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The fear of undeclared war that gripped England was reflected in the pall of rain and wind that had lashed the coast and driven everyone indoors to listen to their radios. A terrible foreboding draped Rose Hill like a black cloud. People spoke in hushed whispers, young boys and old men drilled with wooden rifles, and women cut and dyed fabric to make blackout curtains. The news on the radio left no room for doubt. Hitler was moving across Europe; Britain must defend itself. War was inevitable.
Warning signs appeared along the clifftops. The beach was to be closed. All civilian access would be restricted.
The last day of beach access coincided with the first time the sun had appeared in months.
“Better take a last look at the beach,” Carol’s mother said. “They’ll be moving in the tank traps and the barbed wire any day now. Go on down there and have some fun while you can.”
And so they went, Carol, Judy Pryke, Mike Shenton, who would die in Tripoli, and Cyril Evans, who would never come back from Normandy.
It was Mike who suggested going into the caves at low tide, but it was Cyril who carried the torch and ventured into the long-abandoned tunnel that brought them to the foot of a long flight of stone steps.
The four of them looked at each other, their eyes glittering in the torchlight. Generations of children had known that the steps existed and that they constituted a secret entrance into Southwold Hall, but no one had dared to climb the steps to see what wonders lay beyond.
Now, on the brink of war, Carol and her friends discovered a new kind of daring. Hitler’s jack-booted, goose-stepping army was on its way, and boys only a few years older than Mike and Cyril’s fifteen years had already been conscripted. Life had taken on a frightening impermanence, so why not risk what no previous generations had risked? Why not be the fearsome foursome who finally discovered the secret passageways of Southwold?
They hesitated at the foot of the stairs.
“We can’t stay long,” Cyril warned. “We’ve only got about an hour each side of low tide.”
Fear kept them giggling and shushing each other as they climbed the damp stone steps. The steps gave way to a wooden staircase dusty with disuse. The climb seemed interminable. Carol was overwhelmed at the size of Southwold Hall.
The narrow passageway at the top of the stairs was studded with doors. Judy squeaked in alarm as Mike tried each of the door handles in turn until he came to an unlocked door.
The door screeched on its hinges, and the four of them clung together, hardly daring to breathe. No one came in response to the alarm, and so they crept in through the doorway.
Carol had expected they would be in a bedroom, perhaps a room with a four-poster bed and velvet drapes. This room was even more interesting than a bedroom; this was a child’s nursery. She breathed a sigh of relief; the Earl of Southwold had only one child, and she was far too old for this room. She would not be interested in the dusty old rocking horse, and she would not fit in the little bed with its shabby covers and neglected pillows.
They crept through the nursery and out into the main hallway, where they were overwhelmed by the height of the ceilings, the magnificence of the paneling, and the brilliant colors of the carpet. Footsteps on the stairs brought their exploration to an end. They darted back into the nursery and huddled together, waiting for the footsteps to pass.
Carol looked down at their feet and the damp stains they were leaving on the floor. Had they left similar stains in the hallway? Would someone follow their footprints and find them?
The secret door had swung shut in their absence, and they held their collective breath as Mike groped along the wall to find the concealed door. As last he located the door handle, cunningly disguised by the faded paint of a mural and painted to resemble the center of a red rose.