* * *
Bill redeemed himself by showing up at my suite the next day with enough of the finest Scottish wool to keep Meg’s knitting needles flying for a good long time. Impressed, I had to admit that he noticed far more than I gave him credit for.
I bought a few things I couldn’t resist—a couple of sweaters, a book or two—and others I didn’t even try to resist. A flashlight, for instance. From Harrod’s, of all places. And I made sure to have a brand-new brolly handy when I went to the zoo. Even when I was caught up in shopping, Dimity and my mother were never far from my thoughts.
I kept seeing them in my mind’s eye, sharing a bag of chips, riding bicycles, running for shelter during an air raid. I touched the shrapnel-gouged walls of buildings along the Embankment and tried to imagine what it had been like to hear the rumble of German aircraft overhead, to feel the sidewalk shake as the bombs struck home. There was one moment, driving past Hyde Park, when I thought I saw the greensward scarred with trenches, sandbags piled high, conical canvas tents staked out in rows across the fields. The image was startlingly vivid. I called out for Paul to stop the car, but before he could pull over to the curb, the vision was gone, the helmeted Tommies replaced by the usual lunchtime throng of trench-coated Londoners. When Bill started to question me, I only shook my head and asked Paul to drive on.
Because the zoo had gained an almost mythic status since I’d read the letters—I guess I subconsciously expected to find a brass plaque commemorating the day Beth Shepherd met Dimity Westwood—I’d saved it for last. Needless to say, it was a bit of a letdown to see it bathed in sunlight and crowded with noisy families.
Bill had arranged for me to speak with one of the keepers who’d been there during the war, a pink-faced, elderly man named Ian Bramble. We sat with him by the Grand Union Canal, and he sighed when I asked him what the zoo had been like in those days.
“A sad place,” he said. “Terribly sad. Hated to come to work, myself. No children around, and the place all boarded up.” He pulled a handful of corn from his pocket and tossed it to some passing ducks. “It was a strange time. People were afraid there’d be lions in the streets if a bomb fell in the wrong place, and they had enough to worry about without lions. So we put them down, the lions, and others as well. Perfectly healthy they were, too. It’s not something we tell the kiddies, you understand, but perhaps we should. I sometimes think they’d be better off knowing it’s not all crisps and candy floss during wartime.”
11
Paul had been too young to enlist. “Not that I didn’t try, mind you,” he told us. “Lied like a rug, I did; used boot-blacking to give myself whiskers. Board told me to go home and wash my face.” We were speeding along a narrow, twisting lane, on our way to the cottage. We had left London very late in the afternoon the day after our visit to the zoo. I had wanted to leave earlier, but Bill had gone off to make some more of his mysterious arrangements and hadn’t surfaced again until after tea.
“That’s why I went to the Flamborough,” Paul continued. “The bartender there was a chum of mine, and I liked to listen to the lads. We were taking such a pasting in London that it was good to hear the Jerries were getting some of their own back. Finch should be coming up shortly, miss.” I had tried to break him of the “Miss Shepherd” habit, but he had been trained at the Old Servant’s School of Etiquette and “miss” was as far as he would unbend. “The cottage lies about two miles beyond the village.”
It was too dark and we passed through Finch too quickly for me to see much of it, but as we pulled into the drive, I could see that lights had been lit in every window of the cottage. It was exactly as I had pictured it. And it seemed to be waiting for me.
“Here we are,” said Paul, switching off the engine. An absolute silence settled over us. We climbed out of the limo to stand on the gravel drive and I shivered as the cold night air hit me.
“Touch of frost tonight, I’d say.” Bill blew on his hands and I could see his breath.
“A bit nippy for this time of year,” Paul agreed. “You two run along in and get warmed up. I’ll see to the luggage.”
Paul unloaded the limo and Bill headed for the front door, scrounging through his pockets for the keys Willis, Sr., had given him. I started to follow Bill, then stopped on the path to confirm my initial impression that the cottage looked… as it was supposed to look.
It was just as my mother had described it in her story, a two-story stone house with a broad front lawn, sheltered from the road by a tall hedgerow. The yard light glinted from diamond panes of leaded glass and hinted at the golden glow the walls would have in sunlight. The slate roof, the flagstone path leading from the drive to the weathered front door, all was as I had envisioned it, down to the bushes that were already heavy-laden with white lilacs.
“Lilacs in April,” I murmured. “They must bloom earlier here than they do at home.”
Paul came to stand beside me. “Lovely old place this is, miss.”
“Too good to be true,” I said, searching the facade for some flaw that would jar it, and me, back into the real world. I didn’t like the sense of belonging that was seeping into my bones. It made it too easy to forget that I was only a visitor.
But the yard light revealed no imperfection. With a shrug, I joined Bill on the doorstep. He seemed to be having difficulty with the lock.
“Let me try,” I offered. I turned the key, and the door swung open to reveal a brightly lit hallway.
“Look at the place,” said Bill. “It’s lit up like a Christmas tree.”
“The Harrises probably came by today to get things ready for us,” I said. “They must have forgotten to turn off the lights.”
“I’d talk to them about that if I were you, miss,” said Paul, Old Servant’s School disapproval in his voice. “The electric doesn’t come cheap these days.”
“Cheap or not, I’m glad they turned on the heat,” said Bill. “Let’s get inside before we all catch colds.”
Paul set the bags in the hall and returned to the car for the last of them. As I stepped across the threshold, the cottage seemed to pull me into its warm embrace, and when the door swung shut behind me, I thought: I may be only a visitor, but I sure do feel like a welcome one.
There was a gentle knock at the door. The Old Servant’s School again, I thought, rolling my eyes.
“For heaven’s sake, Paul, you don’t have to knock,” I called out. “Come on in, it’s open.”
His muffled voice came through from the outside. “Sorry, miss, I can’t budge it.”
“What do you mean, you can’t—” The door opened at my touch. Paul stood on the doorstep, a bag in each hand and a perplexed expression on his face.
“These old places do have their quirks, miss.” He set the bags beside the others while Bill fiddled with the door handle.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it,” Bill said, “but I’m not a locksmith. I think I’ll ask the Harrises to have this checked out.”
“Fine,” I said. “Now, how about a cup of tea before you go back to London, Paul? Or would you like to stay here for the night? You’re more than welcome.”
“Thanks very much all the same, miss, but I’d best be getting back, if it’s all right with you. Up early tomorrow, you know, can’t keep the ambassador waiting.” He offered to carry our bags upstairs, but we assured him that he had done more than his fair share of work for the day and walked him to the limousine. After he’d driven off, I turned in the still night air for another long look at the cottage.
The feeling of familiarity was uncanny. There was the shadowy oak grove and, there, the trellis ablaze with roses. Each item was in its proper place and the whole made a picture I remembered as clearly as the apartment house in which I had grown up. I probably would have stood there all night, lost in the déjà vu, but the crunch of Bill’s shoes in the gravel reminded me that I was not alone. He held out his jacket and I pulled it around my shoulders, grateful for the warmth.