They stopped outside the door to the village hall, which stood open. The murmur of women’s voices drifted outside. The vicar paused before saying, “I hope you won’t feel offended, Miss Clarkson, if the villagers seem a bit cool at first. I suspect there is some resentment toward your family for seeming to ignore the village’s needs all these years. Once they see that you would like that to change, I’m certain they’ll welcome you and your efforts. But please don’t be put off until they do.”
Audrey drew a steadying breath, determined to be useful instead of hiding in Wellingford Hall for the duration of the war. “I’m grateful for the warning. I know my family’s faults as well as the villagers do, and I shall try to be thick-skinned.”
They slipped inside and sat down in the back row, listening as a middle-aged woman in a tweed skirt and cardigan described plans to help a village family whose son had died on one of the rescue ships that sank near Dunkirk. She followed with the story of a young wife and mother whose husband was taken prisoner in France. Two other women from the village struggled to cope alone with their husbands away. In every instance, women from the group pledged their help and support. Eve Dawson grew up in this village and likely knew all of these families, people who had helped Eve and her mother after her father died in the first war. Audrey longed to stand up and apologize to all of them for her family’s long indifference. Instead, she turned to the vicar and asked, “Where is God in all these tragedies? Why does He allow evil to triumph and cause such suffering?”
Rev. Hamlin sighed. “Much wiser men than I have tried to answer that question. One can only hope that when all is said and done, God will use this war to draw us closer to Him and make us better people. I fear, however, that it may have the opposite effect in many cases.”
Audrey thought it an odd thing to say. There was so much she didn’t understand about God. In fact, she barely knew where or how to begin to understand Him. She stood. “I’ll be back,” she promised, then went outside and climbed onto her bike for the mile-long ride home to Wellingford.
She was within sight of the manor house when she heard the roar of an airplane approaching from the south, flying lower than usual. She braked and looked up, shielding her eyes, straining to see the insignia on the fuselage and wings, dreading the sight of a Nazi plane. The roaring engine grew louder, closer. Her heart pounded as she recalled the vicar’s ominous words about an invasion of paratroopers.
The plane came into view at last, just above the woods, the engine stuttering now. A plume of dark smoke trailed behind. Audrey spotted the bull’s-eye emblem on the RAF Spitfire and could breathe again. But the plane flew much too low, barely skimming the chimney tops as it soared over Wellingford Hall. It was going to crash on the lawn. Audrey leaped onto her bicycle and pedaled as hard as she could toward home, as if she could do something if she got there in time, as if she could prevent the stricken plane from crashing.
But of course she couldn’t.
The explosion, when it came, rocked through her, nearly knocking her from her bike, moments before she reached Wellingford’s front door.
LONDON, SEPTEMBER 1940
“I have no idea if my mum will be here or not,” Eve warned her friend Iris as they walked to the Clarksons’ town house. “I hope she and the rest of the servants have all gone back to Wellingford Hall. But if she’s here, Mum will be getting Lady Rosamunde ready for a Saturday night out.”
“A night out?” Iris asked. “Who would go out with a war on?”
“Lady Rosamunde won’t let a silly little thing like a war keep her home.” Which was why Eve worried about her mum. Audrey was at Wellingford, and Alfie was somewhere in the north, and Eve wished Mum could leave London, too.
The sun felt warm on her shoulders as Eve walked with Iris to the servants’ door, passing the ungainly hump of an Anderson shelter dug into a bare patch of ground between the town house and the garages. It hadn’t been there in May when Eve had come with Audrey to fetch the car. Fresh earth lay mounded over the top and sides to cover the shelter’s corrugated roof. It resembled a tomb and looked much too small to house Lady Rosamunde and all of her servants.
“Your mum is upstairs,” Tildy said after hugging her. Eve led Iris up the steep servants’ stairs, feeling out of breath when they reached the top floor.
Mum pulled Eve into her arms, holding her tightly. “What brings you here, love?”
“I came to tell you my good news. I have a brand-new job as a typist for the Ministry of Information.”