Mr. Churchill's Secretary: A Novel

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  John’s eyebrows drew together. He had to remind himself to breathe naturally with her so close. “Are ladies’ skirts shorter this year?”

  “No, no,” Maggie said impatiently. “Look at it. Really look.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Look!”

  John did. “I see … I see a newspaper clipping. It’s a clipping of an advertisement for ladies’ fashion.” He looked closer. “I see … drawings of women in dresses and hats.”

  “Ah!” Maggie said. “You’re getting closer now. Look more closely at those lines.”

  John squinted. “The drawings are comprised of lines. Lines and crosshatching. And dots—”

  “Yes!” Ding, ding, ding! A Kewpie doll for the private secretary!

  John shrugged. “It looks like any other newspaper advert.”

  “But—don’t you see? Dots and dashes.” Do I have to hit him over the head with it? “It could be code!”

  John gave a heavy sigh. “Look, Maggie, I appreciate your enthusiasm, I do. And I know you’ve been taking notes for the Boss and Mr. Frain, so it’s no wonder you’ve got spies on your mind. But I think this is a bit of a reach.”

  Maggie set her jaw. “I’ll have you know, steganography is the practice of writing code in plain sight. The word comes from the Greek for ‘concealed writing.’ The first recorded example of its use is Herodotus in 440 B.C., when Demaratus sent a warning about a proposed attack on Greece by writing it directly on the wooden back of a wax tablet before applying the beeswax.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And Herodotus tells us about a warning about a Persian invasion of Greece tattooed on the head of a slave. The hair grew in so no one could see it—and then the Greeks got the message when they shaved the slave’s head.”

  “Maggie, I—”

  “There’s a grand historic tradition of messages hidden in ordinary places,” she said in clipped tones. “So you won’t mind if I have a go?”

  “Suit yourself,” John said with an inscrutable look.

  “I’ll need a Morse-code book.”

  John got up, pulled one down from the shelf, and handed it to her.

  She turned on her heel to leave.

  “Maggie,” he called after her, gently, “why don’t you leave it here with me? I’ll take a look and then show it to Snodgrass.”

  “No, no. I’ll keep it,” she shot back at him over her shoulder. “Thanks, anyway.”

  “Maggie!” he called after her. She stopped and turned. “There’s a lecture tonight at LSE. Anthony Eden’s speaking. Tonight at seven. The Peacock Theatre on Portugal Street.”

  “So?” Maggie said, still annoyed.

  “Meet me there. We can talk.”

  SIXTEEN

  MAGGIE WAS LATE.

  She ran through the cold mist for the Regent Street bus, getting to LSE after seven. John was waiting in the chilly, smoke-filled lobby, leaning against a magnolia-painted Ionic column, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.

  “Ah,” he said, his angular face softening for a moment. “There you are.” He looked tired and wan; his eyes had dark circles.

  “Hello, John,” she said. Well, at least the lecture’s starting—we don’t have to talk anymore. “Then shall we go in?”

  He gave a courtly bow. “After you.”

  They found two seats together in the back of the crowded auditorium filled with chattering students who called to one another, smelling of smoke and wet wool, wrapped in their purple-and-yellow-striped school scarves. Maggie felt a sharp pang as she looked around at them all. This is where I might have studied, she thought. At least Aunt Edith would approve of the evening’s outing. And it’s where my father once taught, after all.

  They sat together in what was growing to be an uncomfortable silence.

  The lights in the auditorium soon dimmed, and Anthony Eden walked onto the stage. Maggie recognized him from the office, medium build, with a thick black mustache, black eyes, and a square jaw. As his speech on the importance of keeping up morals while under attack came to an end, she shrugged back into her light coat.

  John asked, “There’s a nice café nearby. Er, would you like to get a cup of coffee?”

  “Are we going to discuss—that matter?”

  “Of course.”

  At the café they sat on rickety wooden chairs. John leaned down and put a matchbook under the marble-topped table to steady it. Maggie glanced around. The walls were papered with faded pink roses and blue hydrangea, and the waitresses looked tired and harried. Maggie and John ordered two cups of coffee.

  Maggie stirred a splash of what was passing for milk into the thick, red ceramic mug to make the watery brown water drinkable. “Brownian motion,” she said, warming her hands on the cup. “When you stir in the milk it swirls around and disperses, but if you stir backward, it will never come together again. You can’t stir things apart.”

  “God’s a Newtonian, then?”

  “I believe in free will, actually.”

  “But you’re a mathematician!”

  “They’re not mutually exclusive concepts.” She took a sip. “I really do miss American coffee.”

  He looked wounded. “British coffee’s good.”

  “No, it’s not. Come on, you’re all so particular about your tea. Surely you could take the same care with coffee. It’s delicious when it’s done right—all dark and rich.”

  He drew himself up. “Well, I’m sorry it’s not to your liking. There’s a war on, you know.”

  “It’s fine, John.” They sat in strained silence for a while. Obviously, this was a terrible idea.

  “You know, Americans can’t make proper tea.”

  Oh, for God’s sake. She stared, incredulous.

  He looked vaguely flustered. “I just meant that the coffee …” Then, off her look, “This isn’t about coffee, it’s that you can’t go around criticizing other countries when you’re a guest there. Here.”

  “John,” Maggie said. “Taste the coffee. I mean, really. It’s terrible. This is not about national pride. Bad coffee is bad coffee is bad coffee. Besides, not only am I a citizen, but I’m a homeowner. And a taxpayer. And I work for the Prime Minister.”

  “Oh, forget it.” He took a big gulp of the muck and tried not to grimace. “So what did you think of Eden’s speech?”

  All right, let’s try again. “Interesting. But I have to admit I was still thinking about the … puzzle.”

  His dark brows drew together.

  She lowered her voice. “The code. You know, the one in the advert? I’ve been working on it all afternoon.”

  “Right. And?”

  She sighed. “And … well … nothing. Nothing yet, that is.”

  “Maggie—do you actually think there’s a possibility …”

  “Yes?”

  “A possibility … well, that you’re seeing things that aren’t there? After all, there are censors—people trained to pick up that kind of information.”

  “Oh, you mean the Oxbridge men?” she snorted. Then, “Look, I’m working on my own time, so I don’t see what business it is of yours.”

  There was a long silence, and Maggie checked her watch. “Do you need to get back to the office?” she asked, finishing the last of her coffee and blotting her lips with the napkin, leaving a faint red kiss. “Or do you have Saint Paul’s Watch tonight?”

  “No. I mean …” John took a deep breath. “Maggie, I—” There was an odd gesture, a stiffened shoulder and then the rolling of one hand into the other.

  Oh, dear Lord. She found herself blushing furiously. “Is this your idea of a date?”

  John looked down into his coffee.

  “I don’t even see why you’d want to go on a date with someone like me, anyway,” she said. “You don’t even take me seriously when I bring up the possibility of there being—” She lowered her voice. “You don’t take me seriously about anything.”

  “I do too take you seriously. I said I’d look into it and pa
ss it on to Snodgrass. I lent you the codebook, for God’s sake. You’re the one who didn’t leave the clipping with me.”

  “You thought I was getting carried away because I’m sitting in on meetings with Frain. Just because you’re not in on it …”

  Maggie rose as majestically as she could manage, shrugged on her coat, grabbed her pocketbook, and started for the door.

  “That’s not it at all,” he said, getting up. He gave a few coins to the waitress and followed.

  Maggie would have walked faster, but her skirt was too tight around the knees. Stupid skirt. “And if you followed your seriously misguided logic to its inevitable conclusion,” she snapped, tromping through mud puddles to the bus stop, shrouded in the growing darkness of the London blackout, “you’d see anyone with eyes and a brain can break codes. Not just spoiled, rich Oxford graduates who’ve never actually had to work for anything a day in their lives!”

  “Is that how you see me?” John said, keeping pace with her easily with his long legs. The evening traffic gave them just enough light to navigate. “Spoiled and rich?” He shook his head. “Typical.”

  Having reached the bus stop, Maggie turned to face him, hands on her hips. “Well, aren’t you? You and David. And Snodgrass. And Frain, for that matter. You’re all upper-class men who’ve had every advantage, every door opened for you. It’s no wonder you want to preserve the system that created you.”

  In the dim light from the traffic, John’s face looked flushed. The evening was now a complete and utter disaster. To top it off, it was beginning to rain again. Big, cold drops splashed on them, but it didn’t stop them from glaring at each other.

  Just then, the red bus pulled up beside them, its shuttered headlights cutting through the gloom, windshield wipers whispering softly.

  “This has been the most disagreeable evening ever,” Maggie said in her best Aunt Edith tone, as she waited in line behind an older man to board. She knew she was being petulant and childish, and she didn’t care.

  John was silent.

  Without warning, the air-raid siren began its keening wail. Maggie’s stomach lurched into a fast descent, and instinctively John grasped her arm. They looked at each other, argument forgotten. Around them, people scrambled for shelter.

  “Let’s go back to the café,” she said. “There’s bound to be a basement.”

  “Lead the way.”

  They made their way through the thick darkness as quickly as they could as the drone of planes grew louder. There must have been hundreds of them circling overhead in formation. Finally, finally, they made it back to the café.

  “Come on, ducks—in you go,” said the waitress, recognizing them from earlier, even with wet hair. “Door in the back on the right goes down to the basement.” They ran through the shop to the door and then down the tiny, narrow stairs.

  Then the bombs began to drop.

  They could hear the screams of the bombs as they came down and feel the vibrations as each one hit nearby. Maggie worried that the building above would collapse, falling in on the basement. Is there a bomb up there with our names on it?

  Down in the damp-smelling cellar, people had brought their cups and saucers with them, and the staff was moving the furniture. Thin yellow beams of light from various people’s flashlights lent the proceedings a spooky, haunted air.

  John and Maggie sat down on a bench against the wall. An elegant older man in a cravat and monocle took out a small silver flask from his coat pocket and held it out to Maggie. “Want some, darling? Gin. In case of emergencies.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” she said, and the man passed her the bottle. She unscrewed the cap and took a swig. It didn’t help. John shook his head no, so she gave it back to the man. “Thanks,” she said, trying to keep her tone light.

  “You’re welcome, luv,” he said, taking a long pull. “I think it’s going to be a long night.”

  The sounds of the bombs and their jolts on impact were getting stronger. They could now smell the smoke from above seeping in through the closed doors and windows, harsh and pungent, as the bombs continued their death drops.

  “They’re getting closer,” she whispered, and John put his arm around her. Their thighs and knees were pressed together so tightly that Maggie could feel his bones and muscles beneath his wool trousers. She could feel his warmth and smell his neck.

  Bombs pounded down. They could only imagine the horror and the damage. Maggie squeezed her eyes shut and wondered what it felt like to be dying on this damp night. Would it be quick? Oh, please, God, just let it be quick.

  For what felt like days they sat there, pressed together, the impact from the bombs bruising their bones. We’re going to be stiff and sore tomorrow, Maggie thought, then caught herself. If there even is a tomorrow. For distraction, she tried making patterns with numbers, starting with the Fibonacci series, as far as she could go.

  Far more comforting was John’s arm around her shoulders.

  There was a wild crash, as if the sun itself had exploded. Maggie clapped her hands over her ears as her heart threatened to escape her chest. John must have sensed what was happening, for he threw her down on the floor, covering her body with his.

  As the blast hit the building above with a deafening roar, the room filled with thick clouds of dust. All of the air seemed to have been sucked out of the room. Maggie choked and heard people around her coughing and retching.

  She suddenly realized that John was lying on top of her, his cheek against hers, his breath ragged in her ear, their hearts pounding together.

  John struggled to speak. “Are you all right?” he said, his body pressing against hers.

  “I’m fine,” she said, voice shaking. Then, realizing the incongruity of their position and their conversation, she broke into a smile. “And you?”

  “Fine,” he said, stroking her hair and looking down at her. “Just fine.”

  Without warning, the bombing let up, like a storm that had passed. They heard the noise from the planes become more distant and then, finally, disappear. They waited, and waited, and waited—and then came the all-clear siren. Awkwardly, John rolled off Maggie, and they edged away from each other, getting to their feet and shaking off the dust and debris.

  They stumbled from the café into the darkness of the street. There was thick, black, bitter-smelling smoke everywhere. Their eyes watered and stung. As they made their way down the street, they could hear the drone of fire-engine sirens wailing and the tinkle of broken glass being swept from the street by the ARP workers. The café seemed all right, although many of the windows had broken and there was broken glass scattered over the front walkway. In the crimson glow of the fire, the shards sparkled like crushed diamonds. Maggie mused how pretty they looked, even as she realized the inanity of the thought. Broken glass. Pretty.

  The brick house across from them had been hit; an orange-and-blue fire was tearing through it. Papers, books, pillows, and children’s toys littered the street, blown from the house by the impact of the blast. A pink-satin dancing shoe, somehow still pale and pristine, had landed right in the middle of the road. At least the family was all right. The five of them—mother, father, a gangly teenage girl, and small twin boys—huddled together in their nightclothes, watching their home burn.

  John approached them. “What can I do?” he said.

  The father shrugged. “Not much to do right now. Fire department should be here soon.”

  “If you need a place to stay—”

  “Thank you,” the father said. “But Mother and Father live nearby. They’ll be happy to take us in.”

  The wife rolled her eyes in mock horror and gave a wan smile. “Don’t know what’s worse—the Blitz or the prospect of living with my in-laws.”

  The man gave her a kiss on the cheek. “It’ll be fine, darling.”

  John turned back to Maggie. “Look, about earlier—”

  “Don’t even think about it. I was awful.”

  “Not at all.” Then, “M
ay I at least walk you home?”

  Maggie looked around, at the fires and the bombed-out buildings. “Thank you,” she said, taking his offered arm and holding it tightly. “I’d appreciate that.”

  As they made their way up Regent Street in the grayish early-morning gloom, the air was pungent with smoke. It had been a heavy night of bombing, to be sure; the street was full of broken glass and debris. A dead sparrow, wings spread, lay in the middle of the road. As they walked up Portland Place, Maggie slowly began to realize that while she’d been at LSE, her own neighborhood had been hard-hit.

  She began to walk faster, breaking away from John. Her hands became icy, and she could hear the blood rush in her head. She was nearly running now, heart in her throat. All right, just calm down. It’s fine, it’s fine, there’s no reason to—

  Sarah and Chuck were sitting on the front steps of the house, still as statues. The twins were a stair beneath, their arms around each other, faces hidden. At the sound of footsteps, they all lifted their heads. As soon as Maggie saw their tearstained faces, she knew.

  Paige was dead.

  SEVENTEEN

  “SHE WAS DRIVING back to the base when the car must have overturned in the raid,” Chuck said.

  They sat together on the steps, numbly watching the sky turn a milky gray at the horizon, John sitting on a stair below. “The gas tank must have ignited—” Sarah’s eyes overflowed again. “Oh, hell.”

  With shaking fingers, Chuck rummaged through her handbag and pulled out her battered cigarette case. She pulled one out and tried to light it, but her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn’t. John took the lighter and cigarette gently from her hands. He rolled the wheel slowly down on the flint. A blue-and-orange flame erupted, and he held the cigarette tip in it and inhaled. When it was lit, he returned it, and the lighter, to Chuck.

  “Thanks,” she said, taking a deep drag.

  “When?” Maggie asked.

  “Early tonight,” Annabelle said. “Police came by around midnight.”