Shelter from the Storm

The last book in the trilogy is set in 1939 and features Polly’s grand-daughter, Isobel, who is recovering from tuberculosis. She comes to Swallowcliffe Hall to convalesce, and it’s here that she eventually meets Andreas, a Jewish boy who has fled Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport.

‘Better take every jersey you’ve got,’ Mum warned, dragging the battered leather suitcase off the top of her wardrobe. ‘You don’t know what cold is until you’ve spent a winter in that ice box of a place. And don’t forget your gas mask, for Heaven’s sake.’

I was going back with my granny to stay at Swallowcliffe Hall for a while so she could put some flesh on my bones and I could breathe fresh country air instead of London smog. ‘Look at the poor girl! She’s as pale as a ghost,’ Gran had exclaimed when she’d arrived to stay with us for the holiday and found me dozing in Dad’s old chair by the fire, wrapped up in a blanket. ‘Well, that’s tuberculosis for you.’

I’d only just got out of the sanatorium in time for Christmas. ‘Aren’t you the lucky one!’ the nurses had said. I didn’t feel so lucky, not after spending months in a hospital bed with no idea what was going on outside while my friends were all having fun without me. ‘You haven’t missed much,’ Mum had said. ‘The same old palaver about whether there’ll be a war and the Prime Minister going off for a pow wow with Mr Hitler.’

I didn’t like the idea of leaving Mum and my brothers, not with war on the horizon, but Swallowcliffe wasn’t so very far away - only down in Kent - and I could probably get back on the train in an emergency, or they could come down and join us. Besides, there wasn’t much choice. Mum had to go back to work in the new year and I still couldn’t manage by myself. My legs felt wobbly if I stood up for too long, and the thump of Stan and Alfie’s football in the back alley made my head pound like a roadmender’s drill. Gran would look after me and when I felt better, she said, I could start helping her with odd jobs in the kitchen.

‘Now then,’ Mum had interrupted, ‘you’re not turning our Izzie into a kitchenmaid. She’ll be back home and studying for School Certificate as soon as she’s well.’

‘I know,’ Gran had replied, ‘but she might as well keep herself busy in the meantime.’ 

You could see from Mum’s face that she still wasn’t happy. She can’t bear the thought of any of us going into service like she and her mother did when they were young. Gran had started working at Swallowcliffe Hall when she was my age and never left; she was cook/housekeeper now. We’d only visited the place once, Stan and me, around the time our father died (Alfie wasn’t more than a few months old so he’d stayed behind with Mum). It must have been ten years ago, but I still remember a few things: climbing up a narrow wooden staircase that seemed to stretch on for ever, looking out of an attic window across miles of fields and woodland, standing in a jungly greenhouse and biting into a tiny, warm tomato which burst into sweetness on my tongue. When I forgot to worry, going off to Swallowcliffe with Gran seemed a wonderful idea. It’d be quiet there, and peaceful. I was sick of lying in bed, staring at the same four walls or trying to read while Stan and Alfie fought downstairs and the buses rumbled along our street. If only it wasn’t for Hitler…

I watched Mum as she fiddled with the suitcase’s rusty catches. ‘Mum, if there is a war any time soon, you and the boys will come down as well, won’t you? It’ll be much too dangerous to stay in London.’

‘We’ll stick together one way or another, Izzie, I promise,’ she said, sitting down beside me on the bed and smoothing a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘Try not to fret so much. Mr Chamberlain’s sorted things out for the moment.’