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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Last Debutante by Lesley Lokko (view source)
Revision as of 15:18, 27 September 2020
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In 1936 in Chalfont Hall in Dorset young Kit Algernon-Waters can't really understand what's going on: at thirteen years old she's been banished to have supper in the nursery whilst everyone else is dining downstairs with the guests. Even her elder sister, Lily, who's sixteen is dining with these unnamed 'guests'. Kit has tapped all her usual sources to find out who the visitors are, but to no avail. All she's managed to work out (well, let's be honest 'find out by eavesdropping' is closer to the truth) is that the visitors are German. Kit's parents, Lord and Lady Wharton, are short of money and it's important that at least one of their daughters makes a good marriage. Six months later Lily is married to one of the GermanGermans, living in some style in Germany. Within a couple of years she's mixing with some dubious company, including Unity Mitford. It was even rumoured that she'd met Hitler.
Lord and Lady Wharton are not brave: Lady Wharton, particularly, is devastated about what this will do to their social life when it emerges that their daughter is a Nazi sympathiser and to her there's one obvious thing to do: send Kit to Germany to bring her sister home. Kit's just sixteen, so an Uncle is sent with her, but no account is taken of the fact that Kit and Lily were never close when they were living in the same house. How on earth is Kit to persuade Lily? That quickly becomes academic when something happens that will change Kit's life irrevocably and will affect future generations of the family.
