Opening
Chapters 21–25 turn hard-won safety into the harder work of healing. As war looms larger, care, apology, and responsibility reshape a household of strangers into a fragile, real family. The turning point arrives not on a battlefield but under a bed, when a child learns she won’t be sent away.
What Happens
Chapter 21: A Painful Lesson
Ada Smith bristles at Butter’s slow walk and decides to seek help at the Thortons’ stables, remembering Lady Thorton’s offer. Susan Smith raises safety concerns and suggests a saddle; Ada insists on managing it herself and does—riding past the growing airfield toward the estate.
At the stables, Fred Grimes is curt but competent. He quickly diagnoses the problem: Butter’s hooves are dangerously overgrown, so every step hurts. He trims them while Ada watches, shocked but relieved to learn hooves are like fingernails. Fred calls the neglect damaging and makes a pointed comparison: if someone fed you but never kept you clean, healthy, or loved, how would you feel? Ada, hearing her own life in his words, can only say, “I wouldn’t feel hungry,” sharpening the lens on Trauma, Abuse, and Healing.
Fred softens. He tells Ada she isn’t to blame, teaches her grooming and tack care, and offers riding lessons in exchange for stable chores. Ada asks about clubfoot in horses, hoping for herself; Fred can’t help with human feet. Guilty over Butter’s pain yet grateful for guidance, Ada rides home—and loses her way.
Chapter 22: The Ocean and an Apology
Hopelessly turned around, Ada climbs a high hill and sees the English Channel at last—an “endless carpet of blue and gray.” The sight blows open her world, expanding the story’s metaphor of Freedom and Imprisonment. From the ridge she spots the church, finds her route, and arrives after dark to a panicked Susan and Jamie Smith.
At dinner, Ada’s fury breaks. When asked if Grimes helped, she blurts, “Because you crippled him,” and recounts Butter’s neglected hooves. Susan doesn’t deflect. She owns the harm: “It was ignorance, not deliberate abuse—but that’s never an excuse, is it?” The apology begins to cement a Found Family: care means admitting when you’re wrong and learning to do better.
After dinner, Susan has Ada teach her what Fred showed her, acknowledging her ignorance. Ada remains too angry to accept apology or touch. When Susan says she must have been “scared and angry,” Ada denies fear but feels the anger burning.
Chapter 23: The War Comes Home
The war turns immediate. The radio reports a German submarine has sunk the Royal Oak—833 dead, many boys. Soon after, a first trip to the cinema curdles when the newsreel blares images of the disaster. The giant flames and smoke hurl Ada back into terror: nightmares of fire, choking air, and immobility. War intrudes as a brutal amplifier of personal wounds, underscoring War as a Catalyst for Change.
Gossip about Jamie’s left hand—his teacher calls it “the mark of the devil”—pushes Susan to start churchgoing. She attends once. Churches and Susan “don’t agree,” she says; her clergyman father believes she can’t be redeemed. Jamie connects this to their mother: their Mam doesn’t like them either, and Ada is not “redeemed.”
The words cut deep. Ada insists maybe she is redeemed now that she can walk. Jamie snaps, “Not without crutches. You’ve still got that ugly foot.” Susan scolds him, but the insult lands, exposing how Mam’s voice still shapes Ada’s Identity and Self-Worth.
Chapter 24: Lessons and Obligations
With his hooves fixed, Butter transforms. Ada discovers cantering, galloping, the bright edge of speed—and then overreaches, aiming him at a three-foot stone wall. Butter slams on the brakes, and Ada sails over his head. Susan rushes out, furious not at the risk but at the ignorance. She insists on lessons with Fred before Ada ruins her nerve or the pony’s.
A new rhythm forms. Twice a week, Ada follows a hand-drawn map to Fred’s, pays for instruction with stable chores, and grows competent. War hums at the edges—blockade shortages, government pamphlets—and evacuated children drift back to London. Their mother never writes.
When Lady Thorton visits, she prods Susan to join the Women’s Volunteer Service. Ada’s careless remarks—that Susan lacks a “proper job” and “doesn’t care about things”—sting. Pushed by Lady Thorton and by her own conscience, Susan agrees to serve, stepping beyond isolation.
Chapter 25: A Broken Needle and a Found Cat
In a crisp new WVS uniform, Susan leaves nervously for her first meeting. Alone, Ada tries the sewing machine, jams the cloth, tangles the thread, snaps the needle—and panics. Old training takes over: hide, and maybe you’ll survive. She crawls under Becky’s bed, shaking, certain this mistake will send her back to London.
Susan and Jamie return, search frantically, and find her. Susan drags Ada out, angry—until Ada whispers, “You’ll send me back.” The real terror is abandonment. Susan’s anger dissolves. She holds Ada and explains the truth: a broken needle is minor, fixable; Ada is wanted. “I’m not going to send you away... I’m trying to say that I’m glad you’re here.” For Ada, the words are unprecedented.
It takes all night for the panic to fade, but something fundamental shifts. Soon after, Jamie brings home a filthy stray he names Bovril. Susan protests; Jamie bathes and feeds the cat anyway. That night he sleeps curled around Bovril and does not wet the bed. The pattern holds. Susan relents. Care, it turns out, heals the giver too.
Character Development
The household learns that love is both apology and structure. Responsibility—over an animal, a job, a child—becomes the practice ground for trust.
- Ada grows more capable and bold, then collides with her limits. She seeks help, learns stable work, and rides with joy, but her trauma flares after the newsreel and the broken needle. Beneath anger, her deepest fear surfaces: not punishment, but being sent away.
- Susan shifts from reluctant caretaker to active parent. She admits harm, apologizes, sets firm boundaries for safety, joins the WVS, and speaks the words Ada needs: that she is wanted.
- Jamie tests and learns empathy. His cruel comment exposes absorbed prejudice, but caring for Bovril gives him pride, control, and immediate relief from bedwetting.
- Fred Grimes becomes a steady mentor—direct, knowledgeable, and kind—offering skills, respect, and the structure Ada craves.
Themes & Symbols
Neglect and care sit at the heart of [Trauma, Abuse, and Healing]. Butter’s overgrown hooves mirror Ada’s past: pain accrues when basic needs go unmet, even if you’re fed. Healing begins with recognition and responsibility—Fred trims, teaches, and never shames; Susan apologizes and learns; Ada channels competence into grooming, riding, and chores. These chapters show how consistent care can rewrite a child’s expectations of danger.
The section deepens [The Meaning of Found Family]. Family here is not blood but practice: searching after dark, accepting blame, drawing a map so you won’t get lost, insisting on lessons to protect a passion, sitting up all night after a panic. The sea’s first sight widens Ada’s world, embodying [Freedom and Imprisonment]; the newsreel collapses distance, showing how public terror can inflame private wounds and accelerate change, a pattern within [War as a Catalyst for Change]. Ada’s fragile [Identity and Self-Worth] flickers between pride on horseback and shame at Jamie’s jab; Susan’s steady, explicit reassurance helps build a self not based on Mam’s scorn. Acts of caretaking—of Butter, of Bovril—become daily drills in Courage and Resilience.
Key Quotes
“If someone gave you enough to eat, but didn’t keep you clean or healthy or ever show you any kind of love, how would you feel?”
Fred reframes neglect as harm, equating physical care with emotional need. His blunt empathy gives Ada language for her own past and prompts Susan’s learning.
“I wouldn’t feel hungry.”
Ada answers literally and truthfully, revealing how deprivation narrows desire to survival. The line exposes how deeply her mother’s abuse has trained her to accept pain as normal.
“It was ignorance, not deliberate abuse—but that’s never an excuse, is it?”
Susan models accountability. By naming ignorance and rejecting it as a defense, she opens the door to trust and establishes the kind of safety Ada has never known.
“an endless carpet of blue and gray”
Ada’s first sight of the sea enlarges her sense of possible life. The image converts landscape into liberation, pushing her world beyond any room, street, or village.
“Not without crutches. You’ve still got that ugly foot.”
Jamie’s jab channels Mam’s contempt. The cruelty shows how shame lingers in children and how hard it is to unlearn harm—even in a safe home.
“I’m not going to send you away... I’m trying to say that I’m glad you’re here.”
This is the novel’s emotional keystone. Susan replaces fear of abandonment with belonging, directly countering the script Ada has lived by.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters pivot the story from escape to repair. Apology, instruction, and ordinary work—maps, lessons, feeding animals—create a scaffold for new identities: competent rider, dependable volunteer, reliable caregiver. Under that structure, panic can surface and be met with care rather than punishment.
The war’s drumbeat closes in, but the most transformative battles are domestic and intimate. By insisting on lessons, owning mistakes, and saying “I’m glad you’re here,” the household becomes a true family, proving that steadiness—not spectacle—is what remakes a life.