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Vera’s mother looked disapprovingly at her daughter. “You should have worn a hat.”
“Your hat’s big enough for both of us,” Vera said, scowling disapprovingly at her mother’s yellow headgear with its ornamental red feather.
Mrs. Chapman looked anxiously at her wristwatch. “We shouldn’t be early, that would be rude, but we shouldn’t be more than two minutes late.” She stared at the watch for a couple of seconds and then nodded her head, the red feather swaying jauntily as she did so. “All right, we can go now.”
As her mother turned to go along the path that led around to the back of the Hall, Vera marched up the front steps and stood with her hand on the bell pull.
“Vera, what are you doing? We can’t go in the front door. We have to go round the back, to the kitchen.”
“I’m not going in the back door,” Vera declared. “The Earl invited us to tea. We’re guests just like any other guests.”
“Don’t ring that bell,” Mrs. Chapman ordered, hurrying up the steps behind her. “Don’t you dare ring that bell.”
Vera ignored her mother and pulled the metal bell pull. For a moment she was able to hear the clanging of the bell as it echoed somewhere inside the mysterious inner reaches of Southwold Hall, but then the sound was drowned by the roar of an engine as a motor vehicle ground its way up the gravel driveway and skidded to a halt at the bottom of the steps.
Vera turned to look at the three American officers who leaped energetically from the jeep. They stood for a moment and gave instructions to the driver.
“That’s him,” Mrs. Chapman whispered to Vera.
“Who?”
“The tall one with the blond hair. He’s the one who was in charge. He’s the one who dug us out. Don’t you recognize him?”
Vera kept silent. Of course she didn’t recognize him. By the time the Earl had returned from his bicycle ride to the American camp, she had been on the other side of the village; far away from the unexploded bomb.
The Earl had made a rapid decision that the only way to rescue the villagers trapped in the bomb shelter was to bring in the Americans.
“Our own chaps will never get here in time,” he said. “We’re very thin on the ground these days, and the Americans are just sitting there doing nothing. I’ll ride over there and see if they have a bomb-disposal chap.” He snorted disapprovingly. “They seem to have everything else. You wait here, young lady, and I’ll be back in before you know it.”
She watched him wobble away on the rusty old bicycle. As soon as he was out of sight, she turned her back on the bomb that still glinted menacingly in the starlight, and hurried to put distance between herself and the obvious danger.
She had watched the rescue from the safe vantage point of the church porch. The squad of American soldiers had been nothing but shadowy figures and silhouettes in the headlights of their jeeps. They had shovels and spades and pickaxes and a kind of cheerful, reckless daring conveyed in the laughter and banter that were carried to her on the night wind.
“They dug us all out,” Mrs. Chapman said, “and that bomb could have gone off at any minute.”
“I know,” Vera replied. “You really don’t have to tell me again.”
The Americans, with the Earl urging and encouraging them, had widened the ventilation shaft at the rear of the shelter. Vera had watched as the villagers emerged one by one. She had seen an American soldier kneel on the ground to receive a baby into his arms. She had been proud of the Americans that night, watching them in action made her even more determined to become a war bride. She wanted to make a life in the country and the culture that had bred these daring young men. She wanted her child to grow up in such a country.
Already her life was changing. She was a guest of the Earl. She would be admitted through the front door. It was the beginning of a new life.
The Americans bounded up the front steps to greet them. “Hi, ma’am. Hello, miss.”
They removed their caps and smoothed their hair as the front door of the Hall swung open, and Mrs. Pearson greeted the party with her usual glare of disapproval.
“We should have gone to the back door,” Mrs. Chapman whispered.
“No, we shouldn’t,” Vera insisted.
The officers stood aside, and one of them made a sweeping gesture toward the front entrance. “After you, miss.”
Mrs. Pearson gave way grudgingly and indicated that they should go ahead of her into the drawing room, where a fire roared in the hearth. A silver tea service on an ornate tea trolley glinted in the firelight. Another trolley held platters of sandwiches and cakes.
“Quite a spread,” Vera whispered to her mother.
“Not really,” Mrs. Chapman replied. “Heaven only knows what’s in those sandwiches, and it’s only the second-best china.”
“How would you know that?” Vera asked.
“Before the war, when the Countess was alive, they used to have big parties here, and they’d bring village girls in to help in the kitchen. I’ve seen the best china, and this isn’t it.”
The Earl’s voice boomed out as he rose from a chair by the fire. “Welcome, welcome. So glad you could come.” He shook hands with the Americans and then turned to Vera. “And here is our heroine.”
He smiled at Vera and looked sideways at Mrs. Chapman. Vera felt renewed embarrassment at her mother’s choice of headgear.
“And this is your mother?”
Mrs. Chapman bobbed a curtsey and remained silent. The Earl stared at Mrs. Chapman’s hat and seemed to be groping for words. At last he looked away, and a smile lit up his face as a woman appeared in the doorway. “Ah, there you are.”
“Yes, I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”
Vera turned to look at the young woman as she came to stand at her father’s side. She was tall and slim with long dark hair held away from her face by two side combs. Diamonds glinted at her throat and on her fingers.
Mrs. Chapman poked a sharp elbow into her daughter’s ribs. “Don’t stare.”
“But, Mum—”
“Don’t stare.”
Vera ignored her mother and continued to stare. She knew what her own face looked like, she’d spent time enough examining it in her bedroom mirror, but she’d never seen her own features on someone else’s face.
“Mum ...”
“We don’t talk about it. We’ll never talk about it, and she won’t even notice.”
Her mother was wrong. The Earl’s daughter noticed. Her stare was hard and cold, and Vera felt a momentary guilt at having had the temerity to be born with the same face as the other woman.