Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1

by Bingham, Charlotte

  Marjorie’s insides trembled at the thought of someone within the organisation working as a double agent. There were always rumours circulating at Eden, naturally enough. The first worry for anyone working in a place dedicated to Security and Intelligence, most particularly in a time of war, was betrayal, which was why there was such strict protocol in place. It wasn’t only in public places that loose talk cost lives. Within the secure fortress that was Eden Park, Marjorie knew that to exchange information of a classified nature even with one’s closest friends was to run a risk.

  ‘So we’re to take it the PM’s private trip to the countryside is now cancelled,’ Major Folkestone surmised. ‘And if everything’s in place, we’re to move in and arrest these johnnies.’

  ‘Not a bit of it, Major,’ Jack replied, referring to a file on the desk in front of him. ‘The PM insists we round ’em all up and put ’em all behind bars—’

  ‘With their chum Mosley,’ Folkestone chipped in.

  ‘That’s the idea. And the only way we’re going to do that is to carry on as if we know nothing.’

  Both Marjorie and Major Folkestone stared disbelievingly at Jack, who paid no attention, simply continuing to consult the file and make some notes.

  ‘The PM still intends to honour his invitation?’ Folkestone asked carefully.

  ‘Put it this way, we will make sure his host and hostess – who by the way are one hundred per cent on the Gold Standard – we will make sure that they, and everyone else concerned, are convinced that he is coming to stay. The PM’s armoured car will definitely drive up to the house.’ Jack tapped the papers in his hands together before putting them away in the file that he then closed. ‘More than that I can’t tell you.’

  The house to which Poppy had been invited was a long drive from the centre of London. Since all the signs for towns and villages through which they were driven had either been painted over or removed she had no idea of its exact location, although she hoped to God that Jack Ward did. While Henry Lypton slept beside her, Poppy stared out at the landscape hoping to spot something that would help her identify where they were headed. By the time they had been travelling for over an hour she became convinced they were heading for Kent. Certainly the direction in which they had been driven out of town had told her they were going south. Henry had been vague about the details of where the house party was to be held and who exactly was hosting it, referring to the host and hostess by nickname only.

  Poppy knew that she had to identify the place to which they were headed. It was vital. Jack Ward had always impressed on her the need to think not just ahead, but well ahead, and, if necessary, around every corner. But as the car turned into a drive guarded not by one but by two gate lodges and swept up a long straight drive to a tall, square and perfectly magnificent William and Mary manor house, Poppy knew exactly where she was, because she had seen the house in pictures. She also knew who the owners were: Ralph, sixth Baron Kilmington and his French wife Veronique, an enormously wealthy couple who, before the war, had lived a famously extravagant lifestyle, and whose parties and weekends had always been attended by those with political influence.

  Henry awoke as the car pulled up in front of the steps leading to the main doors. Poppy glanced at him briefly.

  ‘Such a heavenly colour, this stone, I always think, don’t you?’

  She turned and smiled brilliantly at Henry who looked for a second as if he had been blinded before following her up the steps to the house.

  When she came down dressed for dinner that night, all the guests had arrived, so that by the time Poppy wandered in her now usual desultory way into the main salon it seemed that most of them were also assembled. Despite the war the women were all wearing evening dress, and few of the men were in uniform, so that far from finding the scene fascinating or glamorous Poppy found it nauseating. She thought of all the fine young men and women fighting not just for their country, but for the freedom of the world, and it seemed to her to be almost horrifying. It was as if this spoilt international set had simply turned their backs on the events outside the huge windows – which had been most efficiently blacked out – deciding to enjoy themselves in as lavish a manner as they possibly could, without a thought to rationing, necessity, common sense or indeed the future. Champagne was being served and there was even a band playing down the far end of the gilt-decorated salon, while above the music rose the ever increasing noise of the guests’ laughter.

  She knew Henry would pick her up sooner or later, that she would be able to set her watch by him, and sure enough, just as she was about to be engaged in conversation by a young, handsome Scandinavian, she felt a long thin hand clasp one of her elbows to turn her round to him.

  ‘Good evening, madame,’ he said unsmilingly, just tilting his long thin head to one side to stare at her quizzically. ‘Quite a gathering, isn’t it?’ Henry went on ignoring the other man so pointedly that he finally moved away.

  ‘People will shout at parties. I wish they wouldn’t. So tiring.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ll soon have something to shout about.’ Henry smiled, taking a drink from the tray proffered by a waiter. ‘Why aren’t you off fighting somewhere, boy?’ Henry asked the lad, with a sideways look at Poppy to make sure she was listening. ‘Shouldn’t you be off poking that head of yours over some barricade or other?’

  ‘I got a heart condition, sir,’ the waiter replied, colouring. ‘Failed me Grade Three.’

  ‘Sure it wasn’t jaundice that you had?’ Henry stuck his tongue in one cheek this time as he raised his eyebrows at Poppy.

  ‘No, sir. It was definitely my heart, sir, the doctor said.’

  ‘Thing about jaundice is – it turns you yellow.’

  Henry laughed at his own joke as he led an unsmiling Poppy all the way across the room.

  ‘By the way, should you too not be poking that head of yours over some barricade or other, Henry?’

  ‘Not my fight. Besides, I have this frightful ingrowing toenail. Now – time for you to meet our guests of honour.’

  They had arrived at a small group that contained their host and hostess, another couple unknown to Poppy and two unusually tall men, one of slender and elegant build, the other taller and very broad-shouldered. Both were standing with their backs to Poppy and Henry.

  ‘Ralph,’ Henry said, to excuse his interruption. ‘Veronique. If you’ll excuse me, I should very much like to introduce Diona here to our special guests.’

  ‘But of course,’ their host agreed, with a polite smile. ‘Please.’

  ‘Diona,’ Henry said. ‘Allow me to introduce Mr Eugene Hackett to you.’

  Eugene had already turned round to bestow his best and most charming smile on the beautiful young woman being presented to him.

  ‘And Diona,’ Henry continued, ‘may I now introduce Signor Ponterino. Signor – Miss Diona de Donnet.’

  As the second man turned to greet her, Poppy found herself looking into a pair of eyes that not so very long ago she had come to thankfully believe were closed for ever.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Basil bowed briefly in the diplomatic manner over Poppy’s gloved hand, and having exchanged the briefest of niceties returned to the conversation he had been conducting in fluent Italian with his host, the pair moving apart from the rest of the group.

  Poppy stared after them, hardly believing what she saw. Basil, for it was certainly he, had clearly not recognised ‘Diona de Donnet’.

  ‘You must excuse both my husband and Signor Ponterino,’ Veronique Kilmington drawled, taking Poppy aside. ‘They are both concerned about the future of so many of the great Italian art works that are going to be jeopardised by this wretched war. The two of them are scheming for all their worth as to how best to remove as much as they can before the peasant Mussolini gets his hands on them.’

  She smiled at Poppy without any warmth, putting one hand on Eugene’s forearm.

  ‘So what I am going to do now – because I have to whisk dear Henry h
ere off to meet an old friend,’ she continued, ‘is to leave you in the charming company of gorgeous Eugene here – who will tell you everything you want to know about anything and not one word of it will be true.’

  ‘I’ve never been to Ireland,’ Poppy said, still trying to steady herself from the shock of seeing Basil, while carefully turning her back on him.

  ‘It hasn’t missed you,’ Eugene replied. ‘The grass still grows, the rain still falls and the tide still comes in and out.’

  ‘I hear some of it is quite pretty.’

  ‘None of it is quite pretty. Most of it is extraordinarily beautiful.’

  ‘What fun,’ Poppy sighed, eyeing him. ‘Must give it a shot sometime.’

  ‘Don’t hurry,’ Eugene said, preparing to move off. ‘She can wait.’

  For a second Poppy felt lost, as well she might since she had no instructions as to what the plan for the night might be. She looked around, and seeing Scott she tossed her hair slightly to one side, pinning it behind her ear, a previously arranged signal that they had used before, and which meant ‘follow me’. She slipped from the room into the main hall where she knew the placement would be laid out, every guest’s name carefully written in beautiful Italianate writing on tiny crested cards.

  ‘You’re sure Basil Tetherington didn’t recognise you?’ Scott asked, smiling quite falsely while trying not to sound anxious, as he joined her. ‘Oh dear, I’m sitting next to that boring old cod from Denbighshire yet again. Is our hostess trying to make a match of it, do you think?’ He paused. ‘Do you think he recognised you?’

  ‘No, at least I don’t think so. Oh, how marvellous, I’m placed next to the Duke of Bruton. Adorable.’ Poppy smiled back, trying, like Scott, to pass their conversation off as party small talk. ‘No, I can’t be sure,’ she went on. ‘But then as far as Basil is concerned there is no such thing as sure.’

  ‘I won’t be far away from you at any point,’ Scott said, giving a loud party laugh. ‘So just make sure to indicate to me if anyone we know goes too far!’

  Poppy shrugged in the way Diona would in such a pretend situation, relieved to see from the table plan that she could not have been sitting further away from her supposedly dead husband. The problem therefore was clearly not going to be the dinner, but the rest of the weekend.

  For once she was grateful for the little revolver that lay at the bottom of her gas mask case, well wrapped up in two silk handkerchiefs. As they all began to move into the dining room, she wondered idly whether she might at last have occasion to use it. If so she only hoped she would not, as Cissie would say, ‘make a bish’.

  ‘Is there no other way we can get a message to her, sir?’ Marjorie asked Jack when she and Major Folkestone were called into conference the following morning to learn of the accident that had befallen Miss Plum.

  ‘Miss Plum was carrying the information that the Flower Girl’s husband was far from dead. Always so reliable, our Miss Plum. It was my fault that she didn’t collect at the usual time. I felt it was such a vital piece of information I should delay it to the last minute, to protect it from leaking.’

  ‘You can’t legislate for these things, sir. If I may say so.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Jack grunted, lighting his pipe. ‘You may say so, Marjorie. But it’s not going to get us out of this dilemma. If Tetherington spots our ringer, we’re cooked.’

  ‘The Flower Girl has the advantage, sir,’ Marjorie continued. ‘She can recognise him, but he won’t necessarily recognise her. That gives her the edge, sir. If she can just keep one step ahead—’

  ‘Which I’m sure she will,’ Jack grunted. ‘She’s a first class operative. A natural for the job. So let’s just keep our fingers crossed – we only need – what?’ He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘We’ve got eight hours almost precisely. So I had better trundle on and get myself ready.’

  ‘Anything I can do to help, sir?’

  Jack turned back and stared at Marjorie.

  ‘Depends how good you are at dressing up,’ he replied. ‘Or rather at dressing other people up.’

  ‘I’m not bad, sir. I used to turn young Billy into a most convincing wood nymph.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Jack pondered. ‘I should say that took a bit of doing. In that case, come along. And hurry. We haven’t got all day.’

  Even before she began to help put the final touches to his appearance, Marjorie saw that her mentor was an ideal build to be passed off as the PM, being of stocky stature and with a heavily jowled face. Of course Jack Ward was considerably younger than Churchill, but once the make-up artists and the costume people had finished with him Marjorie was astonished how close the resemblance was between the two men. Once he was seated behind the bullet-proof windows of the official car wearing the hallmark hat, and smoking the even more famous cigar, everyone concerned felt justifiably proud.

  ‘You’d never know it wasn’t the great man himself,’ Marjorie told him.

  ‘They will as soon as I have to say anything,’ Jack grunted, positioning himself beside the loaded Tommy gun that had been placed on the back seat.

  ‘I don’t think so, sir,’ Marjorie assured him. ‘Every time you growl at me I could swear it’s the PM.’

  ‘Never in the field of human conflict—’ Jack practised.

  ‘No, sir, I don’t think so.’ Major Folkestone smiled. ‘I don’t think you’ll be called on to make any speeches. At least we hope not.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Jack agreed. ‘If forced, I shall just grunt. That should do it.’

  One of the War Office boffins came up to give Jack a final briefing.

  ‘Doors and windows – all triple reinforced. They’ll stand any calibre of small arms fire – in fact they’ll take most damage up to a tank if you ask me. All the upholstery and fittings are fireproofed, and what we’ve done – in the time allowed – is put another skin on the floor and the roof, just in case things go wrong.’

  ‘I’m sure you did splendidly,’ Jack replied, extending a hand. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Good luck, sir,’ the captain said, standing back. ‘God speed.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain.’

  ‘Take care,’ Marjorie added, giving him a shy smile. ‘We’ll be thinking of you.’

  Major Folkestone added his good wishes, and a moment later the driver fired the engine of the large black car and prepared to drive off. As it eased out of the underground garage, Jack raised his left hand and rewarded his small crowd of well-wishers by giving them Churchill’s famous V for Victory sign.

  It was now five o’clock in the afternoon of 9 November. Poppy sat in a window seat of the ladies’ drawing room in the great house where she was still a guest, playing Patience. Several other female guests were in the room, either reading magazines or dozing in front of a well-stocked log fire, while most of their menfolk were having an early drink, having just returned from an afternoon’s shooting.

  Fortunately, Poppy had neither seen nor heard anything more of her supposedly late husband. She knew that he had not gone on the shoot, as she had watched those who had decided on a bit of sport climb into the trucks that were to carry them off into some distant part of the estate. She had also noted that another absentee was the tall, handsome Irishman who had so enjoyed insulting her before dinner. She had fully expected him to be one of the party. She therefore concluded that he had to be part of whatever it was that was going on – and if her so-called late husband was implicated then what better accomplice? Hearing her name called from the door, she looked round and saw Henry beckoning to her. Putting her cards down in obvious irritation Poppy wandered as slowly as she could over to the door.

  ‘Thought you might like to know everything’s going to plan,’ Henry murmured as he strolled her down the corridor, one hand on one of her elbows as always, as if she was never going to escape him.

  ‘If one knew what everything was,’ she grumbled in return, ‘and what the plan was, I suppose one might just be jumping for joy?’

  ‘Success
is expected at any time,’ Henry grinned, managing to look even more skeletal than ever. ‘The big banger is due to go off any moment.’

  Poppy turned her face to him and raised her eyebrows in a deliberately childish manner.

  ‘Jolly good,’ she said. ‘But let’s just wait until it does actually go off, shall we? Before we start patting ourselves on the back.’

  The car and its outriders were now less than five miles from their destination. So far the journey had passed without incident, the driver having followed a long and complicated series of diversions that were designed to bring him and his passenger to their destination via a set of very different routes. But now that they were close to their final goal, the choice of roads quickly dwindled down to the usual now unmarked lanes that meandered apparently aimlessly around the landscape.

  Jack had studied the map very closely before leaving on the journey, noting that as a vehicle approached the old estate access became reduced to only two roads, a minor road that ran around the village and halfway up the hill behind the house and its grounds to drop down to the trade entrance at the rear, and a better surfaced but still minor highway that led in almost a straight line to the front gates. He had guessed the plan might be to try to block off access to the front road under some pretext or other, forcing the car to make its approach to the house via the more obscure route, a way that would take the car all but unobserved right up to the back walls of the estate, a course that would be easier to booby trap and perfect for such an ambush.

  So it was with some surprise that Jack found the car and its outriders being flagged down by the police while still on the main road and some four miles or so from its destination. There was very little traffic due to petrol rationing, the time of day and the remoteness of the location, but the one or two cars that were out and about Jack could see were being turned back by an officer who was standing on duty in the middle of the road. Behind him, parked across the highway, was a police car with another policeman sitting in it apparently communicating on his two-way radio.