“I hear you had a little trouble earlier today, Lady Pamela?” he said. The formality of her title in itself was worrying.
“Trouble, sir?”
“I hear you collapsed on the street outside the station. Are you not eating enough? I know the food is not exactly always appetising.”
“I’m eating enough, sir.”
“The night shifts? They take their toll on the body, I know.”
“But we all have to rotate and do our share. I don’t enjoy them. I never seem to get enough sleep when I’m on night shift, but it must be the same for everyone else.”
“You are quite well?” he asked, giving her a knowing stare. He waited a second or two before he added, “Do you have a particular attachment to one of our young men?”
She actually laughed then. “I’m not pregnant if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“You don’t look like the fainting type to me.” He leaned closer to her across his desk. “So what’s up?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I feel so foolish. And you’re right. I don’t make a habit of doing that sort of thing.”
He thumbed through her file. “How long since you’ve taken leave?”
“I went home for a couple of days at Christmas, sir.”
“Then you’re overdue.”
“But we’re understaffed in Hut Three. It wouldn’t be right to . . .”
“Lady Pamela. I expect our people to do first-class work. I can’t have them cracking up on us. Take a week off.”
“But there would be nobody to take my place, and we can’t have . . .”
“When does your current rotation finish?”
“At the end of the week.”
“Then work your rotation and go home then.”
“Oh, but sir . . .”
“That’s an order, Lady Pamela. Go home. Have a good time and come back refreshed.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
It was only when she came down the steps of the big house that the full implication of this struck her. She would be going home, and Jeremy was safely back in Britain. He might already be at Nethercote. Suddenly everything was right with the world.
CHAPTER TWO
Farleigh Place
Near Sevenoaks, Kent
May 1941
It was the gamekeeper’s boy who spotted it first. He had been out at dawn checking the traps (since wartime rationing had meant that rabbit was on the menu, even at the big house). It was a chore he had taken on willingly, loving the freedom and solitude of the countryside, still in awe of the wideness and greenness of it all, of the immense arc of sky like pale-blue glass overhead. After the flat in Stepney and the alleyway with its small strip of grubby sky, Farleigh still seemed too improbable to be real.
This particular morning he was returning empty-handed. The gamekeeper suspected some village lads were helping themselves to the odd rabbit or partridge, and he talked of putting down mantraps. The thought of mantraps brought an added spice of excitement to the daily chore for the boy. He wondered how it would feel to see one of the bigger village boys caught in a trap—the boys who took delight in bullying him and pushing him around because he was a runt and an outsider. He quickened his stride for the cottage, his stomach growling for porridge and eggs, real eggs, not the powdered stuff that tasted like cardboard. It was going to be a warm and perfect early summer’s day. Strands of mist lingered over the meadows, and a cuckoo was calling loudly, drowning out the dawn chorus of birds.
The boy came out of the woods and into the parkland that surrounded the big house, looking out carefully for the herd of deer because he was still rather scared of them. Smooth green grass was dotted with spreading oaks, chestnuts, and copper beeches, and beyond he caught a glimpse of the big house itself rising like a fairy-tale castle above the trees. He was about to take the path that led to the cottage when he saw something lying in the grass—something brown, and beside it, something long and light and flapping a little, like a large wounded bird. He couldn’t imagine what it could be, and he went toward it cautiously, still conscious that the country was full of unexpected dangers. When he got closer, he saw that it was a man lying there. Or had been a man. He was wearing an army uniform and lying facedown, his limbs at improbable angles. From a pack on his back came strings, and the strings were attached to what looked like long strands of whitish fabric. It took him a while to realise that it was a parachute, or the remains of a parachute, because it lay there, limp and lifeless, torn and flapping pathetically in the breeze. The boy understood then that the man had literally fallen from the sky.
He stood for a moment, wondering what to do, feeling slightly sick because the corpse was horribly damaged and the grass around it stained with blood. Before he could make up his mind, he heard the thud of hoofbeats on grass and the jingle of a bridle. He looked up to see a girl on a fat white pony galloping toward him. The girl was well turned out in a velvet crash cap, jodhpurs, and hacking jacket, and as she came closer, he recognised her as Lady Phoebe, the youngest of the daughters from the big house. He realised with horror that she’d ride right into the corpse if he didn’t stop her. He ran forward waving his arms.
“Stop!” he cried.
The pony skidded to a halt, whinnied, danced, and bucked nervously, but the girl kept her seat well.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “Are you mad? You could have had me off. Snowball could have trampled you.”
“You mustn’t go that way, miss,” he said. “There’s been an accident. You wouldn’t want to see it.”
“What kind of accident?”
He glanced back. “A man fell from the sky. He’s all smashed up. It’s horrible.”
“Fell from the sky?” She was straining to see past him. “Like an angel, you mean?”
“A soldier,” he said. “I don’t think his parachute opened.”
“Golly. How horrid. Let me see.” She tried to urge the pony forward, but it was still snorting and dancing nervously.
The boy stepped between her and the corpse again. “Don’t look, miss. You don’t want to see things like that.”
“Of course I do. I’m not squeamish, you know. I’ve watched the men butchering a hog. Now, that really was rather horrid. The way it screamed. I decided never to eat bacon again. But I happen to adore bacon, so that didn’t last long.”
She nudged the pony forward, making the boy step aside. The pony took a few nervous steps, then stopped, sensing that it didn’t want to go any closer. Phoebe stood up in the saddle and peered.
“Crikey,” she said. “We must tell somebody.”
“We should tell the army blokes. He’s one of them, ain’t he?”
“Isn’t he,” she corrected. “Really, your grammar is awful.”
“Bugger my grammar, miss, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“I do mind. And it’s not ‘miss.’ I’m Lady Phoebe Sutton, and you should address me as ‘my lady.’”
“Sorry,” he said, swallowing back the word miss that was about to come out.
“We must tell my father,” she said firmly. “It is still his land, after all, even though the army is using it at the moment. It still belongs to Farleigh. Come on. You’d better come with me.”
“To the big house, miss? I mean, my lady?”
“Of course. Pah is always up early. The rest of them will still be asleep.”
He started to walk beside the pony.
“You’re the boy who is staying with our gamekeeper, aren’t you?” she asked.
“That’s right. Alfie’s me name. I came down from the Smoke last winter.”