up in the crypt of St Mary’s church and the ‘kitchen’ was a small draughty alcove across which a trestle table had been dressed with a skirt and a string of union jacks to form a counter. There was a small sink in the corner, a paraffin stove to keep the soup hot and, best of all as far as Dolly was concerned right now, a spare pew leaned against the wall.
She took a last glance at the room to make sure her absence wouldn’t be noticed: the trestle tables were full of satisfied servicemen, a couple of ambulance drivers were playing table tennis, and the rest of the WVS ladies were busy clicking their knitting needles and tongues in the far corner. Mrs Waddingham was among them, her back turned on the kitchen, and Dolly decided to risk the dragon’s wrath. Two hours was an awfully long time to be on one’s feet. She sat down and slipped off her shoes; with a sigh of sweet relief, she arched her stocking-clad toes slowly back and forth.
WVS members weren’t supposed to smoke in the canteen (fire regulations), but Dolly dug inside her bag and pulled out one of the crisp new packets she’d got from Mr Hopton the grocer. The soldiers always smoked—no one had the heart to stop them—and a permanent grey tobacco cloud hugged the ceiling; Dolly decided no one would notice if a little more drifted its way. She eased herself onto the tiled floor and struck the match, giving herself over finally to thoughts of the rather momentous thing that had happened that afternoon.
It had all got off to rather an ordinary start: Dolly had been dispatched to the grocer’s after lunch and, embarrassing as it was to remember now, the task had put her in a foul mood. It wasn’t easy to find sweets these days, sugar being rationed and all, but Lady Gwendolyn was never one to take no for an answer and Dolly had been forced to trawl the back streets of Notting Hill in search of the friend of someone’s uncle’s landlord, who—it was whispered—still had such contraband to sell. She’d only just got inside number 7 two hours later and was still removing her scarf and gloves, when the doorbell rang.
The type of day she’d been having, Dolly had fully expected to find a rabble of pesky kids collecting scrap metal for Spitfires; instead, she’d found a tidy little man with a thin moustache and a strawberry birthmark covering one cheek. He was carrying an enormous black alligator briefcase, bulging at the seams, the weight of which appeared to be causing him some discomfort. One glance at his neat comb-over was enough to recognise, however, that he wasn’t the sort to admit vexation.
‘Pemberly,’ he said briskly. ‘Reginald Pemberly, solicitor at law, here to see Lady Gwendolyn Caldicott.’ He bent forward leaning closer to add, with a secretive hushing of the voice, ‘It’s a matter of some urgency.’
Dolly had heard mention of Mr Pemberly (‘A mouse of a man, not a patch on his father, knows how to keep a clean ledger, though, so I permit him to do my business …’), but she’d never come face to face with the man before. She let him in, out of the freezing cold, and ran upstairs to check that Lady Gwendolyn was happy to see him. She was never happy, not really, but where matters of money were concerned she was ever vigilant and so—despite sucking in her cheeks with sullen disdain—she waved a porcine hand to signal the fellow might be admitted to her bower.
‘Good morning, Lady Gwendolyn,’ he puffed (there were three flights of stairs, after all). ‘So sorry to call suddenly like this, but it’s the bombing, you see. I was hit rather hard back in December, and I’ve lost all my papers and files. Dreadful nuisance, as you can imagine, but I’m putting it all back together now—I’m going to carry the lot on my person henceforth.’ He tapped his bulging bag.
Dolly was dismissed and spent the next half hour in her bedroom, glue and scissors in hand, updating her Book of Ideas, and glancing at her wristwatch with increasing anxiety as the minutes ticked ever closer to her WVS shift. Finally, the silver bell tinkled upstairs and she was summoned again to her lady’s chamber.
‘Show Mr Pemberly out,’ Lady Gwendolyn said, pausing to concede a bloated hiccup, ‘then come back and tuck me in for the night.’ Dolly