Seated in a rocking chair near to the Aga, Josephine, who was shelling peas, meaningfully cleared her throat.

It was a caution Vicky ignored.

‘Ilse desperately wants you to be her bridesmaid,’ she continued, beginning to roll out half the dough, ‘and I just as desperately want to be there when she marries Nicholas.’

As subtlety was getting her nowhere, Josephine stopped what she was doing and said with Yorkshire bluntness, ‘And if war breaks out while you’re there? What then? You’ll both be interned, and then where will we all be?’

‘Mummy and I will be in Germany,’ Emily Elise said with a giggle. ‘And you’ll be still in Yorkshire, Josephine.’

Josephine, well aware that a six-year-old child, no matter how bright, couldn’t possibly realize the terrible seriousness of the present international situation, ignored her and said to Vicky, ‘Adam isn’t happy about your going, is he? And I know he’s especially unhappy at the thought of Emily Elise going to Berlin.’

The merriment in Emily Elise’s eyes died and she looked anxiously towards her mother.

Vicky suppressed a sigh of irritation. She loved Josephine dearly, but there were times when she wished Josephine wasn’t quite so free at expressing her opinions when it came to family matters.

‘I’ve promised Ilse we shall be at her wedding and it’s a promise I intend keeping, Josephine.’ She lined a pie dish with the rolled-out pastry, doing so with unnecessary vigour. ‘If war is declared we’ll know at least twenty-four hours beforehand and we’ll have plenty of time to return home before the borders close.’

‘Well, forgive me for saying so,’ Josephine said tartly, not pulling her punches, ‘but I think you’re daft.’ She resumed shelling the peas with sharp, angry movements. ‘And I think Adam’s daft for allowing you to go and I think Hugo and Hester are even dafter for going with you.’

Vicky passed the pastry-lined pie dish to Emily Elise, wishing she had a legitimate excuse to send her daughter out of the kitchen. There wasn’t one and, as Emily Elise was far too intelligent to be fobbed off with a lame pretext, she simply gritted her teeth and said, ‘Hugo works for the Foreign Office, Josephine. He’s as clued up as anyone can be about the present situation.’

As Emily Elise began spooning the sugared elderberries into the dish, piling them up into a nice raised heap, Vicky began rolling out the rest of the dough, keeping her face carefully averted from Josephine’s as she did so. She didn’t want Josephine seeing the anxiety she knew was now showing on her face.

Despite the fact that she had decided to attend Ilse’s wedding and to take Emily Elise with her, she hadn’t wanted Hester to journey to Berlin with them. She, of all people, knew just how perilous a city Berlin was for a Jewess. Hester had been adamant, though.

‘This is a family wedding and I’m now part of the family,’ she had said firmly. ‘Besides, it will give me an opportunity of seeing my parents again. If there is a war, it could be years before I get another opportunity.’