A Question of Betrayal

by Anne Perry

  Margot put the cases down and caught Cecily in her arms, hugging her fiercely.

  Then Cecily stepped back, smiling. “Come in, you must be tired. Did you have a good journey? Let me tell you about all the arrangements and who will be there.” She barely drew breath. “You’ll have to meet Hans, of course, but there are other people as well. He’s terribly well connected, you know. But that’s all by the way. Come, let’s put your things in your room. You’d like a cup of tea, wouldn’t you? Have you had anything to eat? Railway food is pretty ghastly.” She picked up one of the cases, with an effort, and carried it up the path. She was wearing a floral silk dress and it moved fluidly with her, showing how very slender she was.

  Pre-wedding nerves? With a sharp stab of memory, Margot thought of her own excitement before Paul’s last leave. Their wedding so brief: a flurry of white roses, petals falling; their one week together and then goodbyes that turned out to be forever.

  She picked up the other case and followed Cecily.

  Winifred, Cecily’s mother, stood in the hall, smiling. She was a pretty woman in a fragile way, her hair still richly colored, with natural curls, her eyes wide and clear blue; her skin without blemish. Cecily went straight past her and put the case down with a gasp of relief.

  Margot hugged Winifred, feeling her respond gently.

  “So pleased you could come, dear,” Winifred said warmly. “Difficult to travel at the moment, so we are grateful you made the time and the effort. But things are really beginning to look better and this is a wonderful event for our family. We are so happy.” She stepped back for a moment and gazed into Margot’s face, her look absolutely candid. “We are at the beginning of hope.” There was a flush in her pale cheeks. “It makes all the world of difference to Cecily—to all of us—that you are here.” She looked past Margot at Cecily. “Leave that at the bottom of the stairs, dear. Ernst will take it up, and the other one.” She turned back to Margot. “Go up and see your room, and then you will have tea in the sitting room and we’ll tell you all the plans.” She stepped back, as if cueing Margot to leave temporarily.

  Margot smiled back at her. “It’s lovely to be here, and to see you again for such a happy occasion. The beginning of new times.” She turned and started upstairs, wondering if she should not have made that last remark. She so badly wanted it to be true. Perhaps she was helping paint a mirage, but it was too late to take it back.

  Cecily followed her upstairs, led her across the landing, and opened the guest bedroom door. She turned, smiling.

  Margot walked in. It had been arranged especially for her. The things she had loved years ago reappeared. Thin, soft curtains that moved with the breeze and brought back a sharp memory of going to see a desperately romantic musical drama with Cecily. Margot had been old enough to know how unrealistic it was, but it was an escape from the practical. Looking at the curtains now, the whole atmosphere of that dreamy evening returned. White curtains, stirred by the breeze, revealed so much, and hid all the framework that separated the real from the dreams, the present from an imagined future.

  There were flowers on the dressing table. Not roses—that would be too ordinary. These were daisies of some sort, shaggy with loose, careless petals; some kind of chrysanthemum. Cecily had remembered those, too, and for Margot a memory danced just out of reach: the smell of damp earth, laughter, leaves turning gold on the trees.

  The wardrobe door was half open, showing enough space for all the dresses Margot had brought for parties, for afternoon walks, and of course for the wedding itself and the dinner afterward.

  Margot turned and saw Cecily in the doorway, her face eager to know if she had got everything right, if Margot remembered all the same things, despite the difference in their ages.

  Margot felt tears prickle in her eyes. “It’s beautiful,” she said with intense feeling. “Nobody else could have brought it back, never mind so delicately. Thank you.”

  Cecily smiled happily and looked a little embarrassed that Margot had accurately recognized her feelings. “Tea downstairs,” she said quietly. “You must be gasping.”

  “I’ll be there,” Margot promised.

  As soon as the door was closed, Margot let out her breath. She was pleased to be here; it seemed almost immediately to have proved its worth. And yet she began to appreciate that the visit was going to be even more weighted with emotions than she had foreseen. Was she the only British friend to come? Or perhaps just the longest known, the only one who had shared briefly some of Cecily’s girlhood, allowing herself to relive her own? Maybe she was the only one to have any understanding of the deeper situation, both their fathers having served in the British embassy in Berlin. Perhaps they had seen the changes in fortunes in Germany, felt the despair, the anger, and the hope. And now, also, the fear?

  She stood up and opened the first of the cases in which her clothes were packed. She took out a comfortable dress, a dark, dramatic floral, one of her favorites. And after giving herself a brief wash in the bedroom basin, she put it on. She hung up the suit she had worn for two days of travel. She would brush it and freshen it later. Now, to put on new makeup. She had arrived, she was safe and comfortable, but this was still a performance. Not only might every word she said be weighed and remembered, but so also would be her expressions: the momentary smile or hesitation.

  Winifred and Cecily were both waiting for Margot when she knocked on the sitting-room door and went in. It was at first glance so much like the way it used to be years ago. The carved fireplace was polished, but the fire in it was smaller than she remembered, although there was an autumnal nip in the air. The long curtains drawn back from the windows were the old ones, rich velvet, but carefully tied to fold over the places where she guessed the pile was worn. The same pictures were on the walls and she found herself smiling at the familiarity of it.

  “I always liked this room,” she said to Winifred. “One of the good things that’s still here.”

  Winifred smiled quickly. “And it’s going to get better again,” she promised. “More people are working. There is order. Buses and trains are running. Of course, you know that. You came by train, didn’t you? How was it? Was it clean? On time?” There was an eagerness in her eyes, as if she knew the answer.

  Margot felt a rush of relief. It was a question she could answer honestly. “Yes, exactly on time, and it was clean. A bit worn, but perfectly patched. Someone took care.”

  “Exactly,” Winifred agreed. “So much has changed under the surface, like a tree when you can see the buds swelling and you know there will be leaves soon. I have great hopes…”

  Cecily looked at her mother, and for an instant Margot saw the intense affection in her, even protectiveness. “Don’t try to hurry it, Mother. They’ll get it at their own pace. When the new take the place of the old, they have to do so with a certain hesitancy…gentleness.”

  “I know, dear. I’m just telling Margot what hope there is.”

  Cecily looked at Margot. “We can see so much more of the new government because of Hans.” She smiled a little self-consciously and glanced down at her slender hands folded in her lap, the diamond engagement ring prominent on her left hand. It was clearly still new to her and she was always conscious of it. She looked up and saw Margot’s eyes. “He’s rising quite quickly…”

  “Very quickly,” Winifred affirmed. “It’s early yet, of course—we all know that—but he has caught the attention of the authorities with his intelligence, and the speed at which he sees the bigger picture.”

  “Of what?” Margot asked. “Germany’s future?” Then immediately she wished she had not spoken. She was tired from the long journey, and now she was with people who had become partial strangers, old friends who had had different experiences from hers and had seen the reflection from the other side of the glass. Too much was reversed.

  Margot spoke again, this time very carefully. “I h
aven’t met your Hans yet. Tell me all about him. I feel almost as if he is going to be part of my life, if he is already part of yours.”

  Cecily blushed.

  Margot knew it was part self-conscious pleasure and part embarrassment. She could remember feeling just that way when people asked about Paul.

  “What else do you like about him?” Margot asked, prompting her and knowing exactly what she would say if someone asked her about Paul now. He was wise, had an honest gaze, he never evaded the truth, even if he had to tell it gently. She recalled it now as if the intervening years had not existed.

  Cecily was still thinking. Winifred drew in breath and then thought better of answering for her. “His loyalty,” Cecily said at last. “It takes courage and honor to be so loyal, not afraid of what other people think of you, or—”

  “It is what he truly believes.” Winifred could not resist speaking.

  “Loyalty is a great quality,” Margot agreed, maybe too quickly. “You can trust him completely. What do you enjoy doing together?”

  “We…we haven’t been alone together a lot,” Cecily replied. “But he has introduced me to some marvelous friends.” She smiled and looked down, as if not wanting to seem to boast. “Some of the people who are going to make this country great again. Such vision, such belief, is a little overwhelming.”

  “He is proud to show her off,” Winifred cut in, to say without immodesty what Cecily could not.

  Margot felt a sudden chill, there and then gone again. Could it possibly be envy? Paul had not shown her off. He had wanted to be alone with her, to talk about what they would do together when peace came. He had thought it would not be long. He was right about that. It came soon, very soon. But he did not live to see it.

  “Of course,” she answered in response to Winifred’s remark.

  Cecily looked up, her eyes full of pain. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know you were here, where I am, once and…and had only a week. I shouldn’t be going on.”

  Margot reached across and put her hand over Cecily’s. “Yes, you should. No one knows what the future holds, and you can’t carry the pain of someone else’s loss. And I can be happy for you, without a shadow crossing it. I promise you, this is your time, and I am here to enjoy it with you. In the future, we will both be able to look back on it, and I can say…I was there. So tell me more. Has he brothers and sisters? What kind of music does he like? What makes him laugh? What is your dress like? No, I’ll wait to see it. It’s not what your dress is like that matters, it’s you, and what you look like when you’re wearing it. You will look beautiful because you are beautiful. But sophisticated or innocent? Simple or ravishing?”

  Again, Cecily started to answer and then changed her mind. “Traditional,” she said instead. “He comes from a very prominent family, you know. His mother is quite a fashion icon.”

  “Is she beautiful?” Margot asked. “Be honest, not polite.”

  Cecily smiled. “Not really. She’s…flawless, but there’s nobody in there.”

  “Cecily!” Winifred said quickly. “That’s…”

  “What is she like?” Cecily said directly to Margot. “Enamel. Perfect. Not a mark or a chip in it. But slightly out of proportion; there’s something wrong with the balance of it.”

  Margot was not sure whether to laugh or cry. Was it fear speaking, or was it the flash of perception she recalled in Cecily: the artist’s eye. Cecily liked to draw. She never needed to rely on color: the art, the inner truth, was all in the line.

  This felt suddenly too close to their current situation. “Then you will have to be everything in contrast,” Margot said. “Vibrant, warm, imperfect, as true beauty always is.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Winifred said with a frown. “How can imperfection make beauty?”

  Both Winifred and Cecily were looking at Margot, waiting. She had to say something. “I’m not sure. Maybe it gives it character, reality, a life instead of just art. A cry for you to meet it. I’m not sure what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean,” Cecily said quickly. “A place where you can touch it, where your worlds meet.”

  Winifred still looked puzzled.

  In her mind’s eye, Margot caught a glimpse of two separate orbs, touching and then parting again.

  Before she could think of it further, there was a noise in the hall outside, footsteps, and the door opened. Roger Cordell came in, saw Margot, and walked to her immediately. She stood up and, without thinking, gave him a hug. It seemed so natural, but it was only when she stepped back that she realized she had not greeted Winifred with such an enthusiastic embrace, and she felt self-conscious.

  “Did you have a good journey?” Roger asked. “How is your family? Your father?”

  They spent a good amount of time exchanging friendly and polite inquiries, and all the news. It was easy, comfortable, and needed no thought. They remembered old jokes, happy times, perhaps happier in the remembrance than they were at the time. It was the experience shared that mattered.

  Dusk settled over the garden. Roger rose and pulled the curtains closed. They put more coal on the fire.

  It was only after dinner and well into the evening that Margot excused herself, saying she wished to be fresh for all the events that were to come.

  “Of course,” Winifred agreed. “You must be tired from traveling.” She rose also, accompanying Margot to the door. She hesitated when they were outside in the hall, as if she wanted to say something but could not find the words.

  Margot did not know how to help her. Winifred was smiling, but there was uncertainty in it, even fear.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said awkwardly. “We’ve been friends for a long time. Your parents were the closest we had to family.”

  Margot nearly made some appropriate remark, but she realized Winifred had something for which she was trying to find words, something that mattered to her intensely.

  “You may find Hans’s parents a little…I don’t know the word I’m looking for…harsh? A little too forward in their opinions?” She blinked several times. “Perhaps it comes from having lost the war. It scalds the pride. They can’t bring themselves to admit that they were in any way wrong. Their history books omit all of their invasions, their occupation of other people’s lands and towns and villages. It seems to be difficult sometimes…”

  “I understand,” Margot cut into the awkwardness. “I don’t like to admit some of the things that England has done, particularly when speaking to one of our victims.”

  Winifred looked puzzled. “Our…victims?”

  Margot realized her mistake. Winifred could see only this war; nothing else was material now. “I was thinking of the past,” she explained. “European wars, that kind of thing. I’m sorry, I’ll be courteous, I promise you. If they make Cecily happy, that’s all I care about.”

  Winifred’s eyes filled with tears. “Thank you, my dear. It’s all I care about, too. Happy and safe. Roger and I, we can’t do that for her, not now. She loves Hans, and I’m sure he loves her. She’s so…”

  “She’s lovely,” Margot said firmly. “She was always charming, and now she’s positively beautiful. He’s a very lucky man, and I’m sure he knows it.”

  “Yes,” Winifred agreed. Now she could not stop the tears running down her face. “I hate to let her go, but we have to keep her safe.”

  Without thinking, Margot put her arms around Winifred’s shoulders and held her tightly for several moments. When Winifred finally walked away, her back was straight, her head high. She was ready to face her family again.

  CHAPTER

  8

  Elena was restless all night after having found Aiden and spent the evening dining near him and his friends, as if they were total strangers. She had imagined it before, of course: how it would be, how they would address each other, and how each of them wou
ld feel. First, she had loved him, then she had believed he was a traitor, and loved and hated him at the same time. Then Peter Howard had told her he was loyal all the time!

  Now it all fell into place. She should have trusted her instinct and known there was an explanation. He had not betrayed her; he had followed a higher loyalty. At what cost to himself? She might never know. But now that she had found him, it was different. A few moments alone and he could have healed so much of the wound she had merely covered over. No wonder she could not forget him! In her heart she must always have known. It was her turn to be loyal, even to save him.

  She lay in this narrow, hard bed in the strange apartment in Trieste, staring up at the patterns on the ceiling made by the streetlights. The shutters were open, since closed they made the room completely airless, and she could hear the noise anyway: people’s footsteps, now and then a car’s engine, someone calling out “good night” in Italian or German or Serbian.

  So many nights she had lain in his arms. How was it even imaginable that he wouldn’t recognize her, however much she had changed? Her hair had been light brown; her mother had called it “honey-colored,” which sounded so much more attractive. The heavy wave was natural. In May, in Berlin, when she was running away, she had cut it much shorter, level with her jaw, and dyed it pale blond. That was only months ago, although it seemed in another life. Half grown out, it had looked such a mess. She had it colored again, that luminous Scandinavian blond tone, and Margot had laughed at her. Elena had to admit she actually liked it. It made her look very different. She had kept it like that as a promise to herself that she was different, braver, a player and not just a watcher.

  Elena was dressing more fashionably, too. She had disguised herself, when she needed to, not by melting into the background but by standing out against it. Bold and different. Strikingly dressed, so people remembered her clothes rather than her face. She had not admitted it until now, but this pleased her. The new self was who she wanted to be. It felt natural, true, as she imagined herself to be.