Prologue:

April 1939, Dublin,

'You going then?' the girl propped herself up on a white arm, she was watching with interest as fastened his dinner jacket in the half-light. He gave a guilty start and she laughed and said, liltingly,

'I should be cross, but I suppose by inviting a man I barely know back to my bed I'm asking to be jilted,'

'You must think me a terrible cad,' he said, sitting down on the bed, half wanting to kiss her a little more, 'I must be on a boat to Liverpool this morning, I have affairs in England that cannot wait,'

'And what affairs would they be?' she asked, 'or are they too complex for my feminine mind?'

'Pressing ones,' he fingered a strand of dark hair but she moved away from him.

'Well you're fine, my Da's in America and Becca won't be back from her party for an age, you can let yourself out,'

'What about your twenty cousins with pitch-forks?'

'Dead drunk and in their own beds, no doubt,' she said sleepily, 'how did you know I had twenty cousins?'

'All the Irish have twenty cousins,' he began to do up his shoes, 'besides you told me,'

'And sleep a dozen to a room, and live off Potatoes and Hail Marys?' she sounded a little indignant and he remembered through a fug an argument about socialised medicine which he had probably lost.

'No doubt,' he said, and she opened her mouth to protest but he kissed her one last time and slipped out of her dream and into the morning mist.

June 1939, Yorkshire

Molly

Molly knew it was wimpy, but she was a little scared of the rocks on Rookdale. She was also a little exasperated at her best friend's latest scheme to escape his family.

'Come on!' Georgie shouted heartily, his blond hair catching the light as he pedalled furiously up the summit. Her own sturdy legs followed surely after him, her older bicycle jolting along the path. Finally, dizzy, she collapsed on the ground.

'Are we far away enough now then?' she asked, staring up at the perfect sky as she caught her breath on the rocky ledge. 'Satisfied your mother can't nag you about dress shirts up here on the Dales?'

He opened his bottle of lemonade and passed it to her as a peace-offering which she pretended to be grudging about. Really Molly couldn't think of a better place or better company in the world but she wasn't about to give Georgie the satisfaction of knowing that.

'You saved my life when I saw you in the village, I thought I would never escape from all the fuss with the party,' he said, panting. He smiled his good-natured grin, squinting in the sunlight through his blond hair and Molly thought 'handsome' in spite of herself and then felt horrified, she'd known Georgie all seventeen years of her life.

'And here's me thinking you really wanted to help me with my Latin verbs,'

'I will, I promise,' he said earnestly.

'Liar,' she said, 'and I even brought my exercise book, only for you to go dragging me around the countryside. George Crawley, you should be ashamed,'

'It's too hot for Latin anyway, too hot for a house-party,'

'Everyone says it's the last chance, before the war that is,'

'Last chance for what?' Georgie smiled, 'Mama wants me to meet some suitable types before I go up to Oxford, if I go that is,'

'You're not a soldier,' Molly said feeling a pang of something strange. She could not imagine Georgie killing anyone, he didn't even like hunting, the last time there'd been a meet he'd snuck off to read a book under a tree.

'I could be,' Georgie said, 'and what about you?'

'What about me?' Molly asked, watching a cloud drift across the sky.

'When you leave school what will you do? You're quite the smartest girl at Ripon Grammer,'

'Probably stay at home and help Mam run the pub,'

'You should have adventures,'

'And who says you can't have adventures in a pub in Yorkshire?'

Georgie laughed, he began to unpack the picnic and bit into a pork pie.

'Billie will be here soon, and she'll talk some sense into you,'

'When does Miss Sybil's train come in?'

'From Liverpool? This evening, and I don't know why you're calling her that, you don't call me Master Crawley,'

'I do in front of our mother's,' Mam had been friends with Georgie's mother for over 20 years and she still called her Lady Mary whilst Lady Mary called her Anna. Molly wondered if Georgie had even noticed this.

'And I haven't seen Miss- Billie properly for six years, not since they went to America,' Molly said with a frown,

Billie was a year older than her cousin, and Georgie was a year older than Molly. So when they had been children the three of them had been inseparable. Billie had been the one who always got them into trouble. Whilst Molly had been the voice of reason with Georgie an easy going centre, the golden boy. Then when he was eight Georgie had gone to prep-school and Billie's father had taken her to America to continue his journalism career. Molly had been left quite alone. The last time she had seen Billie was at her great-grandmother's funeral. Georgie had been stiff and strange in his new Eton tails and Molly, awkward in a dress she was growing out of (as she was all her clothes at eleven) had suddenly not known how to speak to him. Billie had come back from America seeming older then thirteen. She hadn't cried even though she had been the apple of old Lady Gratham's eye but she had seemed sharper and brittle and had smoked furtive cigarettes and talked about jazz.

'What's she like now?'

'You'll see,' Georgie said, 'she's pretty good fun,'

The sun was low in the sky, they were drowsy with food and their heads empty of Latin, when they finally, shrieking, made their way back to the village and the weather was settling in to the most perfect of English summer evenings. The air was still and smelling of wheat.

'You will protect me Molls, from all Mama's guests, I need someone I can make eyes at,'

'I doubt I'll meet any of them Georgie,' Molly said, 'I'll be polishing glassware all night,'

'I'll come and dance with you,' Georgie said, 'I'll waltz you around the kitchens,'

'I dance like a baby elephant,' Molly said truthfully and he laughed and tugged her plait but before she could hit him back he gave a gasp of delight.

Outside the station a figure in a wide brimmed straw hat and slacks was smoking furiously on a suitcase, suddenly she sprang into life.

'I don't believe it,' Georgie said, 'what luck!'

'Georgie!' the girl yelled, she stood up from the suitcase and beamed at him. Billie was still small but she had grown exceptionally pretty, with dark hair and pale skin. There was an explosion of fine freckles like poppy seeds starting on her perfect nose, stretching out across her face which made her beauty less intimidating.

'Billie, I thought you were on the evening train, Mama-'

'Nah, I came early- I was planning how to lug this to the house,' she hugged him, and put her hands on his shoulders, 'look at you, all grown up,'

'You saw me in New York last year! Was I not grown up then?'

'Well you're taller now for certain, must be leaving school, becoming a man of the world,' Billie balanced her trunk on the handle-bars of Georgie's bike and began to push it determinedly.

'I'll help,' Molly said, offering to take her handbag. Billie stared at her and then broke into a grin.

'Molly!' she cried and threw her, 'Molly Bates! You don't look any different, you still have plaits,'

'I do yes,'

'Do your parents still run the Grantham Arms?' Billie said, she almost dropped the trunk, said 'oh feck!' and laughed showing a set of small white teeth, 'I remember your Mam used to always give us a bottle of lemonade,'

'That's it Miss,' Molly said, pointing as the Gratham Arms came into view, 'they just lease it from his lordship though, it'll be Georgie's someday,'

'You shouldn't call me Miss,'

'Billie's a fearful revolutionary these days,' Georgie explained, 'it upsets Grandpapa,'

'I'm a socialist, not a revolutionary actually, it means I don't believe people should inherit pubs,' Billie said pointedly, 'but I'm not going to forcibly take young Master Crawley's inheritance and distribute it amongst the proletariat,'

'Is Molly the proletariat?' Georgie asked and she punched him lightly on the arm,

'Don't twist my words,'

'We can stop in at Granny Isabel's and ring for someone to come and get you and your trunk, then you'll be there in time to dress for dinner, everyone else is coming tomorrow,' Georgie said

'Oh joy, an English house-party,' Billie said and she and Georgie both giggled in a cousinly way.

Molly suddenly felt a little out of place 'I should be back to help Mam, she'll be expecting me,' she said

Georgie frowned, 'Don't let Billie scare you off, she's just warming up for Mama,'

'No, I should go,' Molly said, and before she could change her mind said, 'it was nice to meet you again,' and dashed off, her brown ponytail flapping in the wind.