In summer 1943, with Rodd engrossed in AMGOT, Mary decided to return to Britain. Leaving Philadelphia in August, she brought the family back across the Atlantic on a Portuguese liner, in what was a harrowing crossing; a cyclone forced the ship to turn south towards the Azores before it finally docked in Portugal in late September. Rodd got news of their safe arrival on 9 October and saw them briefly in Lisbon at the end of the month. He was keen to alert Mary to the nature of the situation she was returning to, including the scarcity of food in the cities. He had already told her that, post-war, she would have to make some adjustments to her lifestyle. Her priority, he suggested, needed to be the reestablishment of family life in Herefordshire. But this was going to be a challenge: ‘The position roughly is that if you have servants you will have to work in a factory, or you can do the work yourself instead.’ But he sought to reassure her that he had not been able to detect any criticism of her for having been away from Britain. Mary knew of Rodd's desire to settle down at the Rodd after the war. But she was unsure that this would suit him. In the summer of 1942, she told him that any desire he had to live quietly in Herefordshire for the rest of his life was a ‘nostalgic’ dream; he was meant to get involved in the running of the country in some way, rather than be a country squire or farmer.

Rodd warned Mary about the attacks on him in parliament and the press:

The whole process had been ‘very unpleasant’, he declared, adding that any thoughts he had had of being a colonial governor had been set back by this publicity and criticism.