His Majesty's Hope

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  “Since I returned from Berlin,” she said, lighting up.

  The silence turned uncomfortable. “I’m glad to see you, Hugh,” Maggie said finally, resting her cigarette in the ashtray. Her wound ached and she was struggling not to cry. This would not be easy.

  The waiter set down their drinks. “Thanks,” Hugh told him. “And I’m glad to see you, too. I was worried.”

  “I was doing”—Maggie picked up the cigarette again and tapped ashes into the lead-crystal ashtray—“my job. It just happened to take a bit longer than expected.”

  Another awkward silence. Hugh sipped his drink. “So,” he said. “I hear John’s alive. Good for him.”

  “Yes. Finding that out was quite a shock. Along with many, many shocks.”

  “I heard about that, too. You met your half sister. And now Clara Hess is in British custody.”

  Maggie smiled wanly. “And I hear you had a little something to do with that. I didn’t realize you were quite so … photogenic. I would love to have seen the look on her face when she saw those photos you sent.”

  Hugh cleared his throat and loosened his tie. “Er, yes, well—” He picked up his pink gin. “Probably not my ‘finest hour.’ ”

  “I don’t know,” Maggie disagreed. “You didn’t exactly follow protocol, but it was immensely satisfying, I’m sure.” She smiled. “I wish I could have been there.”

  “Me, too.” Hugh grinned. “It was amazing. Of course, now I’m unemployed. Masterman very nearly sent me to the Tower of London to be beheaded. He was apoplectic.”

  “What about Frain—surely he’ll take you back? You and Mark could be together again—I’m sure he’s missed you.”

  “Alas, no—I can’t go back to MI-Five. My ‘reckless behavior’ and ‘letting the personal get in the way of the professional’ has me blacklisted in Intelligence now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Join the army, most likely.” Hugh arched an eyebrow. “Or maybe the Royal Air Force. Pilots are popular with the ladies these days, you know.”

  Maggie bit her lip. She’d forgotten how handsome he was. But she couldn’t falter now … “That’s something we need to talk about—”

  “Look, Maggie,” Hugh said, taking her hand. “Do what you need to do. I don’t want to stand in your way.”

  Maggie’s eyes swam with tears. “You were never in the way, Hugh.”

  “You need to see where things are with John. If you didn’t, I’d always feel like your second choice.”

  “You could never, ever, be second anything, Hugh,” she protested fervently. “I want you to know that.” She crushed out her cigarette and downed the rest of her drink. She stood up, kissed his cheek, and left.

  Hugh opened his mouth, as if to say more, then closed it. He sat back, then shook his head, swallowing hard. “First no job, and now no girl. Perfect,” he muttered. “Bloody perfect.”

  From behind him a voice asked, “Is this seat taken?” The man the voice belonged to was young and very tall, with a sharp part in his wavy brown hair, a crimson bow tie, and matching, double-point pocket square.

  Hugh looked up and shrugged. “It’s all yours.”

  The man joined him at the little table. “Let me buy you a drink,” he said. “You look like you could use one.”

  “I could.” Hugh took the man’s measure: a confident Oxbridge graduate, probably rich, most likely well-connected. “And you are?”

  The man held out his hand. “Kim Philby.”

  As John had been presumed dead, his parents had let go of the lease on his apartment. He had nowhere to live. Until a fellow RAF pilot offered up his second-floor efficiency on a tree-lined street in Notting Hill.

  Late that night, Maggie rang the buzzer, then climbed three flights of stairs.

  John opened the door. He was unshaven, eyes sunken with weariness and a deep sadness. Then his face lit up. “Well, hello there.”

  Maggie smiled back. “Hello there, yourself.”

  He took her hand and pulled her inside. The apartment was clublike, with tufted leather furniture, wide plank oak floors covered by worn Persian carpets, thick drapes, and clutter—books and gilt-framed etchings and blue and white Chinese urns. But Maggie was oblivious to her surroundings.

  They kissed with a longing so deep it made her knees wobble. John wrapped her in his arms. “Finally …”

  Somehow they maneuvered down the narrow hallway to the bedroom, where they ended up on his bed, kissing hard, clothing discarded piece by piece.

  John leaned over her and, with a fingertip, slowly traced the curve of her cheek. Maggie tried to speak, but couldn’t. She wrapped her arms around him, taking the hardness of his body into her arms.

  A clock ticked on the mantel and a breeze from a half-opened window blew over them. John’s hand grazed Maggie’s ribs. “Ow!” she yelped.

  He pulled back instantly. “Oh, sorry—did I hurt you?”

  “The bullet’s still there,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows. “I’ve decided to leave it in.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?”

  “It’s my … Berlin souvenir,” she answered lightly.

  “Since we’re doing show-and-tell, here are my stitches,” he told her, raising his vest. “Surgery from a lacerated kidney. I’m sure it will fade in time, but I’ll always have a scar.”

  They lay back on the bed, silenced by the enormity of their memories, their scars. What had happened in Berlin, what had happened on the train. In a low voice John said, “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “You don’t ever have to be alone ever again,” Maggie said softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I want you to know,” he said, “that everything is, ahem, in working order.”

  “What?”

  “That my injuries from the crash landing—nothing was damaged beyond repair. Everything is … fully functional.”

  “Ah,” Maggie said, “good to know.”

  They were both young, but they were both exhausted. “I’m glad to know all is in working order,” she said. “So why don’t we sleep now and test everything out tomorrow?”

  “Oh, thank God,” John said. “I want our first time to be special.” He turned over, put his arm around her, buried his face in her hair, and fell asleep instantly. He was restless in his sleep and called out in nightmares, but kept his arm around her. Maggie stayed awake a bit longer, listening for planes overhead, unable to relax.

  In the morning John rolled over and kissed her on the lips. “Before we, you know, there’s something I need to tell you,” Maggie murmured.

  “What’s that?” he said, kissing her shoulder blade. “While you were … gone, I saw someone. We … stepped out together.”

  “What?” John said, distracted.

  “His name is Hugh Thompson. He was my handler at Windsor. Last night I’d just come from breaking up with him.”

  “What?” John repeated. He stood and started to pace. He spun to face her. “Are you—are you joking?”

  “I’m sorry, John. But it’s the truth. And I wanted to tell you earlier, but there was never the right time. And I’ve broken things off with him.”

  “The fact that you were with him in the first place—” His face was mottled with anger. “I was in hell in Berlin. Literally in hell. Only the thought of you kept me sane—and barely, at that. And there you were, safe and sound in England, off frolicking with some …”

  Maggie got off the bed and went to him. “I’m sorry, John.”

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  Maggie saw no reason to lie. “Yes.”

  He jerked as if she’d struck him. “Your first time was with him?”

  Wait, why am I being treated as if I’ve done something wrong? “We all thought you were dead, John!”

  He went to the fireplace and picked up the poker by the key handle. He took it and swung it against the
wall. The plaster cracked. He swung again. This time a large chunk of plaster crumbled to the floor, leaving bare bricks exposed. He turned to face her. “And it took you, what, all of five minutes to get over me?”

  “I never stopped loving you,” Maggie said, eyes swimming with tears.

  “It was the thought of you—you—that kept me going in that hell. That kept me fighting.”

  He stayed true to me, against unbearable odds, while I had just … moved on. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. All I can say, again, is that we thought you were dead.”

  John continued to pace, both hands running through his hair until it was standing on end. “And you killed someone! You shot a man, in cold blood! I don’t know you anymore.”

  Now it was her turn for anger. “How dare you judge me? You’ve killed any number of people. But you were up in a plane, so you didn’t have to see it. And it’s not as if you’re some sort of blushing virgin yourself—”

  John took another swing at the wall with the poker. There was a terrible noise, and more plaster rained down, revealing the brick wall beneath. “I’d appreciate it if you left,” he said, turning.

  Maggie was suddenly frightened of him, frightened of the strange look on his face. The humor, the joy, the life, had vanished from his eyes. She wanted the old John back, arrogant, infuriating, mocking. And she wanted, more than anything, to be the girl she used to be. But they had both seen too much, done too much. They knew too much about each other.

  She wiped tears from her eyes, then straightened. “Of course,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chuck, almost nine months pregnant, her handsome face plump and glowing with good health, bustled about the kitchen in her flat with her usual mix of cheer and pragmatism. “Sit down, sit down, Maggie,” she clucked, trying to tie an apron around her middle and then giving up. “Nothing fits anymore,” she groaned. “Now you sit down and we’ll talk.”

  “I wish we could talk. But I’m not allowed to say anything. About anything.”

  “Well,” Chuck said, cheerfully rattling the tea things, “why don’t you start with telling me how you feel. No state secrets there, right?”

  “May I help? Really, in your condition—”

  “Oh, in my condition—that’s just silly. I actually feel better up and moving. It’s when I sit down that I start to feel overwhelmed.”

  Chuck poured hot water from the kettle into the teapot and then brought the tray to the table. “Now, tell your old flatmate what’s on your mind.” She handed Maggie a cup and saw how raw her friend’s face was with hurt and anger.

  “I don’t feel like myself anymore,” Maggie confessed. “All I want to do is cry. And sleep. I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to eat, I don’t want to leave my room. I’m a stranger in my own mind.”

  “You’ve seen things you wish you hadn’t,” Chuck said bluntly, taking a sip of tea. “Of course you have demons.”

  Maggie laugh-snorted. “Of a sort.”

  “We all have demons, you know.” Chuck was a pediatric nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Of course she had her own demons.

  “Not the simple girls.” Maggie shook her head. “Simple girls don’t have demons. Simple girls want to have fun, whatever that is. My whole life I’ve been an overachiever—and what has it done for me? Nowhere. Nothing. Remember the twins?” The twins Clarabelle and Annabell had lived with Maggie and Chuck last summer. She laughed, a harsh laugh. “The twins were simple girls. Flat as paper dolls. Only worried about boys and clothes …”

  “Perhaps,” Chuck agreed. “But you don’t know what was really in their hearts and minds.”

  “I wish I were a simple girl,” Maggie said. “That I could amputate all my ambition. But I can’t. It’s too late now. And now, because I tried for too much, I’m ruined inside. I’m broken.”

  “I’ve seen soldiers come back like this, Maggie,” Chuck said, reaching out a hand. “Shell shock is what we call it. Father Time is your best healer.”

  “Maybe there’s something to be found in literature. After all, Dickens believed that both Scrooge and Tiny Tim could be saved. In Nazi Germany, they’d gas Tiny Tim dead, burn his body, and send his ashes up and out a chimney. They’d send Scrooge to a concentration camp in Poland.”

  “A little bird told me you still have that bullet in your body. As a friend and a nurse, darling, I have to tell you, it has no business being there.” Chuck pointed her finger.

  Maggie’s hand went to her side. She could feel the bullet under the skin. “It stays.”

  “For heaven’s sake, why?”

  “Chuck, it has everything to do with everything I’m not allowed to say. Horrible things. Things that I’ll feel guilty over for the rest of my life, and then take to my grave. Because of what I’ve seen, what I’ve done, I’m a walking corpse now. I’m dead inside. I can’t feel anything anymore. I’m trying to hold myself together with glue and it’s not working. I’m falling apart. My center, as they say, will not hold.”

  “What about your studies? Maths?”

  “Math. I used to be able to count on math! Two and two made four, and so on. There was always an answer. Nietzsche says that God is dead—but for me now, science is dead, too. Or at least contaminated and perverted.”

  Even math and science have betrayed me, Maggie thought. The arrogance of those people, using science, misusing science … She remembered the problem about the working families and the asylum and buried her head in her hands and began to cry, shoulders shuddering with choked-back sobs. Now she didn’t even have math and science to believe in.

  Chuck let Maggie cry. Then she asked, “So what are you going to do?”

  “Mope,” Maggie said, wiping at her face. “I’ve discovered I’m quite talented at moping. And napping. And listening to It’s That Man Again on the wireless. A bit of whining thrown in for good measure.”

  “What about your job?”

  “What about my job?” Maggie shrugged. “I’m no good to anyone like this.”

  “Well, they can’t kick you out for being traumatized on one of their own missions.”

  Maggie shook her head. “I’ve gone on too much about myself. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right, darling,” Chuck said. “We’re old friends, after all.”

  Maggie looked down at Chuck’s baby bump. “And now you and Nigel have added a new person to the historical line.”

  Chuck rubbed her hands over her abdomen protectively. “It’s exciting. A bit terrifying, too.”

  “Nonsense,” Maggie said. “You and Nigel will be wonderful parents.”

  “Maggie,” Chuck said, “I’d understand if it’s too much.… But, after the baby’s born, we’d like to have a christening, and then a little party afterward. I know you’re not feeling yourself again yet.… But you’re invited, and very much wanted.”

  Maggie reached over impulsively to hug her friend. “I’ll do everything I can to be there, dear Chuck.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Six underground stops away from Westminster Cathedral was Postman’s Park. Which was where Maggie went, instead of Nigel and Chuck’s baby’s christening.

  It was a tiny green plot in central London, just a short walk from St. Paul’s Cathedral, where the churchyards of St. Leonard, St. Botolph, and Aldersgate, and the graveyard of Christ Church, Newgate Street, converged. Everyone called it Postman’s Park because so many of the nearby postal workers had their lunch there, but officially it was known as George Frederic Watts’s Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice. It was a small spot, humble, and easy to miss in the midst of the City’s rushing self-importance.

  In a corner of the park, hidden under a canopy, were beautiful handmade painted tiles by William De Morgan, a contemporary of William Morris’s. Each tile was a memorial to someone who sacrificed his or her life to save another.

  This was where Frain proposed that he and Maggie meet. Despite being so close to Fleet Street, it was quiet in Postman’s Park. A
nd although the air was cool, it smelled of grass and soil warmed by the sun. Frain, who’d been sitting on one of the benches and reading The Times, stood when Maggie appeared. He looked as he always did, like an aging matinee idol—his hair sleek, his suit pressed perfectly, and his handmade Italian shoes impeccably shined. His eyes were the same, too: gray and hard as slate.

  “This had better be good,” Maggie said, sitting and taking out a cigarette.

  Frain sat back down and took out his lighter for her. The wheel struck the flint, producing a blue and yellow flame. “Thank you,” she said as she inhaled, both of them watching the tip ignite into red.

  “Since when do you smoke?” Frain asked.

  “Since when are you so curious about my personal habits?” she retorted. Then, “Since I returned from Berlin.”

  “I see,” Frain said. Then, “Thank you for agreeing to meet me here.”

  “Did I have a choice?” Maggie was exhausted—her face was drawn, with smudges of purple under her eyes. She had lost the plushness of youth.

  “Of course you do. But since I was the one who originally brought you into the spy game, I do feel a certain amount of responsibility to you.” Frain lit his own cigarette. “How are you?”

  “I’m getting through, one hour at a time. No, let me rephrase that—one minute at a time.”

  She wouldn’t look Frain in the eye, and instead glanced over at the painted tiles. “William Donald of Bayswater aged nineteen, railway clerk, was drowned in the Lea trying to save a lad from a dangerous entanglement of weed. July sixteenth, 1876,” she read aloud. “George Lee, fireman. At a fire in Clerkenwell carried an unconscious girl to the escape falling six times and died of his injuries. July twenty-sixth, 1876. Elizabeth Boxall aged seventeen, of Bethnal Green who died of injuries received in trying to save a child from a runaway horse. June twentieth, 1888.” Maggie gave a delicate snort. “It’s a bit macabre, no?”

  “Actually,” disagreed Frain, “I think it’s rather beautiful.”

  “Didn’t realize you had a ghoulish streak, Peter.”

  “Unlike these poor souls, you didn’t die, Maggie. But I want you to know that I understand the sacrifice you made. That you’re still making. That you will continue to make.”