The bushes were one of the first additions to her garden plot. Matthew had put them in the spring before the war—how he’d loved her berry scones—and they now produced well under her tender, sentimental vigilance. Apricots and tomatoes ripened nicely in a small greenhouse Alexander had built for her fortieth birthday. Their old lawn had been converted into lines of vegetables forming variated strips of color—big bright lettuces, purple beetroot leaves, gold and green onions. Newspaper articles encouraged unusual vegetables to add variety, and so she had rows of endives, salsify, and even Jerusalem artichokes, which usefully grew on the thinner soil in the front garden.

The eight hens in the long coop laid half a dozen eggs every day, and the pig would feed the family well when it was fully grown. It wasn’t strictly hers; it belonged to the Pig Club she’d started with a few local women. There had been talk about raising rabbits, too—a line of broken-down outbuildings could be spruced up for them—but she knew that little Christopher would get too fond of them. The night that Peter Rabbit Pie graced the table would not be a happy one.

Audrey’s homegrown food provided the basis for the pies and cakes she sold to locals for much-needed extra money. The local Food Office was also able to help with some ingredients, since she could prove they were going into products for sale, but not enough to cover her entirely. All things considered, though, the burgeoning business was doing quite well. The cook at Fenley Hall always took a few pies, as did the pub in the village and a café in Middleton. It was a pity though that the Wheatsheaf, the one village restaurant, had closed down. It had been a keen customer.

    She’d have to find new customers in Middleton—whenever she had the time.

Alexander put his book down and began wandering around, shaking the jar and poking at the jumble of vases and ornaments on the dresser. He picked up an old silver picture frame. “What was Willow Lodge like when you lived here as a girl, Mum?”

“Oh, it was heavenly! I would spend hours here in the kitchen making cakes with my mother.”

She came over, and together they looked at the photograph. In it, Audrey was already tall for her fourteen years, grinning at the camera and squinting in the sunlight. Her mother was in her forties, and even though she was wearing the long skirt and high-necked blouse of an Edwardian lady, the likeness between mother and daughter was striking. Inside the pretty, heart-shaped faces were kind, sparkling eyes. They both had dark blond hair and the same wide, full smile. Beside them, her father appeared sterner than he had been in real life, and then there was Gwendoline, two years younger than Audrey and scowling with displeasure, her dark hair flat around her long, unhappy face.

She felt a pang of conscience. Audrey had been her mother’s preferred daughter, and Gwendoline had always been jealous because of their mother’s favoritism. Even though Audrey had no say in the matter—she’d tried to make up for their mother’s preferential treatment, giving Gwendoline her toys, playing with her, letting her win—but she knew that Gwendoline loathed her for it, and she always would.

“The house must look very different these days!” Alexander laughed, looking around at the chaos.

“It certainly wasn’t the mess it is now! But we’re incredibly lucky to still be here, even with all the bills.” A lump hardened in her throat. “Unfortunately, your father never earned much from his art.” The house had been left to her and Matthew outright, and in their happy, artistic world, they’d hardly thought before taking a mortgage against it, even less about the following extra loans.

    Alexander looked around at the various odd pictures hanging on the walls. “It’s the obscure shapes and colors, they’re not everybody’s cup of tea.”

“To him, painting was art, not a means of making money.” A sigh escaped her. She hadn’t realized how dreadful the debts had become until Matthew’s death.

“Are we going to have to move?” Alexander stopped shaking the jar.

“Well, we’ll do what we can.” She prayed the makeshift business would hold them above water until she had time to expand her income. It was bad enough working all hours, without having to tramp around the countryside looking for somewhere else to live.

“Can’t we do more cooking?” He began shaking the jar again, this time more vigorously. “You’ve been earning good money—”

“That’s the whole point, though. I can’t do any more.” The familiar rush of being overwhelmed washed through her. She felt the prick of tears, but quickly held them in check for her eldest son.

A light tap came from the back door.

“Is that you, Nell? Come in, come in.” Audrey shrugged away her thoughts and opened the door to a mouselike girl of nineteen, skinny in a kitchen maid’s uniform. “I’m afraid the pies aren’t quite ready. Can you wait for ten minutes?”

Every morning Nell would come to pick up special vegetables and herbs, such as salsify, endives, and garlic, as well as the pies that Audrey made for the kitchen at Fenley Hall.

“I c-can’t wait for long, though.” Nell was a bag of nerves, sometimes stumbling over her words with shyness. She’d come to work at the hall when she was only fourteen, straight from the orphanage where she’d grown up. “Mrs. Quince is in an awful flap with Sir Strickland’s dinner party tonight. He’s so exacting.” Then she added, “Oh sorry! I always forget you’re…related.”

    “Well, I wouldn’t worry about that!” Audrey grimaced. “Just because that pompous toad married my ridiculous sister, it doesn’t mean that I have much to do with them. She hardly deigns to speak to me now she’s Lady Gwendoline.”

Nell grinned, and her face lit fleetingly, making her look more forthright—rare for someone who’d spent her whole life being put in her place. “Lady Gwendoline has one of her wartime cooking demonstrations in the village hall tomorrow evening, if you want to go and watch. She’s doing Lord Woolton Pie.”

Alexander laughed. “What’s the world coming to! Aunt Gwendoline teaching housewives how to make wartime food! Everyone’s suddenly an expert, even the well-to-do. I can remember a time when she wouldn’t stoop to pick up a serving spoon.” A mischievous glint sparkled in his eyes. “If you ask me, she’s more interested in the attention and praise than she is in helping the war effort.”

Audrey snuffled a laugh. Her unruly children had grown up hardly seeing her younger sister Gwendoline, and when they did, she was lofty and disapproving—a quick recipe for becoming an object of ridicule in Willow Lodge.

“She looks like a horse,” Alexander said bluntly, “with that long face and big nose.”

Audrey cut in sharply. “She attracted a great deal of admiration when she was young.”

“Too good for them, I bet.”

Audrey tutted, but she privately agreed. Her sister was not only prim, but she was also smug. Ever since she’d married money and moved into the magnificent Fenley Hall, she’d become the most self-important woman in the district. Her husband, Sir Reginald Strickland, had made a fortune manufacturing canned meat at precisely a point in history when it couldn’t have been in higher demand—the “bully beef” cans appeared in every soldier’s lunch and dinner rations. Sir Strickland’s business had been blessed by the occurrence of not just one world war—which was when he was awarded his knighthood—but two, the second one conveniently presenting itself just as his fortune might have begun to slip.

    One man’s luck was another man’s slaughter.

The sisters hardly spoke. The years and their marriages had pulled them apart. It was only when Audrey knew she had no other option that she asked her sister for a large loan to pay off the mortgage and bank debts. Lady Gwendoline had replied, “Of course we’ll help, but remember that you made your bed, Audrey. You didn’t have to marry an artist and have an array of wayward boys, did you?”

A deep frown creased Audrey’s forehead as she thought about the crippling weekly repayments the Stricklands now demanded. They were slowly killing her.

Alexander’s voice snapped her out of it. “What’s Sir Strickland having for the dinner party tonight, Nell? How many courses this time?”

“There’s five courses: crab bisque, a smoked pheasant appetizer, then seabass roulade, followed by beef medallions, and finally your mother’s berry pies with sweetened vanilla cream.”

Alexander scoffed. “We’re all half starved on rations, becoming vegetarians against our will, while Sir Strickland eats pheasant? Probably plying politicians into giving him more contracts.”

Audrey slapped Alexander’s shoulder playfully. “At least they give us good money for our pies. Without his big dinner parties, we’d be out on the streets.”

She helped Nell to the door with the crate, and with a “cheerio,” Nell began her walk back up the path to Fenley Hall.

Audrey could see the side of the grand edifice from the back door, not half a mile away. She couldn’t help thinking that, in spite of its inhabitants, it was the most beautiful eighteenth-century hall. Four stories high with squared turrets, the pale-brown heft was perched high on the hill, a manor house to rule the surrounding domain.

They had stood in that doorway as girls—Audrey and Gwendoline—making up stories about becoming grand ladies living in the great house.

To Audrey, it was a fairy tale.