Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1

by Bingham, Charlotte

  Eugene shook his head.

  ‘Kate …’

  Kate picked up her cardigan from the umpire’s chair and turned back to him, making sure as she did so that she was looking vague, as if she had hardly registered his presence.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘You look – you look like something me auntie would send from Cork in a badly tied parcel,’ he joked, ‘as welcome as the sun coming up in the morning, or an ice cream on a hot day, or a long cold drink after coming off the tennis court.’ He started putting the tennis balls back in their box, but as he did so even Kate noticed that his hands were shaking.

  ‘And you look,’ she said, staring at his hands for a second, ‘you look as if you could do with that famous drink.’

  ‘I could, I could.’ He turned towards her as she walked past him, putting out a hand to catch her arm. ‘Kate?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You look like a picture, do you know that?’ He ran ahead of her suddenly. ‘I will carry your image before me as I go into battle.’ He fell to his knees, the expression on his face once more one of mischievous humour. ‘Give me at least a token to remember you by. Please?’

  Kate picked up a small stone from the path that ran beside the tennis court.

  ‘There you are, Eugene Hackett. Place that next to your heart.’

  He took it, and after kissing it placed it in his pocket, by which time Kate was walking quickly back towards the house – and sanity. Was Eugene Hackett half clown, or half hero, or wholly both?

  When it was Marjorie’s turn to join her section’s sitting at dinner in the former blue salon, now a canteen, a new arrival caught her eye as they queued.

  ‘You look as though someone has taken your fancy,’ Kate remarked, as she took up her food. ‘I spy?’

  Marjorie nodded discreetly at a tall, elegant young man who had just joined the waiting line of hungry personnel and was standing idly at the back.

  ‘I’m trying to place the face,’ she said. ‘I know I know him, but I can’t think from where.’

  At that moment the newcomer looked in their direction, as if he had become aware of Marjorie’s stare. As soon as she saw him full face, Marjorie remembered.

  ‘The cottage, Seagull Watch,’ she murmured to Kate, turning her back on the man. ‘Aunt Hester’s friend’s cottage by the sea. We went on holiday last year. It was the first time I met Jack Ward, and he was with him.’ She nodded back towards the waiting figure. ‘He’s French. I knew I knew him from somewhere. Except I don’t remember his hair being that colour.’

  ‘He’s really quite handsome,’ Kate admitted, as she managed to steal a glance at him behind Marjorie’s back. ‘Even if it is in a rather Gallic way. Oh dear, he’s noticed us noticing him.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because he just bossed his eyes at us.’

  ‘I wonder what he’s doing here?’

  ‘If he turned up at your aunt’s with Mr Ward, I don’t think there’s any need to ask any further.’

  ‘True. And just when I thought it might be Fate,’ Marjorie joked, collecting her food and moving off to a spare table. Having witnessed Marjorie’s all too obvious disappointment when Robert had made a beeline for Lily Ormerod, Kate decided not to press the point, and instead she sat down, unloading her tray on to the table, before taking another look at the newcomer.

  ‘He’s too good-looking for his own good, I’d say,’ she told Marjorie.

  Marjorie nodded.

  ‘He always was, even Aunt Hester was fascinated. I remember he and Mr Ward stayed until late, drinking and joking with her, and that wasn’t Aunt Hester at all. Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t look, he’s only coming over.’

  They both immediately glanced down at their plates, raising their forks to their lips, and not looking up even when the handsome newcomer placed his own tray opposite theirs.

  ‘Bon soir, m’selle,’ he said to Kate. ‘Et m’selle’ – to Marjorie. ‘May I be allowed sit with you, please? Do you think?’

  ‘Mais oui,’ Kate replied in her excellent French. ‘Mais je regrette que nous parlons français comme tous les anglais – mal!’

  ‘On the contrary,’ the stranger replied in impeccable English. ‘I would say your French was really quite good.’

  Both young women stared at him in surprise, Marjorie finally taking the initiative.

  ‘Sorry – I thought you were French.’

  ‘Yes?’ The stranger looked at her, raising his eyebrows in astonishment. ‘Why would that be?’

  ‘When we met – because we have met, haven’t we?’

  ‘Have we?’

  ‘Didn’t you come to see my aunt? Last summer? With Mr Ward? Forgive me if I’m wrong, although as I was just saying, if it is you, your hair – at least I think it was – wasn’t your hair a different colour?’

  ‘Mais oui, m’selle,’ he replied in perfect French once again. ‘Vous avez raison – c’était brun, assez foncé, mais – plus maintenant!’

  He turned his now reddish brown head round, tilting it to one side as if modelling a new hair style. Marjorie looked at Kate, widening her eyes, while Kate endeavoured to keep a straight face.

  ‘So what brings you here, monsieur?’ Kate wondered. ‘You’ve just arrived – is that right?’

  ‘Absolument.’

  ‘You work here?’ Marjorie enquired.

  ‘No, no, m’selle,’ the stranger replied with a worried frown. ‘Work? What is this work? Is this not an hotel? For that is why I am here – en vacances.’

  The two women stared at him in amazement, momentarily taken in by his act, until the stranger suddenly made a face.

  ‘Of course I work here.’ He laughed. ‘Yes – and of course we met. You’re Marjorie – if I’m not mistaken – and you are?’

  ‘I’m Kate. Kate Maddox.’

  They all shook hands solemnly.

  ‘And you’re not French really?’ Marjorie asked carefully. ‘Or are you?’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  ‘Well done. I am utterly and entirely English. Scott Meynell.’

  He smiled at them, quickly brushing his hair from his dark eyes.

  ‘You’re also right about my hair – and the fact that I was French when we first met,’ he continued. ‘I was working in France. I’ve just come back, in fact – via the beaches. Via Dunkirk.’

  Marjorie looked at Kate, and Kate looked at Marjorie.

  ‘What was it actually like?’ Kate asked.

  ‘I can only speak personally,’ Scott replied. ‘And what I can say is that even if we win the war—’

  ‘When we win the war,’ Marjorie corrected him.

  ‘When we win the war – sorry. Even when we win the war I don’t think I’ll be going to Dunkirk for my holidays.’

  ‘Are you going back?’ Kate wondered ingenuously, before correcting herself. ‘Sorry, shouldn’t have asked.’

  ‘Isn’t this food terrible?’ Scott sighed, ignoring her faux pas. ‘The one thing about France – no, actually there are lots of things about France – many, many things about France that I love, most especially her food. One of the units blew up this chap’s camembert. Do you know the sobs could be heard above the sound of the guns.’

  ‘He probably had no option.’

  ‘No,’ Scott said with a droll look first at Kate and then at Marjorie, ‘and it didn’t do much for the old entente cordiale, as you can imagine. I mean blow up his house, blow up his motor car, but not, absolutely not, his cheese.’

  ‘If it ever existed,’ Kate remarked. ‘Anyway – you were saying the one good thing about France was?’

  ‘The food. Don’t know about you, but French food …’ Scott kissed his index finger and thumb. ‘Even with the bombs dropping, the guns blazing, they carried on cooking. And now – back to this.’ He sighed, staring down at his plate of stew.

  ‘You don’t think we can cook?’ Marjorie asked him.

  ‘If you want the truth,
no. We have the ingredients, but we overcook them.’

  ‘Of course the English can cook!’ Marjorie insisted. ‘It’s only because our ingredients are better we don’t have to muck our food up with all those fancy sauces, and all that!’

  ‘You’ve been to France, have you, Marjorie? And eaten all their terrible mucked about food, eh?’

  ‘No-o. But I know what I like. Good English food.’

  ‘Of course you do. And you know what they say?’

  ‘No. But I feel you’re going to tell us.’

  ‘Kissing don’t last – but cookery do.’

  He looked from one to the other, and smiled his mischievous smile.

  ‘If cookery meant that much,’ Marjorie remarked, with a look at Kate, ‘the French might have been able to put up a better resistance. But then perhaps their minds were on what they were going to have for dinner.’

  ‘Touché.’ Scott laughed. ‘Perhaps that explains our two countries’ histories. The reason the French have always wanted to invade us was to teach us how to cook, and the reason why we were always trying to conquer them was because we couldn’t stand – er – whatever this is meant to be.’

  Scott raised his eyebrows expressively and put his unfinished food to one side.

  ‘I’d do anything for a plate of moules marinières,’ he sighed. ‘So much so I might even have to be dropped back into France.’

  The choice, however, was not Scott’s. The decision as to what his next assignment was to be had already been made. On learning of his escape from France his mentor, Jack Ward, had immediately gone after him, lobbying his superiors to assign him to work for him in London. Finally, after much political manoeuvring, Jack got his way. Scott was informed of the decision and sent to Section H at Eden Park for what he gaily called ‘the briefest of briefings, so brief in fact that in future it might have to be re-named sous-dessous.’ Part of the reason for the briefing was to show him a recent photograph of Diona de Donnet, with whom, it seemed, he was to be working.

  ‘Can’t wait,’ he told Cissie Lavington, who was at Eden Park supervising training for new recruits for a few days. ‘I say, though – what a stunner.’

  Cissie looked over his shoulder, smiling proudly to herself as she remembered the person Poppy had once been.

  ‘Yes, she is rather, isn’t she?’

  Shortly after that Scott left Section H for London, and the Stanley Hotel.

  * * *

  When Poppy walked into the bar of the Stanley Hotel at a little before noon the following day, she had no idea whom she was supposed to be meeting, except that the person in question was supposedly on her side, and had left a message in her upstairs suite. It was perhaps because of this that she found herself hesitating by the door, trying to look as confident as possible, while feeling quite the opposite.

  There was a group of people, some sitting, some standing drinking and idly talking, for all the world appearing to be the sort of people to be seen in any smart bar in any smart European hotel before the war. None of the men – which was almost shocking – happened to be in uniform. Instead they were sitting perfectly suited, and quite obviously rich, and equally at ease with the notion that they could indulge in cocktails and laughter; that while the world outside was one of sandbags, trenches and barbed wire, inside the reinforced-concrete walls of the grand hotel pleasure still reigned.

  It made Poppy feel vaguely sick to see them all, to hear them talking and laughing as if they were entertaining each other in one of their many private houses, with a much scaled down hotel staff. Their glasses were obviously not being refilled quite as often as they might have liked, but, perhaps to make up for the slow service, there was much lighting of their expensive hand-made cigarettes, plucked at regular intervals from their gold-monogrammed cigarette cases.

  Despite finding herself shocked by the scene in front of her, and instinctively loathing every one of the people she was observing at the bar, Poppy carried on walking, elegant, sophisticated, her head in its immensely chic blue hat held high, her afternoon dress and coat – one of many manifestly newly fashionable costumes provided by Cissie Lavington’s people – giving her ease of movement, as well as enhancing her new, chic walk: long strides, taken easily, eyes nonchalant, gloved hands holding her bucket bag, and her embroidered velvet gas mask case.

  After all, there was no going back. Forward was the only way, even if she had little idea whom she was meant to be meeting. Finally a languid hand beckoned her over, and a handsome young man stood up to greet her.

  ‘Diona, over here, darling,’ he drawled. ‘Late as usual, yet even more utterly gorgeous than ever. Come and meet the folks.’

  Looking as bored as she could possibly manage, Poppy drifted across the bar to his side.

  ‘Hallo, darling.’

  She kissed Scott Meynell on the cheek and as she did so, and straightened up, she realised she was kissing the cheek of someone with whom she was going to have the pleasure of working. His dark eyes gave nothing away, thank God, and his languid manner was impeccable. What he was unable to hide, however, was his huge appeal.

  Less than ten miles away in the East End, a covered truck was hurrying to a scene of some devastation. Mines had been parachuted from German bombers. Two had exploded, causing massive damage, but happily for the surrounding neighbourhood some had failed to work, and now lay half buried in craters outside the buildings they had been intended to destroy.

  In the front of the small truck, Robert Maddox was seated beside the head of his department, Lieutenant-Commander Edward Fanshaw, a large man with the beaming face of the ideal welcoming host, and as much experience as Robert in dismantling land mines. In other words, as he kept saying with a great guffaw, ‘None.’

  ‘Look – I know it’s all been theory so far, Bob,’ he was saying, as they went over and over their anticipated protocol. ‘And granted we know about as much about the magnetic trigger as we know about knitting, but I would say we are agreed our theory’s pretty sound, aren’t we?’

  ‘I would say so, sir,’ Robert replied. ‘Anyway, sooner or later one has to put theory to the test, otherwise it remains just that – theory.’

  ‘Quite so,’ his superior went on, lighting a cigarette while keeping an eye on the road in front and driving expertly for a few yards with only one hand. He blew out some smoke and stared at the road ahead, regaining the driving wheel with his cigarette still held expertly between his fingers. ‘The first time, they always say, is the worst time, and I dare say we will both find that out very soon. You have to give it to Jerry – he’s damned ingenious when it comes to inventing new ways to keep us on our toes. I only hope our boffins are working as hard for us. It’s what’s coming, isn’t it, boffins’ wars. First the cavalry goes, then it’ll be the foot soldier—’

  They both knew Fanshaw was waffling on in the high hope of keeping both their minds off the ordeal ahead.

  ‘Sir.’

  Robert saw they were approaching an area that had been both cleared and cordoned off. Several police had been posted on the perimeter alongside a squad of armed soldiers.

  ‘Jolly good, everyone, stand back!’ the bearded Fanshaw boomed as he jumped down from the lorry, followed at once by Robert. ‘The cavalry’s here!’

  After an exchange of salutes, the duty officer pointed out the first mine, which was stuck at an angle with its nose well into the ground.

  ‘The device was ticking when first discovered, so we’re informed, Commander,’ the officer informed Fanshaw. ‘But when we got here it had gone silent.’

  ‘Hear that, Bob?’ Fanshaw called over his shoulder to Robert. ‘Matches what we reckoned. The self-destruct worked on a delay clock.’

  ‘And we won’t know when it stopped until we take the thing out, I’m afraid, sir.’

  ‘Which means we’d better get the old skates on, eh?’ Fanshaw beamed.

  ‘We’ll need a wall of decent sandbags, Captain,’ Robert said to the army officer. ‘At a good safe d
istance from the device – couple of hundred feet should do it provided the wall’s thick enough – and if you could possibly have your chaps dig a trench behind the bags as well?’

  The officer nodded and went off to instruct his men.

  ‘Good.’ Fanshaw glanced briefly at Robert, before returning to stare at the mine. ‘Now then – first thing is, make the bugger safe.’

  ‘Without restarting the clock.’

  ‘Without restarting the clock,’ the commander reiterated, after which he cleared his throat, folded his arms and stood back to watch the soldiers preparing the defences. ‘First thing?’

  ‘Unscrew the ring closing the fuse aperture.’

  ‘Next we find the fuse and yank it out.’

  ‘Maybe not a yank, sir. Perhaps a little pull with a length of cord might be more the thing.’

  ‘Figure of speech, man,’ Fanshaw laughed. ‘Façon de parler.’

  ‘Yes, sir. So once the fuse is attached we then – we yank it out—’

  ‘Good man!’ Fanshaw roared with laughter. ‘That’s the ticket! We yank the bugger out and then explode the device from our hidey-hole! Nothing to it, eh? When you break it down like that! Nothing to it at all!’

  While the soldiers dug the trench and built a solid defence of sandbags, Robert and his commander strolled the streets smoking cigarettes as if they were out on a Sunday afternoon taking the air. They talked about this and that, but no more about the mine, not until they were in place by the deadly, silent device in a crater that could in a few moments be doubling as their mutual grave.

  ‘Who wants first in?’ Fanshaw asked, smiling with assumed delight. ‘Or should we toss for it? Might be more fair – although since I’m older I really think the honour should be mine!’