The Scarlet Nightingale

by Alan Titchmarsh

  His look was apprehensive. ‘Yes.’

  ‘In spite of … the way the last one ended.’

  ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of being stuck behind a desk.’

  ‘You could have joined a regiment,’ she said, then stopped short, worried that she had implied he was in some way cowardly.

  Harry did not acknowledge the unintentional slight, but said, ‘I offered to, but they wouldn’t hear of it. Said I had talents they could still use.’

  ‘But at a desk.’

  ‘Yes. So I struck a deal with them and they found me … well, a job that would let me travel.’

  Rosamund took another sip of the rich red burgundy. ‘And I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where?’

  Harry shook his head. ‘You suppose right.’

  ‘But surely you will be at risk after what happened in Montbéliard? Won’t they be looking for you?’

  ‘I won’t be going back to France. I’ll be going to Germany, and I’ll have a change of identity – and appearance. You’d be surprised what a beard can do for a man.’

  ‘Don’t joke!’

  ‘I’m not joking, I’m afraid. I have trusted contacts, which is why I have to go rather than anyone else.’

  ‘You really are a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not really. I just know I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I call it quits now and push a pen for the rest of my life.’

  ‘Funny.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t think of anything better than pushing a pen for the rest of my life. Though not behind a desk in some government department.’

  ‘Where then?’

  ‘In the south of France.’

  Harry smiled. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Completely. I’ve been writing. Short stories. I have this dream that one day I will be writing them in a villa in the south of France.’

  Harry leaned back in his chair. On his face there was a look of surprise, bordering on disbelief.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Rosamund. ‘What’s so odd about that?’

  ‘Nothing; nothing at all. It’s just that … I didn’t expect you to say that.’

  Rosamund smiled. ‘I’m glad I can still surprise you.’

  Harry looked thoughtful. ‘The Frenchman, Thierry Foustier. What was he like?’

  ‘Officially or unofficially?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Officially, very efficient, very focussed, quite inspiring.’

  ‘And unofficially?’

  ‘Very dishy, very French and …’ she shrugged and hesitated as if searching for a suitable description.

  ‘Is this where I stop asking questions?’

  ‘Probably, yes.’

  Harry smiled. ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Well, yes, I do mind but … I don’t blame you …’

  ‘For what?’ she asked, with a note of mock annoyance in her voice.

  ‘For surrendering to his charms.’

  ‘Well, thank you for that. I’m very grateful.’ There was an admonishing tone in her voice, which served to hide her embarrassment and guilt at having, in Harry’s words, ‘surrendered to Thierry’s charms’. At least she knew now that he would not be shocked to discover that such was the case. She felt a weight lift, and regarded Harry’s attitude as a kind of tacit forgiveness for anything that might have happened in France.

  ‘What do you know about him?’ asked Rosamund.

  ‘Not much. I know that he had a bit of a reputation as a lady’s man.’

  ‘And where is he now? Do you know?’

  Harry shrugged. ‘Out there somewhere, being someone else, as I shall be soon.’

  Rosamund saw the light in his eyes. ‘You’re quite determined, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Does that surprise you?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve become used to you surprising me.’

  ‘Can I surprise you again?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By asking you to marry me.’

  Rosamund simply did not see it coming. Before she could answer, he added, ‘If you can forgive me for what happened in France. And if you don’t think I am the lowest of the low who bats for both sides and whose loyalties are divided. I can only tell you that my loyalties are indeed divided, but they are divided between my country and you.’

  Now it was Rosamund’s turn to sit back in her chair and listen wide-eyed as Harry continued: ‘It’s a long story, but not as long as it could have been. Normally it takes an age to infiltrate their intelligence system. My route was speeded up because we had an agent in France who had been passing us good information. But he had had enough. He wanted out. We couldn’t countenance losing the valuable information he was passing on. So he introduced me as a fellow disenchanted Brit who could see which way the wind was blowing and who wanted to be on the winning side. I was given the identity of a known British dissident – English mother, German father – with all that amazing paperwork and background details that only our department can produce – and airlifted into Germany. The Abwehr interrogated me and I managed to convince them of my loyalty to the cause. At first they were suspicious, but The Outfit managed to concoct a scenario where I could prove myself. I was to sabotage an important British target – the De Havilland factory. I then provided photographic evidence of my success and that was enough for them to believe I was on their side.’

  ‘And the damage?’

  ‘All mocked up. The factories carried on producing. Then the Abwehr realised that thanks to my languages, I could be more use in interrogating suspected traitors to the Nazi cause. This suited The Outfit because it meant I would be privy to more information.

  ‘During all this there was never a moment when my patriotism wavered – in spite of the best endeavours of the Abwehr. And there was never a moment when my love for you faltered. The thought of one day being with you kept me going, and then when Doris told me that you had been captured – at least I figured that it must be you from the name and the mission – I knew I had to do something. I managed to sideline the man who had been charged with the task and take his place, but I couldn’t see how I could get through it all without completely blowing it, not only because of the bloody Gestapo, but also because of you. What would you think? What could you think? Suppose you blew the gaff because you thought I was a traitor? But there was no way out for me and I knew I would have to find some way of getting you out of there alive. So I made up my mind that whatever happened I would do my damnedest to help you escape.’

  Rosamund leaned forward and put her hands over his. ‘And you did.’ She looked into his eyes. ‘And then we flew home in a plane and got into a car and I refused to speak to you.’

  ‘You weren’t to know. As far as you were concerned, you didn’t know whether I was Otto Koenig or Harry Napier.’

  ‘I should never have doubted you.’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. You had been locked up for days and deprived of food and sleep; I could hardly expect you to greet me like an old friend and throw your arms around me. Now that would have been interesting. I’d like to see what Obersturmführer Schneider would have made of that.’ He paused. ‘But you haven’t answered my question. Will you marry me?’

  ‘Of course I’ll marry you, Otto or Harry or Hawksmoor or whatever your name is. Like a shot I will marry you.’

  ‘In spite of the fact that I have to go away again?’

  Rosamund squeezed his hands between hers. ‘Must you?’ she asked, with the hint of a break in her voice. ‘If I say “yes”, won’t that make you stay?’

  ‘There’s one last thing that I can do.’

  ‘And nobody else can?’

  ‘Not really. Nobody else knows all the ins and outs. It’s nothing dramatic. Just the tidying up of loose ends. It shouldn’t take long, and then I’ll be back for good.’

  ‘So how long do we have together before you go?’

  Harry lowered his eyes. �
�A week.’

  ‘Oh God! I wait all this time for you and then all I have is one week?’

  Just six days after our reconciliation, Harry and I were married at Caxton Hall registry office in London. Aunt Venetia tactfully went to stay with friends and gave us the house to ourselves. We had one beautiful night alone at 29, Eaton Square. I will never forget it. Not ever. It was filled with so much love on both sides – things were forgiven and misunderstandings clarified. We were starting the rest of our lives with a clean slate – knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and asking no more of each other than honesty and kindness and the purest kind of love. I gave Harry the letter I had written in reply to his own, and he promised to keep it with him always. The following morning, with tears in my eyes, I saw him off at King’s Cross Station. I waved and waved until my view of him was lost in the steam and the smoke. It was the last time I saw him.

  Chapter 35

  LONDON

  JUNE 1942

  ‘Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

  Scribbling in the sky the message: He is dead.’

  W.H. Auden, ‘Funeral Blues’, 1938

  It was two months after Harry had left for Germany that Lord Belgate broke the news of his death at the hands of the Gestapo. One day later he resigned from his post. No one saw Rosamund for days. Not Diana, not Mrs Heffer, not her aunt Venetia, no one. Trays were left untouched outside her door, until, one day, anxious to check that her niece had not attempted anything foolish in the light of her loss, Aunt Venetia hailed a local window cleaner and had Ned Heffer climb his ladder to look through Rosamund’s bedroom window. The curtains were drawn, but one of the windows was open slightly and Ned was able to part the fabric and report that the body lying on the bed showed signs of life. Faint signs, but signs nevertheless.

  There was no funeral. There was no body. At least when her parents and Celine had died, they had some kind of closure. Rosamund had none. Her husband of twenty-four hours had been taken from her in the cruellest way possible.

  The sense of déjà vu was palpable. She had been here before, but this kind of bereavement was different. She had previously lost people she loved, but now she had lost not only a person she loved, but the only being on earth with whom she had ever been ‘in love’.

  She understood that now, as she compared her feelings for Thierry with those she had for Harry, and knew, immediately, that they had little in common. Her passion for the Frenchman, who was undeniably attractive, was provoked and heightened by circumstances and a common bond. Now that bond existed no more, the feelings had subsided; their shallowness and evanescence clearly evident. But her love for Harry had endured throughout her time in France, and would continue for as long as she lived. Of that she was certain. In no one else’s company had she ever felt so secure, so complete and so elevated. In the few brief times they were together, she had hung on Harry’s every word, noticed every twitch of his facial muscles, drowned in the oceanic greenness of his eyes. And now he was gone. How could it be possible to love someone so much, so deeply, after such a short relationship? But love him she did, and the grief at their parting was so profound that she could not even manage to weep. Her heart simply tightened in her chest; her jaw ached from being clenched.

  Rosamund’s emergence from solitude, when it came, took Aunt Venetia by surprise. She came downstairs from her bedroom at 11 a.m. one late June morning, her hair tied back, her face pale and clear of make-up. ‘I thought I’d go for a walk,’ she said.

  Aunt Venetia could only say softly, ‘Good idea.’ And then, by way of adding to what might pass for normality, ‘Would you like a little lunch on your return?’

  ‘That would be nice. Thank you.’ The small voice was so without strength or feeling that Aunt Venetia found herself unable to say any more. She simply watched as Rosamund pulled on a jacket and left by the front door.

  She cared not where she walked, for her eyes were unseeing and vacant. But some unknown force willed her on. She walked and walked, all the way to Hyde Park, where the green of the grass and the sparkle of the Serpentine demonstrated that life outside her own shrunken world was still going on.

  She sat on a bench beside the water, and for the first time since Harry’s death, with her face buried in her hands lest others should see her grief, she wept uncontrollably. For a full half hour, her now-frail body wracked with sobs, and as she shed her tears, passers-by looked away respectfully, imagining – correctly in this case – that yet another loved one had been lost to the war.

  A distant clock chimed the hour and, without looking at her watch, she rose, wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and walked back unseeing to Eaton Square.

  Slipping off her jacket in her room, washing her face at the basin and doing her best to subdue the rawness of her reddened eyes, she walked downstairs to the dining room, where a neat table for two had been set in the window. Aunt Venetia was already there and looked up and smiled at her charge, motioning her to sit opposite. On her plate was an official-looking letter. Rosamund put it to one side and took a triangle of toast from the small silver dish, from which she took the tiniest bite.

  ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ her aunt could not resist asking.

  Rosamund shook her head and murmured, ‘Probably from work.’

  ‘But it doesn’t look like work.’

  Rosamund pushed the envelope across the table. ‘You open it.’

  Aunt Venetia took her butter knife and slit the flap of the envelope neatly from one side to the other, then she unfolded the two pages within and read their contents silently. Her perusal concluded, she did not fold up the letter, but pushed it towards Rosamund. ‘It’s not from work, it’s from Harry’s solicitor. Your solicitor … Mrs Napier.’

  The tears sprang once more to Rosamund’s eyes as she said, ‘No one’s ever called me that. I don’t suppose anyone will now.’

  ‘Of course they will,’ said Aunt Venetia. ‘That’s who you are.’

  ‘Still?’

  ‘Always. Well, until …’

  Rosamund shook her head. ‘Always. There’s no “until”.’ She dabbed at her eyes with the lace-edged handkerchief that Aunt Venetia passed across the table, and tried to focus on the letter. She read both pages in silence and then looked up and said, ‘Did you know about this?’

  ‘I knew about its existence, but I did not know whether it was still in the family. Harry’s family have had a house in the south of France for years. I suppose it would have come to Harry when his parents died.’

  ‘I see now why he looked surprised,’ murmured Rosamund, her eyes unfocussed and her mind elsewhere.

  ‘Sorry, dear?’

  ‘Before he left, I told Harry that all I wanted to do one day was to live in a house in the south of France and write novels.’

  ‘Well, now you can!’

  ‘Not now!’ she said wearily. ‘There’s a war on.’

  ‘But afterwards,’ said her aunt reassuringly.

  ‘You think there will be an afterwards? Do you think this war will ever end? Do you think we might actually win?’

  Aunt Venetia laid down the soup spoon she had just picked up with the intention of sampling Mrs Heffer’s latest culinary flight of fancy and said matter-of-factly, ‘Of course we will. Thanks to people like you and Harry. You are in the throes of grief, Rosamund – deep, impenetrable grief. But that grief will ease, believe me. It will never pass away entirely – to hope for such is unreasonable and unrealistic. But when it does subside a little, you will find a way of carrying on. We all do. We have to. The alternative does not bear thinking about.’ Aunt Venetia dipped her spoon in the rich brown broth, tasted it, and laid it down once more. ‘And neither does this soup,’ she muttered before continuing: ‘If we do not approach life positively, if we succumb to the naysayers and the defeatists, then we might just as well throw in the towel now, because such negativity becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I am not a triumphalist, or a tub-thumping jingoistic warmonger – I had g
reat reservations about Mr Churchill’s approach at the beginning of this ghastly war, you may remember – but I cannot and will not be bowed down by a bunch of thugs who want to rule the world by bully-boy tactics. The only way to beat bullies is to stand up to them, and that – as you have discovered – is often painful and can have tragic consequences.’

  Aunt Venetia had got into her stride now, and Rosamund found herself leaning back in her chair as the tirade continued.

  ‘When others in this country are determined to fight for the people and the land they love, it ill-behoves the rest of us to tell them they are wasting their time, that the struggle is not worth the reward. They deserve our loyalty and our admiration; anything less is insulting and I for one will not countenance such appalling behaviour and … bad manners.’

  Rosamund felt the tears springing once more to her eyes. ‘Oh Auntie!’ she said. ‘You are wonderful!’

  Her passion spent, Aunt Venetia slumped back into her chair. ‘Well, there we are. I’ve said my piece. I’m sorry if I was a little too emphatic but …’

  ‘No. Don’t apologise. I’m sorry I’m so defeatist at the moment. It’s just that I did love Harry so very much and I simply can’t believe I am not going to see him again.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Aunt Venetia leaned over and stroked her niece’s hand as it rested on the table. ‘We’ll get there, you and I. We just need to stick together. And one day – as the song says, “when this lousy war is over” – we shall find your house in the south of France and move in.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Oh, yes, dear. It was what Harry wanted, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Rosamund smiled. ‘I think it was.’

  Chapter 36

  VILLA DELPHINE, SAINT-JEAN-CAP-FERRAT

  ‘You can love someone so much … but you can never love people as much as you can miss them.’

  John Green, An Abundance of Katherines, 2006

  EPILOGUE

  Although he never came home, Harry has lived on in my heart and will continue to do so. In life, if one is lucky enough to love as I have loved, and to have been loved equally deeply in return, then one is truly blessed.