by Noel Hynd
There was a pause and Laura was aware of two men arguing in the hallway.
"And how would I correspond with you?" she asked, savoring the conspiratorial aspects of Whiteside's proposal. "A coded telegram? A scribbled message slipped into a stone wall? A rendezvous at three A.M. at the New York waterfront?"
"A simple letter in the English language would suffice," he said. "Address it to me, your Uncle Peter. I will give you a postal box number in London. You will simply discuss your visit to America. And your friends."
There was another long pause as Laura considered everything.
"Well…?" Whiteside finally inquired. "This is, after all, for England."
He nudged her along: "I must say, Laura, you came highly recommended for this assignment by a former member of M.I. 6."
"I was?" she asked in total surprise. "I didn't know until today that I knew anyone who did this sort of thing."
"You've known at least two. I'm one. The other recommended you."
"Who?" she demanded.
Whiteside chuckled softly. "I'll tell you over lunch," he said, "and only if you accept."
"I have already accepted."
"Then we can continue on to lunch," Whiteside said merrily. He rose but Laura did not. "The Ritz dining room is waiting."
"This young Englishwoman," she said, "does not budge until she receives the promised information."
Whiteside offered his hand to guide her. "Portrait of a retired spy," he began. "Read Modern Language at Oxford in the teens. Joined First London Rifle Brigade, became an intelligence officer, attached to artillery. In 1916 became too valuable to risk at frontline fighting, so was transferred to the War Office in London."
Laura's mouth flew open in amazement.
Whiteside continued, "Spent eleven months running spies in and out of France, then volunteered again for the front lines. Returned to his regiment, awarded the Royal Legion of
Honor-"
"My father!" she exclaimed in a breathless whisper.
"You! The two of you… of course…!"
"I've always felt, Laura," Whiteside concluded, guiding her to the door, then opening it for her, "that talent, ability, and intelligence are hereditary traits. I think you'll serve His Majesty well in America. Don't you?"
*
Laura was filled with conflicting emotions when she saw Edward Shawcross again. It was one week later and upon a trip that they had long planned. They drove to London, where Edward had booked rooms on separate floors of the Savoy-Laura's suite overlooking the Thames and the Embankment-and took her to dinner each evening at the Savoy Grill. It was there, during dessert, that Edward set before her a small box from an Amsterdam jeweler. Laura opened it. An engagement ring with a diamond the size of a small pebble sparkled and winked at her.
"Don't say anything," Edward said. "Wear it if you like it. And you can give me your honest answer when you return from America."
They went up to her chamber, toasted London with French champagne from 1926 and then tumbled into the deliciously sinful Savoy double bed. They made love until Edward fell asleep, still resting on top of her.
At 4 A.M. Laura awakened. There was a stream of soft moonlight from where the curtains were not completely drawn. On her hand Laura saw the glimmer of the diamond. She studied the stone for several minutes. Edward Shawcross, the front of his naked body against her back, snored softly. Then Laura was aware of his arm, tightly around her.
Perhaps she made too much of it. Perhaps the moment was too symbolic to be meaningful. But Laura felt smothered. Their romance had had all the expensive accouterments, but had it any soul? Or was an attractive willing young woman just another item in a wealthy young man's collection of objects?
One voice within her told her she was being unfair. Another voice urged her to flee. Then, as she stared at the dazzling stone on her finger, the sparkle diffused. There was moisture in her eyes. Tears. She was not in love with Edward Shawcross and now knew she never would be. And she wanted desperately to love the way Victoria and Nigel Worthington had loved. How could she ever tell Edward? He had showered so much upon her. How could she ever summon the courage?
A week later, Edward borrowed his father's chauffeur and Bentley for the day. He motored with Laura from her home in Salisbury to Southampton. Edward obtained a visitor's pass at the Cunard pier and accompanied the woman he loved to her stateroom. There she found four spectacular floral arrangements of his choosing.
He will suffocate me for the rest of my life, she was thinking.
At 11:30 the Queen Mary's thunderous horns blasted twice to signal all visitors ashore. Anchor would be lifted promptly at noon.
"Edward, it's time," she said as gently as possible. He sat in a captain's chair and for one horrifying moment she thought he had booked passage with her.
He did not move. Oh, please, she thought, how I am coming to resent his presence! Why doesn't he get up? Why doesn't he leave?
"Edward, dear," she said a second time. "I'm sorry. But you must go now. We'll see each other in ten weeks."
"Will we?"
There was a hesitation that was too obvious. She answered, "Yes. Of course."
A long pause followed. So did a gaze that she did not know how to interpret. Then he said, "There's something that I need to know. I know I shouldn't ask. But I'm going to."
She waited.
"That thing of yours," he said. And instantly she knew. The proper Victorian, he always referred to her diaphragm as the "thing."
"Are you taking it with you?"
All the easy lies occurred to her and danced across her lips. Then all the hurtful implications of honesty also flashed before her. The truth won.
"Yes," she said.
He looked at her in contempt, then anger. He fingered the arm of his chair but looked her directly in the eye. He stood. For one awful moment, she feared that he would strike her.
"You cheap, ungrateful little tart!" he said, with 'controlled rage, his voice bold but no louder than before. "I should have guessed. Do you know how much I've spent on you?"
"No, Edward, I don't," she replied. "But maybe you can tell me."
His face reddened, and suddenly she overflowed with the urge to destroy this moment, to cry out for forgiveness and explain that what he was thinking was not so. But the Queen Mary's horns blasted another time and Edward moved very quickly toward the door and then through it. Laura did not follow. The first important romance of her life had ended just that swiftly. Her father had always insisted that the critical moments in life always arrive with astonishing suddenness. Then they are gone. As always, Nigel Worthington had been correct. There was an eerie silence in her stateroom and her subsequent passage to America was quiet and uneventful. She kept to herself and made no friends. When she saw her own image in the mirror, she noticed that her expression alternated between sadness and relief.
Only one order of business remained: on her first day in New York, she insured Edward's ring and mailed it back to him.
FOUR
"I promised you a summer," Barbara Worthington proclaimed soon after Laura's arrival from England. "And I will give you a summer!"
Barbara Worthington was true to her word. A tall, blond, pretty large-boned girl of twenty, she blithely prescribed a brisk, adventuresome summer romance for her English cousin. Laura, rebounding from her battered engagement to Edward Shawcross, was in every mood to oblige.
Evenings were spent at Lake Contontic, one of the better-heeled sections of the Poconos. On weekend evenings touring bands came through-the Dorseys, Glenn Miller, Buddy Rogers-fresh from Atlantic City or Philadelphia, and played Contontic's Lakeside Ballroom. There congregated what the social columns of the day's big-city newspapers referred to as "the bright young people." They were the privileged offspring of the correct families in New York and Philadelphia. They had the right clothes, the perfect addresses back in the city, the fastest, most expensive new cars and the unimpeachable pedigrees. Most had been coming to th
e lake with their families for a generation or more. Peter Whiteside had done his homework well before providing Laura with more than five dozen family names. Many were on his list.
She dutifully reported to him, penning chatty letters at the big old-fashioned oak desk in the Worthington family's cabin. She wrote about the people she had met. This, she thought to herself in the midst of a third handwritten letter, is the strangest, lowest-key "spying" anyone in the world has ever been asked to do.
But she completed the letter and mailed it. She wrote at least one a week. But idly, she began to wonder whether Peter wasn't a trifle strange. What difference did it make what these new friends of Laura's thought? Why was Peter wasting government time on this? Or was it government time at all? Was a little Peeping Tom game? Or was it something she couldn't comprehend at all?
But, no. She considered Peter and how long she had known him. She thought of the very visible government office and the very clear instructions he had given her. For England, she recalled him saying. And then for some reason her mind drifted way, way back to her girlhood and another image was keyed: that of her father holding her in the bay window overlooking Kensington Gardens and explaining to a little girl who couldn't comprehend what war was and why he had gone to fight.
For England, he had said.
She drew a breath. It sounded frightfully specious, the whole thing. But she wrote a fourth letter and posted it to Whiteside's mailing address in London. Not long afterward she received a letter back.
"So glad you are enjoying yourself," Peter Whiteside wrote. "Everyone sounds fascinating. I never get to America anymore so you must tell me more! Facts. I want facts!"
She sighed. If she were a spy, she was a strange one. But so be it. For England.
*
Lakeside Ballroom was one of those vast, noisy summer auditoriums. It had gaudy crepe paper strung across the basketball backboards, from one to the next, was illuminated by a dangerous amount of colored candles plunked into the noses of cheap Chianti bottles, and was festooned with an explosion of red, yellow, and orange Chinese lanterns. It was also much more fun than it had any reasonable right to be.
Maybe it was the heavy aroma of leisure in the air. Maybe it was the mood of the summertime. Or maybe it was the excitement of the urbane young university crowd to whom Laura had been given entree by her cousin, who now doubled as her confidante and best friend. For whatever reason, Lakeside had long been a magical place for a summer romance. The girl who did not eventually lose her heart and everything else here at least once, Barbara explained cheerfully, had a hard, cold heart indeed.
"Of course, I don't have to explain such things to you, Laura," Barbara said one evening in July, combing out her hair in the front seat of the family Ford. "Husband hunting is permitted," she said with a wink, "as long as you're not hunting someone else's. And I don't know what it's like in England, but over here a girl never seals a deal without giving away a few free samples."
Laura and Barbara exchanged a conspiratorial laugh as the conversation ended. An orchestra in green coats and gold trim was thumping out jazz tunes from the twenties one evening in late June when Laura, Barbara, Barbara's boyfriend Victor, and several friends entered the ballroom. It was only a few minutes later when Stephen Fowler wandered into the ballroom by himself. Laura, seated with Barbara and Victor at their usual corner table, felt herself one of many females watching the young man.
"Who's that?" she asked her cousin, who knew everyone.
"Stay away," said Barbara.
Laura tugged excitedly on Barbara's sleeve. "I want to know," she insisted.
"That's Stephen Fowler," Barbara said. "Stay away unless you're prepared to be a very bad girl this summer."
"Introduce me immediately," answered Laura.
As Stephen scanned the ballroom, he saw Barbara beckon him to a seat at their table. Laura took a much closer look as the orchestra suddenly amused everyone with their version of Flat Foot Floogie with the Floy Floy.
Stephen Fowler, tall and thin, with strong shoulders, and neatly trimmed brown hair, glanced at Barbara's cousin and smiled. He liked what he saw. Returning his gaze, then looking away, so did Laura. Her initial impression of him was one of an intelligent, athletic man, perhaps even one of those barbarian Americans who play their strange sort of football game at college. Barbara specialized in such men.
"Stephen," Barbara said coyly, "this is Laura Worthington. She's here for two months only and you're to keep your hands off."
"Impossible," said Stephen Fowler, taking Laura's hand and kissing it in an overly dramatic manner which amused everyone at the table, including Laura.
He is good-looking, Laura thought to herself. Too bad he's so aware of it.
"Stephen was Victor's residence counselor at Princeton," Barbara said, by way of furthering the introduction.
"I had no life whatsoever before this very moment," said Stephen, holding his gaze upon Laura.
"Oh, brother…" moaned Barbara.
"A man without a past, in other words," countered Laura. "How sorry I am for you,
Mr. Fowler," she said with mock formality.
"I'm hardly worthy of your pity," Stephen said, continuing the game. He hung his head in penitence.
"Oh, Curse you, Stephen!" Barbara chided merrily. "Would you stop flirting and just ask the poor girl to dance?"
"Would you like to dance?" Stephen Fowler asked.
"I would love to dance," is what Laura answered. He graciously took her by the hand and was aware of her accent for the first time. He had led her only a step or two toward the dance floor when they both heard Barbara calling after them with unwarranted glee.
"Oh, Stephie!" she sang out. Stephen turned and looked back to where Victor was lighting a cigarette from one of the candles. "Be kind to her," Barbara called. "She's coming off a broken engagement. No dancing out to the sun deck and no offers to show her the boathouse."
From somewhere a mischievous smile crossed Stephen's face. "I'll have her back in ten minutes," he promised. "Or not at all."
Then he took Laura in his arms and did not surprise her by being an excellent dancer. Laura, after a moment or two of small talk to the accompaniment of a tango beat, took Stephen to be handsome, wealthy, flagrantly intelligent, and exactly the type of self-possessed American male she had already learned to dislike. She quickly sensed, however, as he next eased her into a smooth foxtrot, that she would not learn to dislike Stephen Fowler.
He was also older-thirty-and he wore his maturity well. He had gone to Princeton as an undergraduate and had earned his bachelor's degree in the midst of the Depression. His father had lost about 80 percent of everything in the stock market in 1929 and the Fowler family of Bala Cynwyd had maintained the role that vanquished dukes played in Europe after the Great War-aristocracy without money.
Yet the family had recovered well in the latter years of the Depression, held onto their home and their social ranking, and were, in a small sense, forging something of a quiet multimillion-dollar comeback.
For his part, Stephen had done a little bit of a lot: some political study here, some economic study there; a job at Girard Trust for several months in Philadelphia; two summers with a Protestant missionary group in Nova Scotia; a strange stint as a merchant seaman to the Caribbean and back -- "So that I could afford to see the place," he explained -- and even a bit of travel to England and the Continent, of which he now spoke little. "I was sick from the water in England and from the cheese in France," he complained at the time, "and came home early."
Thereafter, Tigertown had taken him back. His stock at Old Nassau had remained high and Princeton offered him a job in 1935 as an instructor of political science and residence counselor at $1,150 a year, plus meals and board. All of which was how he knew Victor and Barbara. And how he met Laura. That, and the fact that in the tight, cozy summer society at Lake Contontic, every "good" family knew every other "good" family.
"You were engaged?" he finally ask
ed. "I didn't see a ring."
"I sent it back."
"Where's the shattered young man? Or did he shoot himself?"
"Back in England," she answered, as members of the band sang the chorus of Chicago, Chicago! "And I'm certain that he's doing well, thank you."
"What made him let you out of his sight?" he asked. "I doubt if I would have under the circumstances."
"You are an excessive flatterer, Stephen," she reproached him. "Barbara should have warned me."
"I'm not flattering. I'm telling you the truth. If I were engaged to you, I'd never let you out of my sight."
"He didn't, either," Laura answered. "That's why I broke it off."
For the first time, she had outpointed him. Stephen Fowler was not certain of how next to proceed.
Laura was no stranger to men who made the bold approach. She was quite capable of discouraging them or putting them completely off. But only when she cared to, which was not this evening. There was something about the way Stephen Fowler held her as they danced, something about the way he glided her around the hardwood dance floor, something even just right about the American jazz, the trumpets, the saxophones, the ersatz Hawaiian wall hangings and the breezes which wafted through the screened window onto the dance floor. Yes, Barbara had warned her about this place. But there was even something about the way Stephen lightly cuffed his palm at the small of her back as they danced. This was, Laura knew quickly, the type of thing that she might even like to see get a little out of hand.
"It was my idea to break the engagement," she answered. "At first, I thought it would be a good idea to get away from each other. To see if the relationship was…"
"Real," he said.
"Yes."
"Were you in love with him?"
"That's actually none of your-"
"In other words, you weren't."
"You're very sure of yourself," she retorted.