Together for Christmas Read Free

embraced him, quickly stepping aside for Hilda to kiss his cheek.
    ‘You’re late,’ Hilda scolded. She took one of Will’s arms and Flora took his other. ‘But we forgive you.’
    ‘A baker’s life is a temperamental one, girls, as I’ve told you before.’ Will’s deep blue eyes twinkled in his extremely pasty face. ‘If the bread bakes limp
or the bagels go square, the apprentice is brought back by the scruff of his neck and stood over the boiling ovens again.’
    ‘I’ve never seen a square bagel,’ said Hilda sceptically.
    ‘And as for limp bread – well, whoever bakes limp bread should be prosecuted!’ Flora grinned as Will assumed a hurt expression.
    ‘There’s no sympathy likely from these quarters, I can tell,’ complained Will, but all the same, Flora felt his elbow squeeze tight over her arm as they began to stroll
along.
    ‘We’ll forgive you for making us wait,’ Hilda decided, ‘just as long as you buy us an ice cream.’
    ‘I’ll buy you two,’ Will replied keenly. ‘Or three, if you like.’
    Both girls stopped still. Flora’s jaw dropped and she said, ‘Have you come into money?’
    ‘No, but I’ve worked my socks off in those stifling kitchens. Can’t you see the bags of exhaustion under my eyes?’
    ‘Rubbish! Your skin is as soft as a baby’s!’ exclaimed Hilda, unsympathetically. She thrust her hand through Will’s shining cap of hair. As they spun away, teasing each
other, Flora sat on a nearby bench to watch their playful larks. They scrambled like children around the tall plane trees and over the green grass, just as they had in the orphanage yard. But their
only space then had been a barren quarter-acre of patchy grass, kicked muddy in winter and sand-dry in summer. Over their playground had loomed the convent of St Boniface. Its many bleak windows
and draughty passages wound like a maze through the building’s vast interior. Unlike Hilda, Flora had always been comforted by the sight of the rows of shiny wooden benches and fingers of
chalk attached by string to squares of slate in the freezing-cold classrooms. She had been grateful for the chance to better herself. The sweet scent of incense creeping in clouds from the chapel
had sent Flora eagerly to Mass, whilst Hilda had done her best to escape it. Flora sighed, lost in thought. The scenes of their childhood were as clear in her mind today as they were all those
years ago.
    ‘Well, so much for our ice creams!’ Hilda gasped as she plonked herself down beside Flora. ‘Will’s deserted us in favour of those rebels over there.’
    ‘What can he want with them?’ Flora watched curiously as Will joined the revellers.
    ‘Guess,’ said Hilda, her cheeks flushed.
    ‘I can’t think.’ Flora shrugged, her frown deepening.
    ‘Our Will is to be a soldier!’
    ‘A soldier? Is this a tease?’
    ‘No.’ Hilda’s dark eyes were quite serious. ‘Isn’t it marvellous?’
    ‘I shouldn’t say so at all.’ Flora shook her head, thinking Hilda must have got things wrong.
    ‘Don’t be stuffy. Soldiering will make a man of him.’
    ‘But why does he want to be a soldier?’
    ‘Same reason as all those other fellows,’ Hilda said simply. ‘Will is no exception.’
    ‘But, but . . .’ began Flora, ‘. . . he’s just a boy.’
    ‘You agreed yourself he was old enough to court a girl.’
    ‘That’s different,’ Flora objected. ‘Will’s too – too
sensitive
– to fight.’
    ‘But he’s after adventure. And who can blame him?’
    Flora’s heart sank as she listened to her friend. They couldn’t let Will go to war. ‘Hilda, we must stop him.’
    ‘How can we? And why should we?’
    ‘Will could do very well if he keeps his job.’
    ‘Like I would, if I stuck at Hailing House, you mean?’ Hilda pouted, kicking her heels. ‘Is that your advice to us both?’
    Before Flora could reply, Will ran up. His pale cheeks for once were pink. ‘Those chaps are volunteers for Kitchener,’ he told