‘Yes,’ agreed Romily, ‘we’ve appointed Mrs P as our first line of defence against the Germans.’
Mrs Partridge huffed and puffed and rolled her eyes. ‘And there’s me just doing my best for you all.’
‘And very well you do it too,’ said Hope, putting her arm around the woman.
How changed Hope had become, thought Romily; she was so much happier now, and had grown surprisingly attached to Mrs Partridge. Her stay at Island House was now officially extended until such time as London was no longer deemed to be a target for the Luftwaffe. It was anybody’s guess when that might be. Every day the situation grew more grave, with Britain gearing up production of war materials. More than two million nineteen- to twenty-seven-year-olds had now been called up, and hundreds of young women were volunteering to be Red Cross nurses or Land Girls. Meanwhile, poor Finland was fighting hard to block the advance of Soviet troops. To her shame, all Romily had managed was a first-aid evening at the church hall. She really had to do more. But what? She had never been this indecisive before, but then she had never had this level of personal commitment before.
After Stanley had gulped down his mug of cocoa and finished cramming cake into his mouth, offering the last bit to Bobby, he went to find his coat, the ever-faithful hound hot on his heels. ‘And don’t forget your hat and scarf,’ Mrs Partridge called out after the pair of them.
‘And your gloves!’ added Florence. She now had Annelise on her lap, the little girl tracing a small curious finger over her bandaged head.
‘Be gentle, won’t you, Annelise?’ said Hope anxiously.
Florence smiled at the child and stroked her fine blonde hair, then tickled her lightly under her chin. ‘You wouldn’t hurt me, would you? Not an angel as sweet as you.’
Annelise giggled, and with a butter-wouldn’t-melt expression on her face, helped herself to a bite of Florence’s cake.
‘She’s certainly not slow in coming forward these days,’ said Hope.
‘No bad thing in my book, especially for a girl,’ remarked Romily. Then, turning to Mrs Partridge, she said, ‘No sign of Mrs Bunch this afternoon?’
‘No, she’s not been in, and if the snow’s bad tomorrow she won’t make it then either.’
‘Not with her legs,’ said Hope and Florence in unison, making them all laugh.
‘Oh, before I forget,’ said Mrs Partridge, getting up from the table where she was sitting and going over to the dresser, ‘a letter came for you in the last post, Florence. Addressed to Mrs Minton it is, with a Bury St Edmunds postmark, and if I’m not mistaken, it’s your Billy’s handwriting. And there’s one for you too, madam.’
Just as Mrs Partridge handed Florence her letter, the telephone rang and Romily went to answer it. It was Allegra.
Allegra replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle and tried not to give in to the feeling that she was an utter failure. Could she get nothing right? Why did everything she attempt turn into such a mess? What sort of mother was she going to be? A mother who couldn’t even take care of herself without asking for help!
The trouble had started when she’d woken in the night to the sound of something scratching and pattering about in the attic above her bedroom. Rats! Thanks to Arthur letting one loose in her bedroom when they’d been children, she was terrified of them. She’d leapt out of bed and, dragging the eiderdown with her, fled downstairs, stumbling on one of the steps and landing with a heavy thud at the bottom. When she’d caught her breath and picked herself up, praying in earnest that she hadn’t harmed the baby, she’d made herself comfortable on the sofa. But sleep had eluded her. Every time she had been close to nodding off, she’d imagined hundreds of rats swarming down the stairs from the attic seeking her out. She’d become so hysterical with fear, she’d started to cry.
In the cool light of day, and after sleeping for no more than an hour or so and waking stiff with cold, she could see that she had overreacted, but with the dawn had come the realisation that in falling on the stairs she’d hurt her back, and the slightest movement sent pain shooting down her right leg.
She’d managed to get hold of Dr Garland, but he hadn’t been able to come out to see her until the afternoon, the snow delaying him on his rounds. His diagnosis was that once again she needed bed rest and should not be on her own. He’d made light of her teary belief that the attic had been invaded by an army of rats, telling her that it was more likely to be a couple of tiny field mice in search of shelter from the icy cold. Not a word of which she’d believed; two small mice had not created the awful noise she’d heard.
She’d hated telephoning Romily to ask for help, but Dr Garland had insisted that if she didn’t make the call, he would do it for her. ‘Or would you rather I whisked you off to hospital?’ he’d said.
Neither was her preferred option, but for the sake of the baby, she knew she had to be sensible. She knew also that it would be what Elijah would want for her. She had received a letter from him this morning, the very sort of letter she had dreaded. He was at last on the move. He couldn’t say where exactly, but it was to join the British Expeditionary Force in either France or Belgium. At last me, Billy and Tommy will be doing what we signed up for, he’d written. There isn’t one of us here who isn’t ready. Keep me in your thoughts, Allegra, just as you and the baby will be constantly in mine.
Wincing with every step, and listening out for the sound of rats overhead, Allegra set about packing a case to take with her to Island House. She placed Elijah’s letter, along with his previous ones, carefully within the pages of a bible he had given her. It had belonged to him as a boy, a present from his grandfather, even though he hadn’t been able to read it at the time.
The suitcase closed, she left it on the bed and cautiously made her way downstairs to wait for Romily to arrive. It seemed in that moment that she would forever be destined to return to Island House.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The snow was coming down so heavily now, the wipers were making a poor job of keeping the windscreen clear. What worried Romily more was that the petrol tank of the Bentley was nearly empty. Very helpfully, the twin SU carburettors ticked a warning about a mile before the car would run completely dry – the ticking had sounded the moment she’d turned out of the drive.
She had only ever run foul of an empty fuel tank once before, and that had been in France with Jack. They’d taken the Bentley across the Channel on the ferry and spent the weekend in Paris at the Ritz. They’d had the most glorious time staying in a suite overlooking the Place Vendôme, surfacing from it only when hunger drove them downstairs to the restaurant, that and the desire for a cocktail. It had been a perfect few days, and even running out of petrol and grinding to a halt some two miles from the ferry port had not put a dampener on their spirits. They’d hitched a ride on the back of a farm truck to the nearest garage, sharing the straw-strewn space with a couple of piglets, one of which, with no encouragement, had settled itself on Romily’s lap. Jack had thought it the funniest sight and had offered the driver of the truck an extravagant fifty francs to buy the piglet from him. The man had looked at the proffered money, then at the piglet, and shaken his head. ‘Non merci, monsieur.’ He’d given no reason for refusing the deal, but Jack had slipped a wad of franc notes into his hand anyway and thanked him for his trouble. ‘What on earth would you have done with the poor little piglet if the man had agreed to sell it to you?’ Romily had asked. ‘Given it straight back to him, of course,’ Jack had replied.
She had known that day that she loved Jack, that she loved his impetuous nature, which in so many ways mirrored her own.
A furious loud blaring of a horn roused her from the poignant memory. It was followed by a thundering great clunk as metal met metal, and Romily’s head hit the windscreen with an impact that rocked her violently backwards in her seat. Her hands flew up from the steering wheel, and the car zigzagged over the snow-covered road before coming to an inelegant stop.
‘Are you all right?’
Disorientated and feeling as though every ounce of air had been punched out of her, Romily opened her eyes and found herself staring into the face of an unknown man. A man dressed in a smart coat that was unbuttoned and revealed the blue of an RAF uniform beneath.
