Free Far From Home by Ellie Dean Page B

had withered, and Peggy couldn’t help but notice the dark shadows under her eyes.
    ‘But everything’s all right, isn’t it?’ she persisted.
    Cissy’s smile was a little too bright. ‘Of course, why shouldn’t it be?’
    ‘I just wondered.’ Peggy was alerted by that false smile. Something was definitely wrong with her youngest daughter. ‘It can’t be easy working with a new troupe and a new manager. This latest schedule of shows seems awfully hectic, and you’re looking tired, darling.’
    Cissy avoided her mother’s eyes as she drank the tea. ‘It’s hectic, yes, but if I want to make a name in this business I have to be prepared for hard work.’ She put the cup back in the saucer and pushed away from the table, still avoiding Peggy’s gaze. ‘I hope the water hasn’t been turned off. I need a bath after cleaning all those costumes.’
    ‘The mains can’t have been hit last night; there’s plenty of water. But that doesn’t mean you can fill the tub to the top and lounge about in there half the morning,’ replied Peggy. ‘There’s housework and shopping to do and, with Nurse Brown arriving today, I want to give her and Danuta’s room a good clean.’
    Cissy rolled her eyes. ‘I’m exhausted, Mum. Housework is the last thing on my mind.’
    ‘I expect it is, but that doesn’t mean you can get away with ignoring it. I expect you back down here within the half-hour,’ said Peggy.
    Cissy scowled, grabbed her cardigan and slung it over her shoulders then, without another word, left the kitchen.
    Peggy heard her light footsteps on the stairs, and the slam of the bathroom door. She couldn’t ignore it any longer, she realised. There was definitely something not right with Cissy. The change had come about when Jack Witherspoon had persuaded her and Jim to let her join the small troupe of entertainers he managed. It had meant a bit of travelling, but that was what Cissy had wanted, and it was obvious by the hectic timetable of shows that the troupe was doing rather well. Peggy had initially put the edginess and short temper down to the long hours Cissy worked, but now she suspected it went deeper than that, and it worried her.
    Anne broke into her thoughts. ‘I must say, Cissy could have shown a bit more enthusiasm over my news. Perhaps it’s because she thinks becoming an aunt will make her feel old?’
    Peggy buried the anxiety and patted Anne’s hand. ‘She’s probably a bit tired after prancing about on a stage and spending half the night in a shelter. I’m sure when the news sinks in she’ll be as enthusiastic as the rest of us.’
    She pushed back from the table and began to clear the dishes. If there was one thing she knew for certain about her youngest daughter, it was that she found it impossible to keep things to herself. At some point in the busy day she had ahead of her, Peggy was determined to find the time to sit her down and find out just what it was that was worrying her.
    The bombing raid had left several long sections of railway line impassable, and the final leg of Polly’s journey to Cliffehaven had proved as difficult and frustrating as the rest of it. She’d lugged her bags off the train and on to one of the buses that had been provided to get her to the next station, only to have to repeat the exhausting process once again within a few miles of her destination.
    When the bus finally set her down outside Cliffehaven station, she wanted nothing more than to rest and have a cup of tea. But even that was proving impossible, for the station buffet was shut and there was no sign of a welcoming WVS canteen.
    The gulls shrieked and circled overhead as she looked down the steep hill of what appeared to be Cliffehaven’s main street to where the sea glittered at the bottom. She had only been to the seaside once before, her parents taking her and her sister to some tiny bay in Wales. She’d been eight or nine, and she remembered huddling beneath a big umbrella each day in