Willow Cabin

This novel was published in the 1950s and is like some of Frankau's novels, autobiographical. Pamela had had an affair with a poet, her heroine Caroline has an affair with a married doctor. The novel opens with Caroline taking part in a play and being much admired by audience and critics. She is beautiful and talented. She meets Michael Knowle who is a surgeon, and who has a half American wife who does not usually live with him. Mercedes spends time abroad, in the US or France, and is a successful set designer. Michael is fond of Caroline, but she falls deeply in love with him and while she accepts the limitations of their affair, she really wants to be with him. She goes on holidays with him and they enjoy each other's company, but they are both aware that there will probably be a war before long. Caroline is illegitimate.. her father deserted her, and her mother married another man who is kind enough but Caroline does not really get on with him or her mother. She leaves home to be able to enjoy her life more, and to pursue the affair with Michael. War breaks out and Michael joins the army medical corps. Caroline has let her theatrical career lapse, because she was more interested in her love life.. but she now joins the women's services and devotes herself to her war work. She sees Michael when she can, and learns that Mercedes has been working with the Resistance in France. A couple of years into the war, Michael is discovered dead in his hotel in London. He took a lot of sleeping pills but there seems to be no note or evidence that it was suicide. He was a bad sleeper and probably took the pills to get some sleep. Caroline is devastated, but goes on with her war work. She learns that Mercedes has managed to escape from France and gone to Spain but she is very ill thanks to her ill treatment by the Germans. a few years after the war, Caroline has returned to acting. Some of her friends have told her that they think Michael could have gotten a divorce if he really wanted to but she still loves him. Then while touring in America, Caroline meets Mercedes who has moved there. SHe had a lot of money but has used it to buy a farm and help out immigrants. Mercedes produces evidence that Michael might have killed himself and Caroline feels more at peace and goes on with her life.....