Page 109 of The Unknown Birds

“Now, he’s not asking you to do the baking yourself, of course. He merely hopes you’ll tutor his newly promoted chef. If you’re amenable, you’ll have room and board and a generous stipend, and he’d like you to take the train north at your earliest convenience. The post is not dependent on hostilities being declared. He doesn’t think it would be sporting to make his cook’s promotion hinge on war.”

“My goodness,” Frau Wintter said, blinking rapidly. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes, Oma,” Ash told her. She didn’t know exactly how this plan had come about, but it was an answer to her nightly prayers. Anti-German sentiment in London had caused more than one angry mob to ransack Wintter’s Bakery during the first war. She couldn’t imagine what might happen this time around.

“There’s a proposal for you as well, Mrs. Ashley.”

“Clara,” her mother reminded him.

He smiled. “Clara. The government is seeking volunteers to ride with the children so they’re not completely alone on those trains to the country. Major Davies asks if you’d be willing to take on that position, and then to remain in the Midlands at Collingwood to help manage the care of the children living there—not changing nappies or anything. Just overseeing it all in his absence and keeping him apprised.”

“Why me?” she asked, in almost as much shock as Frau Wintter.

“He needs someone he can trust,” Rook explained, as though it were self-evident. “He’s always had the highest opinion of our Charley here, and so he thought of you. He also supposed it might be hard for you to lose the companionship of Frau Wintter at a time like this. In his words, this would be a win-win-win.”

“Well. How about that?” she said, turning to Ash, face shining with admiration for the daughter who went to war.

The heavy yoke which had hunched Ashley’s shoulders until she wanted to curl into a fetal ball finally began to dissipate, and the knot which had kept a chokehold on her throat for months on end finally began to ease. At last she drew a long, deep, satisfying breath.

“What do you say, Adele?” her mother asked. “Shall we start our next chapter as a pair of rusticating ladies?”

“I would like that very much.”

Across the table, Rook nodded gallantly, but he only had eyes for Ash. “I shall send word to Major Davies the moment I leave.”

“Please pass along my gratitude,” Ash rasped. “My very deepest, most heartfelt thanks.” She knew full well Rook had somehow been the composer behind this clever orchestration, but her message was received. He nodded at her and kissed her forehead before leaving, and that night, all felt just a little more right with the world.

Chapter 32

London, September 1939

Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins

Drop, and are ever dropping;

But mine in my ear is safe⁠—

Just a little white with the dust.

—Isaac Rosenberg

Break of Day in the Trenches

Germany invaded Poland the very next day.

Ash and Rook saw Frau Wintter safely to the station and put her on a train to the Midlands, where Davies’s butler would meet her and take her home. It was a tearful goodbye, but she promised to send a telegram the minute she arrived, and Ashley swore she’d visit the first chance she was able.

“When did you manage to arrange all this?” she asked Rook, as they walked together back to her flat.

“I mentioned it to Davies the first evening at Collingwood, when you were indisposed. I thought you might be sick with worry for them.”

“Thank you.”

“It was nothing.”

“It was everything. Truly.”

“Win-win-win,” he teased, echoing the Old Man’s words. “Win-win?” he added hopefully, motioning between himself and her. “Will you take a chance on selfish happiness with me now?”