The Lost English Girl

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.CLICK HERE TO SIGN UPAlready a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox. For Arthur Viv January 16, 1935On the morning of her wedding, Viv Byrne cried.It should have been simple. All she had to do was keep her head down, walk into the registry office, and say the words that would make her Mrs. Joshua Levinson. Then everything would be okay, just like Joshua promised.However, sitting in her pearl-gray dress, none of it felt that simple.Her bedroom door opened, and she met her sister’s eyes in the mirror.“Are you all right?” Kate asked.Viv let her gaze shift to her own reflection. She hardly recognized the eighteen-year-old woman staring back at her with tear tracks streaking down red cheeks. She’d never thought of herself as particularly pretty—not like Kate, whose bright smile could illuminate half of Liverpool—but now she felt puffy, dowdy, and tired. Slow tears began to trickle down her face again.“Oh, Vivie,” Kate sighed, closing the door behind her. “Don’t cry. Remember, this is a good thing.”Viv nodded, miserable. Yes, this wedding was a good thing—one she wanted—but it wasn’t exactly as though she had a choice.Kate placed her hand on Viv’s shoulder. “Just think, soon you’ll have your own home. You’ll be able to decide who you do your shopping with. You’ll be able to choose your laundry day.” Her sister leaned in, a mischievous smile on her face. “You’ll be able to play the wireless whenever you like.”Viv gave a watery laugh.“That’s my Vivie,” murmured Kate. “Now, let’s put your hat on.”Her sister brushed Viv’s thick, light brown curls and then carefully placed the little gray hat on the crown of her head and pinned it into place.“There,” Kate announced. “You look perfect.”“I don’t feel perfect.”Kate clucked her tongue. “Have you been ill?”Viv shook her head.“Lucky you. I was sick as a dog with Colin and William,” said Kate.“But not Cora,” said Viv, as her sister fished around in her good black leather bag and pulled out a tube of lipstick.Kate applied red to her Cupid’s bow. “Well, Cora’s always been a doll.”Viv couldn’t help but smile at the thought of her golden-haired niece.“Maybe I’ll start wearing lipstick when I’m married,” she said.Kate capped the tube with a grin. “That’s the spirit. Just make it through today, and you’ll be free of Mum’s rules.”No matter how much her mother disapproved of this wedding, Edith Byrne wouldn’t be able to control a married daughter no longer living under her roof.“Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?” Kate asked.Viv, who had stood to begin collecting her things, froze with one arm in her navy coat.“Vivie…?”Finally, she whispered, “No one’s asked me that.”Kate’s lips twisted. “We’ve all made this awful for you, haven’t we?”“Mum and Dad were never going to approve. Mum especially.”Growing up, theirs had been a house of rules. Go to church. Only speak to the people Mum approved of. Never do anything “common.”Viv had always struggled to follow the rules to the T. She went to church every Sunday, but rarely did a service go by without Mum jabbing her in the side to stop her from daydreaming. Viv had started to work at sixteen, but not as a nurse as Kate had done but rather in a postal office, where Viv might meet any manner of girl. She was getting married, but only because she’d fallen pregnant.“Mum and Dad will soften as soon as they have another grandchild.” Kate hugged her. “You’re going to make a wonderful mother.”“Thank you,” she whispered into her sister’s neck.“Now, are you ready?” Kate asked.Viv looked around the childhood bedroom the sisters had shared until Kate married. Never again would it be home. She and Joshua would live in the flat above his family’s shop, just as soon as the tenants left. She would need to find a new greengrocer, butcher, and baker to do all of her shopping. She wondered whether Joshua would want to keep kosher as his parents did.Panic clawed at her throat. She should know a detail like that, but she hadn’t even met her future in-laws.“Whatever it is you’re thinking, stop it,” said Kate, taking on a firmer tone than she had with Viv all day. “It won’t do you any good.”“You’re right. You’re right.” She lifted her chin and, with a confidence she did not feel, said, “I’m ready.”The sisters made their way down the creaking stairs to the entryway of their parents’ house. In the lounge, which was hardly ever used, sat Dad in a somber suit, his hands braced on either knee. Mum, small and stout, perched on the edge of the floral sofa that was her pride and joy. No one wore smiles in this room.Kate’s husband, Sam, peeled off the entryway wall and reached for his wife as soon as Kate passed. Kate leaned into him, and Viv wished that she had someone to do the same.“Right.” Dad rose and crossed the sitting room to join them. “Best have it over and done with.”Mum stood and straightened the hem of her charcoal suit jacket. Viv thought maybe she’d escaped her mother’s scrutiny, but Mum’s gaze fell on her stomach and then cut away. Then, sure as clockwork, Mum touched a handkerchief to her eyes.“A daughter of mine married, and not even in white. I never thought after Flora…”Viv clutched her handbag’s handle a little harder. Flora, Viv’s aunt, was the family cautionary tale. The beloved sister who fell for a Protestant man who up and left as soon as Flora told him she was pregnant, condemning her to a hard life and