The London Restoration

by Rachel McMillan

  Chapter 7

  November 1938

  Before Diana, there had been other girls, of course. Brent had tasted their lips and stroked the tendrils that tickled their temples and the soft curve of skin under their chins. He had stolen his uncle’s car to go into town on a star-spattered night and had proven he was more than just the vicar’s nephew. Had done his fair share of wandering in and out of Keats’s sonnets and pining under the long span of the orchard near the manse. Had broken a few hearts and tucked the splinters of his own deep into his pocket next to a folded sketch.

  Then he was with Diana and all the sonnets and pining were replaced with something far deeper. Something that occupied his mind far too often. And at the most inconvenient times. Such as the middle of a serious lecture at King’s.

  Diana stepped into a path that lit the focus of his sketch of Great St. Bart’s and stayed there: her silhouette inspiring the swift movement of his pencil, even if his drawings would never capture her eyes and lips.

  He had scribbled his office hours and lecture times on the back of the drawing he handed her after their meeting in the churchyard in hopes of seeing her again. As much as another unexpected meeting off of Fleet Street or Cloth Fair would have delighted him, it was too often raining and chilly as autumn set in and something sparked in him.

  Though he turned every corner with a slight leap of his heart that she might be just beyond, under the toll of a bell or the shadow of a steeple, he was surprised when he looked up from his lectern to see her. The attention of thirty-five students shifted from the sound of his voice at the front of the room to whisper quietly as Diana appeared in a tartan-patterned wool dress that might have been commonplace if not for a red belt that drew his attention to her perfect proportions. Proportions clearly not lost on the wandering eyes of his students.

  Her attempt to gracefully settle at the back of the classroom was thwarted when one shoe crossed at an awkward angle over another and she fell sideways into a chair.

  Brent cleared his throat to stifle his smile. “Paul’s letters to the Corinthians.” He resumed the lecture, tugging at his collar. Why was the room suddenly warm? And how could his proficiency in the Greek tongue wander absently and settle near the window out of reach? “The Greeks described this as . . . as . . .” Brent shuffled his notes. He was a renowned Pauline scholar, for heaven’s sake, in an envied and prestigious tenure position at King’s College.

  He trained his eyes away from Diana Foyle and returned to the lecture with straightened shoulders and renewed resolve. Shrugging off the attention of female students keen to have him explain the Greek words of love he referred to in his lectures was an almost daily part of his life. But the youngest professor in the department with red hair, handsome features, broad shoulders, and crooked smile inspired more than a few second looks.

  He finally stared directly at her, and she ducked her head. His one-track mind derailed.

  Eventually Brent dismissed the class and gathered his notes. Usually a student or two loitered after class, approaching the blackboard and asking about a term paper or scheduling an appointment, but something about Diana’s presence deterred them and they filed out. But not before a few furtive glances—most from female students—slid in her direction.

  He slowly approached her as she was picking at the skirt of her tartan wool dress.

  “You really are a beautiful artist,” she said by way of greeting.

  Brent smiled, shoving his notes in his satchel. “I was hoping you might stop by my office. Wasn’t expecting the middle of a lecture.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He had imagined her eyes several times from their first meeting. He hadn’t anticipated that a change in clothing might change their color. Still blue but with a grayish tint. “What did you think?”

  “You’re wonderful up there. I could listen to you for hours. I came here because I . . .”

  “Have a question about Paul’s Grecian correspondence to the Thessalonians?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Not as such.”

  “Have a burning desire to learn the correct pronunciation of Sosthenes?”

  “I’m not a very religious person,” she blurted. “I suppose Paul wouldn’t have nice things to say about that. It’s not that I have anything against religion. It’s just that it’s so big and I like things I can see. Like churches. Just there in front of me. In words and history I know. Otherwise it is just a big concept I can’t quite grasp.” Her eyes widened. “I suppose I thought this might be something like asking if you would like tea.”

  “Something like tea?”

  “Tea. You like tea?”

  Brent grinned. “Yes. Tea with you sounds . . . well, I don’t believe my Greek vocabulary extends that far.”

  He led her to the hallway and closed the lecture hall door. Then the clack of her Spanish heels fell in step beside him. He led her by way of his office where he deposited his books and gathered his hat before they met, shafts of sunlight ribboning over the midday traffic of the Strand.

  Diana kept them at a frantic jog rather than a simple pace. “Can I take you somewhere?”

  “You’re already half dragging me down Fleet Street.”

  “You won’t regret it.”

  Brent’s peripheral vision offered her profile in full view. “No. I doubt I would regret it.”

  She tugged on his sleeve several strides from Ludgate Circus, affording the view of three Wren steeples: St. Bride’s; St. Martin, Ludgate; and just ahead, the Baroque dome and golden cross designating St. Paul’s Cathedral at Ludgate Hill.

  Brent said, “I confess I’m a tad familiar with it already.”

  “You’ve never seen it with me.”

  “True.”

  “So have you really seen it at all?”

  * * *

  Diana’s father had once told her the cathedral was at the location where, centuries ago, a temple of Diana stood. She loved hearing more about her name.

  “Since I was a little girl, I think I have seen the world through churches. My mother died when I was born. She loved churches. I wanted to see more relics and lady chapels.” Diana stopped. “Cathedrals have libraries, you know. They have stories built into them.”

  “Endless stories.” Brent nodded.

  “My father told me the churches are my friends . . . That when I heard a church bell or was wandering in a field or meadow or just lost, that the heart of every city and town was a church. If I was somewhere new and had lost my way, I could look for a steeple to guide me.”

  Her eyes studied her shoes while her smile widened. “He told me to look for people who appreciated churches just as he and my mother did: as if they were the true north of every compass.”

  Diana’s heart thudded. She hadn’t talked about her father to anyone but Silas Henderson before. She loved the sensation of Brent’s arm brushing hers as they neared the cathedral. The bells warmed to a chime and the sun blasted through the windows. Everything in her life had felt heightened and exciting knowing that she might intersect Brent’s path at any moment. She hadn’t been sleeping and had little appetite. Her father had told her love at first sight was improbable.

  Besides, it wasn’t love at first sight—though the sun emblazing his auburn hair and the intelligent spark in his gold-flecked eyes stirred something—as much as love at first sound. He had the most wonderful voice. It reverberated deep through, and the few times she had heard him chuckle, her heart fluttered.

  “You’ve heard of Paul’s walk?” she asked as they approached the steps of the Baroque cathedral: columned and white, bulbous roof supporting the tall steeple. It was the highest building in the city flourishing into a cross and a small cylinder soaring above the skyline, denoting God’s ownership of the world and, of course, the cathedral consecrated in His name. Two marble angels with swords bordered the gate. The hour was struck and marked by the bells, and Diana thought of Great Tom and Great Paul. Both cast in Whitechapel. The former one of the largest on
the planet.

  “I haven’t.”

  Diana beamed with the prospect of teaching him something. “Hundreds of years ago in Stuart and Elizabethan times, lords and courtiers and every man from the gentry would meet here just before lunch and wield the news and gossip of the day from newsmongers.” She smiled at him. “They walked back and forth, probably grumbling about whatever the gentry grumbled about and—”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Maybe the price of wheat or politics or who had the best sheep or the best chandler. Then they would break to eat—probably potted pies and ale—then come back and grumble some more.”

  They entered across the checkered tile from the baptistery to the fresco, Wren’s consummate craftsmanship apparent from every balustrade to the high altar, windows, and spiral staircases.

  “The Crossing.” Diana pointed as they made their way through the echoing sanctuary, starting at the nave through the dome: the quire before them hugged by the north and south transepts on either side. “Funny, eh? The entire building is in the shape of a cross. But even inside it keeps with the theme.”

  Her words sped: talking of pilasters, corner bastions, and circular chapels. She slowed to look up at him. She had stepped out with men who said she talked too much. She always did when she was nervous. Men who thought she was too pretty to be talking so much, to convince them of topics they had no interest in. They never said as much, but she could hear it. “Ever go to the pictures, darling?” “Why not take a night off from all of that, eh?”

  Her words rushed out, filling the hallowed, high corridors of St. Paul’s, not the result of nerves but of excitement. “Wren presented design after design.” Diana’s gaze wandered from the homburg brushing Brent’s pant leg in his loose grip and up to his profile. He was truly taking it in, focused intently on sights he must have seen before.

  “And he was proud of them. He wanted to work on them whether or not Charles the Second approved. It went through many phases, even before the Great Fire. It had to be worthy of the reputation of the city and the nation.” She wasn’t sure why the spell of these buildings held her so tightly. They were brick and mortar and artistry, pleasing to the eye but not flesh and blood. “Sometimes I can’t tell whether the emotion I feel in these places is from something emotional or spiritual. But I feel like I’ve known these churches all of my life.”

  Brent slowed before the organ case, flanked by pipes as gold as the carved cherubim above the choir stalls. She followed his studious gaze until it turned and rested on her. “You weren’t kidding about Wren being your true love.”

  She ducked her head a little. “I’m dreadfully boring to you.”

  He cocked his head. “Not quite dreadfully.”

  She felt something click in place. “Truly?”

  His smile was gentle. “Truly.”

  “I wanted to see you again. I worked it out in my head. Especially after you gave me that sketch.” She kept her voice low so it wouldn’t echo up to the rafters and ricochet over the rooftop mosaics. “That you might want tea. And I would have liked tea. But then I was in your lecture and I thought I’d take you here. Though I did take some notes. And I signed out a book on Paul. And the Greek forms of love. Oh, why am I talking so fast?” She flustered a sigh before she continued in a louder whisper. “I just really wanted us to have something to talk about.”

  “If you took me to St. Paul’s, then maybe we would have something to talk about?” He turned from her and resumed strolling around the floor, peering up and over the Baroque columns and sculpted edges, the light from the windows accentuating the smile creasing his eyes.

  “I never saw anyone but myself interpret a church the way you did. The way you sketched it.”

  Brent Somerville leaned over. His breath flowed in her ear, and she felt the warmth down her neck and through her completely. “Do you have a favorite part of this church?”

  “Y-yes.” Though she momentarily forgot what it was. Couldn’t be helped, though. She had also momentarily forgotten how to breathe.

  “Then why don’t you take me there? So we can have something to talk about. Though I feel we would have something to talk about anyway.”

  Diana nodded, took a deep inhale, and leveled herself. “Wren used the Catholic Baroque style to his whim and will.” Diana’s voice picked up speed as she led him toward the ascending stairs. She could feel him so close behind her. “He imparted his Protestant convictions by opening the quire so confessional boxes were replaced by a broad, open sanctuary, a high pulpit. The space encouraged preaching.” She flicked a look at him. “You’d know all about preaching.”

  “Would I?”

  “Paul was a preacher.”

  “He was also a fussy bachelor who got his head chopped off.” He chuckled. “But enough about Paul.”

  There were three galleries atop the grandeur of the cathedral, layered up to the highest point of the dome. The Whispering Gallery, the Stone Gallery, and the Golden Gallery. It was to the first Diana took Brent, surprised at her boldness when she reached out and grabbed his forearm, feeling the sinewy muscles beneath the layers of his jacket and cotton shirt.

  “The Whispering Gallery.” She led him to the staircase. After a narrow ascension of almost two hundred steps, Brent steady behind her, she showed him the circumference punctuated by perfectly measured windows and columns. The nave below and the high dome above watched as she coaxed him to the other side of the railed dome. Soon they were facing each other across the great void.

  She explained he would be able to hear her through sound waves that rippled through the circular circumference. “Say something!” she mouthed, heart thrumming, delighted they had the gallery to themselves.

  Brent turned his ginger head toward the wall. Diana waited with bated breath for the reverberation of his words to join her on the other side, her ear pressed to the cold stone.

  “Your name is Diana Foyle. Like the bookshop in Charing Cross Road.”

  A smile tickled her mouth. She couldn’t see his eyes, but his body language was relaxed. The same shoulders that squared to command a lecture hall, the same voice that expounded Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians. “Yes,” she said to the wall, turned from Brent but feeling his eyes on her anyway.

  “And I think you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  Diana held her hand up to the wall and pressed her palm on it. Maybe she could feel the words through her veins and keep them. And she knew then she would love Brent until the day she died. As long as St. Paul’s stood, she would be his.

  Chapter 8

  October 1945

  London

  Diana straightened her shoulders and set out from King’s College. Devastation shadowed every corner, not to mention the slight signs of defeat in sunken shoulders or the pain in a stranger’s eye when you passed to cross the road.

  Uniformed servicemen swerved to avoid the sharp turn of a bus, schoolchildren responded to a whistle, and construction workers hoisted long planks over their shoulders. The cerulean sky matched the bright paint whose fresh tang wafted to her nostrils with a puff of breeze that stirred leaves around her heels. A woman’s bright-green coat when seen at closer view had been rehemmed. Clothing was still rationed and stockings still impossible to find. A bobby’s handsome aquiline profile when turned fully revealed a patch in lieu of an eye.

  She focused her approach to The Savoy’s rich deco sign. Brent had talked of taking her to The Savoy before they married: to a world of pressed ivory linens and polished silver. Some of his faculty parties and postlecture dinners were held at elegant venues across the city, and she loved watching him attempt to straighten his bow tie that, rather like his smile, was always delightfully uneven. She wished she were with him now, that his arm was steadying hers, his rich voice rumbling through her with a word of encouragement.

  The doorman stood sentry to let her in. She wasn’t two steps in the direction of the ornate tearoom before she was intercepte
d by a tall man with carefully pomaded black hair, almost purple under the bright lights of the lavish foyer.

  “Diana.” Simon Barre offered her both hands.

  “It’s good to see you, Simon.”

  He represented chapters of a life she couldn’t share with Brent. The person who—even more than her friend Sophie Villiers—understood exactly what she had seen and thought since she watched her husband disappear into a khaki throng of soldiers at the train station. For while Villiers had occupied a long wooden hut nearby, Simon worked with Diana in Hut 3.

  She mused on its squat perimeter and rickety radiator before the pleasant curtain of the present pulled her attention back to a waiter ushering them to where tea would be served. There, amidst crystal glasses catching prisms of chandeliers, tiered trays of sandwiches and delicacies putting the previous day’s repast to shame, and elaborate floral centerpieces, they would sit and forget the part of the past collected in cups of weak cocoa and burnt toast.

  Simon pulled out Diana’s chair and she settled, folding her hands in front of her.

  “Full-cream tea.” Simon ordered, blue eyes appraising her with a twinkle. “And champagne.” The waiter bowed and retreated. “When is the last time you had a decent glass of champagne?” Simon said in response to her snicker.

  “Not even at my wedding.”

  “Ah. Listen.” He held up his index finger as a swell of strings from the chamber quartet in the corner was joined by the soft line of an oboe. “I don’t know if I would have been as aware of Mozart had it not been for old Fisher.”

  Diana smiled. “With all the subtlety of a peacock.” She gave Simon a keen look. “Fisher would have thought he had the ability to blend in with a crowd, but he didn’t. Not quite. The moment he set those big brown eyes on someone, something shifted.”

  She had been able to interpret moments of Simon’s vulnerability with the same sheer precision as the German phrases she was asked to translate during her first months at Bletchley. Simon presented one aspect of himself in hopes he could make the world better by being stern and professional and always on task. But deep down she knew he was kind. While it was true he was using her in exchange for something he had done for her during the war, the favor and the weeks in Vienna were small exchange for the gift he had given her.