“We’ll get back there as soon as we can, miss,” they assured her.
Eve stumbled back to where the ambulance stood. One of the attendants made her sit down and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. It didn’t help. Eve couldn’t stop trembling. Her entire body was going to shake into pieces. She watched the activity swirling around her as if from a great distance, as if time had slowed to a crawl and the minutes ticked by like days, weeks. Why didn’t they hurry?
Please, God . . . Please don’t take my mum . . .
Audrey stood in her bedroom doorway in her robe, wondering if this was a bad dream, wishing it were. Robbins was in the darkened hallway in his pajamas, saying that Eve had called. The town house had been hit. Audrey needed to come at once. She gripped the doorframe as the room tilted. She’d seen what Nazi bombs had done to Coventry.
“I would like to go to London with you, Miss Audrey,” Robbins said. “I don’t like the idea of you going alone.”
“Thank you, Robbins. I would be grateful for your company. We’ll leave as soon as we’re dressed.” She needed to stop trembling. She must pull herself together and be strong. It would take hours to get to London, inching along in the darkness, unable to use headlamps in the blackout.
She had begged Mother to leave London and come to Wellingford. “I won’t let the Nazis scare me from my home,” Mother had replied.
“Wellingford is your home, too,” Audrey had said. She’d heard Mother’s bitter laughter and imagined her shaking her head. Mother didn’t love Wellingford the way Audrey and Alfie and Father did. To them, it would always be home. But not to Mother.
The sun was beginning to rise when Audrey and Robbins reached the outskirts of London. It had been the longest drive of her life. The longest night. A pall of smoke hung above the city, and she could taste the scorched air—the same as in Coventry.
The destruction filled her with dread as they neared the town house. Rubble. Police and fire barricades. A woman in uniform telling Audrey she couldn’t go any farther. Audrey wanted to rage at her but managed to reply calmly. “My town house was bombed last night.”
“You’ll have to walk. You can’t drive any closer. Emergency vehicles only.”
Audrey parked, and she and Robbins got out. Her distress grew with each trembling step, dodging bricks and shiny chunks of shrapnel, twisting fire hoses. Audrey halted in silent horror when she saw the crumpled, smoking ruin. Robbins groaned and gripped his forehead.
All but one of the town houses had collapsed. The front of that unit was sheared off, and Audrey saw inside her neighbors’ rooms as if peering into a dollhouse. Pictures hung crookedly on the walls. Furniture and rugs lay jumbled in heaps. The floors tilted, ready to collapse. Her family’s town house had stood in the middle of the row. Audrey couldn’t move. Couldn’t think.
“Audrey! . . . Audrey!” She heard her name as if from a great distance, the way one hears it when being awakened from a nightmare. “Audrey!” She turned and fell into Eve’s arms. The strength of her grip pushed all the air from Audrey’s chest, but she clung to her, longing to draw from Eve’s strength.
“Oh, Eve . . . dear God . . .”
“They haven’t found anybody, yet.”
Audrey couldn’t grasp what she was saying. “They have an Anderson, don’t they? In back?”
“They’re still trying to dig it out. The garages—” Eve halted. She released her and ran toward a fireman leading a group of dazed survivors from the alleyway. Robbins took Audrey’s arm as they followed. The cook and the housekeeper were hugging Eve. Weeping. Mother wasn’t with them. Neither was Eve’s mum.
“Where’s my mum?” Eve shrieked. “Isn’t she with you?”
“No—”
“What do you mean, no? She has to be!” Eve gave the housekeeper a shake as if forcing her to change her reply. The cook’s words came out between sobs.
“We were all in the shelter except Lady Rosamunde. Your mum went back inside to persuade her to come down where it was safe. Then . . . then the bomb hit.”
Eve collapsed to the ground and wept.
Audrey didn’t know what to do. She hesitated, then crouched beside her, feeling Eve’s loss as much as her own. “They’re still searching, aren’t they, Eve? Let’s not lose hope.”
Hours passed as they waited, holding tightly to each other’s hands, watching the rescue workers dig. A canteen truck arrived with tea and sandwiches but neither of them could eat. Audrey heard her servants talking, weeping, and Robbins comforting them like a father.