Chapter 1
Deck the Halls
A Village in Kent, England
December 21, 1941
It was nearly Christmas and Caroline found herself once again happily ensconced in her village home. She couldn’t remember exactly when she’d fallen in love with the cottage, but she thought it might have been from the moment she first saw it.
“I doubt it’s suitable for someone your age,” the neighbor said—the one trusted with the key and paid by the owner to show the small village home. Caroline recalled how the woman went on for some time about the gloomy look of the place: the dark brown exterior and the failed attempt by a previous owner to liven it up it with a bright yellow trim on the front windows and door. “Just makes it a sight, doesn’t it?”
Caroline thought that was justwhat she liked about it—the rustic look yet with a bit of color. A few minutes later, Caroline found herself in The Peasant’s Revenge, the local pub, telephoning Daddy—which she usually did when large sums of money were required—and asking him for the money to purchase the cozy cottage. Daddy couldn’t resist his only daughter and she damn well knew it.
But that was many years ago. Caroline was barely twenty then, and it was at least ten years before the start of the war. Daddy had money—pots of it—in what seemed a never-ending flow, even by today’s wartime standards. So naturally she never hesitated to call on him whenever she found herself in need, or, to put it more bluntly, whenever her trust fund refused to stretch through the month.
Since the Blitz and the ongoing war with Germany, Caroline never knew when the phone might ring to interrupt her current happiness and send them all off to God knows where again. Working for a secret government agency kept them all at Headquarters' beck and call. So for the holidays, she decided to concentrate on her blessings. For one, she was newly married, quite happily so, and two, she was surrounded by people she loved and who loved her. Not to mention her being surrogate mother to two furry and very naughty shelties she’d acquired recently on the Isle of Man.
Put simply, Caroline couldn’t believe her good fortune, and that’s why she pushed from her mind, for the present, the one thing that threatened her country idyll. Like that American literary figure, Scarlett O’Hara, she preferred to think about it tomorrow.
“I can’t understand what’s got into Les and Edward all of a sudden.” Cyril’s words pulled Caroline out of her reverie.
“Sorry?”
They were in the living room trimming the tree.
Cyril reached up and perched the Christmas star on the crown or tip top of the tree, and then repeated what he’d said.
“What do you mean all of a sudden?” She searched though the box of ornaments until she found a silver one she liked and began attaching it to a branch.
“They’re practically gleeful these days, the two of them, hopping about, smiling as if sharing private jokes, and always humming those blasted carols.”
“I suppose with the holidays coming on, they’ll just have to snap out of it, won’t they?”
Cyril stepped back to view his handiwork and gave her a defeated look. “It’s a frightful mess, isn’t it?”
He’d told her earlier the damn thing looked more like a bough lopped off from a much bigger and shapelier fir. Still, being wartime, one couldn’t expect miracles, even if her father, in spite of the frightful rationing, had managed to send down with his chauffeur, the tree, a large box of last year’s decorations, and insisting on filling their larder with hard-to-find ingredients for a traditional Christmas Day dinner.
Caroline grabbed a handful of tinsel and began working on a rather needy section of the tree. When she was done, she smiled in triumph and said, “Can’t see that great hole now, can you, darling?”
“Always the optimist. Listen, Caroline, I didn’t mean it quite like that.”
“Mean what?”
“That Les and Edward shouldn’t be happy. Especially after that mess you got us all into on the Isle of Man.”
“Igot you into?”
“Just making sure you were listening,” he said.
She stuck out her tongue. “Anyway, I agree with you,” she said. “As a couple—”
He gave her one of his “we’ve had this discussion before” looks.
“As a couple in oureyes, if not in the legal sense,” she went on, “they have every right to be, how did you put it, gleeful. It’s Christmas holidays, they’re in love, and we’re all here under the same roof —”
“Leaky roof.” He pointed to a pan she’d placed under a constant drip in a corner.
She waved him off. “I was about to say before you interrupted me… What was I going to say?”
“Oh, it’ll come to you. It always does,” he said then winked.