Her mother had gently laughed. “Well, let’s hope we never have to tell them anything like that.” She took Audrey’s small hand in her long, slender one. “In any case, bees know that everything will work itself out. You have to remember that. Whatever happens in life, everything will be all right in the end.”

Audrey’s mother had died shortly after she and Matthew were married. They were living in his tiny flat in London, and she was pregnant with Alexander. She couldn’t believe that her mother had died before seeing her first grandchild. There hadn’t been any bees to tell. A heart attack had taken her father a few years earlier, and with her mother too unwell to look after them—to talk to them—the bees were passed to another house, another person’s voice.

When her parents’ old house was left to her in the will, Audrey found herself wandering its corridors, remembering the ghosts of her childhood, stroking her pregnant belly, on the brink of bringing a new child into the bare rooms. Now she was on the other side of it: the mother, and not the child, repeating the same experience but this time in a parental role. She wondered if this perpetual reliving could carry on, generation after generation, the house connecting a new child to long-held traditions, long-held hands like a chain through the generations.

A lingering shadow fell over her memories as she prayed that she would never favor one of her children over the other, the way her mother had.

    Her sister, Gwendoline, had not been left any share in Willow Lodge. It was no secret that their mother didn’t see eye to eye with her younger daughter. Gwendoline had been petulant and willful. One time she rode her friend’s pony over the vegetable garden because she wasn’t allowed a pony of her own. Another time, she spitefully swapped the sugar for salt to ruin her mother’s cakes. As a teenager, she stole her mother’s dresses to remodel them for herself. Gwendoline’s marriage to Sir Strickland had been the final straw, with his rude dismissal of her family. After that Gwendoline and her mother barely spoke. Words had been exchanged between them: angry, bitter words, according to her mother. But Audrey had never found out exactly what they were.

Ever since then, Gwendoline had assumed that Audrey had sided with their mother, so she pulled away further, happy to live in a separate, lavish world with wealth, status, and power.

Until Matthew’s death, that is. Gradually it became clear that Matthew had taken out extra loans to make the mortgage payments, and the bank refused to give Audrey any more money. Sir Strickland was a man of considerable fortune, and grueling as it was to ask her sister, Audrey did. Gwendoline was unspeakably patronizing, but Audrey would do anything to stay in her family home.

But the hefty weekly repayments that Lady Gwendoline had set were a continual strain.

Audrey had become older, harder, since the deal was made. She had started to wear Matthew’s trousers and old boots after that first Christmas without him. The gardening, the cooking, the boys—what did clothes or makeup matter?

Life had been drilled back to the bare bones: survival.

Old superstitions held that bees brought more than just honey, they brought wealth, stability, and good fortune. And it was this that filled her mind as she’d arranged for the delivery of the bees, praying they would bring her some luck—if ever in her life she needed it, it was now.

    The man positioned the beehive beneath the cherry trees and carefully opened the entrance to allow them out. After an hour of buzzing around, they seemed to settle into their new location. Audrey pulled a few garden chairs over—at a safe distance—and waved off the beekeeper with his sacks of vegetables.

Finally, they could welcome the bees.

“Hello, bees,” she began, directing her voice toward the old hive. “This is your new home, Willow Lodge. I’m Audrey, and I live here with my three boys. This is Ben and Christopher, and you’ll meet Alexander later when he’s home from school.”

“Tell them about Dad,” Ben said, nestling in beside her.

She glanced at Christopher. It was still such a difficult subject for him. “Why don’t you tell them, Chris?”

Silence fell upon them, only the soft background buzz of the bees, the wisp of the breeze in the cherry tree.

“My daddy was killed fighting in the war. He was a long way away, in Germany. He is a kind man—you’d like him if you met him.”

She bit her lip. When would he begin to realize the difference between the present tense, “he is,” and the past, “he was”?

Ben piped up. “You said bees were lucky, Mum? Can I ask them a favor?”

“Go ahead, Ben,” she replied, wondering what he had in mind.

“Bees, I want you to know that if the Stricklands take this house away from us, you’re very welcome to sting Aunt Gwendoline, and Sir Strickland, too.”

He and Christopher began laughing, and instead of being cross, Audrey couldn’t help but join in. “Bees, you can be our secret defense.”

She gazed around her treasured land, taking in the vegetables, the cherry trees, the pig snuffling away in his sty, the hens pecking in the grass. She remembered Matthew there, smoking his pipe and squinting in the sunshine, such a gentle spirit, mesmerized with life as if it were an incredible gift and it was our duty to live it to the full. He had enjoyed this world of theirs, running wild with the boys, painting in the meadows, and dancing alone with her in the kitchen, their children asleep above them.

    Abruptly, a call from the gate made her turn. “Mrs. Landon, there’s a letter here for you.” It was the lad from the post office.

Audrey hurried down the path, taking the envelope. “Thank you,” she muttered.

The envelope was official-looking, and Audrey ripped it open with her soil-stained hands as she stalked through the back door into the kitchen, slipping automatically into one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

It was from the WVS, the team of local ladies who organized evacuees, billets, and canteens for the troops.

Never one to miss a chance to show her superiority, Lady Gwendoline had appointed herself the Fenley billeting officer, allocating war workers and evacuees from London into villagers’ spare bedrooms. It was happening all over the country, with a million children and pregnant women evacuated out of the cities and into the countryside to avoid the bombs. Meanwhile, thousands of war workers, mainly single women, had to be housed close to farms and factories, taking up any extra space. Nosy billeting officers would invite themselves into your home, sniffing out extra rooms that could house the needy.

So far, Audrey had avoided it—her house was virtually uninhabitable with the roof severely damaged—but with every new evacuee came renewed pressure for her to accept some. Evacuees meant more work, more chaos, and more of her precious time, energy, and rations—none of which she had to spare.

The letter went thus.

    Dear Mrs. Landon,

Re: A pregnant woman evacuee is to be billeted at your house.

The Middleton billeting officer has arranged for you to have a new evacuee, arriving to stay with you next week. She is a pregnant woman, due to give birth in three to four months’ time, after which you will have mother and baby until the end of the war.

     As you know, taking in an evacuee makes you eligible for a basic weekly stipend from the government (ten shillings and six pence) and since the evacuee is an adult, she will have to make contributions for rent, food, and household fuel. She will give you her ration book so that her rations can be included in your household’s rations when you shop.

Finally, I would like to remind you that giving evacuees a home is not only a charitable way for civilians to help the war effort, but it is also a compulsory obligation that cannot be challenged.

Yours sincerely,

Lady Gwendoline Strickland

Fenley WVS Billeting Officer

Her own sister! Gwendoline of all people knew that Audrey had no time for evacuees—she had enough trouble with her own children let alone adding a Londoner. Was this another way Lady Gwendoline was trying to ruin her chances of winning the contest and getting the radio job?

Audrey laid her head on the table, wondering how on earth she was supposed to look after another person—two more people when the baby came. Christopher’s anxieties were bound to get worse with all the mayhem.

“I bet Aunt Gwendoline doesn’t have any evacuees in her giant house.” Ben had come up behind her. “Shall I spy on Fenley Hall for you, Mum?”

“No, Ben darling,” she replied, trying to hide her frustration. “I’ll just have to go and see Gwendoline, make her find somewhere else for them.” She took a long, deep breath. “Failing that, we’ll just have to convince the evacuee that she doesn’t want to stay, not even for a single night.”

Audrey’s Sweet Pickle Chutney

Makes 4 to 6 jam jars

2 pounds mixed vegetables (carrots, beetroot, onion, green beans, cauliflower), chopped Around 4 pints of brine (? cup salt to 1 pint water) 1 tablespoon pickling spice (black pepper, mustard, coriander, cloves, bay leaf, allspice) ? tablespoon ground ginger ? tablespoon ground turmeric 1 tablespoon flour

1 pint vinegar (malt is best) 2 tablespoons sugar

2 apples, pureed