“People with your linguistic skills have been discovered on trains, in shops, hospitals and just doing their shopping, so that doesn’t surprise me.”
“And here I am.”
“Here you are.” Maisie paused, and smiled. “Now then—let’s get down to business. I have some questions for you—some I would like you to answer without any consideration, just off the cuff. The others I want you to think about—I’ll give you a minute.”
“Fire away.” The young woman pulled back her shoulders as if reminded to do so by a finishing-school teacher.
“Before I do that, Miss Evernden, be aware that you just effectively revealed the name of another agent. You assumed I knew about Elinor Jones, so it’s just as well I’m not a member of the Gestapo trying to find out who you are and what you and your friends are up to.” Maisie paused. “I could strike you off right now for that, and you know it.”
Pascale looked down at her hands, then at Maisie again, and replied with a tone of defiance, “I will never give away anything to the Gestapo. Never. The Germans killed my mother.”
Maisie felt a lump in her throat. She knew Pascale Evernden was as brave as Priscilla, and to her advantage she usually had a cooler head on her than her aunt at the same age. Usually. Not always. Maisie knew her decision already, because apart from the slip—she would never make that mistake again—Pascale would pass the remaining hour-long inquisition with flying colors, of that she had no doubt. She wasn’t so sure about the next interviewee, who had a softness to her character that was always close to the surface, which explained why she was so loved. But it might be too close for this work—and that would render her vulnerable.
“Elinor!” Maisie’s greeting for the next candidate was quite different from the one she accorded Pascale Evernden. She took both Elinor’s hands in her own. “Elinor, it’s lovely to see you—but first, I must add that we are now in a formal interview, so it’s Miss Dobbs and Miss Jones.”
“You’ve always been Miss Dobbs to me . . . Miss Dobbs,” said Elinor.
Maisie laughed. “Quite right—now the formality is all on my shoulders.” She extended a hand toward the chair on the other side of the desk. “Please sit down, Miss Jones.”
Once seated, Maisie opened the second folder and took a moment to run her finger down the first page—she had already read every word on the report and had no need to remind herself, but the move could unsettle a candidate, and Maisie wanted to see how easy it was to disquiet Elinor Jones.
Elinor remained relaxed, so Maisie continued.
“Tell me how you were recruited, Miss Jones.”
Elinor cleared her throat. “Well, as you know, I joined the FANY, and I thought I’d be learning to drive an ambulance, like Mrs. Partridge in the last war. She recommended me for it, you see, when I said I was going to join up.”
Maisie nodded. “Go on.”
“Anyway, we had to list any skills we had, and I speak French. To a point it became easy when I was working for Mrs. Partridge in France—remember I had to learn English as a child because my first language was Welsh. And of course, I was still a girl myself then, so it was easier.”
“I seem to remember there was a young man in Biarritz.”
Elinor blushed. “Well, he was a good reason to learn at the time. But then I went to a lady who gave lessons, and of course the boys nattered away in French all the time and I didn’t want them thinking they could pull the wool over my eyes by slipping into French every now and again. They were right scamps then, those boys.”
“I know they were!” said Maisie.
“I can’t believe it when I see Tom in uniform—and he’s training other pilots now. And what with Tim at Cambridge and Tarquin planning to—”
“So you added proficiency in the French language to your list of skills,” interrupted Maisie.
“Yes. Then I was transferred to the same department as that Mr. MacFarlane—and I remember seeing you on the stairs there last year, but I wasn’t supposed to say anything to anyone, which is why I couldn’t talk at the time. I felt bad about that, Miss Dobbs. Anyway, then they brought me over here and I had some interviews with different people and my training was approved.”
“Radio operator.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’ve been given your final tests and certified as ready to join a unit in France.”
“I think the training has gone well. I work with another girl—she’ll be my contact here, so she had to learn to recognize my fist. That’s what they call the way you tap out your message—everyone’s different you see, and—”
“Yes, I’m familiar with the work,” said Maisie. She leaned back in her chair and regarded Elinor Jones, remembering her as a girl who had often appeared barely older than the three gregarious boys in her care; young charges she had marshaled into a level of obedience their mother could never quite achieve. “Miss Jones—all right, Elinor—Elinor, you have been recruited for very dangerous work. Are you fully aware of the risks? The average life of a radio operator in France is proving to be about six weeks at best.”
Elinor blushed and nodded, yet as Pascale had done before her, she straightened her back. “Miss Dobbs, our country is in dire straits. Our ships are being torpedoed by U-boats right, left and center and we are close to the danger point with regard to food supplies. I know that and you know that, but most of the country is in the dark about how terrifying things really are. Hitler is trying to starve us out. If I can do just one thing to slow down his progress, then I shall do it. Even if I have to die trying.”
The words on the page in front of Maisie blurred. Blinking away the moisture in her eyes, she cleared her throat.
“Right, let’s get started, shall we? I have some questions for you—some I would like you to answer without any consideration, just off the cuff. The others I want you to think about—I’ll give you a minute. All right?”
“Fire away,” said Elinor, leaning forward.
There had been little reason for Maisie to venture into the area around Mecklenburgh Square since conducting the investigation into her first case, a brief she had accepted with a sigh of relief after setting up in business on her own in 1929. That first case opened the door to more work, and began to soothe the panic she had felt several months earlier when Maurice informed her of his intention to retire. Instead of taking over his office, he recommended she should rent premises of her own in order to establish her independence. “It’s time to spread your wings, Maisie—time to fly alone. You are more than ready to leave the nest. The work we’ve done together will remain with you; however, if you stay here, I believe it would stunt your ability to do your job effectively and in your own unique way.” Maisie had put off making the move until the last minute, because everything about the change in circumstances was daunting, not least the responsibility of affording rent on the rooms she’d found in Warren Street—rooms that seemed sad and tired in comparison to the well-appointed office on Wigmore Street where she had worked as Maurice’s assistant.
Her fears regarding the future were assuaged when the first client came to her, a man named Christopher Davenham, who believed his wife to be in the midst of an affair with another man. Maisie had followed Mrs. Davenham from the couple’s home in Mecklenburgh Square to a cemetery where the woman laid flowers on the grave of the man she had once loved, a soldier who had returned from service in the Great War with terrible facial wounds. That visit to the square in 1929 had itself been a walk down memory lane for Maisie. When she was younger, some months after Maurice first became her mentor and began directing her studies so that she might gain a place at university, he had brought her to see various friends and associates who lived in and around the square, which had become an enclave of writers, artists and philosophers, both women and men, who had clustered in the area in search of like-minded intellectual neighbors.
Now she had returned to see Gabriella Marie Hunter, a woman who had once told Maisie that she preferred the compani
onship of her books and papers to most human fellowship, though in her recent letter she had admitted to a certain “yearning for the company of someone who knew Maurice.” The letter inspired Maisie to pay a visit sooner rather than later. She had always liked Gabriella, and—if truth be told—despite the woman’s admission regarding her devotion to her work, she thought Gabriella was wise in matters of the heart. With the exception of her beloved family, matters of the heart had always been Maisie’s Achilles’ heel, so she welcomed the opportunity to seek the older woman’s counsel.
Hunter’s connection with Maurice had been seeded in childhood, though she was a good deal younger than Maisie’s former mentor. Both were the offspring of a union between France and Britain: in the case of Maurice, his Scottish mother had married a Frenchman; Gabriella’s mother was French, her father English. They were drawn together by their shared backgrounds when Hunter was a student and Maurice her professor. Maisie had sometimes wondered if they had been lovers, but always put the thought out of her head. Imagining Maurice in the intimate presence of a woman would have been akin to speculating about one’s parents having a wild, passion-filled affair—though the suspicion remained. Maisie suppressed a laugh as she took hold of the bellpull and waited.
A housekeeper answered the door with a curt “May I help you?”
Maisie smiled. It was her break-down-the-portcullis smile, for she suspected the woman might be overly protective of her employer. “Good afternoon. My name is Maisie Dobbs, and I’m an old friend of Miss Hunter. She wrote asking me to call—I sent a postcard by return to let her know I’d pay a visit this afternoon, though I am later than promised—and of course, the postcard might not have arrived.” She reached into her bag for a calling card and held it out to the housekeeper. “Here you are.”
There was an instant change in the housekeeper’s demeanor upon reading the card. She ushered Maisie into the hall, where she asked if she would care to take a seat while she inquired if Miss Hunter might accept her visit.
Maisie smiled as the housekeeper departed along the narrow passageway toward the second room on the right, which she knew was Gabriella Marie Hunter’s study and library. She rarely took advantage of her position but on occasion found it useful to eschew the card introducing her as a “Psychologist and Investigator” for one of the personal calling cards her mother-in-law had given her upon her marriage to James Compton. It announced her as “Lady Margaret Compton”—a position underlined by the impressive Compton family crest. Maisie knew Gabriella would find it rather amusing.
Gabriella Hunter came to her feet and held out both hands as Maisie entered the library and the housekeeper took her leave. “Maisie, dear—it has been far too long.” She kissed Maisie on each cheek and extended a hand toward an armchair next to the fireplace. A needlepoint screen with a geometric pattern in bold primary colors stood in front of the cold grate. Maisie knew not to expect the austere working study, which as a rule would be associated with an academic. This was a room where walls that were not covered with stacks of books were painted in a pale peach color and complemented by curtains of the same hue, just a shade or two deeper. The combination gave Hunter’s surroundings an aura of calm. The Art Deco armchairs would have been as out of place in a gentleman’s club as they would in the home of a dowager who favored cabbage roses. Each chair was upholstered in heavy pale-cream fabric, with lines of brown piping fanned to resemble a shell. Wide rounded arms set off by the same piping dominated the two armchairs, which gave the impression of enfolding a person as they settled into the thick cushioned seats.
Maisie sat down, at once feeling as she had in those days when she and Maurice would sit before the fireplace in the Dower House library. There was a certain anticipation of deep and worthy conversation, a feeling that she would be stretched intellectually. As with the exercise of any muscle, though, she could expect some strain, and there would be an almost painful pleasure in the outcome.
Gabriella Marie Hunter was a woman with bearing, though she now used a cane to steady herself. She wore a plain navy blue day dress of linen and silk—a blend Maisie recognized, for although it had the look, movement and texture of silk, there was a heavier weight to the fabric. A single strand of pearls adorned the woman’s neck, with delicate matching pearl earrings. A silver watch appeared to be draped rather than buckled on her wrist, and Maisie remembered that Gabriella told her once that she hated the feeling of anything tight fitting, confiding that she had never, nor would she ever, wear a corset. Her still-slender frame seemed not to need the confining article of clothing.
With hair a blend of different shades of gray, as if an artist had taken a fine brush and painted long sweeps of silver next to charcoal, and a cut reminiscent of the same short bob she had worn some forty years earlier, Gabriella Hunter was the epitome of elegance.
“Tell me how you’ve been, Maisie—how is your heart? Mended? Scarred? Still rather an open wound? Losing James was such a terrible shock—though I knew you would find yourself again.”
Just like Maurice, straight to the point, thought Maisie. “The scarring is fainter now, Gabriella. And I have a daughter.” Maisie reached into her bag and brought out a photograph she kept in a leather case. “Her name is Anna. I adopted her last year—she was an evacuee, an orphan, and . . . and I came to love her.”
Gabriella took the photograph while reaching for the spectacles that dangled from a chain around her neck, a deft move that did not disturb her pearls. “Oh yes,” she said, as soon as she was able to inspect the photograph. “She even favors you.” She handed the photograph back to Maisie. “And I suppose she always was yours, in a way. Human beings and animals have a tendency to find their way home, even when it’s thousands of miles away and they have never set foot in the place before.” She paused, looking at Maisie over the spectacles, and was about to speak again when the housekeeper returned to the room bearing a tray with tea and cakes.
“Ah, excellent, Mrs. Towner,” said Hunter. “Just put the tray on the table here, and I am sure Mai— Lady Margaret will pour for us.”
The housekeeper’s eyes widened, and she appeared about to protest when Maisie came to her feet.
“Thank you, Mrs. Towner—I’ll pour tea and serve the cakes,” said Maisie. “My goodness—you must be psychic—my favorite Eccles cakes! Lovely—though I am sure they will spoil my dinner!”
The housekeeper blushed and hurried from the room.
“You’ve intimidated her, Maisie. She’s always been in awe of a title—and perhaps enough of a snob to be impressed.”
“She’s a miracle worker to get the ingredients for the cakes.”
“Squirreled them away even before the war—she said there was no harm in stocking up.” Gabriella Hunter reached for the cup of tea as Maisie passed it to her.
“So, Gabriella—are you in good health? Your note seemed to suggest that all was not well.” Maisie thought it best if she, too, got straight to the point.
“Oh dear—I shouldn’t have worried you. It’s this war. I keep reading that life goes on and hearing that the young are having a whale of a time in the clubs, dancing the night away even though a bomb might drop and kill them all—I don’t even know if it’s true, but it makes me want to be twenty again. Mind you, I had more on my mind at twenty, but I feel quite . . . quite bereft of good company, even though I have often said I prefer my books. And I miss conversation. I thought you wouldn’t mind if I had a taste of life outside the confines of my house, just for as long as it takes to have a cup of tea.”
“I’m delighted you wrote, Gabriella. Now then, what are you working on? I see a great pile of papers over there, so I know you’ve something on the boil.”
“I can’t say much at the moment, but it’s an interesting topic that has been on my mind for a while. It blends a very close look at literature following the last war with my own experiences in France and the Levant, and my understanding of it all, but I have to be—”
“Circumspect?”<
br />
“Definitely. Very much so. Which is why I don’t want to immerse you in the minutiae today—perhaps another time. I do want to know about your life though. Tell me, is there a young man?”
“Gabriella, I am not exactly young anymore, so no, there is no young man.” Maisie took a sip of tea. “Though there is one who is just a bit older than me.”
Hunter set her cup and saucer on a side table. “Do I detect a hint of something else?”
Maisie shrugged, putting down her own cup and saucer. “Oh, Gabriella, I don’t know. He is a lovely man, with a wonderful sense of humor, and he just adores my daughter. But you see . . . well, he’s a diplomat of sorts. An American, working at the embassy. I’m not sure exactly what he does, and of course I cannot really tell him what I do, so—”
“So you’ve fallen into a dark tunnel of your own secrets.”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“And where secrets reside, so does fear—it’s the unknown.”
“Yes. That’s right. And I know that if anyone would understand what it is to live with secrets, it’s you, Gabriella.” Maisie rubbed the backs of her hands, relieving an ache in the lesions across her knuckles. “Sometimes I can imagine a road ahead for both of us, and other times I don’t even know when I’ll see him, and whether he’ll be at my flat when I get home—or vanish for days.”
“And I’m sure he could say the same about you.”
Maisie nodded. “To a point, though he knows where I am when I’m at Chelstone.”
“Your work is for the government?”
“For the most part now. Yes.”
Hunter looked out of the window. Maisie thought it was as if she were staring into the past.
“If I look back, Maisie, I think kindness is the most important thing. There were interludes when—well, that can wait for another time—but suffice it to say I believe love must be cradled gently, as if you have something very precious in your hands that you do not want to break. I wish I had been more careful as a younger woman. Not necessarily young, but younger, at a time when I had confidence that love was still possible . . .” She turned her gaze back to Maisie. “Anyway, the war will be over one day, Maisie—what you do now will pave the way for how you will live in peace. Remember that, my dear. Never let fears get in the way of happiness, because fear can lead to such irrational reasoning, and we can make dreadful mistakes, saying things we can’t take back.” She seemed at once melancholy. “I’ve been guilty of such errors, in my time.”
The Consequences of Fear Page 5
