by Rhys Bowen
Get a grip, Cresswell, he said to himself.
As he dismounted and wheeled his bike up to the front steps, he encountered Phoebe coming across the forecourt with the dogs at her heels. She was dressed in riding breeches and a cotton shirt.
“Ben!” She beamed on seeing him. He was still being accorded hero status.
“Hello, Feebs. Been riding?” he asked.
“No, Pah wouldn’t let me. He said things might be going on, and I’d get in the way. People looking into the bomb, you know. Actually, I’ve been helping Gumbie move her things. She’s being put in one of the groom’s flats over the stables, now we’re down to one groom. She’s not at all happy about it. Well, I wouldn’t be, either. There’s only cold water, and it does smell of horse.” She kicked at the gravel, then looked up at the house. “I said she should have Margot’s bedroom, since she’s not likely to need it, but Pah said that standards had to be kept up, and it was not right for the staff to sleep on the same floor as the family, even if there was a war on.”
Ben grinned. It was such a typical thing for someone like Lord Westerham to say. Not admitting that anything was allowed to change, even when the whole world was disintegrating around him. He stooped to pet the dogs, who were wagging tails furiously. “Apart from being moved to a stable room, how is she feeling this morning?”
Phoebe made a face. “Still a bit weepy, I’m afraid. Some of her things were damaged when water dripped down from up above. Her books and papers, you know. They were very precious to her.”
“Was she writing a book?”
“Some kind of thesis or treatise or whatever you call it. She’s very brainy, you know. She had to leave Oxford when her parents died and her brother turned her out with no money.”
“Poor Miss Gumble.”
“I know. I felt terrible when she told me.”
“Is her paper to do with astronomy?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Because I wondered why she had a telescope.”
“Oh, I think she does bird-watching.” Phoebe grinned. “The telescope’s not big enough for astronomy. She managed to save that. And quite a few of her books. And we’ve put the rest of her books and her papers to dry out on the table in the conservatory.”
“And everyone else is okay?” he asked.
“Oh yes. Mah is very cross with Pah that he took such risks up on the roof, but I think he’s feeling jolly pleased with himself, especially as Farleigh was saved.”
“I wonder why on earth anyone would want to drop a bomb on Farleigh,” Ben said.
Phoebe looked at him, her head tilted to one side like a bird’s. “Perhaps it had something to do with that German spy.”
Ben looked at her with surprise. It was unsettling to have a twelve-year-old echoing his own suspicions as calmly as if she were talking about the weather. “German spy?” he asked.
“Yes, you know. The man who fell into our field. Alfie and I found him, you know. And we reckon he had to be a German spy.”
“What made you think that?” Ben asked.
“Well, he was wearing the uniform of the West Kents, but they don’t jump out of planes. So we thought his plan was probably to make his way to Biggin Hill Aerodrome and spy on our planes, or else go up to London and blow up Westminster Abbey or something. But now this has happened, now our house got bombed, I’m starting to wonder whether the two things might be connected. Is there someone or something at Farleigh that the Germans want destroyed?”
Before he could answer, he heard footsteps and looked up to see Pamela and Livvy coming down the steps.
“Ben, how lovely,” Pamela said. “Are you recovered from last night’s ordeal?”
“Except for lack of sleep,” Ben said, returning her smile. “I came to see how everyone was this morning.”
“We’ve all survived remarkably well. Pah was so cheerful at breakfast you’d have thought something good happened instead of his house nearly going up in flames.”
“He’s just relieved it didn’t,” Livvy said. “And thank God we came back when we did. If we’d dilly-dallied a little longer at the Prescotts, who would have saved little Charles? I can’t bear to think of it.”
“One hopes that Nanny would have,” Pamela said.
Livvy shook her head angrily. “She’d have been useless. You saw her last night. A quivering jelly.”
“Well, all’s well now,” Ben said. “And the servants? How are they taking it?”
“Ruby’s still a bit weepy, and none of them like the idea of camping out in the butler’s pantry and a disused storeroom, but it’s better than the rain coming in onto them,” Pamela said, smiling at Ben. “Actually, the army chaps have already been round this morning to survey the damage, and they say they can requisition supplies to fix the roof, which is jolly good news. And they offered to make a couple of rooms available in their part of the house for our servants.” She chuckled. “Mah rejected that offer. She said she wasn’t having her girls sleeping anywhere near a pack of soldiers. I think she was quite right. Our parlourmaid is not to be trusted around men, and Ruby could easily be led astray.”
“I’ve just written to Teddy,” Livvy said. “He’d want to hear that his wife and son were in danger but survived. I just wish he weren’t so far away. Why couldn’t they let me accompany him to the Bahamas? I wouldn’t have got in the way of his duties with the duke.”
“It’s a war, Livvy,” Pamela said. “Think of all those men being shipped around the world, leaving their wives and children behind. There would be no reason for you to get special treatment.”
“We are friends of the Duke of Windsor. That should count for something,” Livvy said stiffly.
“Not very much at the moment. I would say that the Duke of Windsor is more liability than asset,” Pamela replied.
“I think he’s been very unfairly treated,” Livvy said.
“Because he took his wife to visit Hitler in his lair?” Pamela demanded. Then she looked up, and her face broke into a smile. “Look who’s coming,” she said. And Ben turned to see the Prescotts’ sleek Rolls coming up the drive.
It came to a halt beside them, and Jeremy got out. “My God, I came as soon as I heard,” he said. “We saw the fire last night, but we thought it was that plane that crashed in a field. Then this morning one of the servants came from the village and told us. How much damage was there?”
“Not too bad, really,” Livvy said. “Part of the roof was destroyed. The attic was damaged. Grandmama’s hideous Victorian monstrosities went up in smoke. You know stuffed birds and dried flowers and things. The ceiling came down in some of the servants’ rooms. But we were extremely lucky having the whole regiment on hand. They put it out in no time at all.”
“And what about all of you? Any casualties?”
He was looking at Pamela.
“No, we’re all fine, thank you. At least I’m fine, thanks to Ben. I went up to rescue Phoebe’s governess in the east turret. I found her passed out and lying under the bed, and I couldn’t move her. The room was rapidly filling with smoke, and the ceiling was coming down. I didn’t know what to do. Then Ben arrived, and we were just pulling her out when a great beam fell. He flung himself”—Ben was sure she was going to say “on top of me,” but she corrected and said—“he pushed me out of the way just in time, and together we dragged Miss Gumble to safety.”
Jeremy looked at Ben and grinned. “Not bad, old chap. So you’re having your share of excitement after all. Maybe I shouldn’t have underestimated you.”
“No,” Ben said calmly. “You should never do that.”
“So all’s well that ends well here. Jolly good,” Jeremy said. “I say, Pamma. Want to come out for a drive? I’ve finally been allowed to get my hands on the motorcar, on the pretext of checking up on you all.”
Pamela looked across at Ben.
“I have to go up to London and report in at work,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure that everything was all rig
ht here.”
“Can’t do without you at work, eh, Ben?” Jeremy asked.
“Jeremy, don’t be so horrid,” Pamela said. “See how you’ll feel if they don’t ever let you fly again.”
“I didn’t mean . . .” Jeremy said.
“Yes, you did,” Ben replied. “But you’ll find I’m quite thick-skinned these days. Have a nice drive, you two.” He went over to his bicycle, started to wheel it away, then decided to go and see Miss Gumble in her stable quarters. The room was spartan, to say the least. A single bed, a chest of drawers, and some hooks on the wall for clothes. Every surface was currently piled high with books. She was, as Phoebe had reported, a bit weepy.
“It is so good of you to come and visit me, Mr. Cresswell,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough for saving my life, but so many of my precious books have been destroyed. My whole life taken from me.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “Maybe more of them will be salvageable than you think.”
“But my papers . . . I had hoped to finish my thesis. My former Oxford tutor said that he would petition for me to present it to the examiners. I had to leave Oxford, you know, when my father died and my brother turned me out without a penny to my name.”
“Yes, Phoebe told me,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”
She nodded. “Life isn’t always fair. Why should Farleigh be hit by a bomb?”
Ben was looking around the room, trying to bring the subject back to telescopes.
“I don’t see your telescope,” he said. “I hope you managed to salvage that.”
“Oh yes, thank you. It’s hard to destroy a telescope. It was my father’s. Good solid British brass.”
“Were you studying the stars?” he asked.
She laughed. “Oh, goodness gracious, no. It’s just a little telescope. I indulge in a little bird-watching. I had it trained on a blackbird’s nest in a big oak tree. There was a cuckoo in it. I find cuckoos fascinating, don’t you? They lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, and then their young one is so much bigger, and it pushes the real chicks out so that the poor blackbirds have only it to feed.” She shuddered. “Life is so cruel. I shan’t bother to set my telescope up here. There is no view of the woods, only the stable yard.”
Ben was glad to make his escape. The telescope and the papers all sounded completely plausible. But then he had been told during his briefings that women make good spies. As he was wheeling his bicycle away, he remembered the papers that were drying in the conservatory. Miss Gumble was busy arranging things in her new quarters, so he had a good chance to take a peek at them. He made his way around the house to the conservatory on the other side. In the old days, before the war, there would have been a pack of gardeners. Now, there were only a couple of old men trying to keep things going. There was no sign of either of them as he approached the conservatory and let himself in. Inside was the sweet, moist smell of growing plants. He noticed small grapes on the grapevine in the corner and small tomato plants with yellow blooms on them. And there on the long table were the books and papers. Some of them still a soggy mess beyond hope. On others, the ink had run. He bent over them, trying to read the writing. Then he stiffened. He read the words Wars of the Roses. He didn’t find a date, but words leaped off the page. “Struggle to replace a weak king with a more vibrant branch of the Plantagenet dynasty. Two branches of the royal line. Final battle. Outcome of the battle was defeat of the royal . . .”
Was it just coincidence that he had taken the numbers 1461 to be a date during the Wars of the Roses? Or was it possible there was some hidden message here? Two branches of the royal family. Defeat of the weaker line . . . the king who stammered? The king who was anti-Hitler? Was there possibly a plot to get rid of the king? He looked through the rest of the papers, but couldn’t find anything that was obviously incriminating. Then he wondered if Miss Gumble might be working for the other side and sending and receiving messages with a hidden radio. In which case, why did they find it necessary to have someone parachute down with a photograph in his pocket?
Back at the vicarage, he changed into city clothes and then cycled to the station. By now, word had spread around the whole village, and Ben was bombarded with questions about his role in last night’s drama as he came upon a group of women chatting outside the bakery.
“So it really was a bomb, was it?” one of the women called out to him. “We wondered if it was just a normal house fire.”
“No, it was definitely a bomb,” Ben said.
“Why would anyone want to bomb Farleigh?” a woman asked.
“Maybe because it’s one of them stately homes,” another woman muttered. “You know what those devils are like. They want to scare us into capitulating by bombing everything that matters to us. But they’re mistaken. We can end up with rubble all around us, and we won’t give in.”
Ben looked at her weathered and wrinkled face. A woman whose life had been of the uttermost simplicity, who had probably never ventured past Sevenoaks or Tonbridge, and yet willing to stand up to a mighty enemy against all odds.
We might even beat them someday, Ben thought.
He was just mounting his bicycle again when a van drew up beside him. “Baxters Builders” was painted on the side. Billy Baxter wound down the window and leaned out.
“Going somewhere, Ben?”
“To the station,” Ben replied. “I have to report in to work.”
“Jump in. I’ll give you a lift.”
“It’s all right, thanks,” Ben replied. “I’m quite capable of riding my bike to the station.”
Billy grinned. “What, that old thing? Looks like it will fall to pieces before you get round the bend.”
“It’s lasted at least thirty years, so I expect it will keep going a little while longer.”
“Come on. Don’t be standoffish. I’m heading that way myself, and what if you come back and it’s pouring with rain?”
Ben hesitated. Of course, he’d rather ride in the van than pedal the ancient bike to the station, but this was Billy Baxter.
“Come to think of it, I could take you right into Sevenoaks, then you wouldn’t have to change trains,” Billy said.
“I’d take it, if I were you, Ben,” one of the women said. “Leave your bike, and we’ll see it gets back to the vicarage.”
Now he had no option. “All right. Thanks,” he said, nodding to the woman. He went around to the passenger side and climbed in beside Billy. They drove off.
“Where are you heading, then?” Ben asked.
“Going into the lumberyard on the other side of Sevenoaks,” he said. “I reckon I’ll need to stock up, after what happened at Farleigh last night. You were there, were you? Is there a lot of work to be done?”
“Quite a bit,” Ben said, “but I think the army has it all in hand. Since it’s now temporarily a military post, I heard they are requisitioning supplies to rebuild.” It gave him the greatest pleasure to watch Billy’s face.
“But they’ll still need a qualified builder, won’t they?” he said. “Unless they plan to make do with a few boards tacked across to keep the rain out.”
Ben didn’t answer this but said, “You seem to be doing quite well out of the war.”
“Not too badly, old son. You’ve got to take your chances, haven’t you? Make the most of things.”
“It’s a pity there aren’t more houses being bombed in the Kentish countryside,” Ben said.
“I have enough work to keep me going for the duration, don’t you worry. And some nice little bits on the side, too.”
“Bits on the side?”
“I have a petrol ration, see. I have to get around to repair bomb damage, and the nice government gives me extra coupons. So I can pick up and deliver. Tell your dad if he ever wants anything, he only has to come to me.”
“Black market, you mean?” Ben asked.
Billy grinned. “Supply and demand. Doing a good service, old son. I help those who have superfluous goods load them off to someone
who needs them.”
“With a good markup for you in the middle.”
The grin widened. “I’m not a right mug, you know.”
So that ruled out Billy Baxter as a possible German contact, Ben thought. He was profiting so nicely from the war, he probably didn’t want it to end. And if the Germans invaded, he’d be the sort who’d keep them supplied with necessities, too.
He was glad when they reached the station and parted cordially.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
At Dolphin Square
Ben waited in the lobby for the lift to arrive, trying to compose in his mind what he wanted to say to Maxwell Knight. Had he anything of substance to report, apart from a bomb falling on Farleigh, Miss Gumble’s telescope, the two artists at the oast house . . . ? The lift came down, and the doors opened. Ben uttered a gasp at the same time as Guy Harcourt said, “My God, Cresswell. What a surprise.”
“What are you doing here?” Ben demanded.
“I could ask you the same thing, old chap,” Guy said. “Let’s just say we’re both on the same side, shall we? I never did buy that ‘nervous breakdown and having to take time off’ line. You’re as fit as I am. So it seems we both have a standing invitation with a certain captain at Dolphin Square. Well, well.”
“Good God. You too?” Ben said.
“Let’s just say I’m happy to oblige as messenger boy when asked. You’ll be back at our digs, will you?”