The Secret Orphan
Elenor Cardew is no stranger to hardship. Forced to work the farm by her two drunken brothers, she escapes to Coventry before World War Two to live with her Aunt Maude, a stern older lady who quickly comes to care deeply for her. Working for Aunt Maude are George and Victoria Sherbourne, a strange couple who seem not to love their daughter, Rose. While in Coventry Elenor meets and falls in love with Canadian pilot Jackson St. John, but on Maude’s death, Elenor moves back to the farm where she was born.
Rose Sherbourne is injured in the wartime bombing of Coventry. Her mother is killed in the same raid, and her father has been killed in the London Blitz. Rose prays that she is not alone in the world, and she cries out for her friend Elenor. However, Elenor is many miles away, on her farm in Cornwall.
The injured Rose is sent to live with Elenor, now sole owner of her family farm. She is making a success of it with the help of two other women and a shepherd. Life on the farm is busy but happy until a discontented worker and a German prisoner-of-war combine to betray Rose’s secret. Elenor loves Rose like a daughter, but betrayal could mean Rose’s forced removal to another country.
This is a pleasant novel of good people helping each other through the difficulties of life in wartime. The bad people who could upset the tenor of life and cause disaster are described in such a way that the reader has no unsettling surprises. The details of farm life are vivid and accurate, and the easy friendship of the women working together makes this novel a pleasure to read.
