MacFarlane and Maisie were met at Waverley Station by a black motor car, though this time the driver was a soldier in the uniform of a Scottish regiment. The one-and-a-half-hour journey took them across a landscape she knew well from the months she had spent in Scotland during the years of her apprenticeship, when Maurice had arranged for her to train in the fundamentals of legal medicine so that she might deepen her knowledge of the fast-developing field of forensic science. While the vistas were different from those of the soft, undulating Kentish countryside, she had grown to love the beauty of Scotland, so the drive calmed growing feelings of conflict regarding her role with the Special Operations Executive. There was little conversation between MacFarlane and Maisie, and all too soon they arrived at a property that on her first visit she thought could pass as a fairy-tale castle if the country were not at war. The gray granite manor house with mullioned windows, small turrets near the roof and a round tower at each end would have seemed magical at any other time—and under any other circumstances.
The grounds were extensive, surrounded by rugged terrain that stretched for miles, with only one ancient bothy to be seen in the distance. The estate was the place where men and women recently recruited to join the Special Operations Executive came to be tested in every way imaginable and on every level—physical, emotional, moral, and spiritual. Only if they passed would they be sent for additional training and subsequently deployed to join a resistance group in Europe or—for just a few—Scandinavia. Most would be bound for France.
Maisie knew that both Pascale and Elinor had already endured the tests inflicted upon them, and they had passed every stage of scrutiny, even the terrible repeated rounds of sleep deprivation followed by interrogation. Had they not come through their trial by fire, she would not have been interviewing them prior to deployment. She knew very well that they could already be waiting in a different kind of manor house, a very English property in Hampshire where they would enjoy good food, fine wine and some laughs with others who had been readied for the same work, and they would sleep in comfortable beds—until one morning when they came down for breakfast and saw their names chalked on the board in the dining room, and knew that they were the next agents scheduled for departure. Maisie understood only too well that when the moment came, even if they had not experienced true fear before, then they would feel her tentacles reaching into the very center of their being. For a good agent, fear seemed to linger on a balance beam. If it was kept plumb in the center of the beam, fear would protect them; it would enhance their senses and alert them to danger. Fear could be an agent’s greatest asset. But if fear increased and tipped the balance too far in one direction, then it could paralyze an agent, lead to ill-considered decisions, panic, and errors that might risk the lives of others and result in their own death. And if fear were diminished to a point of overconfidence, then they and an entire resistance line were as good as finished. Fear had to be handled with care, managed so it became a tool, not a weight.
Once the names were on the board, the clock was ticking. At nightfall the agents would be taken to an airfield nearby, where a senior member of the SOE would check their coat pockets and the labels in their clothing, just to make sure they hadn’t left anything about their person that would identify them as British. A French lipstick might be slipped into a woman’s handbag, or a bus ticket from a local French town for a man, or a pen sold only in France. The agent would wish them luck, and they would need every scrap of good fortune if they were to survive even the landing in a French field, where they would be hurried away by locals working for the Resistance before the Gestapo even knew they were there—if that luck had crossed the Channel with them. Despite the company, and despite the honor among those they would work with on acts of sabotage and murder, from the time they boarded the aircraft, they were on their own. As soon as they saw their name on the board in the dining room of the genteel country manor house, each agent began to balance the fear inside them. It was a delicate dance with fate.
Upstairs in her assigned room Maisie inspected the door lock, followed by the window latches. She took a moment to breathe in fresh air through the open window and look at the land beyond. Her quarters for the next two nights enjoyed a view across the craggy landscape, and she could even distinguish the bothy in the distance. Moving away from the window, she checked under the bed and in the wardrobe, the first steps in her complete sweep of the room. She had conducted a search on her two previous visits to the house, though she was not sure what she was looking for—perhaps a means of listening to her conversation, even though no one else came to the room and there was no personal telephone. Or there could be a tool for keeping a log of when she entered and exited the room. She would know when she found something amiss. Light fixtures and the two table lamps were checked. She knelt down to look under the desk, then stood up and pulled out each of the drawers. Nothing. She tapped the wooden cladding on the walls and even removed books from shelves situated to the right of the door—a secret means of entering a room would not be unusual in such an old house. Every wire was examined, every inch of carpet scrutinized, until Maisie was satisfied that there was nothing in the room to concern her. Not today anyway.
Now she had something else to attend to, something personal. A matter of the heart. She had resisted opening the package from Mark Scott while on the train. She had picked it up, turned it over and held it, but she wanted to wait until she was in a room and not ensconced in a railway carriage at night. She wanted to have something good to look forward to, prolonging the frisson of excitement she had felt from the moment the parcel had been handed to her, a sweet anticipation she wanted to draw out for as long as she could.
She unlocked her suitcase, moved clothing aside and drew out the brown-paper-wrapped package. Sitting on her bed, she turned it over. Taking a deep breath, she worked the knotted string free, slid her finger under the seal and pulled away the paper to reveal a plain black cardboard box, also sealed. She felt her heart beat faster as she opened the box, exposing tissue paper and a deep blue velvet presentation case tied with a purple ribbon. She held her breath for a few seconds and with care untied the ribbon and put it aside before lifting the lid.
The single diamond on a gold chain caught the light and took her breath away. It was not an ostentatious gift, not a huge stone meant to impress, but an elegant, graceful cut. A card had been slipped under the delicate chain.
“I cannot wait to be with you again—and soon. With love, Mark.”
With love?
Did those words have meaning for Mark Scott? Or was it just a line that people used—and perhaps even more so when it felt as if affection had begun to evaporate? Maisie read the message again. And again. Holding on to the velvet box with the diamond necklace inside, she walked to the window and gazed across the land before her, resting her eyes on the swathe of green hills in the distance. Mark wasn’t the sort of person to say words he didn’t mean. If this were so, it meant she was loved by the man she had come to love in return. Now what were they to do? They were two people from different worlds, not so young any more, and she with a daughter to consider—a child she had vowed to put before everything else. Everything. But in a time of war “everything” seemed to take on a different hue, and keeping loved ones safe meant sacrifices had to be made. Men and women had died making that sacrifice in the hope that their children might live in a free world.
Maisie felt the fear settling in as if a great weight had taken up residence in the very center of her being and was working its way through her body. She struggled to hold the flood of emotions steady, knowing that what Gabriella Hunter had called “irrational reasoning” could so easily grow, filling her with an invasive, debilitating dread—a dread that had the power to lead her onto a path filled with errors. And perhaps more than anyone, she knew that the movement of fear along the balance beam could happen so fast. She closed her eyes, in that moment wishing she could wave a magic wand and have Maurice be right there in the room w
ith her—that she could fall to her knees and say, “Tell me what to do. Tell me how I can be all the things I want to be. Please tell me now, how I can be with those I love and still, then, be of service?” What would Maurice say in return?
She set the deep blue box with the diamond necklace on the bed and delved into her shoulder bag to find a letter she kept tucked away in a pocket. It had been with her for years, the folds breaking apart where she had read and reread the message inside whenever she was assailed by doubt. She kept it close because she never knew when she might need to return to it, skimming over whole sentences to land on words that might guide her at a given moment.
Years ago, before he died, Maurice had written, “We have spoken on many an occasion, you and I, of the darkness I fear will envelop Europe once again.” As she read words she could quote by heart, she felt the presence of her beloved mentor. “. . . You will be called to service . . .” She lingered on the sentence that always made her feel as if Maurice had laid a hand upon her shoulder to fortify her spirit: “I have great faith in your ability to assume challenges that stand between you and the quest for what is right and true.”
But what is right and true now, at this very moment, Maurice?
Maisie bit her lip, folded the worn piece of paper, and slipped it back into the envelope. She returned it to her bag, then reached for the blue velvet case once more. Before removing the gift, she unclasped another chain, one she had worn for several years now. It held the wedding ring James Compton had slipped onto her finger the day she became his wife; she had removed the ring from her finger and worn it in this way from the day she accepted that she was a widow. She felt the chain loosen and caught the ring in her palm, studying it for some seconds before she unpinned the diamond necklace and removed it from its moorings before slipping the ring and chain into its place and closing the blue box.
Standing before the dressing table mirror, she unlocked the clasp and fastened the necklace, touching the stone as it came to rest just below her throat’s hollow. She closed her eyes, then opened them to gaze at her reflection. Still with her fingertips on the stone she whispered, “With love,” and waited to see if fear began to move away, and so relinquish its grip on her heart.
Checking the time, Maisie quickly changed into clothing more suited to walking across the hills—a pair of corduroy trousers, a roll-neck pullover, tweed jacket and sturdy brown leather shoes. There was no rain, so she would not need the rubber boots she had thrown into the suitcase at the last minute. Casting another glance at the afternoon’s itinerary, she saw that following lunch there would be a walk with MacFarlane to inspect several points the recruits were to reach during the orienteering part of the induction, and review the challenges they would have to overcome. Once they returned to the manor house, she would have an hour to read the applicant biographies before her interviews were due to begin.
Maisie realized she was hungry. Before she met MacFarlane in the instructors’ dining room, though, she needed to place a call. There was a telephone with a secure line in a small room adjacent to the instructors’ mess.
“Priscilla? Priscilla, I need a favor.”
“What on earth are you whispering for?” Just the sound of her friend’s voice drained some of the tension from Maisie’s shoulders. “You sound as if you’re in a crypt. And where are you anyway?”
“Let’s just say ‘crypt’ isn’t far off. Look, I haven’t long to chat, but I wonder if you could go over to the Dower House and see Dad, Brenda and Anna—I’m worried about Anna, and—”
“I’ll do it. Right now.” Maisie heard the unmistakable sound of Priscilla opening and closing her cigarette case, followed by the flick and snap of her lighter. “What’s happened?”
“Emma is not well—apparently Dad has said it’s her time and she’ll probably have passed away in the next couple of days. And Pris, I’m not able to come home at the moment—I’m not due until Friday afternoon, so I’ll be there for the gymkhana.”
“Oh dear—Anna will be crushed when that dog goes. I’ll get over there straightaway—see what Auntie Pris can do.” There was a second’s pause as Priscilla drew on her cigarette. “And speaking of being an aunt—you haven’t heard from my niece, have you? I know she’s living the life we all lived at that age, and hopefully keeping away from men in uniform, but I haven’t heard from her in days. She’s been very elusive for a long time.”
Maisie closed her eyes as she prepared the lie. “I haven’t seen her, actually—and if she’s anything like Aunt Priscilla, you won’t be hearing from her either! Of course, there is that translation job she’s been very excited about, so I would imagine she’s rather busy.”
“Hmmm, takes after her father—he was always one to keep secrets. I couldn’t keep anything quiet to save my life, yet as we know, my brother was a mystery unto himself. Even as a child you never knew what he was up to.” She cleared her throat, and coughed.
“Didn’t the doctor tell you to give up the cigarettes before your next operation? It will be the last, Pris, so you should really make the effort—smoking and going under anesthetic do not work together. You might as well get your lungs in good order now.”
“I know, Nurse Maisie, I know . . . I’m stubbing it out. Hear that? Anyway, look, only one other piece of news—well, two. No three. First of all, we heard from Tim, and he seems to have settled in at university. Thank heavens for that! Now of course we don’t really need to live in the cottage—we only came to be in the country while Tim was recovering from the amputation. God, doesn’t Dunkirk seem like years ago? I think we’ll go back to London at some point, but of course Tarquin has completely thrown any further schooling out of the window and loves working with the forestry people. I have a conscientious objector for a youngest son! Perhaps one day he’ll study horticulture or something and become famous like Gertrude Jekyll. Finally, number three on the list. Speaking of my operation, there’s a slight change in the date—it’s now on the cards for December the eighth, a Monday. Expect to bring me a generous gin and tonic on the ninth.”
Maisie laughed. “And knowing your doctor, he’ll allow it!”
“McIndoe is a terrific chap—he’s done a wonderful job on me so far. If I comb my hair just so, you might never know I had to be dragged from a burning house and left half the skin from my face on a fiery fallen roof beam!”
Maisie heard voices as the instructors gathered for preprandial drinks in the mess next door. “I’ve got to go now, Pris. I’ll try to telephone later.”
“I’ll have a full report for you. Don’t worry—if anyone can cheer up your darling child, it’s her Auntie Pris!”
Maisie replaced the telephone in its cradle and left to join the other instructors in the mess. As was so often the case, she was the only woman in the company of men.
“Ah, there she is!” MacFarlane beckoned to her. “Maisie, let me introduce you—”
Maisie smiled, ready to greet a man who was a good three inches taller than MacFarlane.
“Major André Chaput—he’s here for a couple of days and he likes a wee dram, good man that he is.” MacFarlane moved aside as Major Chaput extended his right hand toward Maisie.
Revealing not a second’s hesitation, Maisie was quick to disguise a tremor of shock as she looked up to greet the major and registered his face. She took the major’s hand and spoke to him in French.
“Talented woman, our Miss Dobbs,” said MacFarlane, laughing. “And when it comes to knowing what’s going on upstairs”—he tapped the side of his head, a favorite gesture—“there’s none to beat her.”
“Is that so?” said the Frenchman, addressing them in almost unaccented English. “Then I shall have to watch what I say.”
“Not to worry, Major—I’m only here to put our recruits under the microscope.” Maisie stole a glance at the major’s knuckles, where there was the merest hint of rough skin. She could hear Freddie Hackett’s words echoing in her mind. If you wear one of those, it leaves marks right
across there . . . you can always tell when a bloke’s had one of them on.
As MacFarlane changed the subject to the weather forecast the following day, Maisie feigned interest, agreeing with his comment on the cloud formation before excusing herself to speak to another instructor she had met on a previous occasion. She looked back only once at the French major, who at that very moment was staring in her direction. Without doubt, the tall man with an officer’s bearing might have warranted a second look in any milieu. The combination of pale blue-gray eyes—not unlike Freddie Hackett’s—and dark hair slicked back in waves rendered him film-star handsome. At this very moment she didn’t want to believe in coincidence, or entertain the possibility that she had just greeted a man who seemed to reflect the image she had held in her mind’s eye from the moment Freddie Hackett had described witnessing a murder and delivering an envelope to a man he believed was the killer. Yes, she had to admit she was tired, more than a little at odds with herself and the work she was starting to detest—and couldn’t those conflicting emotions conspire, leading to the dreaded irrational reasoning? Given her mood, she could be a prime candidate for it.
Such personal observations aside, it was the deep ridges on either side of Chaput’s face that gave Maisie pause, and the small patch of paler skin just below his right eye. Try as she might, she could not help herself wondering at what speed those eyes might become cold, or the inquiring stare a threat.
Chapter 7
Maisie and MacFarlane set off across extensive lawns surrounding the Scottish manor until they reached a rustic gate. Magenta azaleas flanked the lawns, along with purple smoke trees and rich conifers. Ivy climbed the walls of the house, a deep green against granite that seemed to sparkle in the autumn sunshine. MacFarlane stepped forward, lifting the latch so Maisie could proceed before him, then picked up a path that led out through mixed woodland to the hills beyond.
The Consequences of Fear Page 10
