The FitzOsbornes at War (17 page)

‘It is the
principle
of the matter,’ she declared in strident tones, as the poor gentleman appointed by the government to survey the house tip-toed past the doorway with his measuring tape. ‘At the same time that my only nephew is risking his
life
in service for this country, I am being
forced
out of my home!’ She leaned towards the door to make certain the gentleman had heard. ‘A poor widow, being tossed out on the streets!’

Aunt Charlotte owns the entire village of Milford, as well as properties all over the country. I doubt she’d have any difficulties finding another place to live, although I quite understood that she’d want to remain close to her stables.

‘Can’t you just move into the gatehouse?’ I asked.

‘The
gatehouse
!’ exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, as though I’d suggested a dirt-floored hovel in some remote fen, instead of the large brick residence visible from where we sat. ‘No, no, that would be
quite
impossible. Where would Tobias stay when he comes home on leave?’

‘It has five bedrooms,’ said Veronica.

‘Three,’ said Aunt Charlotte, ‘and only
one
bathroom!’

‘There are the two attic rooms as well, Your Highness,’ murmured Barnes, as she handed round the scones. ‘And the Ministry might be willing to refurbish the house to make it habitable, if Your Highness were to explain the matter to them . . .’

Aunt Charlotte pursed her lips and glared out the window at the terrace, and beyond that, at the lawns that had been ploughed up to plant potatoes. ‘This is entirely the fault of this new government,’ she said. ‘Attlee and those other Socialists who’ve wormed their way into the Cabinet. I know their game. They’re determined to destroy the aristocracy, to snatch away our houses and dig up our rose beds and deny us petrol for our motor cars. We might as well be living in Russia. This sort of thing would never have happened when Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister.’

‘We
are
at war,’ Veronica reminded her. ‘And you’re not the only one being asked to turn over part of your property to the government.’ I knew that the clothing factory owned by Daniel’s family had been requisitioned months ago, and was now churning out barrage balloons and army tents. ‘Anyway, if you’d agreed to take in those schoolchildren from Stepney, the government wouldn’t even have considered using Milford Park as a hospital.’

‘Evacuees!’ said Aunt Charlotte, with a shudder. ‘
Stepney
! Heaven forbid! I think I’d rather have wounded soldiers. So long as they were from the
officer
class . . .’ She accepted a teacup from Barnes and heaved a sigh. ‘It’s not that one minds doing one’s bit for the war effort, you understand,’ she added, rather plaintively. ‘It’s just that it’s very disagreeable when certain
others
aren’t being required to make similar sacrifices.’

‘Lady Bosworth is running a first aid centre at her house,’ I pointed out to Aunt Charlotte. (One would think an international war might take priority over their personal rivalry, but clearly not.)

‘And I thought you said Lord Bosworth had cleared out his study to make room for the Local Defence Volunteers headquarters?’ added Veronica.

‘Local Defence Volunteers!’ sniffed Aunt Charlotte. ‘Another one of this government’s ridiculous schemes, pandering to all those old men wanting to play at soldiers! They wouldn’t last five minutes if the Germans
did
invade.’

We lapsed into silence as we considered this frightening prospect.
Anything
seems possible now, following that desperate evacuation of British forces from northern France. More than two hundred thousand soldiers, starving, exhausted, some of them badly wounded, forced to abandon their tanks and cannons, sometimes even their rifles and boots, as they queued in the sea at Dunkirk. Then the navy ran out of ships to rescue them, and so ordinary people raced across the Channel in their fishing trawlers, their yachts and cabin cruisers and leaky rowing boats, hoping to save as many men as they could. Even the
Canterbury
, that luxury ferry we took to Calais last year, was pressed into service. And all the while, the Luftwaffe was bombing the boats and strafing the beach with machine guns. Tens of thousands of men died.

‘Have you had any news of Harkness yet?’ asked Veronica at last, referring to Aunt Charlotte’s former butler. He’d been posted to France, the last we’d heard.

‘Oh yes, I meant to tell you,’ Aunt Charlotte said. ‘Barnes had a postcard from him, didn’t you?’

‘That’s right, Your Highness,’ said Barnes. ‘He and his brigadier returned from France last week. Both are well, and he sends his regards to everyone.’

‘And I heard Billy Hartington and his battalion got back safely, too,’ said Aunt Charlotte.

‘Oh, Kick
will
be relieved,’ I said. ‘She’s been so worried about him.’

‘Yes,’ said Aunt Charlotte absently. (I could tell she hadn’t been paying attention to me, because she hadn’t responded to Kick’s name by launching into a diatribe about ‘vulgar Americans’ or ‘Catholic conspiracies’.) ‘Of course,’ Aunt Charlotte mused aloud, ‘if one could be sure that gentlemen such as Lord Hartington were the sort of convalescents being sent to Milford, one would quite willingly offer up one’s house. It would be one’s patriotic duty to help men such as
them
. . .’

And they’d also provide Aunt Charlotte with some opportunities for matchmaking, I thought. She still seems to cherish a faint (and quite futile) hope that Billy Hartington will propose to Veronica. Oh, how Aunt Charlotte would
love
to be able to drop phrases like ‘my niece, the Duchess of Devonshire’ into conversations with Lady Bosworth!

‘Still, one would hope the
best
families would be spared having to hear that their sons had been wounded,’ Aunt Charlotte said. ‘Or even worse news. When I think of that poor Pemberton boy . . . So terribly brave and so tragic! Although I suppose there’s always a chance he’ll turn up as a prisoner of war.’

‘What?’ said Veronica. ‘You mean,
Geoffrey
Pemberton?’

‘Yes, his regiment was stationed at Calais,’ said Aunt Charlotte. ‘Ordered to fight to the death, apparently, to draw the Germans’ attention away from the evacuation at Dunkirk.’

Veronica and I exchanged horrified looks. Geoffrey Pemberton is – was – a rather awful boy who’d been at school with Toby and had fallen briefly in love with Veronica. But just because neither of us had liked him, didn’t mean we’d wanted him . . . Well, he might not be
dead
. But oh, how his poor father must be feeling now!

‘That’s terrible,’ I said, blinking back tears. ‘Even if Geoffrey was taken prisoner . . . Imagine being a prisoner of the
Nazis
!’

‘There are rules about how prisoners of war have to be treated,’ Veronica assured me, but her voice was far from steady. ‘The Geneva Convention and so on . . . ’

‘Oh, do you really think the
Nazis
care about those rules?’ I said. ‘What about what Mr Churchill said, about the Germans’ treachery and brutality, about their “originality of malice”?’

‘Well, I prefer to concentrate on the other parts of his speech,’ said Veronica, raising her chin. ‘Where he says we’ll defeat them. “We shall defend our island”, that’s what he declared, and I believe him. “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills –”’

‘“We shall never surrender”,’ chorused all of us, even Barnes.

Mr Churchill may be mad, but he certainly gives inspiring speeches.

15 June, 1940

I
AM SITTING IN MY KITCHEN
, having just finished reading a very unhelpful booklet called
If the Invader Comes
. According to the government, if the Germans invade, my duty is to ‘stay put’. I also have to follow any orders the authorities give, except ‘when you receive an order, make sure you know it’s a true order and not a faked order’. How on Earth are we meant to tell?
The Times
says the Germans could drop English-speaking parachutists, dressed in civilian clothes, all over the countryside under cover of darkness. Apparently the German soldiers who parachuted into the Netherlands were dressed as
nuns
and
nurses
! Well, what if the Germans landing here disguise themselves as British policemen, or ARP wardens, or BBC announcers?

Then, if one
does
encounter an unambiguous German, the advice is: ‘do not tell him anything’ and ‘do not give him anything’. Right. Presumably, once I’ve refused to say or do anything to help the Nazi storm troopers who’ve arrived on my doorstep, they’ll just turn around and go meekly on their way. Then they’ll get completely lost, because all the signposts and railway station names have been taken down (I expect this will make them even
more
hostile, out of sheer frustration). But perhaps I’ll be at work when they march into London – in which case my manager is supposed to have organised ‘some system by which a sudden attack can be resisted’. Clearly, the writers of this booklet haven’t met Mr Bowker. Miss Halliday, on the other hand, would make a formidable opponent . . . except ladies aren’t even allowed to be proper members of the Local Defence Volunteers, as Henry pointed out indignantly in her most recent letter.

Aunt Charlotte, not having found another school yet, has suggested Henry join the hundreds of British children being evacuated to Canada and the United States, but Henry refuses to be separated from the rest of us (‘and anyway, I’m not a
child
!’). There are also rumours that the British princesses are being sent to Canada, and Henry says she’s not getting on any ship if there’s the slightest chance ‘that stupid Princess Margaret’ is on it (the two of them are old adversaries). Henry also claims she’s far too busy at Milford to be able to leave, what with grooming the horses, feeding the pigs, helping Barnes pack up the house, and running messages for the Milford unit of the Local Defence Volunteers. It’s headed by her friend Jocko’s father, who was a sergeant in the last war, and all the village men (those too old or too young to have been called up for the regular army) are currently occupied making bombs out of old jam jars filled with petrol, constructing roadblocks from logs nailed to bicycle wheels, and dragging hay wagons into the middle of fields so the Germans can’t land their planes there.

Actually, the planes could just as well be Italian, because now Italy has declared war on the Allies, too. So Veronica hurriedly drafted a Montmaravian declaration of war on Italy and sent it off to Toby for his signature. She says Mussolini is a sneaky little coward, waiting till he was certain France would fall to Germany. Yesterday, the Nazis marched into Paris. How horrible to picture Hitler strutting down the Champs-Élysées, surrounded by a lot of fawning Nazis (Gebhardt probably amongst them). The French government has collapsed and the new President seems likely to sign an armistice with Germany within days . . .

Oh, it’s all too depressing. I simply can’t write any more.