Dedication

  In memory of the wonderful writer and teacher, Barbara

  Abercrombie, who died in 2022. Barbara was a UCLA Writers’

  Program Distinguished Instructor, and my dear friend.

  Epigraph

  And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.

  —John Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton (1834–1902)

  Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.

  —Vittori Alfieri (1749–1803)

  War is a thug’s game. The thug strikes first and harder. He doesn’t go by rules and he isn’t afraid of hurting people.

  —Anne Morrow Lindbergh, The War Within & Without

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jacqueline Winspear

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Kent, England

  1947

  Every morning as Rose Mackie leaned over the bars of the wooden cot and picked up her three-year-old daughter, she gave thanks for the cottage. She gave thanks for the roof over her head, and she gave thanks for the fact that she wasn’t putting up with Jim’s mum and dad, and she wasn’t living in a London prefab set among the thousands of other London prefabs built in haste to accommodate families left homeless during six years of war. She gave thanks because her little Susie could run across fields in fresh country air, and the child didn’t have to wear a scarf over her nose to protect her tiny lungs from the lumpy yellow-green London smog that looked like something nasty the dog had brought up. Just the thought of those pea-soupers made Rose feel queasy.

  A lot of things made Rose feel sick about living in London, the city its dwellers called “the Smoke.” There was Jim’s family, for a start—in fact, his family alone amounted to a good reason not to feel very well at all. But here, now, Jim, Rose and their precious child were safe. Or as safe as they could be. They’d managed to get out of London, exchanging the Smoke for the quiet of the country. In the past year, since they had altered the course of their lives—forever, they hoped—Jim had lost that sunken look in his cheeks and those lines of worry that no young man of five and twenty should feel every time he ran his hand across his forehead. There were no longer dark circles under his pale-blue eyes, and he didn’t startle every time wind rattled the windowpanes. They had escaped London. They had run as far as they could from the bomb sites—and more than anything, they had dragged themselves out from under the fingernails of the Mackie family.

  It had been a miracle, the way things had fallen into place. Rose even thought her mum, dad and brothers must all be helping from what her aunt called “the other side.” Without doubt, luck had been with Rose, Jim and their little girl when they stepped off the Victoria to Hastings motor coach in the small village of Shacklehurst, on the winding rural route some sixty-five miles from London. They had gone only as far as their fare budget would take them. Not knowing quite what to do next, they walked into a teashop across the street from the bus stop to ask if there was somewhere in the village they could stay for a night or two. In truth, they knew it didn’t look as if they were there for just a night or two, what with a couple of suitcases, the child on Rose’s hip wearing half the clothes she had to her name, and a tension in their voices that might as well have announced to everyone in the teashop that they were not, in fact, on a bit of a holiday. The proprietor gave them a broad smile when they entered her establishment, which was a good start, Rose thought. She had noticed the spotless shop and that the woman was wearing a clean, starched pinny, with the only indication that she was rushed off her feet being a single errant curler left in her hair. And people weren’t always welcoming in the country when they heard an accent or turn of phrase that screamed “We’re Londoners!” Still smiling, the woman looked them up and down and nodded, beckoning them aside and adding that by chance she had a spare room she could let them have for a few nights, and could put out a breakfast for them into the bargain, perhaps even a supper, though she’d need their ration books. They had to be off the premises during the day because there were customers to consider and she didn’t want anyone hearing heavy feet or a baby screaming above their heads while they were enjoying a cup of tea and a cream bun. That was alright with Jim and Rose; after all, they had a good few things to accomplish during the course of their country sojourn. Finding work was at the top of the list, and a place to live came next—very much next.

  Lady Luck remained at their side. In short order their new landlady, Mrs. Butler, told them a local farmer had just lost a worker, the silly old whatsit having ruptured himself so he couldn’t do the job anymore. The absent worker was getting on in years anyway, so the farmer knew it was coming, and what with first losing men to the army and then the land girls demobilized, she said it looked like Jim had turned up in Shacklehurst at the right time because the farmer needed a hand with the cattle and sheep, and had let the word out that he was looking for a strong bloke who would put his back into anything asked of him. Mind you, the gossip was that every last job on the farm would be asked of him.

  The family walked a mile and a half along the road and then on a woodland path through a few acres of pine forest to find Mr. Wicks, the farmer. He was a plain-talking man who took Jim inside the farmhouse and made it clear he would brook no shirking, adding, with a shake of the head, that an aversion to hard work was half the trouble with Fred, the worker who had ruptured himself. Old Fred had forgotten how to lift something heavy because every day of his working life he had done his best to avoid it. “No muscle, that was his problem,” said Wicks, reaching across the table to feel Jim’s bicep. He nodded approval. Jim swore he was as strong as an ox, that he knew cattle and sheep inside and out and could drive a tractor—driving being his specialty. Oh yes, driving was definitely Jim’s specialty. An awful lot of blokes from his part of London thought well of his skill behind the wheel.

  Jim landed the job. A tied cottage went with it, though the two-bedroom accommodation needed a coat or three of paint, and there were vermin to be evicted. That was nothing to Jim—he’d come face-to-face with pests who were a lot more trouble than a few rats or mice. As he emerged from the farmhouse, having shaken hands with the farmer, adding that yes, he’d be ready to start work at six the following morning, Jim opened his arms, ready to embrace his wife and daughter. “Nice work if you can get it, Rosie, and I’ve got it! And guess what? The missus in there needs a hand with a bit of cleaning a couple of mornings a week. You up for it?”

  Of course she was up for it. So there they were, settled, with no furniture, no pots and pans and no crockery. Then Mrs. Butler said she had some old china she could let them have, and by the way, could Rose help her out on Saturday afternoons, because it was when day trippers came out to the country and rolled in for a cup of tea and a cream bun or scones after they’d had a walk through the forest, which meant she was run off her feet and could hardly keep up. Jim worked Saturday mornings, so it all fell into place—he’d look after Susie when he returned to the cottage at one o’clock, while Rose brought home some pin money in the evening. Every little bit helped. Now they had a roof over their heads, they had work and they would get the other bits and bobs to make their house a home as they went along.

  That was over a year ago now, and they hadn’t seen any family since—which was alright with Rose. Not that she had much in the way of family. She had been evacuated to Sussex at the end of August 1939, just before war was declared, and was living with her foster family when everything in her world changed. The billeting officer came to the door to tell her that her mum, dad and two brothers—who were fifteen and sixteen, old enough to remain in London and work, but with not enough years on them for the army—had perished when a bomb came down on the house while they were halfway through dinner. There they were, Mum, Dad, Andy and Bill, minding their own business, eating sausages with mashed-up turnips and a few peas, when, boom! Now they were on the other side.

  She’d gone to live with a maiden aunt as soon as she turned fourteen—working age—just a few months later. Rose, Andy and Bill had been close in years. Her dad always joked that her mum hadn’t seen her feet for a good while, what with those babies coming one after the other. Her brother Bill earned himself a clip around the ear when he grinned and said, “And whose fault was that, Dad?” Rose missed her family, truth be told.

  At eighteen Rose was employed on the sweet counter at Woolworths, and one evening met Jim at a dance in Camberwell. Jim took to Rose from the minute they began talking. She was a down-to-earth girl, with no side to her. She wasn’t mouthy—not like some when a soldier chatted them up—and she wasn’t a wallflower either. Solid, that was Rose, an honest sort, and it didn’t take long for Jim to love her for it. In fact, Jim adored his Rose. He was with the Royal
Electrical and Mechanical Engineers—REME—where his ability to remain calm under pressure led to training in bomb disposal before being stationed in London, where his skills were needed most. Experience had taught him how to keep breathing and retain a steady hand while executing the precise movements required to remove the detonator from one of those great big UXBs—unexploded bombs. He explained to Rose that the Germans deliberately made a lot of bombs so they didn’t explode when they landed, because they knew the strain of having a UXB in the street, its menacing tail fins sticking out of the tarmac, would cause the British people to get nervy. It was all to undermine morale. Rose remembered those words when she met Jim’s family. It seemed to her that Jim’s dad was like that, and so were his brothers; they had dodgy detonators that scared the you-know-what out of people and undermined their morale.

  Jim’s family, all still very much alive, lived south of the river in Walworth. John Mackie—Jim’s dad—was angry when Jim told the family he and Rose were planning to move to the country. He told them Jim was mad to leave the manor —that’s what he called it, his “manor,” as if he owned the streets, which really, Rose supposed he did. The old man disowned Jim after the young couple added that they were going anyway because they wanted to bring up Susie in fresh country air, away from bomb sites. John Mackie got up from the table, took an ornate china bowl and ewer from a marble-topped sideboard, poured water from the ewer into the bowl and began scrubbing his hands. He made a show of shaking out the water and taking a towel to dry himself. “I wash my hands of you—but you will be back. You wait and see. Even if you leave her and the girl behind, you will be back. You belong in this family, Jim Mackie, and don’t ever think otherwise—you’re nothing, nothing at all without us, and let’s see the look on your yellow face when you come crawling home.”

  “That was horrible,” said Rose later.

  “We both know what he’s like,” said Jim. “He’s a hotheaded, miserable old sod.”

  In those early weeks, every day without word from the Mackie family was a relief, and now Rose had begun to believe she would never see them again. As far as she and Jim were concerned, his people could languish away in his father’s so-called manor for a long time. They’d had enough of their London lives to last them all the way to the other side, wherever it was. To be fair, Jim’s mum had cried when they walked away, but she was no angel either.

  Rose popped Susie into her pushchair, tucked a blanket around her chubby little legs, handed her Teddy One Eye and locked the door, pressing hard against it to make sure the lock held. It was always important to make sure. She stopped for a moment as she maneuvered the pushchair along the path, turning to glance back at the dwelling. It wouldn’t have been much to most; a sixteenth-century weatherboard cottage with only cold running water—and yes, it could do with a drop of paint, some new flashing around the base of the chimney, and that outside toilet was bitterly cold in winter—but it had become her beloved home. She tucked a strand of coppery hair behind her ear, smiled and said aloud, “Thank you, my lovely house.” Then she went on her way, wondering if she’d see the quiet woman this morning, the one who walked along the road every single day. That’s what they called her in the village—“the quiet woman”—and Rose could understand why, though she was also known as “the White lady” on account of her surname and the fact that she seemed like, well, a lady.

  Although Rose had never heard a word pass the woman’s lips, she must have said something to someone, because she went into the village every few days. Rose noticed that as soon as the woman saw her emerging from the cottage or walking along the road toward her, she would adjust her hat as if to hide her face under the wide brim, then pull up the collar of her dark-grey mackintosh and walk on, for all the world as if Rose were invisible. But Rose persisted because she wanted to greet her neighbors; after all, for a London girl it could be lonely in the country if you didn’t know people.

  “Good morning,” she would say, hoping the woman would look up.

  Nothing. Never a reply. Never a smile, though once or twice there was a nod on those days when it appeared as if the woman had seen Rose. And perhaps that was it—she was so deep in thought, she hadn’t heard a thing.

  Then one day, as the White lady approached, little Susie took the initiative. Rose thanked the house, as usual, and as she turned around to open the gate and step out onto the road, she saw the woman just a few steps away. Susie beamed a smile, waving Teddy One Eye as if determined to gain the White lady’s attention.

  “Hello quiet lady,” Susie had said, before Rose could even open her mouth, then threw Teddy One Eye in the woman’s direction. Susie’s babyish effort at communication came out as “Hayo kite yadey.”

  The woman stopped, picked up the toy and looked down at Susie as if she were taking in her blond curls, scarlet rosebud lips and that little nub of a nose with its liberal smattering of freckles. Susie reached forward, fists opening and closing in anticipation of Teddy’s return.

  “Well, good morning to you, Miss Susan Mackie,” said the woman as she brushed a few fallen leaves from Teddy One Eye before handing him back to the child.

  She smiled and nodded, bidding Rose a good morning before continuing on her way.

  Rose watched her walk away until she turned right to step over the stile that gave way to a narrow path leading into the densest part of Denbury Forest. Rose was perplexed. The woman knew Susie’s name.

  I can’t say I know much about the woman,” said Mrs. Wicks, sitting at the farmhouse kitchen table with Susie on her knee while Rose finished mopping the floor.

  “She lives along the road, doesn’t she?”

  “Hmmm, yes—in a ‘grace-and-favor’ house. There’s a few around here, though that’s a nice one. Big garden, and apparently she does it all herself. She doesn’t have a daily going in to clean either, and that’s unusual for a woman of her sort.”

  “Grace-and-favor?” Rose squeezed out the mop.

  “You know—belongs to the crown, just like the forest here. They give these estate houses to people highly thought of, people who’ve done something for the country—a sort of favor granted by the grace of the monarch, or something like that. It’s a bit like you having a tied cottage because Jim works here on the farm—mind you, your little cottage isn’t like her nice big one. A person with a grace-and-favor home can live in the house until their life’s end, because they served the crown.”

  “Did she work for the government?”

  Mrs. Wicks shrugged. “She was probably a lady-in-waiting, or a private secretary to the king. Mind you, she’s a clever one, is Miss White.”

  “That’s really her name then—Miss White?”

  “Miss Elinor White. And like I said, very acute she is. Mrs. Marchant told me that a couple of weeks ago, there she was at the back of the queue at the butcher shop, and Mr. Hatcher, the butcher, was weighing up some bacon for Mrs. Larch. Well, he does his usual, you know, puts the bacon on the scale, then does his little flourish with another rasher, winks and says, ‘A bit over for you, Mrs. Larch.’ He does that for everybody, so we think he’s generous going over on the ration, but of course we still have to pay for it.”

  The farmer’s wife took a sip of tea, her captive audience now leaning on the mop handle. “Well, everyone got what they came in for, but Mrs. Larch had forgotten something, so she was about to walk back into the shop when she heard Miss White, who had finally reached the counter. No one else was in the shop. Mrs. Larch told me that Miss White leaned toward old Hatcher and said, ‘Mr. Hatcher, I am sure you don’t realize this—or perhaps you do—but your scales are off, so when your customer thinks you’re giving them a bit extra, you’re still not handing them the weight they’re paying for. You’re shorting your customers and you’re charging them the full whack. I would imagine that rather mounts up in your coffers, over the days.’ Mrs. Larch said he flushed beetroot, mumbled something about his scales, then said he’d check the weights directly.” Wicks nodded. “She caught him out, did Miss White, and more power to her.”

  “I don’t see her around the village much,” said Rose.