‘The Excitements’ Chapters 1-6

“No, Auntie Penny!” Archie protested. “You mustn’t say that. You’re both going to live to be at least 117, like that French nun who survived the coronavirus. Didn’t even know she had it.”

“A nun?” said Penny. “What’s the saying? If you don’t drink, smoke, or have sex you won’t live forever ... ”

“But it will certainly feel like it,” Josephine chimed in.

They both cackled.

“Tell us about the service,” said Josephine. “Will we be expected to say anything?”

“I don’t think so. You’ve been invited in the capacity of honoured guests. You’ll be sitting in a row in front of the orchestra with other veterans.”

“Who’s left these days?”

“Not that old Dambuster ... ” said Penny. “Handsy,” she mouthed at her sister.

“That was an accident,” said Archie, remembering 2017’s Remembrance Day affair. “He stumbled on his way up the dais and ... ”

“Fell straight into my bosom?” Penny crossed her arms.

“I’ll ask that you’re seated well away from him.”

“I don’t mind,” said Josephine. “If you can get me between him and that lovely army man we met last year. So charming . . .”

“Then you’re both happy to take part?” Archie asked.

“What else are we going to do?” Penny responded. “Nothing much happens when one gets to our age. So few excitements. It can be vraiment hard to stay toujours gai when there’s so little left to look forward to.”

Archie didn’t remind his aunts that just a fortnight earlier he’d arranged for them to be interviewed by Dan Snow for his World War Two podcast. Most people their age would have been over the moon at the prospect of being interviewed by that delightful young man. So good-looking. Josephine instead had fixated on the fact that Snow had been wearing odd socks when he turned up at their house for the recording.

“Well, I understand you can’t actually see anybody on a podcast,” said Josephine. “But he might have made an effort all the same.”

Archie thought Josephine might really have taken against Snow not because of his socks but because, as his team was setting up to record the sisters’ segment, he let slip that he had come straight from interviewing Davina Mackenzie. Davina Mackenzie, at 101 years old and still completely compos mentis, was the actual oldest Wren in town.

“And granddaughter of an admiral, in case she didn’t mention it,” as Josephine would always add whenever her name came up. Needless to say, Davina Mackenzie never failed to mention her late grandfather’s illustrious rank.

Josephine asked now, regarding the VE Day celebration and in a tone Archie knew was meant to be throwaway, “And Davina Mackenzie? Will she be there too? As the granddaughter of an admiral ... ”

Archie knew he had to tread carefully when he answered.

“The BBC producer said I was the first person she’d spoken to regarding guest appearances. She’s terribly keen to have you both on board. There are very few places and you two have first refusal.”

Josephine was happy enough with that.

A waiter placed three mini-baguettes in the middle of the table and the sisters dived upon them.

As he buttered a delicate bite of his own bread, Archie asked, “Why were you ladies so late to meet me anyway? You’re usually on naval time.” Which was to say, five minutes early.

“We popped into Tiffany,” said Josephine. “We needed a christening present for the Browns’ new great-grandson.”

The New York jeweller’s second London store was on the corner of Sloane Square and Symons Street.

“Did you find anything?” Archie asked.

“Nothing worth buying,” said Penny.

Moments later, a waiter arrived with a bottle of champagne that the sisters must have ordered while Archie was telephoning his assistant. He tried not to look shocked when he saw that it was Ruinart and not the house fizz.

“This one is on me,” Penny reassured him with a pat on the arm.

“But what are we celebrating?” Archie asked.

“Getting away with it,” said Penny, presumably referring to the Peter Jones incident, which Archie hardly considered “gotten away with.” But as she rifled through her handbag for a tissue, the glitter of a diamond solitaire caught Penny’s eye.

Illustration by Agata Nowicka

Chapter Four

By the time lunch ended, the sisters were ready for supper but Archie had an exhibition launch to attend and could not be persuaded to miss it. Neither could he be persuaded to take them along with him as he sometimes did. The sisters and champagne were a dangerous mix and, to put it bluntly, they’d already had a skinful. Instead Archie loaded his great-aunts into a taxi at the Sloane Square rank, stuffed two twenty-pound notes into the driver’s hand, and instructed him to make sure he took both ladies right to the front door of their house.

The driver, who was a member of the Poppy Cab service that ferried veterans to the cenotaph every Remembrance Sunday, promised that the sisters would be safe in his hands. Thus reassured, Archie leaned into the back of the cab to ensure that both Penny and Josephine were buckled up.

“Try to stay out of trouble until I see you next,” he said. Penny and Josephine assured him that they would.

“Good. Because I can’t keep buying crystal elephants.”

THE SISTERS HAD shared Penny’s South Kensington house since 1983, the year Josephine was widowed. Penny had lost her husband many years before, back in the 1960s. Though, by their own admission, as children they had fought like cat and dog, the sisters found they enjoyed living together as adults, and what they had thought would be a temporary arrangement—just while Josephine was in the deepest depths of grief for her beloved Gerald—soon became permanent. They would be together in that house until the very end. In their mid-eighties, they made a pact that if either one of them ever needed to go into an old people’s home, they would both buy a one-way ticket to Switzerland.

The day after Archie first heard this macabre plan, he locked his great- aunts’ passports away in his office, with strict instructions that the sisters were not to be allowed to have them without his say-so. And he would never give his say-so if Zurich was on the itinerary.

A decade on from the announcement of that gruesome pact, Archie was delighted that his great-aunts were still so independent but he was also very glad they had Arlene, their live-in housekeeper. The sisters told themselves, and anyone who asked, that Arlene’s duties were limited to cooking, cleaning, and making cocktails—“Though she always skimps on the gin!”—but Arlene Blomerus was trained in first aid and just knowing that she was on hand helped Archie sleep more soundly at night.

THAT DAY, WHEN Penny and Josephine returned from Sloane Square, Arlene was ready to welcome them with tea and cheese toasties. Arlene made a mean cheese toastie. She thanked the cab driver profusely for his assistance in getting the sisters all the way to the front door. It had turned out to be a bigger favour than the cabbie had bargained for, with Penny making all sorts of inappropriate suggestions as he helped her up the steps.

“Old ladies are the worst,” he would later tell his mates at the rank.

Arlene asked the sisters about their day and they told her that it had been vraiment gai and left it at that. Though Arlene already knew about the Peter Jones debacle—Archie had called her with the lowdown while the sisters were on their way home—she didn’t push to hear more about it. She didn’t want to embarrass Penny over this latest memory lapse. It was almost certainly a symptom of dementia and Arlene believed that the elderly deserved nothing but compassion in their decline. “After all,” as she often said to her own sister Peta, “We’re all going to get there in the end.”

After supper, Arlene gently suggested to her charges that an early night was in order.

“I know you’re both high on your lovely day out but if you don’t get to bed in a timely fashion, you’ll pay for it tomorrow.”

With much grumbling and a tot of whisky apiece, the sisters took Arlene’s advice and bid each other goodnight on the landing.

“Watch the bugs don’t bite,” they told one another, just as they had when they were small.

JOSEPHINE WAS ASLEEP minutes later but Penny wasn’t ready for bed. She had some research to do. Firing up the tablet Archie had given her for her ninetieth birthday (preloaded with a sudoku app to help stave off mental decline), she went straight to her favourite diamond dealer’s website to check the value of the ring that had spent the afternoon nestled next to a packet of cough sweets at the bottom of her handbag. Had the shop assistant told her it was two carats or three? Having decided it was only two (still not bad for fifteen minutes’ work), Penny made a note to put in a call to an old friend the following day. After that, a quick google of upcoming jewellery sales revealed an interesting auction taking place at Brice-Petitjean in Paris: “Notable jewellery from the early twentieth century.” The June sale was advertised with a photograph of a ring set with an enormous emerald in a dazzling halo of tiny baguette-cut diamonds. A ballerina setting, as it was called.

“There’s a story behind every piece ... ” the accompanying text assured the interested reader.

Penny enlarged the image on her tablet screen as far as it would go, then picked up the magnifying glass she kept on her bedside table for such occasions, to get an even better look. Her mouth dropped open in disbelief as she studied the picture more closely. Was it? No. It couldn’t be. And yet ... Oh yes, it was. There was definitely a story behind this piece.

Chapter Five

Despite Archie’s concerns, the VE Day celebration at the Albert Hall went well. The sisters were seated together in the middle of a row of six veterans. Penny had the dashing army officer to her right. Josephine had the handsy Dambuster to her left. Former Third Officer Davina Mackenzie was not in the line-up (Archie did not tell Josephine this was because Davina was recording a special segment for the ITV news), though there was another ancient Wren in attendance: Sister Eugenia Lambert, a nun with The Sisters of the Sacred Heart, whom Archie’s great-aunts referred to as The Prinz Eugen on account of her having the demeanour of a battleship. Funnily enough, Sister Eugenia had been in the Y Service—the wartime intelligence service that listened to enemy radio traffic at sea—and claimed to have intercepted signals from that infamous German ship amongst others, including the notorious Bismarck.

“Anyone who was ever in the Y Service intercepted signals from the Bismarck,” Josephine would sometimes scoff. “Even if they joined up after it was sunk.”

The sisters proudly wore their medals: Josephine had two, Penny had three. Archie had polished them up. He’d also had Penny’s sewn onto a set of new ribbons, the originals having been chewed by Penny’s most recent dachshund, Flaubert the Third. The sisters both had the War Medal, of course, with its red, white, and blue ribbon. In addition to that, Josephine had the Defence Medal and Penny the 1939–1945 Star and the Italy Star for the periods she’d spent in Algiers and Puglia.

Every time he helped the sisters pin those medals on, Archie thought back to the very first time he saw the gongs, one Christmas in South Kensington. While the adults talked about things that didn’t interest him, he’d been allowed to play with the medals as if they were toys, pinning them onto a large and love-worn teddy bear that had once belonged to his great-grandfather Sir Christopher Williamson. Neither sister worried that Archie might lose or damage them as he played. They wore their wartime adventures so lightly.

“Everybody’s got those medals,” said Penny at the time. “You only had to turn up and put on a uniform.”

And lately Josephine had told him, “We weren’t heroic, Archie. We had very easy wars. We get invited to these ceremonies purely by virtue of having lasted longer than anybody else.”

Possibly that was true, but Archie was proud of his great-aunts all the same, and when the cameras panned round to rest on Josephine and Penny’s faces as the veterans present at the VE Day ceremony were named, he felt tears spring to his eyes, as they did every time. No matter how the sisters tried to minimise it, their contribution had been important and now they were doing the vital work of keeping the memory of the greatest generation alive.

WHEN THE CEREMONY was over—Charles and Camilla did not stay long—Archie caught up with the sisters in the green room beneath the Albert Hall’s vast stage for tea and sandwiches.

“You’d think they’d have laid on some proper drink,” Penny complained. “Who knows how many more of these ceremonies we’ve got in us.”

“Toujours gai, Auntie Penny,” Archie reminded her.

“I’d be much more gai if I had some alcohol.”

“What excitements do you have for us next?” Josephine asked then.

Blimey, Archie thought. They’d barely finished one excitement and they needed another. It was like finding worms to feed chicks.

“I’m working on something,” he assured them.

“An interview with Andrew Graham-Dixon perhaps?”

“But he’s an art historian.”

“So tell him we’re both works of art,” was Penny’s answer.

Archie was relieved when two twenty-something television researchers came over to pay homage. The young people, called Pongo and Tiger (at least that’s what it sounded like through their tongue piercings), spoke to his great-aunts as though the nonagenarians were half-witted, as seemed to be the habit of so many when addressing the elderly. On the surface, the sisters seemed fine with that, but after one of the youngsters—possibly Pongo—said “ah, bless” in response to Josephine telling them about her plotting room role in the Battle of the Atlantic, Archie noticed Penny begin tapping her right forefinger on the ceremony programme in her lap. To an ignorant outsider, it might have looked like a tic but Archie recognised the Morse code for “moron.” She’d often tapped it out on his forehead.

Archie surreptitiously checked his phone. There was a voicemail from a number he didn’t recognise. He was about to listen to the message when the charming BBC newsreader Huw Edwards wandered over for a chat and Josephine, Penny, and Archie all went into full flirt mode. For the moment, the voicemail was forgotten.

LATER ARCHIE ACCOMPANIED his aunts back home.

As the taxi drew up outside their house, Archie looked up at the façade with a critical eye. The house had beautiful bones but it was definitely looking shabby. He would have to arrange for the stucco to be painted again though he felt sure only six months had passed since the last time. The maintenance was never-ending but he knew his great-aunts would never countenance moving to somewhere a little easier to keep from falling down. They were “settled,” as they put it, surrounded by two lifetimes’ worth of treasures and with all their friends nearby.

“I bet you can’t wait to inherit this place,” an old boyfriend had said to Archie when he first saw number 63 Pelham Road. He couldn’t believe it when Archie told him that he wasn’t going to inherit a thing from his great-aunts, least of all this prime piece of real estate.

Though he was their closest relation, after his own father—“And our very favourite,” as they often said—Archie had always known that his great-aunts’ house would never be his. The sisters had been quite clear about it since he was old enough to understand what inheritance meant. The house was to be sold and the proceeds given to the charitable foundation Penny had set up in memory of her late husband, the horse trainer Connor O’Connell, who’d died suddenly in the South of France in 1966 (on their honeymoon, as it happened). Since then the O’Connell Foundation, supported by Auntie Penny’s exceedingly clever investments, had cared for hundreds of orphans in dozens of war-torn countries, providing them with a home, healthcare, and education. Archie had met many of those children when he accompanied Penny on trips to the Foundation’s projects and he did not begrudge them a thing. He knew he’d had a lucky start in life.

“It’s what your great-uncle would have wanted,” Penny said.

Archie wished he’d met his great-uncle Connor. In the one photograph he’d seen of him—a group shot from a 1960s party which was pinned to the back of the downstairs loo door—Connor looked as though he had a good sense of humour. He’d probably needed it, Archie thought from time to time.

ARLENE WAS MAKING lunch when her charges returned. Archie leaned against the kitchen counter while she put the finishing touches to a salad that was made up of all the colours of the rainbow. He was very glad to see she was making enough for four. The Albert Hall sandwiches had been disappointing.

“Anything to report?” Archie asked.

Arlene rinsed her hands and dried them on the tea-towel. When she turned back to Archie, he could tell there was something she wanted to say and he wasn’t sure he was going to be happy about it.

“There have been lots of phone calls,” she said.

“Go on.”

“There’s a new telephone scam, where they pretend to be from the HMRC, so when Penny got a third call from a particular gentleman in as many days, I asked him exactly who he was and why he was phoning. He hung up and I blocked his number. Suspicious, eh?”

“Hmmm,” said Archie.

“Don’t worry, Archie. I’m keeping an eye on things. No one is going to get near the ladies without me knowing what their business is. These people who target the old and the vulnerable with their scams are disgusting. I don’t know how those thieves can live with themselves. No matter how lowly one’s position in life, there’s no excuse for dishonesty.”

Archie nodded. “Well, hopefully it’s nothing sinister.”

Archie’s own phone rang then. It was the number he hadn’t recognised from earlier that day. In the excitement of meeting Huw Edwards, he had quite forgotten to listen to the voicemail. He excused himself to the garden to take the call and when he came back in he was all a-flutter.

“Good news?” Arlene asked.

“Oh yes! Very good news indeed.”

Here was the excitement to end all excitements.

“Auntie Josephine! Auntie Penny!”

The sisters, who were upstairs changing, poked their heads over the banister to see what was going on.

“I’ve just had a call from the office of the French ambassador to London. You’ve been nominated for the Légion d’honneur!”

“The what?” Penny asked.

“The Légion d’honneur. The highest French order of merit. For your services to France in the war.”

“Both of us?” asked Josephine.

“Tous les deux,” Archie confirmed.

“Then je suis ravis d’accepter,” said Penny.

“Moi aussi,” said Josephine. “Oh, this is vraiment gai.”

The sisters came downstairs and Archie danced them both down the hall. Arlene joined the impromptu polka when they reached the kitchen.

“The Légion d’honneur!” Archie sang. “Aunties, we’re going to Paris.”

Chapter Six

From the diary of Penelope Williamson

7th July 1939

I HATE PARIS!!!

I’m so bored I could scream. I was so looking forward to this visit but it’s been nothing but ennui from the very first day. I might as well not be here. Nobody pays me any attention. Uncle Godfrey is too busy in his wine cellar. Aunt Claudine is too busy with her painting lessons—though we all know that Monsieur Lebre isn’t really an art teacher—and now even Josephine has abandoned me.

She’s spent the past week drifting round like a mooncalf. Since August Samuel started making eyes at her, she’s entirely forgotten I’m here. Yet I was the one who spoke to him first. Josephine just blushed and hid behind The Code of the Woosters whenever August came into the courtyard. I was the one who dared to say “bonjour” and I was the one who found out all about him. He was supposed to be our joint friend.

Without me, Josephine would never have come to know August at all— her French is vraiment épouvantable—but she says she has no use for me as translator now she’s decided that August is her l’amour vrai and he, apparently, feels the same way about her. While I was inside getting lemonade for us all, he kissed her! Now they are officially in love and I am chopped liver. I’ve half a mind not to give her the bracelet I stole from Galeries Lafayette.

I should say that I didn’t mean to steal the bracelet. I fully intended to buy Josephine’s birthday present. I asked the sales assistant to show me the five I liked best but as I was trying them on and imagining how they would look on Josephine’s fat wrist instead of my own far more slender one, a woman in a fancy hat came up to the counter and, as far as the assistant was concerned, I might as well have disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Why does everyone seem to think I’m so easily dismissed? The sales assistant straight away tidied up the bracelets, which I was still looking at, and sent me off with a flick of her hand. She clearly thought I wasn’t worth bothering with now that Madame Moneybags had arrived so I felt much less guilty than I might have done when I realised, as I got to the Métro station, that one of the bracelets was still on my arm.

I had walked out of the store quite without knowing I was shoplifting! I even said “bonne journée” to the doorman as I stepped into the street. I couldn’t believe it, though I have to admit it was quite a thrill to think I’d got away with an actual crime, even if it was by accident. Perhaps the fact that nobody takes any notice of me could be an advantage, if only I had the gumption to do it again. I’m not sure that had I taken the bracelet on purpose, I could have left the store quite so calmly. I’d have gibbered out a confession and been locked up in La Bastille.

The bracelet probably isn’t to Josephine’s taste but it’s the thought that counts. She’s only interested in what she might get from August anyway. I’ll bet she thinks he is going to give her some real jewellery. His father was a gem-dealer in Vienna before they fled the Nazis.

By the way, if you have read this far without my say-so, I hope you are thoroughly ashamed of yourself. This is, as it says quite clearly on the cover, my TOP SECRET diary and anyone who reads these pages without my express permission is cursed. Especially you, Josephine Cecily Williamson!

17th July 1939

Today was Josephine’s seventeenth birthday. I gave her the bracelet over breakfast. She pronounced it “divine” and declared me her favourite sister (in a field of one and obviously not so dear to her that she wanted to spend the day with me).

As soon as Uncle Godfrey and Aunt Claudine departed the apartment— Godfrey to his cellar and Claudine to an outdoor “painting lesson” in the Bois De Boulogne—Josephine went straight down to the courtyard to wait for August Samuel. She left in a cloud of Aunt Claudine’s Eau De Divine. It was absolutely choking. I’m not sure it’s ladylike for your scent to announce your arrival quite so far in advance.

Josephine told me that under no circumstances must I follow her down to the garden, neither must I spy on her from the lavatory window, which is the only one that overlooks. She and August had important things to discuss which were not for my “tender ears.” I asked how she would know what August was discussing with her if I wasn’t there to translate. She said, and I quote, “When you get to my age, Penelope, you will understand that there are some things in life which need no translation.”

Naturally, I watched from the lavatory window. Josephine perched on the bench below, pretending to read Aunt Claudine’s copy of The Constant Nymph but really only thinking about how she would look when August came downstairs. She pinched her cheeks and tried various different poses. All of them made her look like a second-rate show-girl at the Moulin Rouge.

Finally, August arrived, sending Josephine into paroxysms of excitement, and they disappeared through the gate onto the street. I put my foot in the toilet bowl as I was stepping down. Tant pis.

Considering she is relying on me not to tell our godparents what she’s been up to, Josephine could really be a good deal kinder, instead of telling me I’m too young to understand the “mysteries of love.” I’m only eighteen months younger after all and I’ve read all of the same books.

Besides, Josephine isn’t the only one men find alluring. After she and August left this morning, I went down into the courtyard. I was writing my diary when Gilbert, the son of Madame Declerc, the concierge, sat down on the bench beside me. As usual, he was carrying his gas mask.

He said, “You are the prettiest sister.”

I told him it’s actually prettier, when there are only two sisters to compare.

I was going to ask him why he thought I was the prettier, since no one has ever said that before and I should like to know what particular aspect of my face is nicer than my sister’s, but his mother came back from the market. She only had to scowl in his direction and he went running to help her carry the groceries inside without saying au revoir. Madame Declerc is a vieille vache terrible. She seems to resent everyone who lives in the building, even though they pay her wages. Uncle Godfrey says that being unpleasant is an important part of the concierge’s role.

Josephine and August came back around lunchtime. August told me I had good taste in jewellery, regarding Josephine’s bracelet.

“Though you know the stones are only glass,” he said.

Of course I knew that.

Then he added, “I can show you something real.”

He invited us both then—Josephine and me—into his family’s apartment. His parents were out, as was Lily, his little sister. I was glad she wasn’t there today. August has taken to foisting his sister onto me so that he can go smooching with mine. It really is very annoying.

“My father would kill me if he knew what I’m about to do,” August told us.

It turns out that the Samuel family have a safe hidden beneath the floorboards in their bathroom, full of jewels smuggled out of Austria.

Josephine went completely gaga when she saw what was inside, especially when August pulled out a ring he said once belonged to a Russian Grand Duchess who had to sell it to escape to Vienna during the Bolshevik Revolution. There were plenty of big diamonds in the safe as well but this ring was far more lovely. It was an emerald the size of a Fox’s Glacier Mint.

Josephine asked if she could try it on and held out her hand as though graciously accepting a proposal. It was absolutely sick-making. It was all I could do not to snort with laughter when the ring got stuck on her knuckle. Then I tried it on too and on me it looked quite beautiful. It turns out I have the hands of a refined Russian aristocrat.

The sight of the emerald fitting me so perfectly made Josephine even more spiteful than usual and after lunch she sent me away again so she and August could talk about more untranslatable things. It was raining so I sat in the stairwell with Gilbert. He says he is as fed-up as I am with August and Josephine both mooning about like they invented love. Before Josephine came along, August was his best friend. They did everything together. Now August has no time for him at all.

Gilbert let me try on his gas mask, which his mother makes him carry at all times. Madame Declerc is convinced that the Germans are going to attack at any moment. Gilbert’s father was gassed in the Battle of Verdun and never really recovered. He died when Gilbert was four. That’s when he and his mother had to move from their little farmhouse in Brittany to Paris and the concierge flat.

Gilbert wants to be a lawyer when he leaves school though he doesn’t know how he will be able to afford the training. I told him I want to be a writer like Colette. I’ve read all her books in the original. Gilbert says that must be why my French is so good for an English girl’s. He says I must always write in French as it is the natural language of the poet. He’s really not so bad if you don’t look too closely at his spots.

18th July 1939

Gilbert kissed me! It’s not the first time I’ve been kissed but it couldn’t have been more different from when Eric Bullingham kissed me in the churchyard on Easter Sunday. That was disgusting. Luckily, the French do things differently. When Gilbert took my face in his hands and told me I might be beautiful one day, I thought my knees were going to buckle underneath me. As he looked deep into my eyes, it was as though he was looking straight into my soul!

I didn’t let him use his tongue, of course. I’m not a fast girl. He said he understood and didn’t press me to change my mind, thank goodness. It was still SOOOO romantic. I don’t care if Josephine doesn’t want to spend time with me anymore. I am IN LOVE.

20th July 1939

Just my luck! Today we got a telegram from Pa, saying, “War imminent. Send girls home.” Aunt Claudine said Pa was being dramatic but Uncle Godfrey isn’t so sure. He said the Germans are getting ready to march on Poland and when that happens, France is honour-bound to go to Poland’s defence alongside Great Britain. It could be worse than 1914, so he’s sending us and Aunt Claudine to Dieppe to catch the boat to Newhaven on Saturday night. Aunt Claudine protested that she has too much to do in Paris to have to leave right now, to which Uncle Godfrey responded, “You mean your painting lessons?” in a way that said everything the rest of us have been thinking all along.

Josephine is simply desperate at the news, as am I. Gilbert was going to take me for a picnic at a secret grotto in the Jardin du Luxembourg on Sunday afternoon. I’m sure he was planning to tell me he loves me. I told Josephine as much and she told me I had nothing to be upset about. She said my passion for Gilbert is a passing fancy and I’ll have forgotten all about him by the time we get home. Not so for her and August, of course. They are “as real as Romeo and Juliet.”

I met Gilbert in the stairwell and told him we’re leaving at the weekend. Gilbert asked if we could kiss with tongues, seeing as we didn’t know how long we might have to be apart. I didn’t let him. Now I’m wondering if I should have. Probably for the best that I didn’t. Ma and Pa would go berserk if I came back from France with a baby.

22nd July 1939

Still another three hours to Newhaven. Aunt Claudine and Josephine are both moping about the cabin sighing at having to leave their loved ones behind—and Uncle Godfrey, though he says he’s going to follow in two weeks. Nobody seems to worry about how I’m feeling. Gilbert wished me farewell this morning and gave me his copy of Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal, which I will have to hide from Ma and Pa as he’s underlined the rude bits. He has promised to write. He is sure that the war, if it happens, will be short.

Before we left, August took me to one side and made me promise that whatever happens I will always look after my sister. “Always,” he insisted, quite dramatically. He’s told Josephine that as soon as they are old enough, they will elope and be married. The Russian duchess’s emerald will be her engagement ring. He’ll have to get the band enlarged.

13th August 1939

Arrived for the annual two weeks with the olds at Grey Towers this afternoon. While I was still unpacking my suitcase, Josephine went straight to find Connie and they ran off to our secret hiding place in the gardens without me. When I caught up with them, they immediately went silent so I knew they’d been talking about something they didn’t want me to hear. Probably the same sort of “grown-up things” that Josephine wouldn’t tell me in Paris. She’s still miserable about having to leave August Samuel behind.

I told Connie that her mother wanted her back in the kitchen to peel potatoes for our supper. It wasn’t true, and when she’d gone Josephine pinched me and told me it was unkind of me to be so haughty with Connie and remind her that she’s staff now when she’s always been our friend.

At supper, Connie deliberately spilled cock-a-leekie soup on my best plaid skirt but Grandmama told me off for being clumsy and said, “If you can’t manage to sit still and eat like an adult, Penelope Williamson, you’ll have to have your meals in the nursery.”

I can hear Connie and Josephine through the wall between Josephine’s bedroom and mine now. They’re sniggering about me, I know. Ugh. I hate Scotland almost as much as I hate Paris. I can’t wait to go back to school.

3rd September 1939

WAR DECLARED!!!

Prime Minister Chamberlain made the dreaded announcement this morning. The Bullinghams came round to listen to our wireless as theirs is broken. The vicar joined us too and we all crowded into Pa’s study for the broadcast.

Chamberlain sounded terribly serious when he imparted the bad news to the nation. Josephine, Ma, and Mrs. Bullingham were soon in tears. Cook started wailing. Eric Bullingham looked like he might be sick. He kept asking if he’s old enough to fight. Pa and the other men were grave but, I think, relieved to know what’s what at last. George was delighted. He and the younger Bullingham boys raced straight outside to check for German bombers.

Given the circumstances, I thought we might get out of going to church. Alas the vicar told us he would simply move the Eucharist an hour later saying, “People need the word of God more than ever today.” This was the worst-case scenario since it meant an extra hour until lunch. Cook was not pleased. She said the beef would be ruined. Pa muttered he’d always thought “ruined beef ” was Cook’s speciality.

The rest of the day was taken up with the news. Pa will go wherever the army needs him, of course. He’ll contact his old regiment first thing. George was most disappointed that he’s too young to fight. When I could get away from having to help Cook make endless cups of tea for all the visitors who wanted to know what Pa thinks about it all—since he fought in the Great War, he’s considered quite the expert on the Boche—I wrote at once to Gilbert. He’s fifteen so he won’t have to fight yet. I’m not sure about August. He is sixteen already. France has declared war on Germany too. Josephine is distraught. She says she is terrified by the thought of all the men she loves being sent to the front line.

“Oh, lamentous day!” she cried at one point.

I’m not sure lamentous is a word.

I can still hear her crying on the other side of my bedroom wall now. Really, she can be unbearably wet. I know I should be scared too but I can’t help feeling thrilled. WE ARE AT WAR. At last! It’s all terribly exciting!

From THE EXCITEMENTS by CJ Wray. Copyright © 2024 by C J Wray. Reprinted by permission of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.