How do you measure the success of your life? Mrs. Braithwaite wrote determinedly in her notebook as the train sputtered out of the little station. She hadn’t left her village for a year; hadn’t been to London since the war began back in 1939. The journey to see her daughter was long overdue.
Every so often the train would hurtle through a station, now nameless because all the station signs had been taken down at the beginning of the war to confuse any invading Nazis. None had come over yet, thank heavens. For now the Nazis were content sending planes across every night to bomb British cities to pieces—the Blitz, they called it, “lightning.” Their intention at first was to take out factories and docks, but now they were bombing at random, trying to exhaust the Royal Air Force and break the spirit of the people.
Mrs. Braithwaite muttered to herself, “Well, my spirit has well and truly been broken, but not by the Nazis.”
The previous morning, Mrs. Metcalf and the village matrons had demoted her from her rightful position as head of the local Women’s Voluntary Service.
“It was a joint decision,” Mrs. Metcalf had said, two ladies on either side of her. She had placed herself at the center of a folding table in the village hall while Mrs. Braithwaite was required to stand before them. “You have been in the top position of the Ashcombe Women’s Voluntary Service since the war began, and now we feel that it’s time to pass the baton to a more”—she paused, thinking of the right word—“a more thoughtful and considerate leader.” Naturally, she meant herself.
Mrs. Braithwaite had a sturdy frame, which she felt gave her lack of height more gusto. Her short hair was still a rich brown despite her fifty years, her face large and uncompromisingly oblong, her mouth drawn effortlessly into a frown. She narrowed her eyes at her old neighbor and so-called friend. “I’ve put my all into this group and this is how I’m repaid?”
“The truth is, we’re fed up with you bossing everyone around,” Mrs. Metcalf’s daughter, Patience, stated with far less subtlety than her mother. A twenty-two-year-old who had married well and stayed in the village, Patience was the opposite of Mrs. Braithwaite’s own Betty, who had vanished off to London at the first whiff of war. Mrs. Metcalf’s children—both Patience and her son, Anthony—were practically perfect, according to their mother. Anthony was an exceptionally bright student at university, while Patience had already produced three children, much to Mrs. Metcalf’s pride and Mrs. Braithwaite’s infuriation; why did Betty have to be so bookish?
Patience glanced sideways toward the other ladies and added, “And with the end of your marriage, we wondered if there was a more reputable leader—”
“So that’s what this is about!” Mrs. Braithwaite roared. “Am I an embarrassment to you all because I’m divorced?”
A sharp intake of breath echoed around the hall. Divorce was rare in these parts. It was a word that quickly conjured up ideas of carelessness, loss of control, depravity.
Mrs. Metcalf raised a condescending eyebrow. “Now, let’s not get beyond ourselves. It’s not only to do with that. It’s also because of the events on Saturday evening.”