The Granville Sisters (35 page)

‘It is news of Louise?’ Henry asked, turning pale.

‘No, sir. Mr Ian Cavendish called.’

‘And …?’

‘He phoned ten minutes ago, to say the air-raid sirens had sounded in London. He said he’d telephone you later to let you know what was happening.’

Henry turned away without saying a word and shut himself in the library.

Charlotte, having been comforted by the fact that, at the age of fifty and with a bad back, her father was too old to be a soldier, now clung to Lady Anne.

‘I’ve been working on some interesting plans, darling,’ she told the little girl, ‘and I need your help. Amanda, I need you too.’

Holding their hands, their grandmother led them into her sitting room.

‘What is it?’ they chorused, looking around the prettily cluttered room as if searching for clues.

‘Soldiers get very cold when they’re out in the open,’ Lady Anne said, in practical tones. She went to a chest of drawers in the corner, and started taking out skeins of khaki and navy-blue wool, and several pairs of knitting needles.

‘I’m going to teach you how to knit warm scarves to begin with, and then we’ll knit socks and balaclava helmets …’

‘What’s a bala … what you said?’ asked Charlotte.

Their grandmother produced a knitting pattern, with pictures on the front.

Nanny, coming to fetch them to wash their hands before lunch, nodded approvingly.

‘That’s the ticket, M’Lady!’ she said. ‘Everybody must keep busy. We can’t let Mr Hitler get us down.’

Liza slipped upstairs to her bedroom, and threw her hat and new mink coat on the bed. Then she sank on to the chair in front of her dressing table, and looked despairingly at her reflection in the mirror.

Now that the terrible moment she’d been dreading for months – years even – had arrived, she felt cold and sick with the horror of it all. What was going to happen? Was her beloved London being destroyed by bombs at this very moment? Would the Germans invade Britain by landing on the south coast, only seventy miles away? What would become of her and her family? Would they be made prisoners of war? Shot? Liza covered her face with her hands and sobbed with fear.

Everything was ruined and nothing was ever going to be the same again. The life she so loved had ended and she wondered how they were all going to survive the terror and hardship that lay ahead.