Excerpt from The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sherriff, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Again Mrs. Stevens peered out. If only the rain would stop! The whole holiday would be damped if they were cheated out of this first evening—sweet because it was stolen: because it was not, officially, a part of the holiday at all.

A special supper always marked the evening, too. This year it was boiled beef, because it made good sandwiches for the train journey, and was easy to wash up, giving more leisure for the final packing afterwards. Then there were apple dumplings, Mr. Stevens's favorite sweet.

It was past five o'clock. In an hour the family would be coming home. Mr. Stevens first (he always left sharp on this particular evening), then Dick, and then Mary. By seven they would all be home. Supposing it rained like this for the whole fortnight? It had once: years ago. She had never forgotten the evening they trailed up Corunna Road from the station, in the twilight, through the endless rain—Dick with the bucket he had scarcely used, and his little sodden dripping spade.

But it wouldn't—couldn't happen this time: she prayed for it to clear up, and her prayer was answered. For now, as she peered round the corner of the kitchen door, she was conscious that it was lighter: the gravel path glistened: the drips in the puddle outside were fewer and farther between— and there—over the Embankment a tiny strip of blue sky was rolling up the heavy clouds.

She returned to the kitchen with a burden lifted. It would be all right now. If you had asked Mrs. Stevens why she was so happy, she would never have been able to explain: she would have shrunk from saying "Because the others will be happy"—it would have sounded noble, and silly. If you asked her "Do you enjoy your holiday?" she would have flinched at a question she had always feared, but which had never come. Nobody ever asked her. The family assumed she did: and her friends confined their question to "Have you had a nice time?" to which she had replied "Lovely" for twenty years. It had always been Bognor— ever since, on her honeymoon, her pale eyes had first glimpsed the sea. Her father had had a sister who lived on a farm, and scorning holidays himself, he had sent the children there—year in, year out—until this daughter had met her man and married him.

The sea had frightened Mrs. Stevens, and she had never conquered her fear. It frightened her most when it was dead calm. Something within her shuddered at the great smooth, slimy surface, stretching into a nothingness that made her giddy. For their honeymoon they had taken apartments with Mr. and Mrs. Huggett in St. Matthews Road— called "Seaview," because from the lavatory window you could see the top of a lamppost on the beachfront.

They had answered an advertisement, and discovered Mr. and Mrs. Huggett to be a strangely assorted couple. Mr. Huggett was stout and jovial. He had been a valet to a man who left him some money, and he had bought Seaview. He was easygoing, slightly patronising, and drank. Mrs. Huggett was thin, and anxious to please to the point of embarrassment. They had a small servant girl called Molly, who, being squat, bow-legged, and red-haired, had remained with them faithfully throughout the years.

But the house had been well done up and was scrupulously clean. The Stevenses had returned the following year, and they had returned ever since, for twenty Septembers, wet and fine, hot and cold.

They had often talked of a change—of Brighton, Bexhill—even Lowestoft—but Bognor always won in the end. If anything it held them stronger every year. There were associations: sentiments. The ink stain on the sitting-room tablecloth which Dick made as a little boy: the little ornament that Mary had made by glueing seashells on a card, which had been presented to Mrs. Huggett at the end of one holiday, and was always on the sitting-room mantelpiece when they arrived each year. There was the stuffed barbel on the landing which they called "Mr. Richards" because it was like a milkman they once had in Dulwich— and many other little ties that would be sadly broken.

Excerpted from The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sherriff. Copyright © 2021 by R.C. Sherriff. Excerpted by permission of Scribner. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.