Milly froze. If her mother found out that Lena was in the cottage with their father, there would be hell to pay. She looked to the floor so that her mother wouldn’t see her scarlet face. ‘Dr Jennings booked a nurse,’ she said coolly.

They heard a footfall and Pearl was standing there, her face wreathed in smiles. ‘You haven’t seen my engagement ring yet, have you?’

She waggled her hand under Milly’s nose. The enormous rock on the third finger of her left hand glistened in the late-afternoon sunlight. ‘Freddie proposed last night,’ she cooed. ‘I’m to be married to a baron. I shall have a title.’ She paused. ‘What is the wife of a baron called, Mummy?’

Neither woman spoke.

‘Well?’ Pearl demanded. What do you think?’

‘Very nice,’ said Milly.

‘Very nice,’ Pearl cried. ‘Is that all you can say?’

‘Our father is dying,’ Milly said in a measured tone, ‘and all you can think about is that ring.’

Pearl looked stricken. ‘Oh no, he can’t be dying. He can’t.’

Surprised by her sister’s reaction, Milly felt guilty. Perhaps Pearl hadn’t taken on board what was happening. Maybe she hadn’t understood just how ill Charles was. Milly moved to put her arm around her but Pearl turned to Agatha with a scowl on her face. ‘Oh Mummy, this is too awful,’ she cried out. ‘I couldn’t bear it if he died now. It would completely ruin my engagement party.’

Chapter 16

Charles Walter Peregrine Shepherd, a man who never liked to make a fuss, left this world quietly. The whole evening had been punctuated by the sound of loud music from Pearl’s engagement party in the big house but, once the fireworks had finished, only the occasional sound of laughter drifted across the ha-ha. Although the girls were annoyed and upset by the frivolity, in all honesty Charles didn’t appear to be distressed by it. In the small hours of the morning, silence descended.

Charles had been in the cottage for four days. Despite the sadness of the situation, he and his daughters had enjoyed precious time together. At first he had been lucid, so the three of them shared their memories and the little cottage had been filled with laughter.

‘Do you remember taking me donkey riding on Bournemouth beach?’ Milly had asked.

Charles had chuckled. ‘How could I forget it, given that you rode through the bunting enclosure and took half a dozen fold-up chairs with you!’

‘My fondest memory,’ said Lena, ‘is of you and my mother on the beach.’

Charles smiled. ‘You mean the day when Angel ran up to the water and shouted, ‘Lena, Lena come out. It’s raining. You’ll get wet.’

On the day of the party, he suddenly deteriorated, and they sat silently by his bedside. Then, early on the Sunday morning, his breathing became more erratic. Milly was holding his left hand on the bed while Lena held his right hand against her cheek. Nurse Revell was standing at the end of the bed, filling in the charts, when Charles opened his eyes one last time. He seemed to be looking at something on the far side of the room and they saw a small smile forming on his lips. Milly turned her head to see who was there just as he breathed out a long sigh. His last word was little more than a whisper but all three of them heard it. ‘Angel.’

The next few hours were a bit of a blur. The girls held each other close and wept in the little kitchen while Nurse Revell prepared him for the undertaker. Seebold, who had agreed to come in the morning to see if they needed anything, took his lorry down to the telephone box in the village. Dr Jennings came within the hour and the death certificate was signed.

As he left, Nurse Revell said, ‘I’ll stay until the undertaker comes, if you like.’

So Seebold took Lena back to Nan’s house and Milly walked across the ha-ha to Muntham Court to give her mother and Pearl the news. It was a lovely morning. The air was crisp and it was a little chilly, but the birds sang and the subtle scent of asters, cyclamen, the purple emperor salvia and snapdragons wafted through the morning mist towards her. It struck her as the strangest feeling because – in the midst of all this beauty – there was such a sadness, for she knew she would never see her darling father again. She’d never realised before that grief brought on a physical change in the body. Milly had a tightness in her chest and an overwhelming headache in addition to a heaviness of spirit she’d never experienced before. How could life go on without him? He had been her one constant; her solid rock; the only member of her close family who truly loved her.

Once she was inside the house, the pungent smell of spilled wine and stale cigarettes stripped all her bitter-sweet memories away. It was no good telling her mother and Pearl what had happened. They were both still asleep in bed. In the kitchen, Milly told the staff the sombre news. Mrs Cunningham pressed her handkerchief to her mouth and turned away. Elsie, who was busy washing glasses and clearing up the party mess, stood by the kitchen sink with red eyes and her chin wobbling. Bodkin excused himself from the breakfast table and went outside, while Dixon sat staring into space and saying nothing.

After a while, Mrs Cunningham made Milly a cup of tea, which she drank before heading to her own room. She took off her glasses and lay on the bed but she didn’t sleep. At around ten o’clock, she heard her mother ringing her bedside bell, but before Elsie reached her bedroom with the breakfast tray, Milly knocked quietly on the door.

‘Come in.’ Agatha seemed surprised to see her daughter, but before Milly had time to say anything, she’d guessed why she was there. ‘So he’s gone, has he?’

Milly nodded her head. ‘At five this morning.’

Agatha sat on the chair by her dressing table. ‘At least he had the grace not to spoil Pearl’s engagement party,’ she added coldly.

Milly felt a sudden wave of red-hot anger. ‘That’s all you think about, isn’t it, Mother!’ she snapped. ‘Pearl, Pearl, Pearl.’

‘Oooh,’ Agatha said sarcastically. ‘Listen to the green-eyed monster.’

For a second or two Milly was taken off balance. ‘Not at all,’ she said haughtily. ‘I don’t give a damn about coming out and all those endless and pointless parties. I was thinking of poor Father. He was so ill, but you didn’t once show him an ounce of sympathy. He was your husband, Mother. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body and now he’s dead.’

Agatha said nothing.

‘You must have loved him once,’ Milly protested.

Agatha let out a bored sigh. ‘I never loved Charles,’ she said, picking up her hairbrush and turning to face the mirror. ‘He was convenient, that’s all.’

‘Convenient?’ Milly gasped. ‘What does that mean?’

They were interrupted by Elsie bringing in the tray.

‘I thought I told you to knock before you come into my room, you stupid girl,’ Agatha said tetchily. ‘Put it on the bedside table.’

Elsie, her face flaming, did as she was bid and left the room.

Determined to find out what her mother meant, Milly resumed their argument. ‘What did you mean when you said my father was convenient?’

‘I haven’t got time for this,’ said Agatha.

‘I want to know, Mother. Just tell me. I hated the way you treated him. You and Pearl were quick enough to spend his money but you treated him like a dog.’

Agatha took in her breath noisily, her chest expanding and her face dark with fury. ‘How dare you speak to me like that!’ she shouted. ‘Who do you think you are, you jumped-up little madam. Get out of my bedroom. Go on, get out.’

Milly’s eyes blazed. ‘Why do you always do this, Mother?’ she complained. ‘Why can’t you just talk to me for once?’

Just then the door burst open and Pearl bounded into the room. ‘What’s going on?’

Milly and Agatha were still staring angrily at each other, until Agatha broke the spell by swinging her legs around her dressing-table stool and getting to her feet. ‘Nothing,’ she said in that same bored tone as she sat on the edge of the bed to pour herself some tea. ‘Nothing at all. Leave the door open, dear. Your sister is just leaving.’

Pearl looked at Milly. ‘Why are you here anyway?’ she said contemptuously. ‘I thought you’d be in that cottage with him.’

‘Father died this morning,’ said Milly, mustering as much dignity as she could.

Pearl’s face crumpled. ‘Oh God, no! Does that mean I have to wait ages and ages before I can get married?’ Pushing past Milly, she knelt by the bed and laid her face on her mother’s knee. ‘You have to do something Mummy. If I hang around much longer, the baby will start to show.’

Milly’s jaw dropped, but they didn’t seem to be aware that she was still in the room. Her mother began stroking Pearl’s hair. ‘There, there, darling. It’ll be all right, I promise.’

Milly felt sick. Desperate to get away, she headed out of the door, just catching her sister’s muffled voice saying, ‘How long is the official period of mourning, Mummy?’

Pearl’s fiancé, Friedrich von Herren, now officially known as Freddie, was in London. He had gone to the German Embassy, located at Prussia House, 9 Carlton House Terrace. It was an imposing building, with four floors built in the Georgian style. Freddie had been there twice before, once when the previous ambassador, Leopold von Hoesch, had died in 1936, when he had been invited to be a part of the huge gathering for his funeral. The ambassador had been given full military honours, with a nineteen-gun salute in Hyde Park and various British dignitaries acting as mourners. The coffin, mounted on a gun carriage, had been draped with the Nazi swastika. Freddie hadn’t travelled with it to Dover where it was put on board HMS Scout, but he had attended the wake in Prussia House. The second time he had been in the building had been earlier in the month, when he had told his Uncle Reinhard about Pearl and asked him for a special favour: money.

This time he was shown into a newly decorated room where his uncle, seated at the desk, rose as he came in. ‘My dear fellow,’ he said with a wide smile. ‘Do come in, but first just make sure we won’t be disturbed, will you?’