My Weekly favourite Glenda Young has written a lovely stor y for you this week. There are three other fantastic tales too!

They had argued before he went to war, but would it come between them now he was finally home?

Time’s moving on,” Ann warned her daughter. Sara glanced nervously at the heavy brown clock on their mantelpiece.

“It’s a quarter to,” Ann said with an urgency that Sara picked up on.

“Surely you want to go and meet him from the train, after all this time?”

Sara cast her gaze to the kitchen floor. “I can’t, Mum,” Sara said. “You know how things were between us before he went off to war. Do you really think he’ll want to see me, of all people, waiting for him the minute he sets foot back home?”

Ann reached across the table and took her daughter’s hand.

“He’s been gone four years, Sara. And the amount of letters he’s written to you in all that time? You can’t let a stupid argument all those years ago come between you now.”

Sara locked eyes with her mum. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Sara said. “Every letter he sent I received with an open heart, and I savoured every word.”

“And you replied to every one, too,” Ann smiled. “So my answer to your question about whether he’ll want to see you when he gets off the train, is yes. Of course he will.”

Sara looked again at the clock. It felt as if she’d been staring at it all day, tracking Gordon’s journey home. At two o’clock, according to his last letter, he would’ve been discharged from the army and given his final papers.

At three o’clock he would have been waiting with his kit bag at the station for the train that arrived at ten past the hour. At four, his letter said, he hoped he would almost be home and at five he would be stepping off the train, back into the village he last saw four years ago. Ann caressed her daughter’s hand. “You can’t let a few cross words, from all that time ago, stop you and Gordon from meeting again.”

Sara pulled her hand away.

“Can’t I?” she said. “You know how stubborn Gordon can be. All he had to do was say sorry but not once did he say the word in all those letters he wrote.”

“Now who’s being stubborn?” Ann said. “You’ve got ten minutes, if you’re lucky, to run down to the station and meet him from the train and tell him how much you’ve missed him.”

Sara raised her gaze to look at the minute hand of the clock. Then she looked quickly away.

“No,” she said at last. “If he wants me – if he really wants me – then he knows where I am.”

And with that, Sara crossed her arms and sank back in her chair.

Ann rolled her eyes in despair.

The evening passed slowly. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked the minutes and hours away. Sitting by the coal fire in the small family kitchen,

Sara couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe, as she looked into Gordon’s eyes

Sara’s mum Ann took out her knitting and her dad Arthur smoked his pipe.

Sara watched her parents sitting companionably together, not talking, just being, enjoying each other’s presence. Sara tried to lose herself in the pages of an adventure book but from the corner of her eye she kept glancing at the clock. Half past seven came and went without any sign of Gordon, no knock on the door, no friendly call at the window. The hands on the clock ticked around to eight fifteen and still there was nothing from Gordon.

“He’ll be in the pub, I’d bet,” Arthur mused. This was nine fifteen exactly, Sara noted.

Ann shot her husband a dark look, nodded towards Sara and shook her head. “Shush,” she whispered. “Don’t upset her more than she already is.”

Sara stood from the table and flung her book down with force.

“I am not upset!” she cried. At precisely ten twenty-three she stormed up to bed.

The next morning, there was still no sign of Gordon. “I told you he wasn’t interested, Mum,” Sara sighed. “That stupid argument we had all those years ago, he’s holding it against me, I can tell.”

Ann thought about the constant letters that Sara had received from Gordon away in the war. Letters from Belgium, France, letters with hearts drawn on the back of the envelope, letters with kisses at the end of his name. Letters that Sara kept in her bedroom wrapped in a white cloth patterned with palest pink roses.

Ann laid her hand on her daughter’s arm. She had no doubt Gordon would be calling. But still, time was ticking by. Where on earth could he be?

Later that morning, Sara’s older, married sister Clara called by at the house.

“I see Gordon’s back home, then,” Clara breezed.

Sara’s heart sank. “You’ve seen him?” she cried. “Where? When?”

“Course I’ve seen him. Passed the time of day with him on the village green this morning. You mean you haven’t seen him yet?”

Sara missed the look that passed between her sister and her mum.

“I’m sure he’s just busy, that’s all,” Ann said, placating Sara and shooting Clara a warning look not to say more. “I expect he’ll be catching up with his family and friends. Will you have some tea while you’re here Clara?” Ann said, changing the subject. Without waiting for a reply from her eldest daughter, Ann made a show of looking in the tea caddy which she knew was half full with tea.

“Darn it, we’ve run out,” she moaned. Ann handed Sara a handful of coins.

“Run down to the store and get some tea, love,” she said.

Sara did as she was told, glad to be out of the house and away from Clara. How dare her sister see Gordon – and speak to him too – before she did.

And what was Gordon doing on the village green? Was Sara really so low down on Gordon’s priority list of people to visit that he’d gone wandering on the green before he came to see her? Well, if that’s how he was going to play things, then she could be bullheaded too!

In the store Sara headed to the grocery counter where Bill Bowman, the grocer, presided over large sacks of coffee, sugar and tea. He weighed out the required amounts carefully into strong blue paper bags, shaking them down before folding over the edges meticulously and handing them to his customers. Bill was a stout man with a red face. He wore a small green hat that looked too small for his head and always appeared in danger of falling off into the tea. He greeted Sara warmly when she approached the counter.

“Morning Sara, what can I get for you?” he asked.

“Small bag of tea for Mum please,” Sara replied.

Bill set to filling a blue bag of tea from the sack. “We had Gordon in the store this morning,” he said.

The news came as a shock to Sara, and she felt as if she’d been punched in the heart. “You did?”

“My, he’s looking well. You’ve got yourself a good fella there, Sara love. You and Gordon Collins, you were made for each other, I’d say.”

Sara gritted her teeth. It had been hurtful enough to hear, and from her own sister too, that Gordon had been seen walking the village green that morning before he had visited her to let her know he was safe and well. Now it turned out that he’d been shopping too!

Sara didn’t know what to think. Not only was she second on Gordon’s list of people to visit after a stroll on the green and a chat with her sister, but it seemed she was even less important to Gordon than a visit to the shops!

Sara’s stomach twisted with anxiety. She handed over the money to pay for the tea and made her way home.

Had Gordon got another girl? Was that why he was avoiding her? But his last letter had given nothing away. Sara felt angry and confused and as she walked, she gripped the bag of tea tight. She reached her front door, pushed it open and walked along the hallway to the kitchen. It was empty. Her mum and Clara were no longer there. She heard a noise, turned and gasped.

“Gordon!”

Gordon Collins stepped forward, as handsome as the day he left for war. A smile played around his lips.

“Sara,” he said respectfully, keeping his distance.

Gordon held a bouquet of palest pink roses which he offered it to Sara. She stared at it a second, struggling to understand what was going on. Where had everyone gone?

“Your mum gave me permission to wait for you in here,” Gordon explained. “She said you wouldn’t be long.”

Sara took the flowers from Gordon’s hands. “They’re beautiful,” she said. “They need water, I’ll find a vase.” Gordon stepped forward.

“Leave them a moment, please.”

Sara laid the flowers on the table. “I bought them this morning, from the store,” Gordon said.

Sara smiled. At least that much made sense. “I hear from my sister you were out walking on the green too. It seems you had plenty of time for recreation this morning, while some of us were waiting to see you.”

“Sara, I… I had to speak to Clara first.”

“Before me?” Sara tried to keep the catch from her voice.

“Yes, I had to see her before I saw you,” Gordon replied. “I needed to know the answer to a question I’d asked of your dad. It was a question I had to ask through Clara.”

None of this made sense at all to Sara.

“If I’d written to your dad here, you would have seen the letter and it would have given the game away.”

“What game?” Sara asked. “I asked your dad for permission to ask you for your hand,” Gordon said. “That’s why I had to speak to Clara. I couldn’t see you before I knew what your dad’s reply was.”

Gordon swallowed hard then sank to the floor on one knee. Sara watched in amazement, her heart pounding. She couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe.

She gazed into Gordon’s deep brown eyes. The same eyes she fell in love with all those years ago.

Gordon gave a little cough. “Sara, would you do me the honour of…” “Yes,” Sara whispered.

“… the honour of becoming my wife?”

“Yes,” Sara said again.

“… because I’d understand if you said no… that stupid argument we had, I’m sorry Sara. I really can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“Gordon,” Sara said, louder now. Gordon looked up into Sara’s eyes. “I said yes, Gordon,” Sara said. Gordon stood, wrapped his arms around Sara and the clock on the mantelpiece ticked.