Be Not Afraid

by Christopher Nicole

  “I happen to know it was Berkeley’s plan to marry her.”

  “Presumably she knew of this?”

  “She’s all for it. Or she was.”

  “Well, try to persuade her not leave right this minute. That will only increase his depression.”

  “I don’t think she will leave,” Druce said, remembering Walton’s thoughts on the matter. “She has nowhere to go.”

  “Well, as I say, I can only commiserate with you on having landed yourself in such a situation.”

  “Please don’t. I love Anna, very much.”

  “I can see she would be very easy to love. I met her mother during the very brief period she lived here. I would have classed her as even more beautiful than Anna, but she was a tormented soul. It was to do with her background, the execution of her father and the murder of her mother. I suppose you know that Caterina committed suicide after being tortured by the Austrians?”

  Druce stared at him in consternation.

  “And now her father has all but been murdered. And she herself suffered that horrendous experience . . .” He peered at the young man. “You do know about that?”

  “Yes,” Druce said. “I do know about that.”

  “So you’ll see, she is a young woman whose emotions are certainly just as disturbed as were her mother’s, and she is going to need a great deal of tender loving care for the foreseeable future.”

  “I’m just realising that. Thanks for everything, Doctor.”

  Druce watched Cheam get into his car and drive away, remaining on the steps for several minutes longer. What had he got himself into? Whatever he thought he had learned about the girl he was going to marry, there always seemed something else he didn’t know. Could any girl have grown up with such a past and be entirely normal?

  He returned into the drawing room. Anna and Martina were sitting together on the settee, arms round each other, heads together, whispering.

  *

  “My darlings!” Berkeley’s voice was weak, and a nurse hovered, anxious that he should not become overtired.

  “Papa!” Anna kissed him.

  “Dearest.” Martina followed her example, and then held up Howard for a kiss.

  “Papa in bed,” the little boy commented.

  “I am a lazy fellow, aren’t I?” Berkeley looked past them at Druce. “All under control?”

  “For the moment, sir.”

  “How are you?” Anna asked.

  “Better than I have any right to expect, after such crass stupidity. I was daydreaming, there was the trouble. I saw this woman waving at me and stopped without thinking. Me, of all people. Have they got her yet?”

  “Not as far as we know,” Martina said.

  “I doubt they will, now. Peter Watt is coming in to see me today, I believe, looking for a better description. But she’ll have changed beyond recognition within minutes of shooting me. Take away the uniform, the glasses . . . The hair could have been a wig. Get rid of the bicycle . . . It makes the blood boil.”

  “I meant, how do you feel in yourself?” Anna asked.

  “Oh . . .” Berkeley attempted a shrug, and winced. “I have some kind of multiple fracture of my leg. Would you believe it? I have been speared in one thigh and shot in the other. Now my shin has been shot to hell. Cheam says I may have difficulty walking for a while.”

  “And the other bullet?” Martina, like Anna and Druce, was holding her breath.

  “No one seems quite sure about that. It obviously missed anywhere vital, and now they’ve taken it out. No doubt they’ll tell me about it in due course.”

  “But are you in pain?”

  He grinned. “I’m drugged to the eyeballs. But amazingly, I don’t feel any pain at all. Even in my leg.”

  “And your back? I mean,” she hastily added, “wherever the other bullet went?”

  “I don’t feel a thing from that one, either. I suppose it clipped a nerve or something, but I can’t even feel myself when that pretty girl over there gets going with the bedpan.”

  “Well, that’s good news,” Druce said. “I have that new will here, if you’d care to look at it and sign it some time. Two of the nurses can act as witnesses.”

  “Yes,” Berkeley said. “Leave it and I’ll look at it. Now tell me, have Johnnie and Alicia been informed?”

  “Not yet,” Anna said. “I wanted to be sure you were all right before I involved them.”

  “That was responsible thinking. Now you can tell them that I’m as fit as a fiddle. And you can go ahead with plans for our weddings. Both our weddings, just as soon as I get out of here.”

  *

  “I feel so desperately unhappy for him,” Martina said as Druce drove them back to the farm.

  “What about yourself?” Druce asked.

  “There is nothing the matter with me.”

  “I mean, with Colonel Townsend still wishing to get married . . .”

  “Of course we shall get married. I love him. But he will have to be married in bed.”

  Druce had nothing more to say on that subject. He was only relieved that Walton and himself had been, apparently, so wrong about her. “If we are going to be married soon,” he said to Anna, “I would like you to meet my parents.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I am looking forward to that.”

  “May I go ahead and make a date?”

  “You need to make a date to call on your parents?”

  “Well, I don’t live at home, you see. Talking about that, I have only a bachelor flat in town, so . . .”

  “That is not a problem,” Anna said. “When we are married you will move to the farm.”

  “To the . . . Yes, I suppose I could.”

  “I will have to be here to help Martina look after Papa. And Howard.” She ruffled the little boy’s hair.

  “Of course.” He parked at the foot of the steps. “Well, look, I’m afraid I have been playing truant for too long. I simply must get into the office. Would you like me to come out this evening?”

  “I would love to see you. We both would.” Anna glanced at Martina.

  “Oh, yes,” Martina said. “We’d like that. Come along Howard.” She got out, followed by the boy and Anna.

  Once again Druce felt an outsider. “By then I’ll hopefully have set a date with my parents,” he said.

  “That would be nice,” Anna said, and leaned into the car to kiss him before following Martina and Howard up the steps.

  *

  “You go into the garden and play,” Martina told Howard, “while Anna and I get lunch.”

  Anna followed her into the kitchen. “I wish to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For keeping Papa happy, at least for the time being.”

  “I intend to keep him happy for the rest of his life.”

  Anna started peeling potatoes. “You do understand that you will not be able to have sex with him?”

  “For the time being. Yes, I understand that.”

  “You mean you do still intend to marry him?”

  “Certainly. I am betrothed. Where I come from, to be betrothed is the same as being married. Don’t you intend to marry Harry Druce?”

  Anna sighed. “I suppose I must.”

  Martina frowned at her. “Don’t you want to? Don’t you love him?”

  “No, on both counts.”

  “But you allowed him to have you.”

  “That was because Papa wanted me to. Oh, I wanted to, too. I wanted to see if I could still do it.”

  “And you found out that you could but he couldn’t do anything for you.”

  “No, no. He was very good. Very sweet and gentle.”

  “What more do you want?”

  “You can’t love a man just because you have had good sex with him. The trouble is, I could love him. I am sure he will make a very good and loving husband,”

  “He certainly loves you,” Martina agreed. “So what is the problem?”

  “He’s not one of us.”
/>   “You mean because he doesn’t shoot straight? He can learn. We can teach him.”

  “Martina, he doesn’t shoot straight because he has no desire to shoot straight. He doesn’t approve of our attitude to life. The concept of vengeance, of taking care of one’s own, is totally foreign to him. Do you realise that in the last hundred-odd years Britain and the Scandinavian countries are the only countries in Europe that have not seen violent revolution or been invaded by enemy troops? There is no longer a culture of self-protection.”

  Martina nodded. “I have observed this. Well, at least it makes life easier.”

  “It hasn’t for Papa. It didn’t for my stepmother and grandmother. It didn’t for me, either.”

  Martina abandoned the stove to sit beside her and put her arm round her shoulders. “Be thankful for small mercies. Berkeley is at least alive, and he will recover. I know this. I think we owe it to him to do as he wishes.”

  “And when these people try again?”

  Martina’s frown was back. “You think they will?”

  “They’ve tried twice and failed both times. They aren’t going to give up now.”

  Martina released her and returned to the stove, absently stirring her gravy. “When, do you think?”

  “Just as soon as they realise that he isn’t dead. That woman must have thought she’d killed him, or she would have shot him again.”

  “I would like to get my hands on her.”

  “We’re not likely to have that pleasure,” Anna said.

  “Then we must ask Berkeley what we must do.”

  “No,” Anna said. “It would only agitate him.”

  “Then who? Druce?”

  “Definitely not. He would insist we leave it to the police. Whatever we are going to do, it has to be you and I. And maybe Johnnie and Alicia when they know about it.”

  “But what are we going to do? Are you serious about trying to track down this man in Germany? What about our weddings?”

  “I am serious,” Anna said. “But we must humour Papa by going through with our marriages. We need to buy some time.”

  “How can we do that? As you say, the moment this Himmler man learns that Berkeley has only been wounded, he will try again.”

  “We must make him think otherwise. Have you any money?”

  “Some. I was going to ask Berkeley to write me a cheque for cash the next time we visit him.”

  “Just give me enough for the return fare to London and something to eat while I’m there.”

  “London? You’re going to London? Why?”

  “There is a man there I believe will be able to help us. Maybe two.”

  “Should I not come with you?”

  “You have to stay here with Howard.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “I am only going for the day. I will take the early train tomorrow morning and be back in the evening.”

  “Are you going to tell Druce?”

  “No. And neither are you. He would only fuss. Now I must write to Johnnie and Alicia.”

  *

  “I wish to see Howard,” Joan Horsfall announced.

  She stood on the porch, her husband at her shoulder, looking somewhat embarrassed.

  Martina had watched the car come down the drive from the kitchen window and had carefully placed her revolver beside the sink, just in case. But when she recognised the Horsfalls, she decided to leave it where it was, even if she would cheerfully have used it on them.

  “Then you had better come in,” she said. “He is in the garden.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Why should he not be all right?” She led them down the hall to the back door.

  “Well, with all this shooting . . .”

  “Are you asking after Berkeley?”

  “How is he?” Howard Horsfall asked, before his wife could reply.

  “He is very badly hurt.” Martina opened the door. “Mr and Mrs Horsfall are here,” she announced.

  Howard was scrabbling about in his sandpit, watched by Anna, who now turned.

  “Hello,” she said. “It is good of you to call.”

  “That child is filthy,” Joan Horsfall remarked.

  “So he is,” Anna agreed. “That’s what sandpits are for.”

  “Well, he’ll have to have a bath before he can come home,” Joan said.

  “He’ll have his bath this evening, as usual,” Anna said.

  “We cannot possibly wait until then. Kindly do it now.”

  “I said, he’ll have it this evening,” Anna repeated.

  “Now, you listen to me, my girl, I do not wish him to remain here for a moment longer than is absolutely necessary.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m not with you,” Anna said. “He lives here. This is his home.”

  “Not any more,” Joan declared. “Do you suppose I am going to leave my grandson in this place, to be shot at?”

  “No one has shot at your grandson, who also happens to be my brother, Mrs Horsfall. He is staying here.”

  “And who is going to look after him? You? A chit of a girl?”

  “I have Martina to help me.”

  Joan swung round to look at Martina, standing in the doorway. Martina smiled.

  “Martina is about to become my stepmother,” Anna said. “Then she will be Howard’s stepmother as well.”

  “You . . .” Joan turned to her husband. “Howard! Do something. Say something.”

  “Ah . . .”

  “Who dat woman shouting?” little Howard enquired.

  “I think we had better leave, my dear,” his grandfather suggested.

  “We are going to take this matter to court!” Joan shouted.

  “You’re welcome,” Anna said.

  Joan glared at her a last time, then marched through the house to the waiting car. Her husband followed, apologetically.

  “Can she?” Martina asked. “Go to court?”

  “She can do whatever she likes,” Anna said. “She must think Papa is going to die. So she’s not going to get anywhere. You and I have more important things to worry about.”

  *

  “Miss Townsend?” John Leighton peered at his visitor. “Not the Miss Townsend?”

  “I don’t know who the Miss Townsend is, Mr Leighton.” Anna drew off her gloves. She had borrowed a broad-brimmed black straw hat from Martina to wear with a modest blue dress and knew she was looking her best.

  “But of course you are,” Leighton said. “Berkeley Townsend’s daughter. May I say that the descriptions I have had of you hardly do you justice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do please sit down. My dear girl, I am so terribly sorry. Your father does appear to attract trouble.”

  “It is the nature of his business.”

  “Ah . . . yes, I suppose it would be. I must say, you are taking this latest attempt on his life very calmly. But then—”

  “Yes, Mr Leighton, I have had a lot of experience at taking quite unacceptable events calmly.”

  Leighton was lost for words, not a very usual occurrence.

  “I bought a copy of your newspaper at the station,” Anna said. “Is what was reported everything you know?”

  “That your father was shot and seriously wounded by an unknown woman, yes. I have sent a reporter up to Northampton to get some more facts.”

  “I can give you all the facts you need,” Anna said. “In return for a small favour.”

  “What favour could I possibly do for you.” Obviously, from the way his eyes caressed her, he could think of several, but he preferred the invitation to come from her.

  “Your reporter will learn from the hospital in Northampton that my father’s wounds, though serious, are not life-threatening.”

  “That must be a great relief to you.”

  “Yes. However, when you print the back-up story tomorrow, I would like you to contradict the hospital version and say that you have learned, from a source very close to Colonel Townsend’s family, that he i
s actually very badly hurt indeed and is not expected to survive, although he may hang on to life for a week or two yet.”

  Leighton gazed at her for several seconds. Then he asked, “And which version is true?”

  “You may accept mine as the truth.”

  Another long stare. “I do not believe you. You are asking my newspaper to print a false story. You will have to tell me why.”

  “I will tell you why when you agree to print that story.”

  Leighton stroked his chin. “May I ask how old you are, Miss Townsend?”

  “I am twenty years old, Mr Leighton.”

  “And you seriously think you can come in here and give instructions to a grizzled old editor like myself?”

  “If I have offended you, I apologise.” Anna stood and picked up her gloves and handbag. “I will have to go elsewhere. I am sure I will find some editor willing to help me.”

  “Oh, sit down,” he said. “Don’t be so touchy. I would very much like to help you. But you must understand that it is a serious matter for a newspaper knowingly to print a falsehood.”

  “Then do not do it knowingly. I have given you this version of what has happened. Anyone would have to agree that I should know better than anyone else. Nor is there any conceivable reason for me to lie about it. When, or if, it is discovered that I have lied, then you may correct the story and claim, correctly, that you were misled.”

  He smiled at her. “By a pretty face.”

  “If that is how you wish to put it, I have no objection.”

  “However, may I remind you that you have not yet given me your, inside, story of what happened, nor the reason why you wish your father to appear to the world as dying.”

  “Will you print the story?”

  “If you will have lunch with me.”

  *

  He took her to a very good restaurant and they studied each other as they ate. She told him all the facts she could remember about Berkeley’s shooting; he made notes, but she knew it was the studying that mattered. She wondered how much he knew about her. He would know that she had been kidnapped as a girl; everyone knew that. But did he know about the brothels? It seemed quite a few people did, certainly in Northampton. But in London?

  “Now tell me why you wish your father to be presumed dying,” he said, when she had finished her meal.

  “Very simply, as long as this man Himmler and his friends think he is dying they will assume that their task has been completed and thus will not return.”