meeting and forming a strong friendship with the lovely Flora and Ella as they set out, three young girls full of courage and yet needing each other’s support. Then learning how Flora was rejected by her family, and Ella abandoned by hers. And seeing Flora’s happiness as her brother Harold had begun to show her a little affection, and how this had led to Mags meeting Harold herself, and being swept off her feet by him. But then . . . the awful events that led to the image that haunted Mags – seeing Harold and Flora’s mother sprawled on the floor, her head smashed on the fender . . .

Without her wanting it to happen, Mags’s bottom lip quivered, and stinging tears begged to be released. She looked up into Dr Lange’s kindly face. His words had triggered the memories, and as she let in the full horror of what had happened, other wounds opened. Images of her wartime experience flashed before her – the sweating face of the German soldier as he raped her; she could still hear his triumphant grunting, and the cheering of his fellow soldiers as they egged him on; but above their chants, the screams of Flors, dear Flors, as she fought against another of the lusting soldiers. How can I ever recover from that? Or from the constant stream of faces of wounded and dying men, who seem to be drowning in a sea of blood?

‘Margaret? Margaret?’

Her father’s desperate voice penetrated the horrific memory. She looked up at him and saw an old man. A fearful, fragile old man – both her parents had been middle-aged when she, their only child, had been born twenty-four years ago, but never before had she noticed them getting old. Yes, she’d taken more and more responsibility for running the family mill over the last few months, and had enjoyed doing so, feeling grateful that, despite their age, her parents had been forward-thinking and hadn’t felt that a daughter was incapable of having a business head. But she hadn’t viewed that responsibility as Father delegating because he could no longer cope. Now she did see that, and it came as a painful realization.