Over a cup of tea, Matthew and Gloria lit cigarettes. I knew Mother didn’t approve of women smoking, but she said nothing. Then Matthew cleared his throat and said, “Mother, I invited Gloria here tonight for a specific reason, because, well, we have something to tell you.”

Mother raised her eyebrows; my heart started to thump against my rib cage.

“We want to get married.”

I gaped at Matthew: tall, dashing, handsome, that charming lock of dark brown hair always slipping over his eye, the dimples at each side of his mouth when he smiled, the clear eyes and strong chin. And then I looked at Gloria, saw her radiance.

Somehow, it was all so inevitable.

At that moment, I hated her.

“Ah,” said Mother, after a calming sip of tea. “You do, do you?”

“Yes.”

“And you, young lady?”

“Very much,” said Gloria, leaning over and taking Matthew’s hand. “I know it’s not been long that we’ve known one another, but it’s wartime and-”

Mother waved her down. “Yes, yes, my dear, I know all about that. Have you thought, though, that Matthew might be going far away soon?”

“We’ve thought about that, Mother,” he said. “Even though I passed the medical, I’ll still have my military training to do after the degree, and there’s a good chance I’ll be able to come home every weekend until after Christmas, probably, at least.”

“And the rest of the week?”

“I’ll be working at the farm, as usual,” Gloria said, “and Matt will be at university in Leeds until July, then he’ll go wherever they send him for training. I know it’s not perfect. We’d love nothing more than to be together all the time.” They held hands and she gazed at him. “But we know that’s not realistic. Not yet, anyway.”

I couldn’t believe it; she called him Matt. How could she? He had always been Matthew to Mother and me.

“What about your studies?” Mother asked him.

“I’ll be working just as hard as usual.”

“Hmph. A lot of couples are waiting to marry,” she said. “Until times are less uncertain.”

“But a lot of people are getting married, too,” Matthew argued, “making the best of the time they have. Yes, we know life is very uncertain now. But if anything happens to me in the forces, I’ll die a far happier man for having been married to Gloria. Even if it was only for a day.”

“Don’t talk like that, Matthew,” Mother said, putting her hand to her chest again. Then she glanced at me. “What do you think about all this, Gwen?”

I swallowed. “Me? Well, I suppose if it’s what they really want to do, then there’s nothing we can say to stop them.”

“Good old Gwen,” said Matthew. “I knew I could depend on you.”

“Where will you live?” Mother demanded. “Have you thought about that? It’s not that we wouldn’t have you, but there’s not enough room here, you know, even if you wanted to live with Gwen and me. We don’t even have enough room to take in evacuees. And you certainly can’t both live at the farm.”

“Yes,” said Matthew, “we’ve thought about that, too. That’s why we want to get married as soon as possible.”

Mother frowned. “Oh?”

“We’re going to live in Bridge Cottage.”

“What? That run-down hovel by the fairy bridge?”

“Yes. It’ll be big enough for us. And it’ll be ours. Well, we’ll only be renting it, but you know what I mean. As you know, it’s been used for housing evacuees since old Miss Croft died. Anyway, I’ve talked to Lord Clifford’s agent in Leeds, and he says that the people there now are moving out next week. It’s a woman and her two children, evacuees from Birmingham. Apparently they’re homesick and they’re going home. I know it’ll need a lot of fixing up, but I’m good with my hands. And it’s only five shillings a week.”

“What about children? Have you thought about that, too?”

“I’m not having a baby, Mrs. Shackleton, if that’s what you mean,” said Gloria.

“Of course not, my dear. That’s not what I meant at all. I wouldn’t suggest such a thing. But if you do have a baby after you’re married, the child’s father will most likely be away and you’ll have a lot on your hands.”

That sad look came over Gloria’s face the way it did sometimes, a dark cloud blocking the sun. “We haven’t planned to have children,” she said. “Not yet, anyway. I wouldn’t want to bring a child into the world the way things are now, not after what I’ve been through.” Then the cloud passed and she smiled again. “After the war, though, we’ll see. Things will be different then.”

Mother was silent for a moment, then she grimaced as if in pain, which she probably was, and said, “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”

Matthew beamed. “Everything, Mother. We want to start having the banns called next Sunday. Please say you’ll give us your blessing. Please!”

Mother held her cup out and I poured more tea. Her hand was shaking and the cup rattled on the saucer. She looked at Gloria again. “And you’re an orphan, my dear? You have no living relatives?”

“None. But you did say I’ve got you, didn’t you?”

Mother smiled. Only a little one. That’s all she allowed herself those days. Little ones. “I did, didn’t I?”

“Oh, please, Mrs. Shackleton, please give us your permission.”

“It doesn’t look as if I’ve got much choice, does it? Go on, then, you have my blessing.” Then she sighed and looked at me. “I suppose we’ll have to start saving our coupons up, won’t we, Gwen, love?”

Some mornings, especially when the weather was good, Vivian Elmsley liked to walk up Rosslyn Hill to the High Street, take a table outside one of the cafés and linger over her morning coffee. She walked slowly, finding her breath came with more difficulty these days.

One or two people on the street recognized her from her television and magazine-cover appearances, as usual, but the people of Hampstead took celebrity in their stride, especially the literary kind, so no one pestered her for autographs or “simply had to” tell her how good or how bad her latest book was.

She found an empty table easily enough, bought her coffee and unfolded the Times. Her routine varied. Some days she found herself thinking about the book she was working on as she walked, hardly noticing the people in the street, unaware even of what season it was. On those days, she would sit down with her notebook and scribble a few ideas as she sipped. Today, though, the book was much farther from her mind than she would have liked.

Instead, she opened her newspaper. The brief item she was looking for appeared in a column on one of the inside pages usually reserved for news items from the provinces:

FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED IN RESERVOIR SKELETON CASE In a surprise statement given yesterday evening to local reporters, North Yorkshire Police indicated that the skeletal remains found under Thornfield Reservoir were those of a female murder victim. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, in charge of the case, said that while police have not yet discovered the victim’s identity, they do know that the body is that of a woman in her early twenties. All indications are that she was stabbed to death. How long the body has lain there, DCI Banks added, is much more difficult to determine, but preliminary information indicates that they are dealing with a twentieth-century crime. Thornfield Reservoir was constructed on the site of a village called Hobb’s End, whose remains have now come into view for the first time since 1953. The skeleton was found buried under an outbuilding by a thirteen-year-old boy, Adam Kelly, while he was playing in the area. Anyone with information is asked to get in touch immediately with the North Yorkshire Police.

So they knew that much already. Her hand trembling slightly, Vivian put the newspaper down and sucked some of the frothy milk from the top of her coffee. She wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the rest of the news now, or attempt the crossword. That little item had quite spoiled her day.