A history Charity had started for pleasure had become something else. She didn’t so much read it as investigate it, the way she might an outbreak of tuberculosis. By late January she’d underscored half the lines on the pages leading up to Great Britain’s declaration of war, and scribbled comments in every margin. “Chamberlain publicly accused Churchill of lacking JUDGEMENT!” she wrote. “The leaders with the worse judgement smugly claim they have the best.” A bit farther on: “Don’t prepare a white paper when you need to be bombing the shit out of Germany!”
