Fire in the Thatch by Edith Caroline Rivett

Life at Manor Thatch had been difficult these last days, and Anne, who generally refused to go away from home under any circumstances, was beginning to feel for the first time in her life that to get away for a while was the thing she wanted above all else. Since the fire at Little Thatch she seemed to be living under a constant strain, first in the effort to appear serene and cheerful, and then in the effort to keep her temper. Anne had not been in love with Nicholas Vaughan, but she had been very fond of him. Something in the steady way he worked—and enjoyed working—warmed her heart. She was aware that the work he did, both in garden and house, had the creative element in it. Vaughan had been making his own home, turning a house—which some would have described as a hovel—and a garden which had been almost derelict, into a beautiful and orderly place. Anne had envied him a little, for though she loved Manor Thatch, she was also aware that she herself would have enjoyed making a home, creating something that was characteristically her own, and which had not been completed before she was born.

She had never asked Vaughan any questions, neither had she discussed his private affairs with her father: she had not known if he intended to get married, but something about the way he was improving and decorating the house made her feel sure that he was not doing it for his own satisfaction alone. Reticent and self-contained as she was, Anne had enough of the romantic in her composition to derive pleasure from the thought of Vaughan working away so steadily to prepare a home for his bride. His death—a fact which Anne had never queried for one fleeting second—had been a shock to her: it was as though something had broken, something been lost and wasted, and it left her feeling desolate.