“Until Friday, then,” Olive said shortly, grabbing the handle of the accumulator and nodding a goodbye.
“I need to be off, as well,” Lady Camilla said briskly. She turned abruptly and fell into step with Olive, and they walked out into the anaemic sunshine. “Will you be at the play rehearsal tomorrow evening?”
It took a moment for Olive’s brain to shift gears. “Yes, I’ll be there.” Prompted by curiosity if nothing else. There was a fair chance that the murderer would be in attendance, as well.
“Wonderful.” Lady Camilla beamed.
Her mind still fumbling with what she’d overheard, Olive looked back. Her eyes sifted through the shadows of the garage before coming to rest on Mr Forrester. Her heart thumped painfully as she realised his gaze had tracked them across the yard.
Turning sharply away, she babbled, “Have you had a letter from George yet?”
“Not yet, dear.” Lady Camilla reached for Olive’s hand and gave it a warm squeeze. Olive could see the dusting of powder that had settled in the fine lines of her face. “We just need to carry on without him for a time. With luck, this war will be over before he even gets his chance in the air.”
“I assume Mr Forrester told you that I made George take one of the pigeons with him.” Seeing her start of surprise, Olive fished the letter from her pocket. “This is the message he sent back with her.”
George’s mother quickly scanned the page, her hands vibrating with some strong emotion. “But where would they send them?” she asked, her composure cracking slightly as she worried over George’s reference to a training relocation.
“I’ve no idea,” Olive said, meeting her eyes. “I’ve been hoping for another letter, but there’s been nothing so far.”
“Perhaps I can ask my father.” Lady Camilla’s mouth had settled into a moue of distaste, and she looked sadly at Olive. “Although I’d really rather not. We’ve not been on speaking terms since I married George’s father.” She looked down at the letter in her hands and folded it neatly along the creases; then she breathed deeply, as if girding herself for the task ahead. “But,” she said brightly, “he’s terribly important in the War Office, and I need to know where George is being sent. Needs must.” Her fingers clung to the folded letter for another moment before she handed it back to Olive.
“Will you let me know what he says?” Olive asked hopefully.
“Of course, dear.” They’d reached the spot where they’d need to part ways, and Lady Camilla reached for her hand. “There’s been a lot of talk about your young man, Olive, and while I can certainly see what’s drawn you to him, I would caution you to guard your heart carefully. Regret is a terrible thing.”
Abruptly flustered, Olive could only imagine she’d misunderstood. “George and I, we’re not—”
“Oh, I know, dear. And perhaps I’ve already immersed myself too thoroughly in the character of Lady Catherine, nosing about in others’ business, but I’ve always been so proud of you and your aspirations, and I wouldn’t want you to be deterred from them.”
“Thank you, Lady Camilla,” Olive said, somewhat baffled by the well-meant advice. “I’ll keep that in mind.” They said goodbye, and she watched the retreating form of George’s mother for a moment before turning away.
Her walk home, typically pleasant, was dogged by two ominous words: blackmail and regret. Not to mention an enormous, unwieldy hat.
Chapter 14
Wednesday, 7th May
The following morning, Olive was once again zipping along the lanes, hunched over the Welbike, as the early morning chill ripped through her jumper and stung her cheeks. Much like the day before, she’d tiptoed out of the house well before dawn, gathered the musketeers, and rolled the motorbike away from the lodge before cringing at its start-up roar. As the sky faded from inky black to midnight blue, she ferried them over the countryside, turning this way and that, in a meandering, circuitous route. Finally, she stopped on an unfamiliar village green and tossed them, one by one, into a dark blueberry sky.
Pigeons weren’t inclined to fly in the dark; the lack of visibility constrained their abilities, causing them to get confused. If they couldn’t use the sun or identify landmarks to get their bearings, they might fly off in the wrong direction and go hundreds of miles searching for home, never to find their way back. She and her father had never truly worried about training their birds for night flying; the races were all held during daylight hours. But given the secret nature of these missions, the drop times would either be late or very early, and an urgent message would need to be sent home in darkness. So, she was using the days remaining to try to give them a little practice. Beyond that, she could merely hope for the best.
As she watched, they wheeled in circles, going higher and higher, scanning the landscape for a recognisable landmark, before finally heading off in what she hoped was the right direction. Having managed to get a bit turned around herself, she couldn’t immediately tell for certain.
“Race you back, boys. And Poppins,” she called quietly after them as the little village began to wake. It occurred to her that she was helping it right along with the noise of the throttle, and so she set off. The way back was peppered with wrong turns and backtracks, but Olive didn’t mind the extra trouble. She was lost in her thoughts and the shifting, brightening colours above her: lavender, blush, and gold. She whizzed past lorries, waved to farmers and Land Girls out early, and even stopped to ask directions of a couple of the Home Guard who were dismantling a signpost she’d passed not thirty minutes previously. Worries over a German invasion had not dissipated one bit.
She slowed the motorbike to a stop as she neared Pipley, and shut off the engine. After a couple hours of chilly, buzzing speed, she was ready for a bit of calm and quiet and a respite from the wind. She climbed off the Welbike and closed her eyes for a single peaceful moment as she wheeled it along the side of the road. She almost missed the rabbit that bounded in front of her, darted along the verge, and disappeared into the wood beyond. Her eyes followed the graceful flash of movement until it disappeared from view. But just as she was turning back to look where she was going, another movement, deeper among the trees, drew her gaze. Curious, she propped the motorbike against a sturdy trunk, then slipped into the dimness of the wood, feeling suddenly giddy, as if poised for a rare sighting of a wryneck woodpecker.
She was startled to instead see a man, mostly hidden from view, busy at some task. Instinctively, she ducked back behind a birch tree, not wanting to be caught spying. What, she wondered, was he doing in the woods so early? Checking rabbit traps? Olive winced, remembering the creature that had bounded across her path, and inched forward, craning her neck.
Whoever it was, he was holding a shovel, and a basket sat on the ground beside him. Taken by themselves, those observations were barely even interesting, but when he started digging, the grim sound of it sent a prickle over her skin.
Olive tried to imagine possible scenarios. He could be foraging for mushrooms or digging up wild daffodils; he might have even taken the initiative and embarked on a medicinal plants scheme of his own. Surely there were other useful plants to be collected. Belladonna perhaps, or rose hips. Although it was too early in the year to gather either of those. So, she waited and watched.
After a moment, she was exasperated with her cloak-and-dagger efforts and was poised to set off again when the digging stopped abruptly and he turned. She caught the glint of spectacles and a flash of colour as an egg yolk–yellow handkerchief was swept across his brow before being tucked away again. Recognition came swiftly and, on its heels, relief. It was only Dr Ware. Likely he was collecting some specimen or other for research purposes, and she could put her overactive imagination to rest. Perhaps this was his secret. She stepped carefully backwards and turned away, ready to be off again and anxious not to be noticed. But Miss Husselbee’s voice hovered at her ear. I wouldn’t trust him if I were you. Cursing to herself, she swivelled dutifully back.
In b
etween sneaking peeks at his progress, she leaned back against the birch and let her eyes drift closed. After several iterations, they blinked open; the sounds had stopped. Cautiously peering around the tree, she realised Dr Ware had disappeared.
Prompted by the imaginary thump of Miss Husselbee’s umbrella, she proceeded to tramp through the woods to the spot where Dr Ware had wielded his shovel. Olive frowned down at the patch of turned earth. The hollows she would have expected—evidence of something having been recently removed—were absent. There was only a mounded square the approximate size of one of her pigeon carriers. Anxious to get on with things, she made a quick decision: In for a penny, in for a pound.
She scavenged for a sturdy stick and got to work. As the loamy soil was nudged slowly away, she could begin to see the first clues of what was buried there, and couldn’t stop herself from further frenzied digging.
Aldridge never would have stooped to spying on the village chemist, but she’d followed her instincts straight down the rabbit hole. Vindication, however, was not nearly so sweet, as she stared down into the unassuming grave of a tidy row of field mice, each of them covered in horrible raw pink lesions.
She had just let out a shuddering sigh when she heard the light tread of footsteps just behind her.
Her heart setting off at a gallop, Olive spun around, relieved to find Henrietta Gibbons standing there, staring past her, down at the little grave. She was wearing her Girl Guides uniform—blue serge skirt and blue cotton blouse—the sleeves rolled haphazardly to the elbows, the tights drooping a bit about the knees. Her hair, tucked under the brimmed Guides hat, wispily framed her pale face.
“Do you suppose those are the ones I sold him?”
Not wanting to burden the girl with responsibility, Olive answered quickly. “Surely not.”
“What’s wrong with them?” she asked, stepping closer as she peered down at them. Before Olive could stop her, she’d crouched beside the little grave.
“Don’t touch them,” Olive said sharply, prompting Hen to stare quizzically up at her. “I don’t know what’s wrong with them, but whatever it is, Dr Ware appears to want it kept secret.”
Hen shot up. “Why don’t we go ask him, then.” She moved to push past Olive and tramp out of the woods, but Olive caught her arm.
“It might be better, for now, if he doesn’t know what we’ve discovered, if you know what I mean.” She looked directly into the round green eyes and slowly lifted an eyebrow, appealing to the girl’s love of information. “Let me see what I can find out first. Deal?”
Hen glanced again into the grave, then turned her gaze back to Olive, her lips tight and her eyes sad. She extended her arm, her long, pale fingers hovering in wait of a solemn pact. “Deal,” she agreed.
When the girl would have pulled away, Olive tugged her back. “What are you doing out this early?”
“Same as you. War work.” This was said as nonchalantly as if the answer had been birdwatching.
“What do you mean?” Had Jonathon given away their secret? She could clearly picture Aldridge’s raised hand gripping the back of his neck in furious exasperation.
“You’re out training pigeons in the hopes that they might eventually be used to carry important messages for our side. I’m out on berry reconnaissance. The first wild strawberries are nearly ripe, and we need to get them tucked away and ready for preservation before the birds get to them.”
Olive smiled awkwardly, relief making her legs feel like jelly. The girl must have noticed the pigeon carrier strapped to the motorbike. “Quite right. Carry on, then.”
Hen lingered a moment longer, holding Olive in a thoughtful gaze, before spinning on her heel and slinking quietly through the brush back to the road.
Olive scooped the dirt back over the mice and laid a curly fern leaf over the spot. Then she, too, slipped out of the trees and turned the Welbike toward the village. She had business in the church graveyard.
The whispery shadows of that hallowed spot were like a balm to her frazzled mind. Having left the motorbike on the other side of the lych-gate, tucked amid the budding jasmine, she walked through and paused a moment, letting the silence crowd closer. Taking care to avoid the wild crocuses pushing up through the dark earth, she skirted the other gravestones and stepped purposefully toward her mother’s, where it sat in the shade of an ancient gnarled yew in the far corner. As usual, it felt as if she was visiting the temple of a Greek oracle, that there was wisdom here if she could just understand how to parse it.
She settled in beside the familiar plot, folding her legs under her. As was her ritual, she ran her finger over the carved epitaph, which had never truly made sense to her child’s mind.
SERENA OCTAVIA BRIGHT
1897–1930
A FIGHTING SPIRIT WITH A FRAGILE SOUL
Fragile would surely have applied to her mother’s body after the tuberculosis had settled into her lungs; her soul, Olive was quite certain, had been resilient until the very end. But her father had been impervious to questions. Tight-lipped and stoic, he’d been determined to lock the painful memories away and move on. Lewis, too, had manfully soldiered on, leaving her to grieve on her own. As a result, Olive had felt the loss of her mother twice as cruelly, and she still thought of her often. For whatever reason, Serena Bright had recently been on Miss Husselbee’s mind, as well.
She brushed away the detritus of spring showers, then wiped her hand on the seat of her trousers. A cluster of crocus blooms crowded near the edge of the grave, but they were already fading with the onset of warmer days. One of the luminescent purple flowers had tumbled off its stem, and Olive cradled it in her hand, running a gentle finger over the silken petals.
Leaning lightly against the chilly headstone, she scanned the graveyard, needing to be certain no one was about before she said the words aloud. Content she was alone, she peered up through the canopy of leaves toward the church steeple and quietly confided, “I’ve not started yet, but I’m to be a FANY.” She smiled. “I might even do some driving, but it won’t be on the front lines.” A petal came free and fluttered to the ground. “I’m to be stationed at Brickendonbury.” Her voice had gone flat with the final admission, and the silence suddenly felt heavy with disappointment.
In the dimness of the graveyard, she felt overshadowed, the shine on her recent success dimmed by the feeling that she could never hope to measure up to the example set by her mother in the last war.
“I had bigger plans,” she insisted, her shoulders tightly defensive, “but I gave them up for the pigeons.” And other responsibilities, but she wouldn’t mention Harriet or the pig club. She gave the base of the flower a quick twist between her finger and thumb, then released it, letting it twirl away from her, to spin in the air, until it finally came to rest on a furry patch of yellow-green moss. “Our birds are going to be put to work for the war effort, flying secret missions home from occupied Europe.”
She paused before revealing the next bit, her stomach clenched with guilt, but she forged on with an up tilt of her chin. “Dad doesn’t know, and I can’t tell him.” Olive sighed, then tried to inject a little happy optimism into her tone. “I intend to make the best of things, even if I am at the mercy of a man with a lacklustre imagination and a penchant for brooding stares. He was already frustrating, but now he outranks me, which means he’s going to be entirely insufferable.” She snorted, newly resolved to give as good as she got. In that way, at least, she would take after her mother. “His name is Captain Jameson Aldridge, but from now on, I’m going to make it a point to call him Jamie. I’ll tell you that part of the story another time.”
Spurred by her little spark of defiance, she rose with alacrity and slid her gaze once more over the words she knew by heart. With any luck, she’d have a chance to prove her own fighting spirit, that is, beyond her regular bickerings with Aldridge. Eager, for once, to get away, out of reach of the silence, which now felt disapproving and oddly oppressive, Olive laid her fingers to her lips and
pressed them with a kiss before brushing them against her mother’s headstone. Then she stepped nimbly across the graveyard and out through the gate. She needed to get on with things.
A hand suddenly gripped her upper arm, spun her around, and hustled her back through the gate. Olive had tensed, ready to jab her elbow into a sensitive spot on the assailant’s anatomy, only to realise it was Margaret, her face bare of cosmetics and looking rather helpless.
“What is it?” Olive demanded, feeling cranky to have been caught unaware, particularly so soon after those private moments at her mother’s grave. If she’d overheard . . .
“I need to talk to you.” Margaret spoke in a whisper, and her eyes looked hunted, darting frenetically, as she dragged Olive deeper into the shadows beside the vestry.
Olive’s mood shifted instantly, as burgeoning curiosity once again overtook her. “Is this about the secret you’ve been keeping from everyone?”
Margaret looked near to tears, flushed and dewy-eyed. Rather than answer, she dropped down onto a crumbling stone bench nearly covered with ivy, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket. Not entirely certain the bench could hold the pair of them without collapsing, Olive decided not to risk it and instead leaned against the cool stone wall.
“Not everyone, apparently,” Margaret said bitterly.
“You realise it no longer matters that Miss Husselbee had worked it out,” Olive said calmly.
“It does if she told someone,” Margaret hissed.
“I’m sure she wouldn’t have—”
“Really? Then how do you explain this?” her friend said, fury having supplanted the worry. She turned a folded sheet out of her pocket and thrust it at Olive.
As she took it, Olive was acutely aware of the leaves shifting above them. No one else was about, but a shiver crawled over her, like a warning from beyond the grave. Which was silly, because Miss Husselbee hadn’t even been buried yet. And because that was entirely far-fetched. Thoroughly exasperated with herself, she scanned the words, blinked, and read them again.
Olive Bright, Pigeoneer Page 25
