The Pearl of Penang

Jul 17, 2026

Uploaded by Rowan

A young companion, Evie Fraser, receives an unexpected letter from Douglas Barrington in Penang proposing marriage after the death of his wife. Amid doubts about distance, timing, and motives, Evie must decide whether to accept his plan for travel and companionship, reshaping her constrained life in England.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryStory & Novel

FormatPDF

Pages276

Reading Time7 h 5 min

AccessFree to download

THE PEARL OF PENANG CLARE FLYNN CRANBROOK PRESS Copyright © 2019 by Clare Flynn Cranbrook Press All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Cover design JD Smith Design Created with Vellum 1 W hen the letter from Douglas Barrington arrived, Evie Fraser was at breakfast. Instead of eating, she was thumbing through the situations vacant pages of The Lady magazine. It was a weekly ritual that Mrs Shipley-Thomas, her elderly employer, had long since given up complaining about. After nine years working as a paid companion, Evie would have loved to break free and try something different. But every time she identified a position that might be promising, she weighed it against her current one and found it wanting or insufficiently different to justify the upheaval and the inevitable distress of her employer. Mrs Shipley-Thomas was all too aware of Evie’s frustrations, but had grown complacent, believing her companion would never do anything about them. A letter addressed to Evie was a rare occurrence. Mrs Shipley-Thomas looked up from shuffling through her own correspondence and frowned.‘This one’s for you, my dear. It looks rather interesting. All the way from Malaya. Judging by the number of times it’s been forwarded, it’s a wonder it got here at all.’ She tapped the envelope with a fingernail. ‘I don’t know anyone in Malaya.’ Evie put down her teacup. ‘It seems you do, my dear. Perhaps it’s a long-lost admirer trying to track you down. Not that it’s any of my business.’ The old lady snorted, evidently amused at the improbability of her paid companion having such a thing as a gentleman friend. Evie reached to take the missive, feeling a little frisson of excitement, then braced herself for disappointment. Nothing in her life ever justified a sense of anticipation. She turned the envelope over in her hands. It had been forwarded from her former home to her family’s solicitors and thence to here. Unfolding the thin paper, she flattened out the crease. It was written using a typewriter and its sender must have positioned the paper in the carriage at an angle so the words were sloping slightly from left to right, probably unintentionally. The keys had been hit so hard that in places the letters had pierced the paper. It indicated haste and a lack of care, probably executed by someone unaccustomed to typing. The date was about seven weeks earlier. She glanced at the bottom of the page first and saw it was from her mother ’s cousin, Douglas Barrington. Penang February 15th 1939 Dear Evelyn, News of the death of your father has finally reached me here. Please accept my belated condolences. I also understand your mother is now living in America and that you are unattached. I will come straight to

Jul 17, 2026

Uploaded by Rowan