The House of Flowers

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Yeah, I know, Marge,’ Billy interrupted. ‘But this is different. I mean this is something what I think could really work, see? And I know what they’ll say – the blokes with the pointed heads and all the gold on their shoulders. They’ll just sniff and say what’s some oik of a kid know that we don’t? Maybe we should wait for Eugene to come back and see what he has to say. Eugene is different, you know, Marge.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s up Eugene’s street, Billy. I know you think the world of him, but he’s not a boffin, and I don’t suppose for a moment he knows any boffins.’

  ‘What about Mr W?’ Billy demanded, frowning. ‘Mr W might take this seriously, and Mr W knows everyone there is to know. The major says he even has dealings with Mr Churchill, sometimes.’

  ‘All right, Billy,’ Marjorie agreed. ‘But let me talk to Major Folkestone first, because we can’t get hold of Mr Ward without his help. And if he thinks we should do something else, we’ll have to take his advice. Agreed?’

  ‘I’ll think about it, Marge,’ Billy said, closing his drawing book up, and putting it away in the table drawer. ‘But you’re not to do nothing without my say-so.’

  ‘Anything, Billy. And no, I won’t do anything without your say-so.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  As it happened Marjorie was not as much enamoured of Eugene Hackett as the rest of the female population of Eden Park. While recognising what she called his originality, and having finally to agree that his part in the thwarting of an assassination attempt on Churchill had actually been nothing short of heroic, Marjorie privately considered him to be a show-off, with far too much braggadocio for his own good. Time and again she would say to Kate that men with Eugene’s sort of looks, manner and character were not to be trusted, but were usually only out for what they could get, until finally exasperated Kate had rounded on her.

  ‘You’ve never been in love, Marjorie,’ she told her curtly. ‘When you have, well then you can talk well off. But not until. OK?’

  After which, seeing the undeniable truth in this statement, Marjorie shut up.

  What Marjorie could not say to Kate – and would never say to her – was that the real reason she was wary of Eugene was that she had never quite shaken off the suspicion that the Irishman was a double agent. Prior to the assassination attempt, she had not been the only one at Eden Park considering this possibility. Eugene had simply arrived unannounced in their midst, claiming that he was the nephew of Lord and Lady Dunne, the owners of Eden Park, who always let him use the flat above the stables, before disappearing at frequent intervals to locations which he would never discuss.

  ‘He could talk himself out of a firing squad,’ Marjorie had once claimed to Kate after they had all been out drinking in the local inn. ‘I’ve never heard anyone blarney as much as Eugene Hackett.’

  But Kate was not to be put off.

  ‘All I want you to admit is that Eugene is tall, dark and handsome. You don’t have to say you find him attractive, but you do have to admit that he is handsome. Beautiful, in fact.’

  ‘I’d never call any man beautiful,’ Marjorie retorted. ‘Men aren’t beautiful – or if they are, they’re usually fey.’

  ‘Fey no less.’

  ‘You know perfectly well what I mean, Kate. They’re not altogether masculine.’

  ‘Eugene certainly isn’t fey, Marjorie. But he certainly is what I’d call handsome.’

  ‘Now Scott Meynell, he is handsome.’

  ‘Not much good to you, Marge.’ Kate stood up, determined not to rise to the bait. ‘Scott is in love with Poppy Tetherington, as well you know.’

  ‘He could always change his mind.’ This was Marjorie’s standard reply.

  ‘Just as pears could grow on oak trees,’ was Kate’s equally standard response.

  But it wasn’t Scott Meynell who occupied Marjorie’s private thoughts – not really. She might think that Scott was classically good-looking, which indeed he was, but he wasn’t the man with whom Marjorie found herself becoming increasingly fascinated, for all sorts of reasons. Someone she found herself watching closely.

  Jack Ward unravelled the yellow oilskin pouch that contained his pipe tobacco, thankful as always for its waterproofing since the snow had long since turned to driving sleet, and the rest of him was all but wet through.

  ‘I’ll give him another half an hour,’ he muttered. ‘And if he doesn’t show, you can go instead.’

  His younger companion stared at him for a moment in horror, not yet sufficiently familiar with Jack Ward to know when he was joking and when he wasn’t.

  ‘There’s a vehicle coming now, sir,’ he said with a frown. ‘I think, sir.’

  The two men listened as the sound of a heavily clanking engine drew nearer through the storm.

  ‘What the devil . . . ?’ Jack began to wonder, only to have his curiosity satisfied by the sight of a large tractor and trailer appearing out of the wall of frozen rain, bumping its way toward them over the airfield.

  ‘Typical Hackett,’ Jack sighed. ‘Can’t do anything by halves.’

  The farm vehicle pulled up in front of the two men with much coughing and spluttering from the engine and finally a loud backfire from the funnel exhaust. It was driven by a small squat farmer with a fixed grin, and a passenger seated behind him on a straw bale on the trailer, sheltering under a large umbrella.

  ‘You’re goodliness personified, sir!’ Eugene called to him as he hopped down from his perch clutching his knapsack. ‘May your shadow never grow less!’

  Still grinning, the farmer touched his forelock, and following another series of protests from his machine drove off back in the direction whence he had come.

  ‘There being no taxis, sir!’ Eugene informed Jack in French. ‘And no car to greet me at the station.’

  ‘There might have been had you been on the right train, Hackett,’ Jack replied in German. ‘You are two hours late.’

  ‘If I’m a little tardy it’s because they made a mess of my papers,’ Eugene argued in Italian. ‘I’d have been shot on landing with the set they gave me. So it was hardly my fault.’

  ‘You always have an excuse, Hackett,’ Jack growled back in Italian.

  ‘I always have my reason, sir,’ Eugene corrected him in German, before adding something quite incomprehensible in the Gaelic.

  ‘Come again?’ Jack said sarcastically. ‘You know I don’t speak whatever you call it.’

  ‘Erse, sir. Or the Gaelic to you.’ Eugene grinned and slung his knapsack on one shoulder. ‘Ready when you are. They’ll be able to take off in this, will they?’

  ‘If they fail, we know who to blame, don’t we?’ Jack nodded towards the waiting aircraft. ‘Your instructions,’ he added, handing Eugene an envelope.

  ‘What’s the weather like out there, I wonder?’ Eugene slipped the brown envelope into his inside pocket to read on the plane. ‘When it comes to holidays I’m a hopeless packer.’

  ‘If you’ve forgotten your swim things, don’t worry,’ Jack growled, holding open the small door in the fuselage. ‘You’re going to be a little too busy to lie around on the beach. Bon voyage.’

  ‘Keep the home fire burning, sir,’ Eugene said with a wave and a smile. ‘I won’t be gone long.’

  He disappeared into the plane, and Jack shut the door and double-checked it before stepping back to signal go to the pilot.

  As the pilot revved the twin engines, the sleet stopped as suddenly as it had started, a shaft of sunlight bisecting the mist and shining directly on the plane, which was now taxiing down the runway prior to take-off.

  ‘Typical Hackett,’ Jack observed. ‘Right down to the special effects.’

  Major Folkestone called Cissie Lavington into his office late one evening, unlocked the closely guarded wall map of Europe that showed the whereabouts of their agents by way of a set of specially coloured pins, and considered the overall position.

  ‘We’re a bit thin on the ground, as
you can see from these black pins, Miss Lavington,’ Anthony said, indicating several areas with a thin stick. ‘Sustaining more losses than is altogether acceptable. We may well need Poppy Tetherington back in action sooner than we thought. In fact we may be looking at the need for more recruits full stop.’

  ‘Might have helped if our French friends had held out just a little bit longer, doncher think?’ Cissie remarked, coming to stand at the major’s shoulder and blowing a long stream of smoke past him. ‘Might also have helped if they’d bothered to blow up a few of their precious bridges before Jerry crossed over on ’em as well. C’est la vie – or, rather more precisely, c’est la France. You could always send me back into the field.’

  ‘Most kind, but we rather need you here,’ Anthony replied politely. ‘Thanks all the same.’

  ‘I could work for the Russians,’ Cissie persisted, solemn-faced. ‘I get on frightfully well with Boris.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind if things get any worse in Russia.’

  ‘War and Peace is quite my favourite book, doncher know . . .’

  ‘To get back to Poppy Tetherington,’ Anthony continued. ‘You reckon she’s back one hundred per cent?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’d have said that hubby’s behaviour would only have increased her resolve.’

  ‘Very well.’ Anthony nodded, glancing back at the map of Europe as if already thinking where he might place her. ‘And what about your new recruit? The Ormerod girl. She going to make the grade?’

  ‘I should say. Far as I can gather she’s the only one so far to give the famous Monsieur Jacques a run for his money in the gymnasium. Only thing I’d keep an eye on as far as young Lily goes is what goes on out of hours. That I would keep an eye on. Most definitely.’

  Major Folkestone frowned at her, cocking his head in a way that prompted a reply.

  ‘Boys and girls, Major,’ Cissie sighed. ‘Boys will be boys. And girls will be girls. That’s all I have to say on that particular matter.’

  As she left, Major Folkestone’s assistant, the homely Miss Budge, was waiting just outside the door, notebook and pencil in hand, ready as ever to return to the fray. Smiling at the departing Cissie, she tapped formally on the half-open door and was called to come in.

  As she entered, Anthony Folkestone was still standing gazing at the map on the wall cabinet in front of him. As soon as he saw he had a visitor, albeit his private secretary, he at once swung the two heavy-wooded doors across his map and locked them with a key that he dropped into one of the two top pockets in his tunic.

  ‘Miss Budge. Marjorie not back from lunch, yet?’

  ‘No, Major Folkestone.’ Miss Budge looked at her boss. ‘But I am quite ready to take dictation.’

  ‘Fine. Good. Thank you. And by the way, they still haven’t fixed my intercom properly, Miss Budge. It still goes on the blink every so often.’

  ‘I keep asking them to check it, sir,’ Miss Budge replied. ‘They assured me it was working perfectly.’

  ‘Well it isn’t. So get after them again, will you? If you’d be so kind. I cannot stand things that don’t work properly.’

  ‘I’ll see to it myself, sir,’ Miss Budge assured him. ‘You’re not the only one it’s driving round the bend.’

  Anthony Folkestone smiled. He liked Miss Budge well enough, but she was no Marjorie Hendry. Miss Budge had a lot to commend her. She was a former SOE courier who had worked on several drops in Europe, showing a lot of courage in the field before being invalided out of active service after a dust-up in Brittany. She was of a kindly disposition, diligent and attentive, a good enough typist with excellent shorthand – but her hair did not fall forward when she was taking down his memos, nor did her eyes crinkle sweetly at their corners when she smiled or open so widely in amazement when they learned something new. Miss Budge knitted very well, although her choice of colours could – in Anthony’s opinion – do with a little toning down. Miss Budge was never late and always polite and willing, but she lacked that oddly defiant streak that Marjorie had – that individuality and strength of purpose, characteristics that intrigued and it had to be admitted excited him. Even in her everyday office wear, in her sensible knitted stockings and plain skirt and jumper, Marjorie appealed to him. At her most tomboyish Marjorie attracted him, and even at her most taciturn she fascinated him.

  So, much as he liked and appreciated Miss Budge, it was small wonder that Anthony Folkestone would have preferred the young woman sitting the other side of his desk ready to take down his dictation to have been Miss Marjorie Hendry.

  Chapter Two

  It was inevitable that Poppy should have found herself falling in love with Scott Meynell when they were working alongside each other the previous year. Poppy had been trained by H section to play at being a rich and spoiled social butterfly in order to try to infiltrate the circle of highly placed Fascists that Jack Ward knew was operating in London, its aim being to persuade the Establishment to embrace appeasement; or, if that failed, then to bring the country to a standstill by the simple but highly effective means of assassinating Winston Churchill. Scott had already gained access to their inner circle, and by the time he and Poppy had helped bring that particular operation to a successful conclusion they had become lovers.

  They used to joke about it afterwards, Scott teasing Poppy as to whether or not she would have had the courage to become his lover had she known her husband was still alive, Poppy riposting that it probably would have made everything more exciting. Sometimes, though, she wondered how she actually would have behaved if she had known that the reported death of her unloved husband at the hands of the Italian terrorists was only part of the European Fascist party’s plot to create political mayhem.

  ‘I don’t think you would,’ Scott said to her once when they were discussing the matter. ‘I think you’d have been too hidebound by your upbringing.’

  ‘You’re actually making assumptions, Scott Meynell,’ Poppy replied. ‘I didn’t really have an upbringing, at least not the one you imagine I had. First of all, although I was born in Europe, my parents were American, and they didn’t bring me up, the embassy staff did. No one spoils you like servants, you know – which is why I’ve turned out the way I have. Oddly enough, even though my mother neglected me as I was growing up, I felt I was terribly cherished.’

  ‘It was hardly cherishing you, marrying you off to the perfectly dreadful Basil Tetherington, was it?’

  ‘That wasn’t my mother’s fault. That was mine entirely. I was really awfully naïve. And since everyone else seemed to be engaged by the end of the Season, I thought: why not? No one else had ever paid me the slightest bit of attention, and besides, Basil . . . well, not only was he terribly good-looking, you know, but he was a brilliant dancer – the Fred Astaire of Belgravia.’

  Poppy eyed Scott, hoping that he would show some slight frisson of jealousy, but quickly realised from his expression that his mind was somewhere quite other.

  ‘Hum is all I can say to that.’

  ‘Hum is what you say to most things, Mr Meynell. Hum covers an awful lot of things for you.’

  ‘What else can a chap say except hum to things like that?’ Scott sighed in mock despair. ‘Marrying a fellow like Tetherington because his toes twinkled. It isn’t really worth anything more than a hum.’

  They were out walking in the winter sunshine along the shore of the larger of the two lakes in the park. Poppy had been to see some possible lodgings in the stable block that housed Eugene when he was at home, since she needed somewhere to live while she was to be working for H Section and all the bedrooms in the main house were fully occupied. Fortunately the estate had various other cottages and outbuildings that had been cleaned and tidied up to make adequate accomodation for the Nosy Parkers, as those working in Eden Park had nicknamed themselves. Scott had accompanied Poppy on her visit to a pretty dismal and dreary little flat directly above the feed rooms, which Poppy being Poppy announced to be entirely acceptable without even qualify
ing her opinion with the rider in the circumstances.

  ‘Marjorie and Kate’s little cottage is only a couple of minutes’ walk round the corner, and it will be perfect for George since we just have to open the door and we’re in the park,’ she had pointed out, unclipping George’s lead so he could wander freely as Scott and Poppy took their lunchtime stroll, both of them still having a good half an hour before they had to return to their duties.

  ‘Well, obviously, if George likes it, it is sold,’ Scott had agreed. ‘That was all we needed to know, wasn’t it?’

  Hand in hand, with George running ahead of them as fast as his short legs could carry him, the two of them walked away from the main house along the shore of the lake, a dark mirror on this almost windless day. The spring-fed waters were fascinating in their clarity, their transparency allowing Poppy and Scott to watch several large mirror carp feeding among the dormant reeds, making loud sucking noises as they did so.

  ‘They sound like babies pulling on the teats of their feeding bottles.’ Poppy stared at the broad pink lips hovering on the water’s surface.

  A sudden gust of winter wind caused the surface to corrugate, the tiny runs of waves shifting across the lake glinting silver in the pale sun. In a nearby patch of tall dead rushes something disturbed a pair of moorhens who left their hide with harsh throaty calls, and a sudden flap of their short black wings as they rose then landed with a splash on the water, paddling away furiously from whatever unseen menace had disturbed them.

  ‘Come on,’ Scott said with an urgency that surprised Poppy. ‘Come on, or we won’t have enough time.’

  ‘Enough time for what?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Taking her hand even more firmly, Scott helped her up a steep wooded path that led away from the lake and further and further into the leafless wintry copse, at this time of year a spot where no birds sang and no flowers bloomed. And yet there was a special atmosphere to the place, even though every hasty step they took through the woodland plunged them deeper into the still, immovable winter darkness. Poppy had no idea from where the sense of enchantment might be coming, until she stood in front of the door.