“Thank you for agreeing to drive me. You—” Audrey started to say she considered Eve a good friend, someone she could always count on, but the words died on her tongue with the realization that she hadn’t been a very loyal friend to Eve. She probably wasn’t doing this for friendship’s sake. “You must care a lot for Alfie to just drop everything and do this for him,” Audrey said instead.
“I’m in love with him.” Eve said the words so softly that Audrey barely heard them above the roar of the motor and the noisy wipers. “I would gladly spend the rest of my life with him if he would ask, but I don’t think he ever will. I know he sees other girls besides me.”
“I’m sorry for not being more helpful. I honestly can’t think of a better wife for him than you.” Eve gave her a questioning look before turning back to the road. “I mean it, Eve. My brother deserves the best, and you have so much more character and . . . and vitality than the other girls he knows. And certainly more courage. But to be perfectly honest, he would have to defy both of our parents in order to marry you. Mind you, Alfie always does what he pleases. And he gets away with a lot, knowing he’s the heir. But he will likely cave in to their pressure in the end. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“It’s too late for that. I already love him. Whatever happens now, when it finally does happen, it’s going to hurt.” She pulled a handkerchief from her coat pocket, and Audrey thought she was going to use it to wipe away tears. Instead, she cleared moisture from the inside of the windscreen.
“Let me do that,” Audrey said, taking the handkerchief from her. “Listen, I hate to sound trite, but surely there must have been a queue of other men interested in you before they all went off to war. You’re so beautiful, Eve.” It was true. Eve had an unspoiled beauty that didn’t require cosmetics and hair waves, a girlish innocence enhanced by her wild sandy hair, clear gray eyes, and endearing freckles.
“Well, your charming brother has ruined all other men for me,” Eve said. “I’ll hold out for him as long as there’s hope, even though I know he’ll probably never marry me. I never finished school, my mum is a maidservant, and I work as a typist with a dozen other girls who are going nowhere.” She released a sigh, then said, “What about you, Audrey? Is there a man in your life?”
“Hardly. The courtship process in my world is so artificial that it’s impossible to fall madly in love. And that’s what I want to do—fall madly in love with a man who loves me and not my father’s money. It’s very hard to distinguish the difference, I’m afraid, since the men I know have been trained to go through all the proper motions and say all the right things. Alfie flouts the rules, and I hope he finds true love someday, but his peers are afraid to stray from the narrow field of women their parents have chosen for them.” And in the end, Audrey would dutifully marry the man her mother chose for her.
“Mind if I open my window a bit?” Eve asked, turning the crank. “It’s getting muggy in here.”
“No, go ahead. The air might keep the windows from fogging.” Audrey had been wiping steadily for several minutes with Eve’s soggy handkerchief.
“So what’s going on at Wellingford Hall these days?” Eve asked. “The last I heard you were housing evacuated children from London.”
“We did house them. Thirty, at one point. The village was thick with them, too. But all of ours are gone, now.” Thankfully, she wanted to add. “And most of the ones in the village, too.”
“What happened to them?”
“The war didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so they all drifted home. Within four months, we were down to only eight children. Some of them got homesick—they said it was too quiet in the country. Some were called home because their mums missed them. But a lot of them went home because their parents were required to pay six shillings a week for their board, and why waste all that money when the bombs weren’t falling as everyone feared?”
“Well, we’re in for it now. We’re the only ones left to fend off the Nazis.”
“Which we can’t do without an army. We have to rescue every man we can.” Again, Audrey forced back her panic, willing herself to be calm. Fear twisted her stomach into so many knots these days that she could barely eat. She drew a steadying breath, releasing it slowly. “Sorry, but I never asked how you’ve been, Eve. You mentioned working as a typist?”