Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1

by Bingham, Charlotte

  ‘Course you would, Billy,’ Kate agreed, steering him back to his bedroom. ‘They wouldn’t have known what hit them.’

  Ten minutes later Billy was back fast asleep dreaming of repelling the Hun from Eden Park single-handed, while along the corridor Kate and Marjorie lay wide awake, finding themselves quite unable to go back to sleep, both their minds full of images of war and invasion, most particularly of what might actually happen to young women like them if they ever found themselves in the hands of enemy troops.

  Poppy meanwhile had finished what she thought of as her second coming-out, although this time the end product was altogether different from the shy and reticent debutante of the previous year. In place of the apparently timid and bespectacled wallflower, which was how she saw herself in her previous incarnation, in her looking glass Poppy now saw a haughty, disdainful, beautifully dressed and extremely poised young woman, the sort of female who could and would move easily in the ever critical ranks of Society, most particularly the sophisticated echelons to which she was being directed.

  ‘You are all those things and more, my dear,’ Cissie assured her as they lunched one day in a private first floor room in a house off Curzon Street. ‘You are also, I am happy to say, extremely beautiful. You’ll be turning heads the moment you walk into all their wretched, treacherous little lives, doncher know. How does one feel oneself, eh? Inside out with nerves, or just so far in it doesn’t matter?’

  ‘It still feels odd, and very strange,’ Poppy said, in her new, measured and deliberately flattened voice. ‘Because deep down I’m still me – very much so – yet as soon as I concentrate, I become her at once. I mean I even find one thinks like her – which is really rather too much.’

  ‘Delighted to hear, my dear,’ Cissie said, lighting up a cigarette between courses as always. ‘Thing you want is to start dreamin’ like her. Once you start dreamin’ like the wretched creature, you’re home and hosed. D’you see? When one’s learning a new language, which is what one is doing now, one knows one hasn’t conquered it until one dreams in it, and the same with undercover work. When you’re dreaming as Diona de Donnet, then you know for sure that the character has taken over your whole being, which is really what is wanted, to my mind. At least that is what I always found when out in the field.’

  Cissie’s occasional references of this nature served to remind Poppy that her mentor knew exactly what she was going through, and as a result they also made her feel that she was not being called on to do something that the caller hadn’t done. It was mildly salutary, and as such it worked.

  ‘When do I actually start what one might call the real work, Miss Lavington?’ Poppy enquired. ‘And when will I know what it is one’s expected to do?’

  ‘They’re sending a chap up from the Park. He’s going to be your entrée. He’s a very experienced agent, just back from abroad where he’s been working for the last couple of years. Soon as he’s been dusted down, he’ll be directed up here, one gathers, and then you’re off and runnin’.’

  ‘Good. The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want to get rusty.’

  ‘You won’t, my dear. You won’t. I shall see you won’t, don’t you worry.’

  While Major Folkestone was questioning Scott in preparation for his next assignment, Kate was taking advantage of her half day, it being fine and sunny, to get in some tennis practice. Standing down the south end of the court and hitting services into the right hand box, she failed to notice that she was being observed from behind a light screen of trees that ran along the back of the court.

  After watching Kate with some interest for a few minutes, Eugene ambled slowly round until he came into her line of vision.

  ‘Devastating,’ he called, clapping enthusiastically. ‘Simply and quite utterly devastating. Wish I could hit ’em like that.’

  ‘Thank you!’ Kate called back formally.

  ‘Quite a player you are! And that’s to be sure! Yes, ma’am – quite an old player you are indeed!’

  Eugene was holding on to the side netting, aware as he did so that it must give him the appearance of a monkey in a zoo.

  ‘You’d never give us a lesson, I suppose?’

  Kate stopped, showing every appearance of reluctance, until she saw he was standing swishing a tired-looking tennis racket.

  ‘I brought me own racket,’ he called. ‘See? Me own racket. Just in case.’

  ‘You knew I was here?’

  ‘Sure the whole place is a nest of spies, is it not? There’s nothing nobody doesn’t know about no one here, and that’s equally for sure. Of course I knew you were here, Miss Kate Maddox. Why else would I be here?’

  Eugene strolled on to the court. He was wearing tennis shoes, a pair of old cricket trousers tied up with a striped tie, and a cricket jumper with a V of red, black and green stripes at the neck.

  ‘You obviously play,’ Kate remarked, immediately becoming aware that it was a pretty stupid remark, but for no reason she could name the tall dark-haired man made her feel strangely shy.

  ‘A cat may look at a king,’ Eugene replied enigmatically. ‘If I carried a crown would that make me royal?’

  ‘Do you play? Is that a better way to put it?’

  ‘I play after a fashion. Not after your fashion, madam, but after my own.’

  ‘Do you really want a lesson, or are you just fooling around?’

  ‘Me?’ Eugene now managed a look of total outrage. ‘Me – fool around? That would hardly be a gentlemanly thing to do at all now, would it?’

  ‘First we have to establish whether or not you are a gentleman.’

  ‘The name is Eugene Hackett,’ he replied, giving a mock courtly bow. ‘There has never been anyone in our family who was not a gentleman. Except the women, and they were all ladies, to a man.’

  Kate did her best not to laugh but found it difficult, so to hide her amusement she turned round and pretended to sort out some tennis balls in the boxes on the umpire’s chair.

  ‘Very well,’ she said, once she knew she had won the struggle not to show that he had won. ‘If you really want a lesson—’

  ‘I really want a lesson, madam,’ he interrupted her, essaying an odd stabbing shot with his racket. ‘And as I get better, here’s hoping the need for lessons will lessen and lessen. On your marks!’ he cried, bounding off like a foolish hare to the baseline.

  Kate walked slowly back to her end and looked over the net at her pupil who was swishing away on his line as if being attacked by a horde of giant flies. Every now and then he would leap clumsily into the air as if to swat the largest of the insects attacking him, before resuming his bunny hops at the back of the court. Kate hit a ball gently at him, dropping it at just the right distance in front of him to allow him every chance of an easy return. Lining the shot up with his racket held high over his shoulder, Eugene missed it by yards, nearly toppling over with his effort.

  ‘Oh, hard luck, Yoogie!’ he called. ‘Hard cheese on me, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Take it slower,’ Kate advised, coming to the net. ‘Look – take your racket back like this, dropping the head so – then come up under the ball and through. See?’

  ‘Nope.’ Eugene frowned back at her. ‘Perhaps if you came round here and showed it me?’

  Kate eyed him then walked round to his side of the net. She stood by his side, demonstrating first the perfect forehand and then the perfect backhand. Eugene it seemed could manage neither.

  ‘Perhaps if you stood behind me and kind of nursed my arm through it, that might help?’

  Kate nearly fell into the trap, seeing it just as she was about to wrap her arms round Eugene’s waist.

  ‘I think it’s probably just as effective if you watch what I do,’ she said primly. ‘And then imitate it.’

  ‘Very well,’ Eugene sighed. ‘You’re the teacher, teach.’

  Once she thought she had his forehand in some sort of shape, Kate returned to her side of the net to lob some more balls at
him. This time he managed to get nearly half of them back, and after about half an hour was managing to hit some backhands as well, although not with any accuracy whatsoever.

  ‘Do you want me to try to do anything about that serve of yours?’ she asked without much hope, having seen him throw the ball up and miss on practically every occasion.

  ‘Depends whether you can spare me the next year of your life, teach!’ Eugene called back cheerfully. ‘Perhaps you’d better leave me alone to work on it! Even so – just for devilment – let’s have a wee game, shall we? Just to see how good your coaching is?’

  Kate shrugged and knocked half a dozen balls down to him.

  ‘You start,’ she said from the net, collecting another set of balls with her feet and lobbing them over to him. ‘Suppose I give you two points game start? Fair?’

  ‘Suppose you do,’ he wondered. ‘Isn’t that rather a lot to catch up?’

  ‘Let that be my worry!’

  Kate bounced the last remaining ball once with her racket, then crashed it down past him with a classic forehand passing shot.

  ‘Love all – thirty love to you – first service!’ she chirped.

  Eugene frowned at her as if trying to focus on both her and the lines, then, changing his racket from his right hand to his left, prepared to serve.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Kate wondered, advancing off the base line towards the net. ‘You’re not going to play left-handed?’

  ‘I am!’ Eugene called back. ‘Haven’t you seen how useless I am with me right?’

  Kate didn’t even see his first service, or indeed his second. She saw very little of the ball at all in fact as Eugene romped to a 6–2, 6–1 victory.

  She said nothing at all during the game, realising after the first two aces that she had been well and truly taken, concentrating instead on keeping her end up, but she was never in the game with a chance. Eugene was all over her. He had every shot in the book and a few more on top. He was agile, extremely fast and above all highly skilled, far and away the best tennis player she had ever played against. Finally, at the end of the concluding set, she sat on her chair with a towel to her face trying to get her breath back as Eugene, as cool as he was when he began, lit a cigarette and strolled about the court singing a ballad in what she could only suppose was Gaelic.

  ‘I take it you thought that was funny,’ she said from behind her towel. ‘Though personally, I can’t exactly see the joke.’

  ‘It’s a private thing,’ Eugene said. ‘And I have to say I’m enjoying it.’

  ‘Why couldn’t you just have come clean and said you can play?’

  ‘That I can what? That I can play? I’ll have you know, missie, you are looking at the ex-Junior Champion of All Ireland.’

  ‘I thought you just played that game with a stick and ball.’

  ‘And ran around saying begob and begorrah.’ Eugene laughed. ‘That’s half the fun of it really. Playing it close to your chest. Not showing your hand.’

  ‘Making a fool of someone.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Eugene looked genuinely hurt. ‘I wouldn’t ever make a fool of you, Kate. You’re a damned good player. Sorry – I mean a dashed good player. I mean it – you’re the best girl I’ve ever played, and I’ve played a few.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ Kate finished towelling herself dry, and pulled on her sweater.

  ‘Ah, come on! No hard feelings!’

  No hard feelings?’ Kate echoed. ‘On the contrary, tons of hard feelings! And with knobs on!’

  ‘With knobs on bedad!’ He laughed as she walked off feeling thoroughly humiliated. ‘With knobs on no less!’

  ‘Oh, go away!’ Kate muttered through clenched teeth, banging her racket against her legs. ‘Go away and stay away. Why did you have to go and spoil everything?’

  Behind her, abandoned on the tennis court, Eugene let the expression on his face change entirely as he watched the elegant blonde figure of Kate stride away from him, wishing from the bottom of his heart that it hadn’t been necessary to make an enemy of Kate Maddox.

  ‘But it was, Eugene old fellow,’ he muttered to himself as he ambled back towards his quarters. ‘It was, it was, it was – and you damn’ well know it. Alas.’

  The church bells woke them all. Had they just been the bells in the village church the Nosy Parkers would have taken a lot longer to be roused, but since there was a private chapel in the grounds with its own set of bells the sound woke everyone almost immediately.

  Everyone knew what it meant: invasion! The use of church bells had been banned for months, so that in the event of an invasion their ringing would be the ultimate signal that the Germans had landed. Everyone pulled on the clothes that had been left folded on the bottom of their beds for precisely this moment. There was no yawning, no grumbling, as would be normal when roused from sleep. Everyone simply dressed as quickly as they could before heading for their assembly points.

  In the great hall both men and women fell in under their section numbers, which were displayed on large cardboard squares pinned to various parts of the walls. Those pre-appointed to collect all files did so before joining the guardian platoon of soldiers assembled outside the front doors armed and ready, the safety catches for once already off their rifles.

  ‘Silence!’ Major Folkestone barked as he marshalled his troops. ‘You know the orders! Complete and utter silence at all times!’

  Kate couldn’t help raising her eyes to heaven at the incongruity of their CO’s commanding silence, since no one in the hall had actually uttered a sound, most of them being far too frightened to do more than stare around them, wondering if they were about to see Nazi uniforms coming through the doors. Major Folkestone and his three NCOs led their allocated sections out of the great hall and along the completely darkened passageways, the whole house observing a total blackout.

  Lines of string had been fixed along the walls of the corridors to facilitate any evacuation that might take place at night, the last in line being deputed to undo the guidelines from their fixings and collect all the string up rather than leave it in place for the enemy, although why any invading army might need to be guided around a mansion by lines of string Kate was unable to imagine. None the less, orders were orders, and it being wartime no more was said. So as the lines of refugees tiptoed as silently as possible, given their heavy walking shoes and army boots, down the labyrinth of corridors and out of the house, those bringing up the rear hurriedly undid and rewound hundreds of feet of twine.

  Once outside the house, everyone found themselves being ordered by signal only to proceed in various directions across the parkland. Marjorie, Kate and Billy’s group headed for the dense woodland to the north side of the lake. At least half a dozen in each group had been issued with a home-made weapon before leaving the house. Marjorie found herself armed with a pike made out of a long broom handle with a sharpened blade fashioned from a cutter taken off a piece of old farm machinery, and Kate had a knobkerrie made similarly of a broomstick with a large brass bed-knob at the business end. Billy now carried their trusty bread knife on loan from the cottage kitchen, and having spent some happy mornings knifing some of last season’s marrows he felt that he would make a good job of despatching any Nazi that crossed his path.

  Lily, meanwhile, had been armed with a stone-filled ballcock attached to a length of chain. She now stopped and started to laugh.

  ‘Just look at us! Really. We look like something from some medieval army. Gracious heavens, Jerry is going to run when he sees us, isn’t he? Bed-knobs, bread knives and broom handles. They’re going to take to the hills when they see us, aren’t they?’

  ‘That’s enough of that, Lily Ormerod,’ Kate muttered. ‘You’re beginning to sound like the Duke of Wellington surveying his troops before the Battle of Waterloo.’

  They all turned and stared at her for a second.

  ‘He said, I don’t know what they’ll do to Napoleon, but they certainly scare me. Or something like it anyway.’

>   ‘Humph. The Iron Duke on his dark grey horse—’

  ‘I like men on grey horses,’ Kate announced apropos of nothing in particular as she carefully avoided an overhanging branch.

  Section H was signalled to a halt deep in the middle of the thick woodland.

  ‘Dash it,’ Lily moaned, as she examined her legs. ‘There goes my last pair of stockings.’

  ‘Hush!’ Major Folkestone told her, having walked down the ranks to where they were standing. ‘Hush. Or I’ll have you up on a charge, Miss Ormerod. No one wants to know about your stockings at this moment in our island’s history.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ Lily muttered once he had returned to the top of the waiting personnel.

  The major, together with one of the soldiers, started to remove brushwood and several sods of thick turf from the ground in front of them, revealing a heavy trapdoor which one of the soldiers unlocked before standing aside.

  Major Folkestone pointed with his swagger stick for the women to enter the pitch-dark hidey-hole.

  ‘What is this?’ Lily whispered to Kate. ‘Not the wine cellars – that would be too good to be true, of course.’

  ‘I won’t tell you again!’ the major warned. ‘Whoever you are!’

  Lily pulled a face and then put a hand to her mouth because her teeth were now chattering with the cold. Nevertheless, following hard on the major’s heels, she led the way down a long flight of slippery steps, guided well below ground level by a rusty iron handrail. Finally, at the end of the descending passageway, Major Folkestone took a key from his pocket and unlocked a heavy wooden door.

  Once everyone was inside, Major Folkestone struck a match and lit a succession of candles that were already in place around the cavern. As the flickering light illuminated their surroundings everyone could see that the place in which they stood had been quite obviously prepared for just such an emergency as that in which they now found themselves.

  An already existing cave, the first of a succession of such places that stretched ahead and down into what seemed like the bowels of the earth, had been fashioned into a primitive security bunker. The various indentations in the natural rock formations had been fashioned into different rooms, including work and sleeping quarters as well as basic washing and sanitary facilities.