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to the servants’ quarters and tiptoed down the stairs to the kitchen. There was a door here that led out into the basement area and she knew that the key would be hanging on a hook beside it. Her heart hammered as she put it into the lock. Maisie, the kitchen maid, slept next door and Leo prayed that she was not easily awakened. The lock turned and the door swung open. Chill, damp air replaced the warmth of the kitchen. The area steps were shrouded in fog. For a moment Leo hesitated, thinking of her warm bed and the unknown hazards ahead. Then she stepped outside, closed and locked the door behind her and pushed the key back underneath it. There was no going back now, short of ringing the front doorbell and begging to be readmitted. She climbed the area steps to the pavement level and turned towards the corner. The fog obscured everything further than fifty yards away, so she could not see if Victoria was waiting for her in Sparky. She turned her collar up to her ears, grateful that the fog muffled the sound of her footsteps and shrouded her from the view of any wakeful watcher in the windows of the houses she passed. For a brief moment she had a premonition that Victoria would not be there, that she had misunderstood the arrangements or simply changed her mind; but when she reached the corner she found Sparky parked at the side of the road, with her friend, muffled to the eyebrows, at the wheel.
    Victoria held up a fur rug as Leonora climbed in beside her. ‘Here, wrap yourself up in this and tie that scarf over your head. We’re in for a freezing drive.’
    She got out and cranked the engine and at the noise Leo expected lights to go on in all the houses, but the darkness remained complete. The roads were deserted but Victoria had to nose the car along at little more than a walking pace because of the fog. Once or twice they had to stop and peer around them to get their bearings, but eventually they found their way across Vauxhall Bridge and into the southern suburbs. Neither of them spoke much. Victoria was concentrating on the driving and the noise of the engine made conversation difficult. The slow progress gave Leo time to think, and to realize the enormity of what she was doing. She thought of the note she had left on her bedside table and her grandmother’s reaction when she read it and was suddenly smitten with remorse. The old lady was a martinet but after all she had only wanted what she thought was best for Leo. To run away like this was the height of ingratitude. But what was the alternative? She knew that faced with the possibility that Leo might take herself off to a foreign war her grandmother was quite capable of locking her in her room until the opportunity had passed. This was her one chance to strike out on a path of her own – and it was too late to have second thoughts. She huddled deeper into the fur and tried to stop her teeth from chattering.
    Once they were clear of the city the fog cleared and they were able to see the stars. As they glided down Wrotham Hill the Kentish Weald lay before them like a dark ocean and Leo had a strange illusion that the car was stationary and the shadowy trees and hedges were somehow being blown past them by the wind that whipped her face. They would go on like this forever, never reaching their destination, and the dawn would never come. As they passed through the villages on their route the noise of the engine echoed back from the houses and Leo expected to hear windows being thrown open but no one stirred. In Maidstone a tramp sleeping in a doorway jumped to his feet and sent a stream of curses after them and at every farm they passed the noise set dogs barking frantically. By the time they reached Dover it was getting light and the first pedestrians were about, moving like ghosts, the men with their coat collars turned up round their ears and the women wrapped in shawls. But at the docks there was already a bustle of activity as the cross-channel ferry prepared