‘According to the Press, we are threatened with attack,’ he had announced. ‘There is a very real danger that Hitler and Mussolini will send troops to land on our beaches. Will they succeed in smashing our defences? Who knows, but if they do, we ordinary civilians shall have our parts to play, young or old, man and woman. We shall not lose faith or courage, but instead put our trust in our Lord and calmly carry out the instructions of the Government.’

At this point, he’d paused, looking earnestly at his congregation, and it seemed that his eyes met Ginie’s and he carried on speaking to her alone. ‘Have you got your gas mask ready? Have you a bucket of sand in your house? What about your soul – do you pray for your country every day?’

Talk of invasion wasn’t new, but since Italy had entered the war, Ginie felt doubly insecure. Although she was protected by the Courtauld name, she was working hard for the war effort, running a branch of the Women’s Voluntary Service from the palace – knitting for the troops, making clothes for the homeless who had lost everything in the bombing, driving the wounded and sick to hospital – she was still Italian, her ex brother-in-law a high-ranking official in the Italian marines.

She could see it in the faces of acquaintances. There was no overt hostility, but people who had waved to her on the street now looked in the other direction when she passed, or melted away after church. Marrying Stephen had solved nothing after all. She was still drifting without an anchor, blown from culture to culture, belonging nowhere. There was a hurt inside her that was never allowed to heal and a slow-burning anger that nothing could allay.

Eltham was close to the river on a German bomb path and the raids came at seven o’clock every night, regular as clockwork. The Germans were going for the docklands and London.

One cold, clear night, they were more active than usual. A continuous drone of planes flew overhead, seeming to get louder and nearer all the time. When the air raid siren sounded, the household moved to the basement, which they had fitted up as a dormitory with camp beds. The staff settled themselves in for the night. Ginie sat up with the animals, holding them close to her body, trying to keep them calm as the bombs began to fall. Even in the basement, they could feel the house rattling with the reverberations of each blast.