The Spitfire Girls by Jenny Holmes

Author:Jenny Holmes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473560420
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2019-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The women’s quarters at the Grange seemed the lap of luxury to Mary. Her bedroom was enormous for a start, with a window from floor to ceiling overlooking the wood. The bed was a double, with a defunct servants’ bell-pull to one side. Though the patterned carpet was worn, the edging tassels were frayed and moths had been at the embroidered blue counterpane, she could see how grand the furnishings and fittings must once have been.

Awake before dawn on the Sunday morning, she lay in the darkness and was slow to identify the musty smell of the carpet and hulking outlines of her mahogany wardrobe and chest of drawers. Eventually a glint of daylight was reflected in the mirror on the dressing table: a signal that it was time to get up. So, still in her nightdress, Mary carried her towel and washbag along to the bathroom at the end of the corridor, padding on bare feet and hoping that she would find it free.

The door was ajar and she breathed a sigh of relief. There was a hot-water tap for the sink (another luxury) and a bar of Palmolive soap in a dish on the washstand. Mary washed quickly then brushed her teeth. With luck, she’d be back in her room before anyone else was up.

But when she slid back the bolt and opened the bathroom door she found Angela fully dressed and hovering outside.

Angela’s face fell. ‘Oh, hello, Mary. I thought it was Bobbie in there.’

‘As you see; it’s not.’ Mary waited, straight-faced, for Angela to step aside.

‘She’s not in her room either.’ Angela peered over Mary’s shoulder as if suspecting her of hiding Bobbie in the bathroom. ‘She can’t be far away. I need to talk to her. It’s rather urgent.’

‘I haven’t seen her.’

‘Well, if you do will you tell her that I’ve come back sooner than expected. I have something important to tell her.’ At last Angela backed away and Mary slipped past.

‘Where will you be?’ Mary asked.

‘Downstairs, in the breakfast room.’ Angela didn’t offer to wait for her and show her the ropes. Instead, she turned on her heel and marched off.

Mary swallowed hard after this blow to her already fragile confidence. She decided to avoid the breakfast room altogether and instead walk over to the base and eat her bacon and eggs in familiar surroundings.

So she went back to her room and put on a warm green jumper, a red woollen scarf and a pair of brown corduroy trousers. She threw her overcoat over the top, slid her feet into some flat shoes then hurried downstairs.

A faint clatter of cutlery from a room to her right told her the whereabouts of Angela and her fellow officers. It’d be like Daniel entering the lions’ den if I went in there, she thought, crossing the hallway and escaping through the front door.

Halfway down the steps, Mary remembered Cameron’s warning not to walk at the front of the house until the bomb disposal team had done

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