Cissy looked at her askance, saw her mother’s warning frown and knew better than to say anything.

Fran broke into the awkward silence, her green eyes alight with pride as the last rays of the sun glinted in her copper curls. ‘I’ve been waiting until you were home, Aunt Peggy, to tell everyone our news.’

Peggy’s spirits soared in delight. ‘You’re having a baby,’ she squeaked.

Fran giggled. ‘You’re jumping the gun a bit, Auntie Peg – but the news is just as exciting.’ She saw she had everyone’s attention and hurried on. ‘Robert had a really important meeting in London today,’ she declared before nudging her husband. ‘Go on, you tell them.’

Robert had always been rather shy, and went pink as all eyes turned to him. He pushed his horn-rimmed glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and had to clear his throat before he could speak. ‘Well, you see,’ he began, ‘when it was clear the war in Europe was soon to be won, Anthony and I realised we should start planning for the future. So we applied for more senior posts within the Ministry of Defence, and were called up to London today to be interviewed.’

‘Anthony was with you?’ gasped Peggy. ‘Doris’s son?’

He nodded, took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. ‘It seems we’re just the sort of men they’re looking for,’ he said, going a deeper scarlet, ‘and so, on the first of June, Anthony will be going to the Cambridge office, and I’ll be off to Whitehall. It’s a plum posting, and I’m sure I only got it because of my grandfather’s long and distinguished career in the Diplomatic Corps.’

‘You did not,’ Fran furiously protested. ‘It was because you’ve earnt it.’ She turned to Peggy. ‘To be sure, Aunt Peg, he’s too modest by half.’

A chorus of congratulations drowned her out, and although Peggy was delighted for the young couple, and joined in with the congratulations for the new and exciting venture they were about to embark upon, she couldn’t imagine Beach View without Fran, who’d been with her for years and was as loved as a daughter.

She smiled across the table at Robert. ‘Very well done, Robert. I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful career – but what exactly will you be doing in Whitehall?’

‘I’m afraid I’m unable to tell you, Peggy,’ he said regretfully. ‘The Secrets Act I signed at the beginning of the war still holds, you see – for both me and Anthony,’ he added with a twinkle in his eye. ‘So there’s no point in trying to pump him about his work either.’

Peggy chuckled. ‘You know me too well, Robert, but you’ve both been so mysterious about what you do for the MOD that you can hardly blame me for being curious.’