Showing To the End of Her Days by Malcolm Macdonald

Lay aside your present sorrows; others will deserve them more. When Jessica Lanyon's husband finally dies in 1920, of wounds from the Great War, she finds herself in charge of her own destiny for the first time ever. She does not lack for friendly and not-so-friendly advice but has no real ally until Lorna Sancreed, also widowed, arrives one day. But can the supposedly vulnerable Lorna be trusted?

When published by St Martin's Press and Piatkus in 1994, the novel attracted the following reviews: The setting for Macdonald's new historical romance is the Cornish town of Penzance during WWI, but it might as well be Peyton Place for all the secrets and sexual high-jinks it hosts. The pages don't exactly fly by but they do offer the well-wrought historical details, plot twists, and vivid characters his fans expect — Publishers Weekly
A tale of voluble and feisty young women who give off sparks and set off conflagrations in a tight little village community of antagonistic genders and generations. The talk floods like a Cornish tide. Some may find the sheer volume of chatter enervating, but, on the whole, the gossiping village neighbors will prove to be genial company for the author's following — Kirkus
He is every bit as bad as Dickens – Martin Seymour-Smith