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Happy Christmas. As you can imagine, it was not the cheeriest of holidays, being in a training camp, but some of the other girls in my Nissen hut made the best of it by stringing up paper chains and singing carols as we coaxed as much heat as we could from our little stove. We also had something approximating a Christmas meal in the mess, although I cannot say that Christmas pudding improves when it is cooked by WAAFs on a training ground.

Please be kind to Miss Keynes. She really is a dear old thing, and she’s been a customer for so long. I know that Mum would have wanted her to be treated with some leniency.

Did you telephone Harbour & Farrow before Christmas? Keeping in close contact with our suppliers really is vital—even more so than it is in peacetime!

Sincerely,

Isabelle Shelton

30 December 1941

Dear Izzie,

Yes, I managed to speak to Mr. Farrow from Harbour & Farrow just before they closed for the Christmas season. Once we cleared up an initial bit of confusion that I am, in fact, your sister, we got on a treat. He is going to send us fifty yards of dark gray tweed that I’m sure you will approve of, and he won’t charge us a shilling for it.

(This is a joke. He has ten yards of fawn that he thinks he can hold for us, which Miss Reid tells me should be enough for Mrs. Chapman’s skirt, and Mrs. Webb’s suit, should she decide to finally have it made up.)

I’ve been spending a great deal of time at the shop because I have quite the challenge ahead of me sorting through the paperwork in the office and trying to bring some order to it. I’m particularly interested in finding the bankbook or a checkbook—anything, really, that would give me an inkling as to how our mother was running the financial side of the business before she passed.

As you might imagine, organizing the office alone is a monumental task, but I have no doubt that I am up to the challenge, especially with Hugo away again. (He was home earlier in December for meetings, but the Royal Navy was rather Scrooge-like and forced him to return before Christmas, which is why he did not sign our Christmas card to you.)

I forgot to write and tell you that before we closed for Christmas, Miss Reid asked if there was any news from you about your training. It went something like this:

Miss Reid, at her machine: Have you had a letter from Miss Shelton?

Me, crossing the workshop to go to our mother’s office: Why yes! She wrote me just yesterday.

Miss Reid: How is she getting on then?

Me: I don’t know. I shall ask her for you.

It was—I would have you know—the most pleasant exchange we have had since you left. So you see, Izzie, it would be a great help to me if you would send some news so that I can continue to encourage Miss Reid to speak to me. Whatever the censor will allow through will suffice. We are waiting with bated breath.

Wishing you a happy New Year,

Sylvia

Chapter Eleven

With a harrumph, Izzie let her hand holding her sister’s letter fall into her lap. Sylvia had written hardly anything about the shop, spending most of her time on jokes that weren’t particularly funny, criticism of Mum’s organization of the office, and demands that Izzie write to her news from camp.

She scanned the letter again.

So you see, Izzie, it would be a great help to me if you would send some news so that I can continue to encourage Miss Reid to speak to me.

“Your glare could burn a hole through that letter.”

Izzie’s head jerked up. She’d come to the base’s NAAFI, a canteen of sorts where servicemen and women could pay a few shillings for some comforts like a cup of tea and the luxury of a moment’s peace that could not be found in a cramped hut she shared with three dozen other girls. She’d intentionally chosen an empty table away from everyone else, but apparently her efforts had been for naught, because now a tall, grinning woman in an ill-fitting uniform stood in front of her, one hand on her hip and the other holding a cup of tea.

When she realized that the woman was looking at her expectantly, she cleared her throat. “It’s just a letter from home.”

“Ah, I understand those. I swear that if I receive another note from Mamma about the horrors of having the house taken over by the army, I’ll scream,” said the woman cheerfully. “Not that she should complain, when the army has allowed Daddy and her to stay on in the old dower house.”

The army? A dower house? Where on earth did this woman live?

The woman stuck out her hand. “Aircraft Woman Second Class Alexandra Sumner. How do you do?”

Izzie cautiously extended her own. “Aircraft Woman Second Class Isabelle Shelton.”