by Bonnie Toews
“Soviet security and intelligence service,” Sir Fletcher reminded him.
“Oh yes. We have acronyms for just about anything and sometimes I forget what they mean.” Lord Radcliffe’s words were clipped to hide his embarrassment for not recognizing the term.
“Do you have new assignments for Lee and Quinn?”
“Quinn wants to stay in the field.”
“That can be arranged,” said Lord Radcliffe.
Unconsciously, Sir Fletcher licked the shaggy tips of the red brush drooping over his upper lip. “I suggest you use Lee as your assistant here. She and Lady Grace can have their own show on the BBC.”
Lord Radcliffe stiffened.
“I don’t see the logic in involving my daughter again.”
“Oh, come now, James. You fought against entering Grace in the Belvedere Festival. She won it and the gold medal. You didn’t want to send her on a concert tour of Europe. It was the most gratifying experience of her life.”
“Watching that hooligan Hitler stand and bow to her did make it worthwhile,” Lord Radcliffe begrudgingly admitted. “But what she saw in Berlin on Kristallnacht broke her heart. I can’t do that to her again.”
“Our agents are set up inside Hitler’s most trusted departments and in place no matter where he invades. We couldn’t have done that without Lee and Grace. They were perfect foils for Quinn and me. Now we have to activate those agents. Again, Lee and Grace provide perfect cover.”
Lord Radcliffe sighed. “How?”
“A nightly spot on the air,” Sir Fletcher answered, “with Grace playing serenades and Lee providing musical commentary. They’re both so popular that together they’ll draw terrific audience appeal. We simply work in our special codes to Lee’s comments and send our deep cover agents orders the Gestapo can’t trace.”
“I see. Even though the Nazis have banned British broadcasts, even declared they will behead anyone caught listening to the BBC, you think the Gestapo will forgive our plants for listening to a musician Hitler himself publicly recognized.”
“We will be airing music,” Sir Fletcher went on, ignoring Lord Radcliffe’s sarcasm, “not news. We’ll broadcast on an approved European frequency. We can do that.”
“When?” Lord Radcliffe’ voice was barely audible. Sir Fletcher always got his way.
“When do you want the girls to start?”
“As soon as Lee returns from Russia.”
A wing of Messerschmitt fighters roared over the grounds.
“Where are our Spitfires?” Lord Radcliffe demanded furiously.
Before Sir Fletcher could answer, Princess Alexandra came racing up the stairs to find Lord Radcliffe.
“How can something so horrible look so beautiful?” she asked breathlessly as she rushed into the library.
Her question startled Sir Fletcher. The men hadn’t been looking at the artistic impression of the bombing, only the damage it was causing. He shook his head and excused himself.
Princess Alexandra slipped up beside Lord Radcliffe in front of the open French doors of the library. “It’s like a brilliant sunset,” she whispered, gripping his arm with frightened fingers.
“It is indeed,” he agreed tonelessly, moving her inside the protective circle of his arms. He held her head against his chest with one hand while gently massaging the nape of her neck with the other. They stood locked in each other’s arms, watching.
“Shouldn’t Grace be home now?” she asked anxiously.
“I’m sure the hospitals will need every volunteer they can muster. No doubt she’ll stay on duty until either she collapses or the ward nurses send her home.”
“Yes, of course.” Princess Alexandra sighed with despair. “Her volunteer work has become more important than her music and her family.”
“Alexa, if London is blown off the face of this earth, Grace’s music career won’t matter.”
He spoke sharply, with impatience he had never shown to his wife before. Her wonderful elegance had always fascinated him, and as she aged, her elegance had only become more gracious. This selfish, peevish attitude did not sound like the princess he had loved for twenty-five years.
He pressed. “Up until she became a volunteer, you were pushing for more civil support of the war effort.” He turned her around and gazed directly into her eyes. “What has happened to your perspective?”
Her eyes never wavered from his as she pulled herself up to her full five-foot height. “I didn’t mean she should jump into steady wartime work. I was talking about what other people should do. Grace has a higher calling.”
“To perform concerts for Hitler when he occupies London?”
“Of course not!” she flared. “You know better than that.”
“I know Grace feels she is doing something very important for her country and you’ve been demeaning her effort.”
“How dare you talk to me this way, Wynne! I’ve been doing no such thing! I’ve simply been encouraging her to keep her sense of duty to her country in balance with her own interests.”
“Whose interests?” he mocked, seeing a side to his wife he never believed existed.
“If Grace continues giving concerts, she contributes much more to a greater number of people,” she insisted.
“You mean, while London burns, Grace can play some newer version of the fall of Rome.”
“You are deliberately twisting my words to make me sound foolish, Wynne.”
“By all means, explain yourself, Alexa. I’d like to understand what has happened to your thinking.”
“Thank you.”
Her tone cut the words in a prim reprimand before she carried on with her point. “Wherever we hide from the bombs, we need links to the voices and sounds that remind us of the sane times. Think of it, Wynne,” she urged. “Every time Grace performs, she provides an imaginary escape for us all.”
“I am thinking about it,” he answered. Now he understood her idea to have Grace perform had been neatly planted by Sir Fletcher, in case Lord Radcliffe balked at his plan. That crafty old fox never missed a trick. Since Princess Alexandra didn’t know he had already agreed, he wasn’t going to let her win so easily.
“There’s a ruthless streak in you, Alexa. I never would have believed it.”
“These are ruthless times. Only the tough will make it through to the final outcome.”
She turned back to the view from their library’s French doors. A scorched haze hollowed out the eastern skyline. “Hitler has come to London.”
“Lord Radcliffe?” chirped a female voice from the doorway. “I’m awfully sorry to interrupt you, sir, but an urgent signal ‘for your eyes only’ has just come in.”
“I’ll be right there,” he assured the young uniformed woman. “Excuse me, my dear. We’ll talk about Grace later.”
Princess Alexandra knew with the bombing of London underway it might be days before she saw her husband again.
Life turned in strange circles. When she first met Wynne, he had been so stiff and shy, clearly uncomfortable in naval uniform. How he had hated Dartmouth, yet here he was in the thick of military activity. Ever since Germany’s invasion of Poland, he had grown more secretive. As various West London gentry converted the ground floors of their large homes into interim War Offices for the rapidly expanding defense administrations under Churchill, Lord Radcliffe handed over all of Radcliffe House. She and Grace had been forced to occupy the groundskeeper’s quarters above their garage. He, along with most of their servants, had already joined the armed services. Only their faithful housekeeper, Millie, and old Tanner, who managed their horse stable at Guild Oaks in the country, remained. Princess Alexandra was finally ready to admit living over the coach house hadn’t been as difficult a move as she had imagined it would be.
When the War Ministry took over their estate, Wynne retained the library as his executive office. Alexa glanced up at the molded cornices protruding over the top of the mahogany bookshelves built into the paneled walls. How long had it b
een since she had spent a quiet moment alone here? Ten months, at least. Once, the library had been her private sanctuary.
She turned around slowly, drinking in the beloved poses of impish Arian sculpted into the four corner ledges under the high swirled ceiling. Each of his cherub faces seemed to wink down at her. His endearing presence in and out of the house had captured her heart when Wynne had brought her here as his bride.
When Lord Edward had died and Wynne had inherited his title and all the Chadwick land holdings, he had refused to sell this home they both loved so much to move back into Chadwick Hall. His mother had remained there until she died. Then, he had sold her estate and put the proceedings into a trust fund for Grace. The fund would always keep her precious daughter favorably wealthy no matter what happened to Wynne or to her, and knowing that comforted her.
Gazing at her dear cherubs, she had forgotten the war, until the dreaded droning returned again. Like strips of a Venetian blind rolling down the glass panes, layers and layers of bombers streaked across the eastern sky. She rushed to the French doors and flung them wide open for a better view.
It was dusk. Bombs rained over the horizon. Defending RAF fighters sliced through the neat Luftwaffe formations, fiercely attacking the enemy raiders. Spinning smoke trails from Dorniers and Heinkels, hit by enraged British squadrons, corkscrewed into the glowing skyline of the London docks. On impact, fleeting flashes of smoked orange exploded upwards.
In her imagination, Alexa saw the human devastation and burning piles of rubble as if she were there, experiencing the bombing. She stood, shaking and sobbing, too filled with horror to pray. Her need for God was great. She said His name over and over again, until her last tear was drained. Spent, she became calm inside, and her prayer took form, for everyone, even for the Luftwaffe crews, who were also dying in the fight-to-the-death air battles. A mad devil was destroying them all, whether friend or foe. This she believed absolutely.
THIRTEEN
Wednesday, September 11th, 1940
Military staff cars circled Radcliffe Drive. The grounds hummed with activity as women in volunteer auxiliary uniforms, civilians and military personnel created continual traffic in and out the front entrance. Overhead flew a flight of British Spitfires.
In the coach house apartment over the Radcliffe’s three-car garage, Princess Alexandra struggled to close the suitcase mounted on top of her four-poster bed. Dressed in a chic suit and hat, she sat perched on the lid and impatiently shimmied her weight back and forth across the top in an attempt to lock her overstuffed suitcase.
Laughing at her from the doorway, Grace volunteered.
“Here! Let me help!”
She jumped on top of the suitcase beside her and pressed her hands down on the cover. When they heard the lock successfully click, Grace asked, “Have you told Daddy yet?”
“No,” Princess Alexandra admitted, shaking her head as she slid off the suitcase onto the bed.
“I left him a message, but I still haven’t heard from him. I’m afraid it’s going to be up to you to explain everything now.”
Grace jumped down and turned to hug her mother.
“I will, Mommy. Gladly.”
At this moment, Lord Radcliffe appeared in the doorway. When his gaze fell on Princess Alexandra’s luggage, he looked surprised.
“Are you off somewhere, Alexa?”
She rose from the bed and kissed him. Now that the moment had arrived, it wasn’t easy to explain her decision. She would have to go straight to the point.
“Wynne, I’m converting Guild Oaks into a temporary home for displaced children.”
His eyes rounded. “You’re turning Guild Oaks into an orphanage?”
“Not entirely. I expect we’ll be able to re-unite some of the children with their families.”
“My, my!”
“The children are our future. Everything possible must be done to help them through this dreadful war.”
“Of course,” he nodded.
“You and Grace are doing your bit. This is my contribution.”
“Of course. Of course, my dear.”
In typical fashion, she knew Lord Radcliffe was mentally assessing all the possibilities of converting Guild Oaks into a home for displaced children, and then he beamed with enthusiasm.
“It’s a terrific idea, Alexa. Why it’s even great for the stable!”
“The stable?” Princess Alexandra blinked. She hadn’t considered the horses.
“That’s right, Mommy. With all our grooms and riders joining the army, Tanner has been looking after the stable alone, except when I can help him. It’s too much work for him, especially at his age. But once the children arrive, he’ll have all the help he needs. The older ones can learn to clean out the boxes and exercise the horses, while the younger ones can help with feeding and grooming. I would think it would help the children work through the worst of their grief too.”
“Alexa, whatever funds you need, I’ll look after them.”
“I never doubted that, Wynne.”
For a moment there was no war separating them. He lovingly traced a gentle cross from side to side over her forehead and up and down her nose. His touch awakened her longing for him, and she held her breath, wishing he would not stop, but he withdrew his hand, and the tender spell between them broke.
“Grace,” he said somewhat gruffly, turning in the direction of his daughter, “your mother has told me the BBC has offered you a spot on the wireless.”
It was Princess Alexandra’s turn to be surprised. Grace averted her father’s probing eyes. “Yes,” she said. “It has.”
“Actually,” he informed her, “Sir Fletcher arranged it. His orchestra is included in the program. It’s another way of keeping London’s musicians employed. It’s too dangerous to carry on giving live concerts. Have you responded yet?”
Before Grace could reply, Princess Alexandra spoke up.
“No, we haven’t, Wynne. Sir Fletcher suggested we take some time to think about it. After all, it will take organization and direction to produce the kind of show Grace would be happy doing.”
“Grace,” Lord Radcliffe said sternly, “I have never asked you to do anything against your will, but this time, there is no discussing the matter. You shall accept Sir Fletcher’s offer.”
Grace stared at him in disbelief. “You don’t mean it, daddy.”
Princess Alexandra also stood dumbstruck.
“I do mean it,” he said. “Your music can serve England well. Even King George is delighted with the idea and is looking forward to hearing your program.”
Princess Alexandra raised one eyebrow. She had heard this argument before. It was her point to him. Men! She sighed. He had fought her so hard, yet now he was talking as if the idea were entirely his own. Well, you have your work cut out for you. Grace has that stubborn look.
“The king is involved too?”
“Of course.”
“I see,” said Grace. “And what happens to my hospital duties?”
“There is a greater need for you to serve, Grace, whether you can see it or not. In war, you do not choose your assignment. You accept it and do as you are told. We are at war, and those who command the greater picture know where you will give your country your best service.”
“Will you listen to yourself? When did you and Sir Fletcher appoint yourselves God? Don’t answer that. When Churchill became Prime Minister, that’s when. Do you think we’re daft? That we can’t see what’s going on?”
She squared her shoulders and declared, “I’m as good a soldier as the next man, but I am not leaving my hospital work.”
“If you have time from your new duties, you can reschedule your shifts.”
“IF!?” Grace bristled. “Believe me, Father, I’ll make time. Whether you, the king, or God himself like it, I have patients who depend on me. No one controls my life without my consent. NO ONE. Not even God!!”
She stormed past her father and stomped down the hall.
“Wynne, could you not have handled her more tactfully?” Princess Alexandra asked him gently. “She is not used to such treatment, especially from you.”
He moved to the window and followed his daughter’s raging retreat to the path through the woodlot. His heart ached. Forgive me, Grace. I had to do it. Project Amanita needs you. We’re short of time, and you’re the best answer we have. Perhaps the only answer, he sadly acknowledged.
He knew his daughter. She had fine instincts, like a thoroughbred. Once she had time to walk off her anger, she would see what was at stake. She would co-operate. He glanced down at his wife as she nestled up to him. No doubt Alexa believed her arguments had convinced him. Though her points were valid, more than the regular audiences would be affected by their daughter’s broadcasts. Hidden lives in Europe were depending on her too. He drew Alexa even closer.
“There’s no time, my love, to persuade a prima donna to do what must be done. When Grace has had time to mull over what I’ve said, she’ll come to her senses. What’s more,” he added, smiling, “there’ll be no further arguments between you two.”
“Impossible. We thrive on our disagreements, but thank you, dear heart.” She tipped an imaginary salute to him.
He kissed her affectionately on the cheek. “Time to go. By the way, Alexa, just how many children are we going to lodge at Guild Oaks?”
“One hundred.”
“Phew!” he whistled. “That many?”
“That many.”
“It’s a big undertaking.”
“I realize that, dear.”
He pressed her hand, and then turned to leave.
“Wynne…” she stopped him. “Just a moment please.”
He hesitated, attentive to the change in her tone. She looked down, as if searching for the right words. Her hesitation alarmed him. What was so difficult for her to tell him? When she looked up at him again, her eyes were moist.
“Wynne, I love you.”
He took both of her hands and held them tenderly in his. “I know you do.”
“I am going to stay at Guild Oaks with the children,” she said softly.