‘I can’t imagine that’s necessary. Has anyone asked?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Where will I live?’

‘There are options. Our country house?’ Aubrey’s family had a home in a village called Blackwell. She’d once located it on a map. It was rather far up the country and she’d never had a desire to visit, let alone live there. The suggestion was barbaric. She stared at him, stunned. ‘Or you could go with my parents. They are moving to Wales to be near my sister.’ Hilarious.

‘No. I want to stay here in London. I could keep the house open.’

Calmly he asserted, ‘I can’t leave you alone here in London. It’s not seemly or economic. It’s too big a house to run for one. I suppose you could move back in with your parents.’

She scowled. It was insufferable. As impersonal and impregnable as she’d found this place over the last few months, she had accepted it as her home. It had given her some sort of status. Her friends had been able to call. The married girls were envious of the small garden and the telephone; the single girls were green that she sometimes got to choose when and what to take for lunch. She would not move back to her parents. She could not.

This flamboyant gesture to volunteer their home undoubtedly sprang from extreme devotion to the Crown, but she could not think it was necessary. She scrambled around for a compromise that might save her. ‘Couldn’t we give up the country house for the war effort?’

‘Who would want it?’ Who indeed. ‘No, the government need buildings in London, if anything.’

‘What for?’

‘Secret meetings, housing important Allied refugees, all sorts of things you wouldn’t understand.’ Then, as though to make it easier for her small mind, he added, ‘Hospitals. Orphanages.’

‘It won’t come to that,’ she snapped. ‘It will all be over before we know it, and imagine the upheaval, the expense.’

‘I think it will last rather longer than we initially thought. Anyway, that’s beside the point. Whether or not the War Office wants the place, if you go to Blackwell you could grow food on the estate. Turn up the flower beds. Our land could be useful to the war effort.’

He was so damned enthusiastic. So unequivocally partisan. She felt he was behaving like an eager Boy Scout, far too keen to shoot and skin a rabbit even though there were sandwiches to eat.

‘What’s it like? Your country house?’

‘Modest.’ What a glum word. ‘My grandfather had it built. He never liked London. Always preferred the simpler things in life, even after the money came through thick and fast.’ Vivian blushed for Aubrey for mentioning the newness of his wealth. A grandfather inheriting was not something one wanted to shout about. ‘There’s lots of land to farm. I haven’t ever done much with it, but I always knew I would go back there one day. There are tenants and groundsmen and so on managing things. Mostly flowers, fruit. I think there are sheep. We used to visit as children. I do remember enjoying a game of rugger on the green, a swim in the lake. I’m sure you’ll find it comfortable. Charming.’