Poppy laughed.
‘It could catch on!’ she agreed, feeling suddenly strangely free and altogether differently daring, as if she was no longer herself, as if the clothes were going to allow her to go where she pleased, without people whispering and talking behind her back, which had been her experience over the last days and weeks at wretched Mellerfont.
Unsurprisingly the drive to London was considerably less eventful than their journey of the night before. Despite the fact that there were all sorts of questions Poppy wanted to ask her companion there was something about Jack Ward’s manner that did not invite being quizzed. He had an inner authority that seemed to be all the more noticeable for the fact that he was not a handsome man, and this too made him seem more formidable perhaps than he truly was, but since she had put both her life and also her future, to some degree, in his hands, she was reluctant to push her luck, whatever it might be.
They talked in fits and starts all the way to London. Poppy was soon all too aware that she was being interrogated, in however gentlemanly a manner; aware too that since her life was – to a greater degree than she might wish – in her driver’s hands, she must present herself in a way that would make him understand the kind of person she knew herself to be, rather than the kind of person she might wish she actually was. She was therefore careful not to portray herself as someone forced into a loveless marriage by the social ambitions of her parents, blaming only herself for her foolish mistake, explaining that she had been such a sensational flop during the Season that it had taken very little for someone as sophisticated as Basil to turn her head. She was careful also to make fun of her looks as being of the kind that did not draw queues of dancing partners.
All of this seemed to satisfy Jack Ward.
In fact, without Poppy realising it, the more time Mr Ward spent in her company the more he was coming to realise that Lady Tetherington might prove to be most suitable for his purposes. Best of all she was still very young, and being very young would be game for anything. There was nothing braver, in his experience, than a young woman under the age of twenty-one. They were not so much reckless as joyous in the face of danger, coming to love it as much or perhaps more even than the passion of love. Danger was an aphrodisiac, as he knew only too well, and if all went as he hoped, it would only be when Lady Tetherington looked back, when she was, like him, middle-aged, that she would realise just what risks she had run, and lie awake at night wondering at the pattern her life had taken. If she lived that long.
‘What are your feelings about Fascism, Lady Tetherington?’ he wondered, making sure to keep his tone light. ‘I ask you this for good reason, don’t worry. So don’t be alarmed.’
‘I don’t really have any,’ Poppy replied. ‘Other than of course what you might call the normal ones. Such as thinking Mr Hitler the most awful kind of person, and of course the same goes for all his cohorts. I’m afraid until I was married I was a bit naïve, probably because my parents are not British. Fascism seemed to be just a foreign thing – something embraced by people over in Europe rather than by us.’
‘Fair enough. You could hardly say fairer than that.’
‘You could actually. I mean I can now – because of what’s happened. And what I sort of suspected was happening at Mellerfont.’
‘That your late husband was in fact a Fascist?’
‘I think it’s pretty obvious, don’t you? Well, surely you must know, don’t you? Because you looked as though you were part of the inner circle. I mean you’d got yourself pretty well in, well in enough to know what was going on.’
‘Not quite well in enough, as it happens,’ Jack confessed. ‘When we first met, I think I was about to be rumbled. It was the shooting, oddly enough. Something I just can’t stomach. Everyone from my background is meant to be so keen on it, but I have never been able to muster an enthusiasm. Certainly, if you go walking on your land and you see a rabbit or a pigeon and take a shot at it, that I can understand, but not killing slow, defenceless birds reared for the purpose. It’s not English. It’s not sport. In England, in the old days, it would have been considered just not on.’ He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘Anyway. I wasn’t making quite the progress I’d hoped, and thinking I was about to be rumbled I bailed out.’
‘But not before you’d found out about Basil’s journal, and the importance it has.’
‘It has an importance all right,’ Jack assured her. ‘That lot of blackshirts don’t convene just for the fun of it. Unfortunately all I discovered in my time in the inner sanctum was that your husband was possibly the best connected of them all, and the soi-disant real leader of the British Fascist party. Does that shock you?’
There was a long silence, and then Poppy nodded.
‘It does rather, I have to admit. I mean what about that Mosley chap?’
‘I can’t say for certain, but it does seem your husband was infinitely better connected than Mosley, and rather brighter. I think that’s why he was more deadly. He was if you like the éminence grise. The power behind the throne, something which I think he greatly enjoyed. Mosley liked to swagger about the place, which is why he and his wife are pretty closely watched. Your husband on the other hand, as you know, was quite different. The point is – and it’s worth making – that these people, the Fascists in our midst, are very much that. They’re not just in the big homes of the rich, or floating about in idle society, they’re everywhere – in newsagents, selling papers on street corners, in high office, in the armed forces, in factories and even teaching in schools. Half the fun for them is keeping their despicable beliefs secret, because like all fanatics they get a kick out of being a secret society – waiting, as it were, for their particular messiah to come, for the time when Hitler takes over this island, when they’ll reveal themselves in their true colours, welcoming the invaders with flowers. Mind you, they’re no fools. Don’t you believe it. They know we’re after them, and what’s more they’re trained to look out for us, knowing all the time that their hour may well come.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Poppy interrupted. ‘But what do you mean by us, I wonder?’
Jack took his eyes off the road for a moment to look at her carefully.
‘Hmmm,’ he said, shifting his unlit pipe to the other side of his mouth. ‘Whatever they might have thought about you before last night, since then you are – I’m afraid – most definitely not one of them. You fled with me. They don’t actually know it was me, but sure as eggs is eggs they know about you. They know you bolted with the diary, Lady Tetherington, and they know the safe has been robbed. So they will be coming after you, I’m sorry to say.’
For the first time since her flight from Mellerfont Poppy now faced the reality of her situation. She scolded herself for being so dim as to think her adventure of the night before could simply be enjoyed in retrospect, before being brushed away under the carpet. She knew how dangerous Basil must have been, so as a consequence she should have realised that the people with whom he had involved himself were equally lethal. As a consequence of not taking Jack Ward’s advice to go back to bed and forget about it all, she was now a target for their guns.
‘I see,’ she said quietly, after a short silence. ‘Yes, of course.’
Jack glanced at her again, in an effort to read her state of mind.
‘We can take you out of their sights, you know,’ he said. ‘We can give you a new identity, a new appearance, a new way of life, and the chances are no one will find you until after the war, when it won’t matter any more. If that’s what you want.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Poppy replied. ‘I don’t think I’d like that at all as it happens. I could go to America, couldn’t I? I could join my parents, except I wouldn’t want to put them in any danger.’
‘You might well. Unfortunately the way these people work is very much like the underworld everywhere, Lady Tetherington. Just when you think you’re all right, strolling down the street for a newspaper, going to the beach, taking a taxi ride, the
y strike. They love the power of it, you must understand, the power of knowing what you don’t know – in other words, the sadistic power of control. You never knowing, your mother and father never knowing, when, or if, they might strike. It is wisely said that revenge is a dish better eaten cold, and that is how they will think of what they might plan to do, as a revenge killing, as totally justified. That is what bigotry is – blind faith in what you think, blind faith in how you think the world should be ordered. But, of course …’ He paused. ‘It’s a big step, and it has to be your decision, naturally.’
‘That’s not quite true, is it?’ Poppy smiled at him. ‘I mean I don’t have an awful lot of say in the matter. I can’t just ask you to stop the car, and get out, and go back to normal life now, can I? The die is sort of cast, at least by my reckoning’.
They both fell to silence, Jack for once feeling regret that he had somehow involved an innocent young person in his world, a person who in a way didn’t deserve to be in this position, although the other part of him, the larger part in fact, could not help but be secretly pleased that he might well have found an entirely suitable agent, someone who could be of great use, most of all because she was modest. He had always found the bigheads were useless for his particular work. All right for others perhaps, but not for him. He had also always believed that women made the best agents not just because they were modest, but because by and large they did not seem to succumb to flattery in the same way that men so often did. They seemed to always have that other voice running through their heads, the one that told them that honeyed words concealed black motives, that what a man said with his lips was often belied by what his eyes were saying.
‘If you know who all these people are …’ Poppy began again, frowning at the road ahead as she tried to work everything out. ‘If you know who all these people are why don’t you—’
‘Yes,’ Jack interrupted. ‘I think I know what you are about to say. Why don’t we simply round ’em all up and throw them in jug? I’ll tell you why. Because they’re far too useful where they are. It’s sometimes better to leave people like this – never losing sight of them, naturally – so as we know what they’re up to – as well as the fact that we learn from ’em all the while. It’s all to the good, believe me. You learn to think like them. Some have to learn to become not just like them, but actually one of their number.’
‘Go underground?’
‘Join their ranks, Lady Tetherington. Dangerous stuff, I assure you.’
‘Yes,’ Poppy said quietly. ‘But interesting.’
Jack gave her another look. This time she caught it, and gave him a suddenly brilliant smile.
‘Interesting, yes,’ he agreed. ‘But are you interested?’
‘I might be,’ Poppy said. ‘And there again I might not be,’ she countered, playing for time. She began again after a short pause which Jack Ward was careful not to fill. ‘I am just thinking from your point of view I am really rather suitable, aren’t I? First, strangely enough, because I am not British. I have no relations over here who will worry about my going missing, so that makes me quite suitable. Second I have parents who know I have been unhappily married, but I would imagine certainly do not want me round their necks again – and third, being an only child, and educated at home, I have made few friends in England. But, you know, despite all that, what would happen if I say no?’
‘Nothing would happen.’
‘Oh, I think it would, Mr Ward. I think something really might happen, for all that you say it wouldn’t. I mean, looked at again from your point of view, I already know enough, first about you, and then about Julia, and then about the leather book, and all that – quite enough to make me a bit of a liability, wouldn’t you say? I would, if I were you. I would say, by refusing to leave the room when you told me, I have found out too much to be altogether quite nice. No, you’re not just going to let me go. You can’t. I might prove to be the famous millstone around your neck, and that would never do. After all, I know when I faced you in Basil’s study, you were quite prepared to shoot me. Perhaps not dead, but shoot me none the less, which shows that when faced with someone who is getting in the way, you will act quite aggressively. Because I actually find shooting someone quite aggressive.’
‘Quite so. And yes I would have done, if I’d had to. If you’d tried to raise the alarm I would have shot you, but not through the heart or the head. However, that must not influence your decision. Believe me I want you to join my side, of course I do, but it must be your decision, made in cold blood.’
‘I have to decide?’
‘Of course. This is something that is entirely up to you. If you don’t wish to join my side I can make arrangements with the authorities for you to go to Canada, or America, as you suggested earlier, but finally it’s up to you.’
‘Yes,’ Poppy slowly agreed. ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? After all, up until now, all the decisions in my life have been made for me. So now is a turning point. And that is interesting.’
Chapter Ten
Marjorie and Billy’s journey to Eden Park was much easier and less eventful than the one that Marjorie had originally taken, her first trip having been as complex as those of her as yet unknown colleagues, setting off for somewhere she thought was in Gloucester, only to find herself being picked up at the railway station by none other than the mysterious guest at the funeral tea – Mr Jack Ward.
He had met her at a small and remote country station before driving her all the way to Eden Park, explaining as they went that it was a matter of security that she should not know the precise location of her future place of employment.
Marjorie was both pleased and surprised at the mention of employment, although she was careful not to say so to Mr Ward, imagining that if she showed too much enthusiasm he might change his mind.
‘But if I don’t know where Eden Park is,’ she had wondered, ‘how will I bring Billy down there – that is if everything’s all right and it all goes – er – ahead?’
‘Leave me to handle that,’ Mr Ward told her firmly but kindly. ‘That’s not your worry. I shall fix up all the transport. After all it’s for everyone’s good that we maintain maximum security. Until everyone is sworn in, that is.’
Marjorie had no idea of what he could possibly have meant by sworn in, although she was soon to find out. She was, however, amazed by the sight that greeted her when she had been driven in through the grand carriage gates that stood at the entrance of Eden Park, as obviously Billy now was, to judge from the expression on his pale face as the taxi, having taken them across country for what seemed the larger part of a day, dropped them both off at the gates, and they began their long walk up the drive.
‘Blimey,’ he whispered, staring at the acres of cultivated parkland that stood on either side of the long drive. ‘Look – look at them deer, Marge. And them stags.’
He pointed to the herd of red deer peacefully grazing beneath huge and ancient oak trees. And it was not just the deer that took his breath away after his urban upbringing, but the sight of the river that meandered through lush meadows, and the green lawns that swept gently down from the great house.
‘There’s a lake, too,’ Marjorie pointed out. ‘With any amount of fish. I’m sure if you’re good they might allow you to fish it.’
‘Blimey,’ Billy said. ‘Stripe me pink.’
‘Not a bad house either.’
Marjorie turned his attention to the building that stood bathed in warm sunshine, a gentle light that turned the colour of its mellow stone into honey.
To the far side was a smaller house with another exquisitely domed roof and more long, graceful sash windows that one could step from when raised straight on to the grass. Beyond that house stood a classic stable yard, complete with a clock, at that moment in time festooned with a host of white doves sunning themselves in the warmth of the late afternoon sun. As they finally found themselves in front of the perfect colonnaded entrance, a large loose-limbed grey horse ridden by a handso
me, shaggy-haired man accompanied by a large dog that loped along beside him clattered out of the stable yard and disappeared at a sharp canter up the hill to the far side of the lake.
Billy stood staring, taking everything in, drinking it in, for once silenced while Marjorie thankfully put their suitcases down on the bottom of the flight of steps.
Entering the house between a set of graceful Corinthian columns at the top of the shallow steps, Marjorie, with Billy in distant tow, walked across the fine marble-floored hall, past ancient marble busts set on plinths and then to the foot of the magnificent gold and white cantilevered staircase rising in flights of twenty steps, illuminated from above by light streaming through the magnificent glass dome.
‘Blimey,’ Billy said yet again, turning round and round in circles to stare at all the extravagant beauty surrounding him. ‘I never seen the like.’
‘I should think you haven’t, young man.’ Marjorie laughed. ‘If you had, I’d be wondering what you’d been up to. Told you that you’d like it. Now – we have to find the pass door, because this bit’s nothing to do with us, alas, and I must find Mrs Alderman the housekeeper, who’s meant to be expecting us. I was told to report to her on arrival. There’s a pass door somewhere round here.’
‘Before you go looking for any pass door, miss,’ a male voice said from behind her, ‘I think it best if we first establish who we are. Pass, please? Or letter of conduct.’
Marjorie turned to see two soldiers standing in the hall, both with rifles slung over their shoulders. Taking a closer look Marjorie thought they looked friendly enough, but they were soldiers none the less.
‘What are you—’ Billy demanded.
‘What do we look like, son? We’re soldiers.’
‘I know, I can see that,’ Billy insisted. ‘But what are you doing here? You’re on our side, aren’t you? You won’t want to shoot us, will yer?’
The soldiers looked at each other and grinned, and then at Billy.
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