CHAPTER ONE
17 December 1941
‘Next station Hassop.’
At this prompt from the train guard, Louisa looked again through the window, though she hardly needed reminding of the landscape. She had barely taken her eyes away from the speeding view since they’d left London some hours ago, heading due north. In the last hour or so, the train had sliced through vast moors, with their deep browns and rich purple hues beneath a steel sky that made Louisa fancy she could hear Cathy shouting for Heathcliff. Even without the view, the names of the stations were enough to tell her that they were in another world: Matlock, Darley Dale, Bakewell.
Until a few weeks ago, this trip had not been in Louisa’s plans, but over lunch with Nancy, Louisa had confessed that there were repeated rows with Guy over her insistence on keeping Maisie at home in London, instead of sending their daughter to the countryside as an evacuee. As a solution, or so it seemed, Nancy had invited her to Christmas with the Mitfords.
Deborah, keen to cheer everyone up – ‘what with Diana languishing in Holloway, Muv and Farve barely on speakers, Decca stuck in America, all our men at the front and her own ghastly sadness with the baby’ – had invited the family to her in-laws’ house in Derbyshire. Apparently it was large, having been taken over by a school since the war began, but would be empty when the children and teachers went home for the holidays. Nancy said Louisa coming would do her a favour, to be there as someone on her side and keep everyone in check, although Louisa suspected it was a kindness. When she had first known the Mitfords, twenty years before, it had been as their servant: she knew the times had changed but the older stalwarts of the aristocracy, such as Nancy’s parents, had not. Her being there as a guest in the drawing room might put the cat among the proud pigeons.
Maisie, now six, sat beside her mother, slowly turning the pages of her book, a Rupert Bear annual, the leaves crinkled from the many times it had been dropped into the bath or survived a spilled glass of milk. Maisie needed the reassuring comfort of the familiar pictures of the bear in his yellow checked trousers, as they hurtled towards somewhere unknown, leaving her father behind. Louisa brushed one of her daughter’s dark brown curls behind her ear, and gave her a kiss, earning a brief smile. There was a whistle, followed by the screech of the train brakes and the clouds of steam that billowed outside the window. Louisa took Maisie’s hand. ‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘Let’s begin our new adventure.’
When Louisa and Maisie disembarked, struggling slightly with their two cardboard suitcases, hats, gas masks and Maisie’s favourite teddy, Fizz, they didn’t notice Deborah rushing up to them through the steam. She bent down and gave Maisie a kiss, then took one of the cases from Louisa.
‘It’s so wonderful to see you both,’ she said, practically shouting to be heard over the noise of the other passengers getting on and off the train, soldiers home on leave, sweethearts rushing to greet them.
‘It’s very kind of you to meet us at the station. I’m sure we could have got a taxi.’ Louisa felt suddenly rather formal and shy before this young woman. She had been the age Deborah was now when Deborah had been born, working for the Mitfords as their nursery-maid. There had been so much disappointment that she was a girl and not a boy – longed for after five girls and Tom – that the family had barely looked at her for the first three weeks. She was supposed to be the spare for the heir, Louisa recalled. But now here she was, smiling and chattering away, in the sort of clothes Louisa knew she was most comfortable wearing: a heavy tweed skirt and jacket, sturdy shoes and a felt hat. She looked ready for a long country walk, not a trip to the station.
‘I wouldn’t have dreamed of putting you in a taxi, and I need to pop into the village on the way back to pick up some bits. You’ll see we’re camping in the house, really. Everything is topsy-turvy and thick with dust in the rooms the school isn’t using, but I’m just so happy that everyone is coming together for Christmas. There are no servants at all, except for some odd bods and a couple of dailies I’ve scrounged locally. I’m afraid it’s all hands on deck,’ said Deborah, talking at speed, puffing as she walked them to the car.
Maisie gripped Louisa’s hand a little tighter and Louisa squeezed back. ‘I’ll be happy to help in any way I can,’ she said. She marvelled at herself as she said this, but she knew she could confidently offer to help without being reduced to servitude. Louisa and Guy’s detective agency, Sullivan & Cannon, was still in operation, in spite of Guy’s commitments with the Home Guard. They had had quite a few missing-person cases, brought to them while relatives were understandably reluctant to ask the police to be diverted from war work. And there was always plenty of their bread-and-butter work: following husbands and wives suspected of adultery.
Maisie sat between her mother and Deborah on the front seat, excited gasps coming from her at all the toggles and switches – she hadn’t been in a car many times before. This one was a black Bentley with a long bonnet, and Louisa felt pretty smart herself for being in it.
‘She’s a dear thing,’ Deborah remarked, glancing at Maisie, as she smoothly pulled out of the station and onto the road. It was a generous comment. Now they were seated, Louisa could see Deborah’s middle was larger than it had been when she had married. It was a sad reminder that the body didn’t know what had happened to the baby it had birthed, instead betraying a terrible sadness. Rather than talk about her daughter, Louisa diverted the conversation.
‘Where is the nearest village to the house?’
‘Well, there’s Pilsley, which belongs to the Devonshire estate. The Devonshires are my in-laws. Their surname is Cavendish but their title is Devonshire.’ She seemed to wait for Louisa to acknowledge that she understood this arcane corner of aristocracy, forgetting Louisa had had to learn it long ago. ‘Pilsley’s mostly houses but there’s a post office, which is quite handy. You can walk there. And a sweet little pub, the Devonshire Arms. Then there’s Baslow, with a decent shop, and it also has Strutts Café, which I’m told does a marvellous ham and eggs. That’s only twenty minutes on a bicycle, and there’s plenty of those to borrow. But for knicker elastic, shampoo and that sort of thing, we go to Bakewell. It’s a drive, not too long, and if you ever need to go there, do say. There’ll be someone who can take you.’
‘Where are we going now?’ asked Maisie, who had her hands up before her, curled into fists at ten to two, mimicking Deborah’s on the steering wheel.
‘Perhaps you would be so kind as to take us into Baslow, Miss Maisie,’ said Deborah. ‘You need to turn left just here. Here we go, turn your wheel when I turn mine and we’ll get there perfectly.’ They giggled and steered in unison.
* * *
Baslow village was small and very pretty, with a brick bridge over the river that ran through the middle. After the fear and strangeness of London in the war, with its constant cacophony of ambulances and air-raid sirens, this felt like a Disney cartoon version of England. There were few men to see, which was unsurprising, and none of them in uniform, which was. The women walked rather than hurried, and only a few had a gas-mask box hanging from their shoulder. The buildings were made of pale grey stones, all of them unscathed. Louisa had grown too used to turning into a London street to see houses ripped in half, pictures still hanging from a wall, doors flapping uselessly, floors and ceilings gone. They followed Deborah, walking again at a brisk pace, and went with her into the village shop, Formby & Son painted smartly above the door. Inside, Louisa absent-mindedly looked at the postcards on sale while Maisie went to stare at the labels of the large, empty glass jars neatly lined in rows behind the counter. Their names alone were enough to make the mouth water: Sherbet Lemons; Buttermilk Toffees; Penny Chews; Humbugs. Louisa knew everyone bemoaned the scarcity of meat and eggs, foodstuffs one really needed, but the rationing of sugar sometimes seemed the hardest of all.
The shop was small and Louisa easily overheard Deborah’s conversation with a man she presumed was Mr Formby, standing behind the counter and wearing a large brown cotton apron, his hair slicked neatly back. She was asking after his wife.
‘She’s not in a good way, Lady Andrew,’ he said, in the attractive Derbyshire accent that Louisa had started to pick up on. ‘She can’t help worrying about our Henry. Every day without news from him is a bad day, so far as she’s concerned, no matter what I try to tell her.’
Deborah clucked sympathetically. ‘Yes, I know my parents worry terribly about my brother.’
‘Aye, that’s what I tell her. We’re all in the same boat.’
‘Still,’ said Deborah, ‘it’s your own you fret for. That’s only natural.’
Mr Formby flicked his eyes to Maisie. ‘Would she like a sweet or two?’
Maisie turned to Louisa – could she? Louisa smiled and nodded her assent.
He tapped the side of his nose and bent briefly beneath the counter, returning with a paper bag. ‘Don’t tell, eh? It’s our secret.’
Maisie regarded him seriously and took the bag. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said.
‘Where did you come from?’
‘London. I came today on the train. With my mummy.’
Copyright © 2022 by Jessica Fellowes
