by Noel Hynd
"Were you a hero, Papa?" Laura asked her father the next Sunday morning.
"No more than anyone else, Laura," he answered. "Millions of men and women were in France. Almost all of them were very brave."
"Why did they go?" she asked.
Nigel Worthington took a long look at his daughter. Then he picked her up in his strong arms-which she always loved-and carried her to the bay window of the mansion's master bedroom.
Across the street, which was cluttered with carriages and new motorcars, were the gardens. It was a chilly November, so people were all bundled up as they strolled.
"That's why, darling," Nigel Worthington said, indicating an expanse of London beyond his window. "Because I love my country. And because England asked me to serve."
The little girl contemplated her father's words. "Can I be a hero, too, someday, Papa?" she asked.
He laughed and hugged her, nuzzling her neck. "Of course you can, sugarplum," Dr. Worthington said. "Of course you can. Someday you can be a hero, too. For England."
*
Laura Worthington was the daughter of a mildly eccentric London physician, Nigel Worthington, who had once been a renowned young surgeon on Harley Street, where he, his practice, and his patients all prospered together. Life, in the early part of the century, smiled upon him.
Before establishing his medical practice, he had been a brilliant student at Oxford, where he had read Modern Languages. He had taken time out during the Great War to serve with the First London Rifle Brigade and had been an artillery lieutenant at the Somme in July 1916. Nigel Worthington had again been lucky. During the darkest day in British military history-some 21,000 dead and 35,000 wounded during the Fourth Army's futile advance toward German trenches-young Worthington escaped without a scratch. His only wounds, as he saw death all around him, were psychological.
Then a few years later, fate double-crossed him.
In early 1922, when his daughter, Laura, was eight years old, the influenza pandemic swept London. Laura's mother, Victoria Worthington, went from perfect health to a cemetery within ten days. From there on, Nigel Worthington withdrew from the world that he had known. And he took his daughter with him.
He forswore his surgical practice and moved himself and his daughter to an enchanting, sprawling four bedroom Georgian house on the outskirts of Salisbury. Around the house was an acre of garden and around the garden was a high wall. Dr. Worthington kept hours as a general practitioner-he was known in the city as quiet, somewhat moody, but an excellent doctor. Yet he always knew that he could withdraw to his home and dedicate himself to the one thing he still cared about. It was not medicine, and not the comparative study of languages. Rather, he gave himself entirely to the raising of Laura, a beautiful little girl who, day by spectacular day, became an almost ghostly image of her dark-eyed, darkhaired mother.
Dr. Worthington hired a governess named Mrs. Frasier, who lived in and who was home when he had office hours or house calls. By now Laura was Nigel Worthington's sole commitment in life.
From her father's own voice and hand, Laura learned an appreciation of music and art, literature and philosophy. Nigel Worthington sat by his daughter's side for hours-sometimes rescheduling patients to do so-to watch her growing fingers glide across the keyboard of a piano, exactly as her mother's once had. He taught her about God and Christianity just as he taught her to respect all other people and their religions. He educated her with humanist values and he instructed her-from his relationship with her mother- what sort of love could form a lasting union. From his experiences as a soldier and a doctor, he taught her that war was mankind's ultimate and most unforgivable evil. And he impressed upon her that human life was sacred.
He taught her to reason and to think. Finally, he taught her integrity to her own values. Laura then, by age eighteen, had her mother's beauty and her father's intellect. There was little surprise when she passed her A-levels, applied to university, scored highly on her entrance examination, and was accepted as one of thirty-six women of a class of more than seven hundred at the University of Bristol. And it was at Bristol that she met Edward Shawcross, the boy whom she quite naturally assumed she would someday marry.
Edward was tall and quiet, wavy-haired, nice-looking, but decidedly tame, and, by Laura's standards, conservative. They were twenty-one when they met and were both in their final year of university.
Edward was the second son of a wealthy spirits importer in Bristol and had designs of his own to augment the family fortune. He had his eye set at an aging sandstone mansion in the city of Bath, just off the Landsdowne Crescent, which he would buy-here his father was of inestimable help-gut, renovate, and convert into the finest inn and restaurant in the county of Somersetshire. Laura was to be, in a highly glorified manner, the innkeeper's wife, serving her husband and the Shawcross amp; Company brandies, ports, and sherries.
One day in the spring of 1936, Edward showed Laura the gracious old mansion, his arm neatly tucked around her waist.
"And, of course," he whispered to her with his usual blend of innocence and lechery, "I wouldn't mind having our own household staff of five. Maybe three sons and two daughters. But the sons first, of course."
"Of course," replied Laura. It was not a totally unappealing proposition. The wealthy hotelier's wife. There would be money, middle-class respectability, and even a dab of glamour, if the dining room could maintain a high reputation. Life treated many women to much worse. It was just that… well, Laura tried to stifle the feeling, but it was all so clear cut. Early on, she entertained the idea that there was slightly something missing. But she fought the idea. There was nothing really wrong with Edward Shawcross and he did not make the difficult physical demands of her that many young men made. Laura also knew that there were several hundred other girls-many of them attractive and from good families-who would claw her out of the way if she did not appreciate him.
It was just that, well, couldn't life bear her some surprises? Some adventure? Edward owned a new Alvis "open top." They spent Saturdays motoring in Devon when the weather permitted. On a day in late May, not long before final examinations, they drove out to Cornwall for a weekend. One of Edward's aunts owned a cottage near the sea. The aunt was conveniently vacationing in Portugal.
At the cottage, Edward, who was a superior chef already, roasted a rack of lamb, poured unhealthy amounts of his father's best imported claret, and created a supernal raspberry souffle for dessert.
Afterward, they lit the log in the fireplace-it was still cool in May-and sipped Beaumes de Venise. Toward ten, Edward placed his hand on her knee.
"Tonight?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
They went upstairs, found a large comfortable bed, and virtually fell into it. Laura lost her virginity with surprising ease and no second thoughts at all-the dividend of too much claret, perhaps-and afterward Edward confessed that it was his first time, too. This, Laura had already guessed.
Their scheduled marriage remained unofficial and at least a year away. Laura did not know whether or not she was in love with Edward Shawcross. When pressed, she told him that she was. But was she? She wondered. She knew she had grown to like Edward very much. He was always around. And he was good to her. But was that enough?
Their affair continued. Months passed. She went to a discreet doctor in London, gave her name as Mrs. Vincent Thomas of Basingstoke, and purchased a diaphragm. She thought long and hard about her relationship with Edward Shawcross. Things seemed to be happening too quickly.
Home in Salisbury after graduation, Laura spent much time in the Georgian house in which she had been raised. Mrs. Frasier was long since deceased by now and it was just Laura and her father. Nigel Worthington was proud of the beautiful young woman he had raised. But he was under no illusions about her, a woman's needs, and Laura's relationship with Edward.
One night they talked. "I'm expected," she said ruefully, "to make a decision that will affect the rest of my life. It scares me, Papa."
"He's a fine young man," Nigel Worthington said. "He treats you well. He could offer you a good home and a good life. He bestows love upon you."
Laura nodded. "But I don't love him," she heard herself saying.
"Yes. I know," her father answered.
Nigel Worthington had a much older brother who had quit school, moved to America years ago, and successfully gone into the steel business in Pennsylvania. The two branches of the family had remained in touch. The English side had the grace, the education, and the culture. The American side had the money and the informality, both in vast quantities. Nigel suggested that his daughter spend the following summer visiting.
There was an exchange of letters. Dr. Worthington had a niece Laura's age who was finishing university at a strangely named place called Bryn Mawr. The niece, Barbara Worthington, whom Laura had met years ago, wrote that she knew dozens of boys from Yale, Princeton, Williams, and Penn. Barbara promised to give Laura an interesting summer.
"You'll get yourself involved with some dirty-fingernailed Yank millionaire who does violence with auxiliary verbs," chided her father. "You'll love him and never come home."
"That's not my type, Papa, actually," Laura answered.
"But it might be an excellent time for your trip to America, mightn't it?" her father said. "With what's going on in the world, who knows how long travel will be safe?"
And if a war starts, she thought to herself, Papa will have me safely tucked away in America, rather than in England, where there could be fighting.
But Laura's spoken response addressed none of this. "I suspect you're right," she said. "About the right time to travel, I mean."
"The Queen Mary sails every other Thursday for New York," her father said at length. "What would you think of that?"
Laura said she would think a great deal of that.
One week later, Laura traveled by train to London to book passage. She was met by a man named Peter Whiteside, a longtime friend of her family.
Whiteside was slightly younger than her father. Laura had known that Peter Whiteside and her father had served together during the Great War. Since then, Whiteside had been in and out of the government, mostly in when the Tories were in power, and out when the Liberals held a majority in Parliament. Right now, the Tories were in and so was Whiteside. "Buried somewhere in the Ministry of Defense," as he himself had put it in March when Laura had seen him last. "But whenever you come to London let me take you to lunch."
Today was "whenever."
Whiteside was a tall man, with short hair that was as black as a rook. His face was thinner than the rest of his body, giving an austere, almost gaunt cast to his face. But his eyes were lively and intelligent; they were deep gray and sharp as thorns. He wore a navy suit and his regiment's necktie. He kissed Laura's hand when he met her at the railroad platform.
"Laura. I'm charmed as ever. You look ravishing today," Whiteside said.
Peter Whiteside, she thought, was one of the last of the true English gentlemen, along with her father. The dying breed. The Great War had changed everything in all of Europe. No one made men like this anymore.
"Come," he said, taking her arm. "We have a reservation at the Ritz dining room for one o'clock. I've made an appointment for you at the Cunard offices for the afternoon. I'd like to stop by my office first. Something to discuss."
"If you're at all too busy today, Peter," she offered, "I'll be in London again before I leave."
"Nonsense," he said. They passed through the iron gates of the sooty station. There was a Rolls Royce waiting with a driver. Peter Whiteside ushered Laura toward it. "The 'something to discuss' is between us," he informed her.
"Oh," she said.
London was best seen from the back of a limousine. Or so Laura decided as the chauffeured automobile pulled away from the curb.
"Now," Whiteside said at length, "tell me about your impending travels."
She did. And by the time she had finished, the chauffeur had delivered them in front of a sturdy Edwardian town house, nestled on a quiet tree-lined side street. They were in a residential neighborhood bordering Earl's Court and Kensington, and Whiteside leaned forward and opened his door. His driver opened Laura's door and Whiteside ushered her inside, where, upon entering a white rotunda, she began to focus upon the nature of Peter Whiteside's business.
There was a guard in a suit just inside the door. He nodded curtly as Whiteside entered. Directly in front of them was a portrait of His Majesty, George V, and beyond that, a Union Jack stood in its stand, making its own statement.
Whiteside led her down a short hallway. His office was at the end.
He moved behind a polished rosewood desk and seated himself only after Laura did. He leaned back very slightly in a leather swivel-based chair, steepled his fingers in front of him, and assessed Laura for a final time.
"I think you'll enjoy America," he said at length. "Indeed, I suspect you'll have a wonderful trip."
She looked back at him, appraising also. "Peter," she said very firmly, "would you mind telling me why I’m here?"
His fingers broke their token marriage and he returned his hands to his desk.
"No. Not at all," he said. "Certainly I owe you the explanation, whatever you may ultimately think of it." Whiteside's gaze lowered for a moment and he glanced at a pair of papers before him. Then he looked back to her.
"Laura," he said, "this building belongs to the Ministry of Defense. I work here. They are my employer. I need to know if you would be willing to do something for England. Something which might seem very simple, but which is, in actuality, very important."
Laura responded with a very stunned silence for several seconds. "You'd better tell me more before I say anything," she said.
"My child," Peter Whiteside answered, "as any fool with two eyes could tell you, Europe may soon again be at war. Inevitably, Hitler will draw England in. If this is the case, the intelligence networks which we piece together now-and the information we have access to-may be of vital national interest. Should I go on?"
Laura found herself nodding, and tingling very slightly with excitement.
"This office, the one you are beautifying as we speak, belongs to Military Intelligence 5, the bureau charged with intelligence gathering within the United Kingdom. However, it is part of my duty to coordinate operations with M.I. 6, counterintelligence and intelligence gathering abroad. Specifically, operations in the United States and Canada."
Here Whiteside glanced at his desk again, double-checking the papers before him. "Your trip comes at a very propitious time. And leads you to an excellent place. For our purposes, that is."
Laura was incredulous. "You want me to become sort of a spy? Against the Americans, is that it?"
Whiteside smiled indulgently. "Not at all," he said. "Or at least, not exactly." He pursed his lips against his fingertips again.
He was about to continue when she interrupted. “I thought the Americans were our friends," Laura said.
"Some of them are," he answered. "Some of them are not. President Roosevelt is definitely a friend of England. The Vice President, Mr. Jack Garner, the deplorable ‘Cactus Jack,’ definitely is not. But this is precisely the type of thing which we would want you to find out for us. On a lesser scale, of course. One knows all about the American government officials. It's the people, the important families, we wish to know more about. We need facts, Laura. My office deals in facts."
"I'm sorry," Laura said. "I don't understand."
Whiteside smiled consolingly. "Laura, dear," he said, "I've known you since you were this high." One of Whiteside's hands fled the desk and he held an open palm two feet above the floor. "I would never place you in any danger, you must believe me. But, follow-this office engages in two types of intelligence gathering. What we call 'white,’ which is the accumulation of information from open sources. Newspapers. Magazines. Conversations with people. And then there is 'covert'-"
"Which is just what it sound
s like," said Laura, breaking in.
"I would ask you to work for us in the former category," Whiteside said. "Your situation is absolutely perfect. You are young, beautiful, single. You will have entree to the families and situations which we wish to know about. I stress, we are not placing you in any danger. We simply wish to put your eyes, ears, and brain to work for England."
Several thoughts shot simultaneously through Laura's mind as she listened: that her earliest memory of Peter Whiteside had been when she was a little girl of approximately five and Peter Whiteside, single, using a cane to brace a hobbling leg, had come along on a trip to Scotland with the Worthington family. That from what she knew about such things, Whiteside must carry a reasonable bit of authority within the M.I. 5 or 6 and that he made his own recruitments. That the rumors that always circulated about flirtatious Peter were probably true – he did like boys and girls. And that he was here now in front of her, poised like a spider in his own web, trying to recruit her to work for him.
"So I'm to be a spy," she said in mounting wonder. "Is that it?"
His eyes danced in an absurdly young way.
"Hitler has spies," he said with a flicker of a grin. "England gathers intelligence in the interests of her own defense. When were you thinking of sailing?" he asked.
"June the fifth," she said.
Whiteside glanced to a calendar on his wall. Her eyes followed his and she saw the bold figures 1937. She thought to herself: What a failure I am! I’m already twenty-three years old. Calendars began to bother her.
"That would be excellent," he said. "Before you leave, today in fact, I can submit to you a list of families and individuals whom you could meet. Buy a new address book and write these names in among those whom you already know. File a report every two weeks. Anything that strikes you as interesting. Political sympathies are foremost, of course. We must know where pro-British or pro-Nazi sympathies lie in America. If a war comes, American assistance may be critical. For this, we will need public opinion on our side."
