Mr. Churchill's Secretary: A Novel

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  An odd mission indeed, she thought distractedly as she got ready to leave, pinning on her brown straw derby hat with lilac ribbons and adjusting it in the mirror before leaving the house.

  One fact she knew about her father was that he’d been a professor working with the Operational Research Group in the Department of Discrete and Applied Mathematics at the London School of Economics. It seemed like a good place to start.

  Samuel Barstow, the department chair, allowed her into his office, crammed full of books, papers, and files in no discernible order. On the wall was a reproduction of Escher’s woodcut Day and Night. The air was thick with dust and cigarette smoke, while a spiky aspidistra kept vigil on the window ledge.

  Barstow was in his mid-sixties, sported a striped bow tie, and had a pale, papery look to him, as if he rarely if ever saw the light of day. “I don’t have much time, Miss—”

  “Hope. Maggie Hope,” she said, offering her hand.

  He rose and clasped it, leaving ink smudges on her beige gloves. “Pleasure. What may I do for you, Miss Hope?”

  “I was wondering if you might answer a few questions for me.”

  “About the final?” he said, pushing back woolly gray hair. “We covered all of that in class. Just find someone and get the notes—”

  “No, Professor Barstow. Actually, I was wondering if you could tell me anything about my father—Edmund Hope. He was a professor here from 1906 to 1916, working in this department.”

  Samuel Barstow sat down suddenly, as though deflated. He gestured to the dark-green leather chair opposite his desk. “Oh, my dear, my dear.”

  Maggie moved a stack of blue books to the floor and perched on the edge of the seat.

  “Edmund Hope. I haven’t heard that name in, well—forgive me, it’s been a while.” He took out a heavy silver lighter and lit his cigarette, drawing in the smoke and then exhaling a blue cloud with a sigh.

  “I realize that,” she said, leaning forward.

  He stared at the tip, which smoldered red in the office’s gloomy light, then closed his eyes. As he did, she noticed the deep lines around them, the bruiselike purple shadows beneath, and the creases on his forehead. He’s about the same age my father would have been, she thought. Would be. My father would have the same wrinkles by now.

  Professor Barstow took a long drag on his cigarette, then exhaled. “Miss Hope …”

  “Maggie. Please.”

  “Maggie,” he repeated thoughtfully. “It’s so very good to meet you, Maggie. You’re without a doubt your father’s daughter, but with aspects of your mother as well, of course. I only met her once or twice, but your father always had a photograph of her on his desk. We used to tease him no end about it—how he’d managed to persuade such a pretty girl to marry him.”

  Maggie wanted to hear more—she wanted to hear everything—but she knew she had to bring the conversation back to the topic at hand.

  “Did you go to his funeral?”

  “Did I—” His moist eyes looked shocked.

  “You see, I was wondering if you did, or if you know of anyone who did.”

  “What on earth would make you ask that? Of course I went to your mother’s funeral.”

  “My mother’s?” she asked. “No, this is about my father’s. I—”

  “My dear child,” he said, leaning forward. “I never went to your father’s funeral.”

  She folded her hands tightly together. “Why not?”

  “Because—to the best of my knowledge—your father is still alive.”

  Maggie gasped.

  “I know he was living alone, not coming in to work, and drinking a bit more than prudent,” Barstow said. “We were all terribly worried about him. His sister was taking care of you, and he—well, one day, he just disappeared.”

  “ ‘Disappeared’?” Maggie said, unclenching her hands. “No one can just disappear.”

  “That’s what it seemed like. He became increasingly isolated and delusional—and the next thing we knew, he was gone.”

  “Yes, but gone where?”

  “My dear, I wish I could say. But there was the trench war, you know. Your father and I were friends, and it gives me great pain to say this. I assumed he’d gone to the country or something like that—to get his head back together. But the months went by, and then the years—and he just never came back.”

  He didn’t die? Maggie felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. This is what Aunt Edith was trying to keep from me? But why? “So he could be out there? Alive?”

  “It’s a distinct possibility,” Barstow said. “Although, I suppose, any number of things could have happened to him over the years.”

  “Do you have any idea where he might have gone?” she pressed. “Did he have a favorite place outside of London?”

  Barstow sighed and scratched his head. “It was so long ago.…”

  “Please,” she implored.

  “Well, I do remember that he spoke quite often of his time at Cambridge. Loved the place. Always had a warm spot in his heart for his days at university. That’s all I can think of.”

  Cambridge. Yes, he’d done his undergraduate and doctoral work at Trinity, Maggie thought. It was better than nothing. “Thank you, Professor Barstow.” She opened her handbag and took out a fountain pen and a small notebook. She scribbled something down, ripped it out, and handed the paper to him. “Here’s my number, if you remember anything more.” She rose to leave.

  “You know,” he said slowly. “Sometimes people don’t want to be found.”

  Maggie was struck by his candor. “I realize that,” she said over her shoulder. “But if there’s a chance, even just a chance—I have to try.”

  FOURTEEN

  EVEN WITH NIGHTLY air attacks, life went on.

  “We have tickets! We have tickets!” Paige called up the stairs.

  Anything to do with Sarah and her dancing career—with glamour in a drab wartime world—left Paige giddy with delight. She danced into the bedroom just as Maggie was drawing her bath. Although she applied Odo-Ro-No under her arms, sprinkled with bicarbonate of soda and splashed with violette eau de toilette, like most of her fellow Londoners, she needed a bath.

  “Tickets to what?” Maggie grumbled through the bathroom door, feeling annoyed as she stepped out of her dressing gown and into her allotted five inches of lukewarm water. She’d just returned from LSE and wanted to sort through everything Professor Barstow had told her in peace and quiet.

  “The ballet, silly. They’re performing again, you know, although curtain time is earlier, because of the air raids. Sarah just called—she’s dancing the lead in Swan Lake! Margot’s sprained her ankle, and Sarah’s going on for her! She’s leaving tickets for us at the box office. We need to pick them up at half past six for the seven-o’clock performance, which leaves us just an hour to get ready. Come on—chop, chop!”

  Maggie sighed, did a quick scrub, and reluctantly got out of the bath. Whatever she could do to find her father she couldn’t do tonight, after all.

  Even with blackout curtains in place, the theater appeared a world removed from the city at war, a city being bombed from above almost nightly. The lobby overflowed with golden light, magnified by the many chandeliers, spilling over the glossy marble floors. Paige took care of the tickets and then led the way to the orchestra section. “Oooh, good seats,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands.

  Maggie looked at the chairs covered in crimson velvet, the elaborately carved ceiling with its chandeliers and murals, the gold curtain masking the stage. It was gorgeous. As they were handed programs and moved into their row, she saw that John and David were already there.

  They rose to their feet, John spilling sections of newspaper all over the floor. The headline read, “Battle of Britain: RAF on the Offensive!”

  “Long time no see, Magster,” David said as he took off his glasses to wipe them with his handkerchief. He put them back on and then leaned past John to take a closer look. “Quite the posh frock
you have there. Mainbocher, ’thirty-seven?”

  “Paige’s, back of the closet.”

  “Well, you look divine. Doesn’t she, John?”

  “She looks all right at the office,” John said, bending to pick up his newspapers. Ah, that was the charming John that Maggie knew. Although she had to admit that both he and David did look elegant in their black bow ties and dinner jackets. She opened her program: At tonight’s performance, the role of Odette/Odile will be played by Sarah Sanderson. John had finished gathering up his fallen tabloid and was attempting to straighten the sections. The rustling of the papers was excruciatingly loud.

  “Do you enjoy ballet, John?” she asked, as John gave up folding the papers and tucked the mess under his seat.

  “I don’t know much about it, really.”

  “You grew up in London. You must have seen a few.”

  “A few,” he admitted. “Yes.”

  “I saw Martha Graham and her dancers in concert before I left,” Maggie said, “which was beautiful, in an angular sort of way. Something you’d need to see more than once, though, to appreciate. And I went to New York with a group of friends years ago; we saw the American Ballet do some amazing dances set to the music of Igor Stravinsky. The choreographer was Russian, a man named Balanchine, I think. It wasn’t what you’d expect at all—there were no tutus, no princes and princesses, just the music. What music looks like.”

  “So you like modern music, then? I’m an Igor man myself.” Why was she not surprised John liked Stravinsky?

  “Oh, I don’t pretend to understand it. It’s not as though you walk out humming it, the way you do with Tchaikovsky. But it was an evening I’ll never forget. There was one ballet, Apollo—”

  She blushed, realizing John was looking at her intently.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Well, it’s just that—oh, look, it’s starting.”

  The lights dimmed, and they applauded as the conductor came out and bowed, then raised his baton to cue the overture. As the music swirled around them, Maggie forgot the late nights at the office, the Dock, the daily trials of slimy slivers of soap and worn-down toothbrushes, of rationing and the dreaded National Loaf, and was transported to a fairy-tale realm where a prince could fall in love with a woman turned into a swan by a horrible curse.

  Maggie knew Sarah was good, and worked so hard, but she felt a prickle of excitement when she took the stage. She was dressed in a white tutu, her hair pulled back with white feathers. But when she moved, she wasn’t just a dancer in a beautiful costume, she was an enchanted swan. Her movements, light as thistledown, spoke of Odette’s plight—her captivity, her straining for release from the spell. There was a yearning, a sense the prince might somehow be able to free her, and also a resignation, an admission of the sorcerer’s power.

  As they filed out of the theater to the lobby for intermission, Simon caught up with them. He must have come on his own, or perhaps Chuck or the twins had invited him. “You hated it,” he said to Maggie and Paige, lighting a cigarette and inhaling.

  “Hardly,” Paige said, tossing her golden curls.

  “I’m joking, Scarlett. I could see you adored it.” Chuck and Nigel were sharing a romantic moment in the corner, while David and John were involved in an intense discussion with some men at the bar—politics, of course. Maggie saw the twins approach them. The Ding-belles, she thought as they approached John, with Annabelle leaning in so he could light her cigarette. And look down her dress.

  Simon leaned in. “That’s quite some frock you have on, Scarlett,” he said to Paige, looking her up and down and brushing his hand down her back. Maggie stiffened. After the party, she just didn’t like him. Didn’t trust him.

  Paige was her usual flirtatious self. “Why, thank you, kind sir,” she said in her southern drawl.

  “It’s you. It suits you,” he murmured. Suddenly, John was right beside them, his face tight and his eyes unreadable. He and Simon glared at each other for a moment. “Ah, yes, John. How did you like the dancing girls?” Simon asked.

  “I think it’s time to go back to our seats,” he said evenly.

  Simon winked at Paige. “Very well, then. I look forward to your official memo on the performance.”

  John didn’t flinch.

  “We’ll continue after the show. What do you say, Paige?”

  Maggie was trying to figure out John’s sudden interest in Paige and Simon, when Annabelle sauntered up and took his arm possessively, with a high-pitched giggle.

  “Why, I’d love to,” Paige said, and Maggie was puzzled to see John’s brow furrow. Was it because of Paige and Simon, or Annabelle?

  Maggie thought Acts III and IV were even more wonderful. As Odile, the black swan and counterfeit version of the heroine Odette, the white swan, Sarah was magnificent. Perfection was the moment when she, as Odile, most obviously imitated Odette, rippling her arms and traveling on pointe in vulnerable, tender white-swanlike fashion toward the duped Prince Siegfried.

  When the final curtain lowered, Paige and Maggie jumped to their feet, applauding madly, as Sarah took curtain call after curtain call.

  “Let’s go backstage,” Maggie said as the crowd began to disperse. “We’re friends of the prima ballerina, after all.” She took Paige’s arm. “Come on!” The group headed back to the stage door, which was unlocked and unguarded.

  They wandered backstage, a dim, cavernous space with long racks of costumes and boxes full of broken rosin to keep toe shoes from slipping, looking for Sarah. The smell of sweat and cigarette smoke hung in the air. As stagehands put props away, they could overhear snippets of conversation: “Terrific show, darling!” “Oh, but did you see the Russian section?” “Merde, I fell off pointe, can you believe?”

  They walked past throngs of sweaty half-dressed dancers in heavy stage makeup, towels and sweaters thrown over their shoulders, and asked where Sarah’s dressing room was. Inside, they found Sarah, slight and glistening with sweat, wrapped in her red silk robe. She was gingerly pulling off false eyelashes.

  “Hello, kittens!” she called, getting up to kiss everyone. She appeared almost ridiculously tiny offstage and so funny with her heavy white makeup and drooping eyelashes that Maggie had to laugh.

  “So what did you think? Did you like it?” she asked.

  “You have the best legs I’ve ever seen,” Simon said. “I could have looked at them all night. Oh, wait, I did.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Let me talk to the grown-ups. What did you think?”

  “Exquisite,” Paige said, checking her makeup in the mirror and touching up her nose with some of Sarah’s powder.

  “First-rate,” Nigel added, gazing at Paige.

  “I loved it,” Maggie said, giving Sarah a kiss on the cheek. “You were amazing!”

  “You were like moonlight,” John said. Maggie looked at him, surprised. His comment was beautiful; she never realized he had a poetic streak.

  “Sweet Johnny, I’m sure you say that to all the swans. And now I, for one, would like to celebrate!” she continued, taking off her makeup.

  “The only place to celebrate the newest Tchaikovsky Swan Queen is the bar at the Langham hotel, of course,” David said. “Vodka for everyone!”

  “Ooooh,” Annabelle and Clarabelle cooed together. “We just love the Langham!”

  “Right-o,” Simon added. “Russian vodka—what are we waiting for?”

  They entered the Langham hotel through tall columns and porticos and proceeded into the lobby, the shining floor designed in circles of black, green, burgundy, and white marble.

  “Very Grand Hotel,” Paige said, savoring the elegance.

  “Very Victoria Train Station,” Simon stage-whispered back, obviously not impressed.

  Annabelle had slipped her arm through John’s, while Clarabelle walked with David. Maggie’s feelings for the twins usually alternated between exasperation and tolerance, but she was suddenly extremely annoyed with them.

  The group mad
e its way through the lobby to the bar, dark and smoky, with mahogany paneling and maroon leather chairs, and filled with the sound of clinking glasses and high-pitched girlish laughter. They all took seats around a long table—John, Annabelle, Sarah, Nigel, and Chuck on one side, and Maggie, Simon, Clarabelle, David, and Paige on the other. The waiter approached. “We’ll have a few bottles of champagne,” David said, waving down the length of the table. “While the British pound is still worth something.”

  “And I’d like a Romeo y Julieta cigar,” Simon said. “That’s what the P.M. smokes, isn’t it, Red?” he said to Maggie. “Should make you feel at home.”

  The waiter went to the humidor at the corner of the bar to pick out Simon’s cigar, then brought it back to the table, where there was an elaborate ritual of cutting the ends and lighting it. Finally, taking a long puff, Simon leaned back, satisfied, jutting out his chin in an all-too-familiar pose.

  The champagne was opened and set in a silver bucket at David’s right elbow, along with widemouthed coupes etched with flowers. David shooed the waiter away, then filled each glass. “Champagne,” he proclaimed, standing, “the perfect drink to toast Miss Sarah Sanderson, prima ballerina assoluta.” He bowed his head.

  “To Sarah,” they all chimed in, clinking glasses. “Cheers!”

  After the toast, Sarah spied Dimitri at the bar and rose to join some of her fellow dancers; apparently, the bar was quite the gathering place for homesick Eastern Europeans. She took David along with her.

  “More drinks, then?” Simon said, refilling Maggie’s glass and then Paige’s, then laying his hand on Paige’s silk-clad thigh under the table. Just as Maggie was about to comment, she caught a glimpse of Annabelle whispering something in John’s ear and changed her mind. After all, Paige was a grown woman—and he’d probably been practicing the move for years.

  As Maggie looked down the table, she saw that Chuck was a bit tipsy; she and Nigel were rubbing noses. The conversation at their end had turned to Edward and Mrs. Simpson.