The House of Flowers

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘He’s not interested in women, so I will lift my embargo on him, anyway.’ Eugene regarded her bleakly.

  ‘What’s wrong with him in any case? One of your great literary heroes, Oscar Wilde—’

  ‘Yes, all right! All right!’ Eugene interrupted. ‘I’m jealous of anyone you go out with. So who are you going out with tonight?’

  ‘No one,’ Kate replied. ‘My mother’s coming down for the weekend. Apparently she’s got things she wants to talk to me about, and since I can’t get up to town, and she has a bit of leave due—’

  ‘I’ll forgive you your mother. I forgive anyone who had anything to do with the creation of you.’ He sighed.

  ‘Hurry up and mend, will you? I’m not a great one for just blowing kisses.’ Kate too sighed.

  Anthony thought long and hard about his proposition, long before he voiced it. He agonised over whether or not he should discuss it with Marjorie, before finally realising that were he to do so he would without a doubt be talked out of it, and thus be deprived of the chance of seeing a particularly bold dodge that Jack and he had thought up through to its conclusion.

  ‘Billy,’ he said one morning, when he had finally made up his mind. ‘I need a word with you, in complete confidence.’

  Billy made sure the door was firmly shut before crossing to the desk that was situated well out of earshot of the office next door. Ever since he had begun working directly for Major Folkestone he had become totally obsessed with security, developing a routine of checking and double-checking that was beginning to drive Marjorie half mad. Before he went to bed the entire cottage would be checked, with Billy making sure all the doors were properly bolted and the windows secured, and he insisted on vetting any mail that came directly to the cottage itself, often even checking the contents of private letters with his famous spying instrument in case there should be something volatile.

  Marjorie often confronted him, demanding to know where he imagined the dangers might be coming from, but all Billy would do was shake his head and mutter, ‘OS Act, Marge. You should know better than that.’ For of course now that he was actually working in security, Billy saw himself as a walking information centre, someone full to the brim with classified information and therefore a ready target for enemy spies and the like. Marjorie twigged this without being told, and first of all tried teasing Billy out of it, only to find that he greatly resented not being taken seriously. Next she tried to reason with him, as gently as Marjorie was capable of reasoning, only to find herself likewise rebuked and rebuffed. Finally she gave up and just took to sighing and expostulating whenever Billy indulged himself in one of what he called his Security Checks.

  ‘I have a job for you, Billy,’ Anthony told him as Billy stood smartly in front of his desk, at ease, but not easy. ‘If you don’t think you’re—’ The major just stopped himself in time, having been about to say if Billy didn’t think he was quite up to it. ‘If you don’t think it’s right for you,’ he corrected himself, ‘just say. I’ll quite understand since you’re relatively new to this game and this could be quite an undertaking.’

  ‘Understood, sir,’ Billy replied, having mentally already accepted the challenge. ‘Fire ahead.’

  Anthony looked down at the papers on his desk in order to hide his smile of genuine pleasure, albeit one tinged with an undercurrent of anxiety. He had grown very fond of Billy, seeing him now not so much as a son figure but as a possible brother-in-law – if he found out that Marjorie felt the same way about him as he felt about her. Then he stopped smiling when the reality of what he was about to propose hit him once again. It was a highly dangerous mission, one that could endanger the young man’s very existence. Billy, of course, came to his rescue, as usual.

  ‘If you’re having second thoughts, sir, don’t,’ he said. ‘I’m game for anything, sir. You know that. I wouldn’t have been so bloomin’ keen to sign up, would I, sir? If I hadn’t calculated the risks.’

  ‘You’re quite right, Billy,’ Anthony replied. ‘And I’m having no second thoughts whatsoever. I know perfectly well that not only will you be game for what I’m about to propose to you but you’ll succeed triumphantly. This is something right up your street, young man.’

  When Billy heard what was planned for him, he was thrilled, excited and proud. The major was right. It was something right up his street.

  ‘You can’t tell me anything at all?’ Marjorie echoed in dismay, even though she knew perfectly well just how sealed Billy’s lips were. ‘You could give me some sort of indication, surely?’

  ‘You know better than that, Marge,’ Billy replied, checking through the items he would need and was allowed to take. ‘All I can tell you is I have to go away for a while, and that is it. Sorry.’

  ‘Oh, God, Billy,’ Marjorie suddenly sighed. ‘What have I got you into?’

  ‘You in’t – you haven’t got me into anything, sis,’ Billy said, sitting down beside her and putting his arm round her shoulder. ‘You didn’t start this bloomin’ war, did you? So why make yourself responsible for everything that happens in it? People have to fight wars, and this is one war where we really do have to fight back or else we’re done for. You know that better than anyone ’cos that’s something you’ve always believed in. I believe in it too, sis – and I’m doing what I’m doing ’cos it’s something I can do, and because I can do it I have to do it, right? So chin up, sis – you know me. I’m dead crafty. I won’t get into no scrapes, don’t you worry. I can handle meself, and I can handle anything I’m asked to do. I’m not little Billy no longer. I’m great big Billy, OK? If I hadn’t got this dicky pulse thing, I’d be over there fighting hand to hand, wouldn’t I? So don’t you worry about a thing, ’cos this is going to be a doddle, promise.’

  He gave her a quick hug and a playful punch on the arm, and since she knew there was nothing she could do to dissuade him, Marjorie went and made them both a cup of tea.

  Just before she left on her own mission, Poppy found herself going to the sewing box and taking out the old diary. It seemed wrong, but it proved somehow irresistible since hardly had the owner of the beautifully gold embossed diary been married before her beloved husband too was called away to fight Napoleon.

  Ben the carpenter came from the big house yesterday. We are all to have new iron bars set across the shutters to keep out Napoleon’s invading army. Being so near to the coast as we are, I tremble at the idea of troops outside the windows, of being forced to admit them to the House of Flowers. Rather than that I shall fight to the death, so with that in mind have asked one of my brothers to bring across a gun for me when he next visits – something I must not tell Mother . . .

  There was a later entry that quite touched Poppy’s heart, because she knew exactly how the former chatelaine of the House of Flowers felt.

  Nothing from my dearest dear now for months. I know nothing of where he is, or how he is. Every night I pray to God that he may come back to me, that I may yet again hold him in my arms, the most beloved of men. The army has had great losses on the Peninsula, but I know we shall prevail under the leadership of our great General Wellington. I must not think of my beloved – I must only continue to pray for the safety of us all, and for victory, which I know must come. My brother delivered the necessary old blunderbuss for my protection. He gave it as his opinion that one look at myself armed to the hilt with such a weapon and Bonaparte would run for miles. Even so, I remain firm in my determination to use my weapon should the need arise, which please God it shall not. For we will never surrender, none of us. Not ever!

  Poppy put the diary down for a few minutes, staring into the fire. There was comfort in the fact that it had all gone on before, the fighting and the threat of invasion and then the subsequent victory, yet she found herself reluctant to read on in case the diarist’s beloved husband failed finally to return from the war. Somehow she felt that if that was what had happened, Scott would not return to her. So rather than read it to the end as had been her intention, Poppy
closed the diary, retied the ribbon, and put it back into the little old mahogany chest where she had found it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jack Ward’s state of mind was the very opposite of that of the young woman whom he was about to despatch into occupied France on a highly dangerous mission. While Poppy sat with hope in her heart Jack was suffering from exactly the same malaise from which their Prime Minister often suffered, a visit from the Black Dog of despair.

  As a younger man Jack had never suffered from any form of mental malaise, always firmly believing that whatever life threw at you, you simply had to jolly well get on with it. Even after the loss of his young wife and baby he had managed to keep himself on an even keel without once resorting to any of the props generally used by people in such emotional predicaments. He had got through it, he told himself at the time, by getting on with it. The Black Dog only began to visit him much later, and at moments when he least expected it. At times when he felt quite buoyant and optimistic about his affairs he would suddenly wake up in the middle of the night with the Black Dog sitting on his chest. Nothing would shake it, nothing would get rid of it, nothing would encourage the creature to leap off and disappear back into the dark recesses of the night whence it had first appeared. Jack would lie in his bed sinking under the deepest of despairs, or he would pace the floor, smoking a cigarette and drinking a large glass of whisky in the hope that when he had finished both the Dog would have gone. But it never had. As soon as he lay back in bed there the beast was, pressing him down with its unutterable weight, rendering him physically and mentally paralysed, until at last when dawn broke the creature would slink quietly away and Jack would be able to fall into a shallow, fevered sleep.

  Worse followed. Now when the Dog visited it didn’t disappear at dawn but sometimes stayed with him not just all day, but for days at a time. Jack being Jack never let it show, but inside his nerves became so raw and his mentality so depressed that he thought his judgement was in danger of becoming impaired. When things got to this dangerous state, Jack had to take himself carefully in hand to ensure that no wrong decisions were made and no one’s security or indeed life was threatened. He coped, as Jack always coped, but only because of his strength of character and purpose. Where lesser men would have given in to self-indulgence, Jack fought back. Where others would have crumbled under the psychological pressure, Jack rebuilt. Where the weak would have become even weaker, Jack became strong, so much so that as things now stood he looked forward to doing battle with the Dog, not because he got anything out of his despair, but simply because Jack Ward liked a challenge, and to him there were few things more challenging than having to fight one’s own psychological corner.

  But something else had made a difference to him, or rather more precisely someone else. Jack had always made it a firm principle not to get involved with anyone with whom he worked, since to him that would mean losing the proper perspective. He simply could not risk endangering lives by concentrating his emotions on one person in his organisation more than any other. He had always told his agents that they would only be able to do their job properly as long as they retained their objectivity, and the same went for himself. It was only common sense, but since Jack was a traditionalist he liked lines to be clearly marked so that anyone working with him knew exactly what the limits were. Jack Ward valued simplicity, and clarity, above all, most of all for himself.

  Yet he was too honest not to realise that he was in danger of becoming emotionally involved. When he was alone in the evenings he would convince himself that it was the war. War had strange effects. He was so often alone in his thoughts, so solitary in his habits, he was bound to start feeling vulnerable.

  When he was away from Helen he noticed that he had begun to miss her; so much so that he found himself inventing reasons for them to have yet another meeting, even when he knew they were going to draw a blank. The problem was – and it was one that exacerbated his dilemma rather than helped alleviate it – Jack didn’t know how Helen felt about him. He knew she had to show up when he told her to because he was the Colonel. He was running her. She was one of his agents. If she failed to appear he could take her off the case – or, worse, he could relegate her to a desk job, to endless filing and minor secretarial duties, the sort of work she would hate after the excitement of being in the field.

  So here he was again, face to face over a glass of warm beer in the corner of yet another of his nondescript hostelries, places specially chosen for their very lack of distinction, with Helen dutifully reporting on her week while Jack just as dutifully listened. But the fact was there was absolutely no reason for their meeting since the trail had long ago gone cold. The woman in the peacock blue hat had never reappeared since Jack and Helen’s first discussion about her. It was as if she had been standing behind them, listening to every word, and then realising she had been spotted had disappeared totally from view. And since she had never been given a chance to get near the suspect Helen had never been able to give a better description of her. All she could say was what she had said before, about her possible age and her build. Because of her hat, Helen had never once seen her face clearly, certainly not well enough to recognise her again, particularly if she had seen her hatless.

  ‘Someone must have tipped her off,’ Jack remarked, staring moodily into the bowl of his empty pipe. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence that after we had spotted her, she just vanished.’

  ‘She could have been someone totally innocent could she not?’ Helen asked. ‘Or if not innocent in the true meaning of the word, someone involved in some sort of skulduggery that was not treason, but adulterous perhaps, as you first suggested. A woman simply being blackmailed.’

  ‘She was our bogey woman, Helen. I know it,’ Jack replied. ‘I’m like a dog. I have a damn’ good nose. And the scent I picked up from that one was positive, I can tell you.’

  ‘You only had my word for it, Colonel. You never saw her yourself, so you never really had the chance for a personal assessment.’

  ‘I know,’ Jack growled. ‘But I have a sixth sense. Rather like the sort of instinct women are meant to have.’ Jack glanced up at her over his unlit pipe. As sometimes happened when he looked at her, Helen was surprised by the expression in the eyes behind the horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘In this job you have to work on instinct. You have to substantiate your initial assumption – provide the proof, down to the last dot, in triplicate, et cetera, et cetera. But sometimes all you have to work from is instinct – and something told me the woman in the hat was just the lead we wanted.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I feel I let you down.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You have nothing to be sorry for.’

  ‘She might have picked something up from me. Caught me staring at her. I imagine that people when they’re doing wrong are rather jumpy, aren’t they? Very aware of people looking at them. They’d have to be. Wouldn’t they?’

  ‘I imagine so, Helen. But I don’t think you could have alerted her. I can’t see you as the sort of person who’s ever caught staring. You’re too well brought up.’

  Jack smiled at her so warmly that Helen dropped her eyes and stared into her glass. The Colonel hardly ever made a personal statement; it took her by surprise. More than that, it disconcerted her.

  ‘I just hope it wasn’t anything I did, sir, that scared her away,’ she said quietly, suspecting that in fact that could well be the very reason for the woman in the peacock blue hat’s disappearance, since she couldn’t imagine any other.

  Jack had so much wanted to lay business aside for just one moment and ask Helen to go for a walk with him in Hyde Park. It was a fine day in late February, with the milky winter sun about to warm into a warmer spring glow. Already there was more than a hint of spring with a full show of bulbs, early narcissi and late crocuses prevailing in spite of the mayhem of the world around them, the sudden splurge of colour giving a lift to ground that had lain dead and grey since early November, its colour reminding the survivors of
the last great war that they had endured, only to find themselves under siege once again; the sacrifices of so many millions of young men seemingly wasted as the very same enemy, once again, tried to obliterate their tiny island home into submission. But with the promised advent of spring everyone’s heart lifted and their hopes rose, as is the way when winter finally allows spring best, and all at once not only the ground but the trees too burst back into a life that had been saved for this moment of renaissance. So, too, the spirit of the people of Britain waited for a spring of its own, one glorious sunny day in the not too distant future when this madness would finally be over, when mothers could welcome home their sons, wives embrace their husbands and sweethearts hold their sweethearts for ever more; safe at long, long last.

  Jack walked slowly through the park alone, having denied himself the undoubted pleasure of Helen Maddox’s company on this warm and gentle February day. No air raid sirens shrieked their warning against the presence of enemy bombers over the capital; there was just the hum and rumble of a vast city going about its business as Jack continued his progress round the Serpentine, stopping on the bridge to watch the ducks paddling round in wide circles and the pigeons flapping down from the trees in search of crumbs and titbits from the distant figures seated on park benches eating their picnic lunches on their laps.

  Jack would have liked to be sitting in the mild sunshine with Helen, down there at the edge of one of London’s prettiest ponds, not eating a picnic lunch perhaps, but looking into each other’s minds and beings, searching for that little bit more to know, the extra discovery that would consolidate the feelings they had for each other. But it was not to be and rightly so, Jack reminded himself. The war was far from won. They had a traitor in their midst, and the security of the nation itself could be at risk. There was no time for enjoyment, least of all the deep pleasure and happiness that comes with love. Someone, somewhere, hated them all so much they were willing to betray their fellow countrymen and send them to their deaths, either at the hands of the enemy in the field, or against a cold stone wall shot by a firing squad.