Chapter Twelve
The Trail of Kindness
Eva woke with a sense of purpose she hadn’t felt in years.
The green leather journal Charlie had given her lay open on the bedside table, its first pages already filled with fragments of Margaret’s story.
Outside, York was dressed in frost, the December morning crisp and bright—the kind of day that made everything look like a Christmas card.
She dressed quickly, not even bothering to style her hair, something she had done every day since her mother told her she looked unkempt unless the length of her ponytail was smooth.
But today Eva left her long, loose waves to cascade free over her shoulders down her cream sweater and coat.
Today, she would follow Margaret’s trail properly, armed with Charlie’s tentative blessing and her own growing certainty that this story needed to be told.
A bell tinkled as Eva pushed open the door, releasing the scent of old paper and leather bindings. Behind the counter sat a man who seemed to be composed entirely of wrinkles and wisdom, his thin hands sorting through a stack of Victorian postcards.
“Mr Whitby?” Eva ventured.
He looked up, eyes sharp behind wire-rimmed spectacles. “Haven’t been called that in years. Most people just call me Arthur. You’re the American asking about Margaret Wells.”
News travelled fast in York. “Yes, my name is Eva. I—”
“Saved my life, she did.” Arthur set down the postcards with careful precision. “Not dramatically, mind you. Margaret wasn’t one for dramatics. But she saved it all the same.”
Eva pulled out her journal, and Arthur nodded approvingly. “Good. Someone should write it down proper.”
“My father died at Dunkirk,” Arthur began, his voice steady despite the weight of memory.
“Left Mum with four boys and a shop full of books nobody could afford to buy. I was the youngest, just a baby thankfully — my eldest brother was fourteen at the time and convinced he’d have to leave school, get work and provide for my mother. ”
He stood, moving to a shelf behind the counter with surprising agility. “Then one day, he came home to find his schoolbooks for the next year already waiting. A little rough around the edges, they were second hand, but they were his. Mum swore she hadn’t bought them.”
“Margaret?”
“Took him three years to work it out. She’d come in the shop, chatting with Mum about this and that.
Must have seen the worry, understood what wasn’t being said.
” Arthur pulled down a leather-bound ledger, its pages yellow with age.
“Found this after Mum died. Margaret had been contributing to our account, making it look like general sales, but it was for us. Clever woman.”
He opened the ledger, pointing to entries in faded ink. “See? ‘Mrs M. Wells—Various titles.’ Every month like clockwork, right through my teenage studies.”
“Did you ever thank her?”
“Tried to. Went to her house when I was eighteen, full of grand speeches.” Arthur smiled.
“She served me tea, listened politely, then said she hadn’t the faintest idea what I was talking about.
Said I must have her confused with someone else.
Had that way about her—made you feel foolish for trying to unmask her kindness.
Always wanted to redirect the praise of thanks to someone else. Selfless.”
Eva made notes, thinking of Charlie’s words about his grandmother helping everyone but herself. “Did she seem happy?”
Arthur considered this. “Content, maybe. But there was always something …” He trailed off, searching for words.
“A person’s eyes tell you a lot, Miss Eva.
It was almost like she was watching life through a window.
You know? Present but not quite participating.
She was a beautiful woman, though. Inside and out, had that dark hair and those eyes that seemed to see right within you. ”
Eva’s next stop was The Olde Stables pub, where Florence had said the hospital administrator took his lunch every day. She found Dr Malcolm Hartley exactly where promised, nursing a pint and working his way through a crossword.
“Margaret Wells?” He set down his pen when Eva introduced herself and her mission. “Now there’s a name that deserves remembering.”
Dr Hartley had the kind of voice made for storytelling—rich and measured, with the hint of a Yorkshire accent beneath his educated tones.
“I’ve been at York Hospital for forty years.
Started as a junior doctor, worked my way up.
But the stories about Margaret—they were legend long before I arrived. ”
He pulled out a tablet, surprising Eva with his tech-savviness. “Digitised all the old records last year. Dull work, but fascinating too.” His fingers moved across the screen with practiced ease. “Here we are. Margaret Wells, Voluntary Aid Detachment, 1943 to 1947.”
“Four years?”
“Stayed on after the war ended. That was unusual—most VADs couldn’t wait to get back to normal life. But Margaret …” He showed Eva a black and white photograph on the screen. A group of nurses standing outside the hospital, and there in the middle, a young woman with dark hair and a measured smile.
“She worked primarily with the traumatised soldiers. What we’d now call PTSD, though back then it was ‘shell shock’ or ‘lack of moral fibre’.
” His voice carried old anger at the term.
“Margaret understood that sometimes the wounds you couldn’t see left just as much damage as those that needed stitches.
She started things, initiatives, clubs I guess you could call them.
She had a weekly reading group, art therapy sessions before anyone even called it that.
Small things that made big differences in those men’s lives. ”
“I heard she left notes?”
“Ah, yes. The famous notes.” Dr Hartley smiled.
“Started with the soldiers who couldn’t sleep.
She’d leave little poems, quotes, sometimes just a few words of encouragement on their bedside tables for them to find in the small hours.
Word got around. Soon patients were specifically asking for ‘the note nurse’. ”
He swiped to another document. “See this? Discharge report from 1945. ‘Patient shows marked improvement in mood and outlook. Attributes recovery to therapeutic interventions by VAD Wells.’ That’s medical speak for ‘Margaret’s magic worked again’.”
“Magic?”
“That’s what the patients called it. Margaret’s little magics.
Never anything grand—a book that arrived just when someone needed it, a conversation that changed a perspective, a note that made someone feel recognised and heard in their struggles.
” He looked at Eva over his glasses. “You know she paid for a young soldier’s train ticket home when he was discharged?
Told him the hospital had a ‘transportation fund’. There was no fund, Eva.”
Eva thought of the brass key in her pocket, of Florence’s worried face over the inn’s finances. Patterns repeating through generations. “She gave a lot.”
“Everything, some would say. I honestly don’t know how she managed it all.
” Dr Hartley’s expression grew thoughtful.
“I treated her once, years later when I was still junior. Came in with pneumonia, wouldn’t admit how sick she was.
Kept trying to check on other patients from her bed.
I asked why she didn’t have many family visiting.
She said her family was the whole of York. ”
“That’s beautiful.”
“You think so?” He took a long pull of his pint. “Or is it sad? Woman gives everything to strangers, keeps nothing for herself. Makes you wonder why, doesn’t it? She was devoted to anyone but herself, what makes a person do such a thing? She was lucky to have her grandson in the end, I think.”
Eva’s final stop was the York Library, where the head librarian, Mrs Patricia Chen, had agreed to meet her in the local history section. The room smelled of old paper and furniture polish, dust motes dancing in the afternoon light streaming through tall windows.
“Margaret Wells established our children’s reading program in 1946,” Mrs Chen said, pulling out a cloth-covered album. “Called it ‘Stories for Tomorrow’ because she said these children would be the storytellers of our future.”
The album was filled with photographs—children clustered around Margaret as she read, their faces rapt with attention. Some wore patched clothes, some had the hollow look of wartime poverty, but in every photo, they were smiling.
“Many of these children had lost fathers in the war,” Mrs Chen explained. “Margaret understood that stories could fill some of those hollow spaces. She came every Saturday without fail, even when she was ill.”
“Did she ever read her own stories?”
Mrs Chen’s expression grew careful. “She wrote the most beautiful tales. I’ve heard of some of the fragments—stories about brave girls and lost princes, about bridges between worlds and love that transcended time.
But she never thought they were good enough to share properly, she only ever read a short excerpt when really pushed by keen listeners. Always said she was still practicing.”
“Practicing for what?”
“The right moment and the right tale she said. The story that truly mattered.” Mrs Chen closed the album gently. “I don’t think she ever completed it. Or maybe she did and just couldn’t bear to tell it after all that waiting.”
She led Eva to a display case near the back of the room. “This is one of our Christmas traditions, started by Margaret in 1946.”
Inside the case was a collection of small, wrapped packages—books, mittens, toys. A sign read: ‘Take what you need, leave what you can. Christmas magic is meant for sharing.—M.W.’