A Gathering Storm

by Rachel Hore

  ‘Yes, I’ll try. But, Gerald – the babies?’

  His reply was the last thing she heard before the call disconnected. Still holding the receiver, she stared into the dark recess of the hall, trying to assimilate what he’d said. ‘The babies didn’t make it.’ Poor, poor Angie.

  A few days later, she left her son with a grumbly Mrs Popham and went down to visit Angie. Though out of danger now, she lay very still in her hospital bed, her complexion bloodless, tears seeping from beneath her closed lids. Gerald hadn’t been able to stay long, but Oenone and Nanny now took turns to sit with her at visiting times. Today they left Beatrice alone with her.

  ‘Angie?’ she whispered. The eyes fluttered open and met hers. Huge, pleading eyes, like those of an animal caught in a trap. ‘Angie, how are you? I’m so sorry . . .’ The eyes closed. Angie’s forehead wrinkled, her mouth turned down and she gave a small moan that seemed to have been ripped from somewhere deep inside.

  St Florian, 2011

  ‘I felt so desperately sad for her,’ Beatrice said. ‘If only the doctor had realized that she was having twins, they might have made better preparations.’

  ‘How could they miss it?’ Lucy asked, horrified.

  ‘There weren’t the modern methods. You would have thought that a midwife would have discovered it was twins by examining her, but if the babies were small and not presenting in the right way . . .’

  ‘Poor Granny. I had no idea . . . no one ever told me. Do you think she ever told Dad?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Beatrice said, as though she hadn’t considered the idea.

  ‘It’s so strange, thinking of it,’ Lucy cried out suddenly. ‘That Dad had these siblings he never knew. Oh, I can’t bear it, it’s so sad.’ She put her hands over her face.

  ‘Don’t, dear,’ Beatrice said. ‘I know it’s sad, but it was a long time ago.’

  Lucy thought, not for the first time, how calm and controlled Beatrice could be. Not unconcerned about the suffering – far from it – but as though she herself had been dealt so many blows in her life that suffering didn’t surprise her. She suddenly realized that she didn’t know the name of Beatrice’s baby. Beatrice hadn’t said what he was called.

  And now the old lady was rising from her chair and making her way across the room to stare out at the garden, which was falling into late-afternoon shadow. Silhouetted there, lost in her thoughts, she looked a very lonely figure. And Lucy knew that it was time to slip away.

  She walked down to the harbour to look for Anthony, though she’d arranged to meet him later at the bar. There was no sign of him, and Early Bird was bobbing gently in her mooring. She sat on some steps, out of the wind, and took her phone out of her bag.

  ‘Mum?’ she said, when Gabriella answered.

  ‘Lucy. Where are you?’

  ‘Still in Cornwall. Mum, it’d take too long to explain much now, but I’ve been talking to an old friend of Granny’s. Someone called Beatrice. Ashton, used to be Beatrice Marlow.’

  ‘Who? I didn’t hear.’

  ‘Beatrice Ashton.’

  ‘I’ve no idea who she is.’

  ‘So Dad never mentioned her?’

  ‘He might have done, but I can’t remember.’

  Lucy thought for a moment. What was it she wanted to know? Oh, about the babies.

  ‘Did Dad or Granny ever mention her having any other children? Before Dad, I mean.’

  ‘Lucy, who is it you’ve been talking to?’

  ‘Her name’s Beatrice, Mum. She was a friend of Granny’s when Granny was young. At Saint Florian. That’s where I am now.’

  ‘How peculiar. I thought you were at Penzance. What are you doing in Saint Wherever you said?’

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘No. The answer’s no, they never said anything. Did your granny have other children? She didn’t misbehave, did she? Now that would be a turn-up.’

  ‘No, Mum, she didn’t. But—’

  ‘I don’t know why she only had your father. It was never the kind of question one could ask her. They were so close, she and your father. I shouldn’t think there would have been room in her life for a brother or sister.’

  ‘Were they close?’

  ‘Oh yes. She adored your father. That was part of the trouble. She disapproved of me . . .’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’ Her mother had told her this so many times. Lucy wondered how true it was; whether both sides in the matter had become over-sensitized.

  ‘That’s why he married so late. She had her claws in him.’

  ‘Couldn’t it just have been he hadn’t met anyone he wanted to marry until you, Mum?’

  Her mother gave a gentle laugh. ‘It would be nice to think that,’ she said. ‘Lucy, I must go now. Lewin’s coming and I’m not dressed yet.’

  Lucy ended the call, smiling, and put her mobile away. She sat thinking for a while, feeling reassured by the phone call. Probably her grandmother had felt particularly close to Tom because of her lost babies. He must have been so precious to her, and how loved he must have felt.

  As she stood up, she saw Anthony coming round the corner. When he spotted her, his face brightened. She’d never felt like this about anyone before, certainly not about Will. He came to stand close to her and it felt so natural for them to slip their arms round each other and just be, without speaking.

  Chapter 25

  The next morning was Friday. As Lucy took her seat in Beatrice’s sitting room, the old lady said, ‘How are you today? I was worried that I’d upset you.’

  ‘I’m all right. It was the shock of everything, that’s all.’

  ‘Today won’t be easy, either.’ Beatrice sighed. ‘The next part of my story is the most difficult for me to tell. I don’t want to deal with questions until I’ve finished, but I think you’ll understand why.’

  ‘That sounds a bit worrying,’ Lucy said. ‘But I still want you to tell me.’

  ‘It starts,’ Beatrice told her, ‘after that chance meeting with Michael Wincanton . . .’

  London, August 1942

  One Monday, two weeks after Angie’s tragedy, an odd letter came for Beatrice. It was signed E. Potter and asked her to attend an appointment at an address in Westminster in three days’ time. There was no official letterhead and she wondered briefly if it was a trick. She daren’t ask for more time off work and the letter said she should tell no one about the appointment, so when Thursday came she called in sick.

  Number Three, Sanctuary Buildings, when she found it, did not look promising, being an ugly, many-storeyed building of grey stone in the maze of streets behind Westminster Abbey. It was home, a notice informed her, to the Ministry of Pensions. Seeing this, her heart sank. More clerical duties, she supposed.

  When she asked the commissionaire for directions to Room 55a she was shown not into a busy office, but upstairs to a small room with boarded-up windows. It was furnished only with a simple wooden table and two folding chairs, and lit by a single, naked ceiling light. There she was left alone to wait.

  She sat carefully on one of the chairs and looked round for any clue of what the room was used for, but apart from a list of air-raid regulations that she’d read many times in other offices, there was nothing. The minutes ticked by and she started to feel uncomfortable, as though she was being watched. Eventually there came a brisk knock and the door opened to admit a slight, clean-shaven man of forty or so, wearing a lounge suit and an apologetic smile.

  ‘I’m so sorry to keep you, Miss Marlow – it is Miss Marlow, is it?’ He peered at a paper in his hand.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she said. ‘Are you Mr Potter?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ He shook her hand with his long cool one, took the seat behind the table and extracted a small notebook from his breast-pocket.

  ‘I expect you’d like to know why I’ve invited you here,’ he said.

  ‘Well, yes,’ Beatrice said. ‘You see, I’ve not the least idea.’

  ‘Your name has been passed to me, as somebo
dy possibly suited to assist in the work in which I’m engaged – very important work, vital, in fact, to our success in this war. And it’s for this reason that I must urge upon you complete secrecy concerning what will pass between us in this room.’

  He looked up at her. In the silence that followed she felt first of all a sense of complete unreality, then a low throb of excitement.

  She said, ‘I have no trouble agreeing to that condition. Please do go on.’

  He folded his hands together on the table, sat very straight in his chair. ‘Before I explain further, I’d like to ask you some questions, if I may.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she replied, but a little uncertainly.

  ‘I’ve been led to understand that you are fluent in French. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, I am – that is, I lived in Normandy until I was ten. My mother’s French, but my father’s English.’

  ‘And you’re twenty – no, nineteen.’

  ‘Twenty in two weeks’ time.’

  He made a note in his book. ‘In good health?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re a FANY.’

  ‘I was, though I was let go . . . on compassionate leave.’ She was struck by a keen awareness that she shouldn’t mention her child. And in telling the lie, felt instantly that she’d betrayed him.

  ‘Compassionate leave?’ Potter asked, studying her.

  ‘My fiancé was killed in Crete. I’m afraid it knocked me back a bit.’

  Ah, I’m sorry to hear that. Do you feel, as far as it’s possible, that you’ve recovered from that?’

  ‘Oh yes. I loved him very much, please believe that, but we hadn’t known each other very long, and I suppose that’s why I was able to get myself back on my feet quite quickly. Does that sound very hard of me, Mr Potter?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘You didn’t return to the FANY, then?’

  ‘No, I wanted a change. In working for the War Office I thought I’d be doing something more directly useful than the driving work.’

  ‘Tell me about what you mean by being directly useful.’

  ‘It’s something I started thinking about after Guy died. I couldn’t see why it shouldn’t have been me out there taking the risk. I know women are told to be brave here, at home, keeping everything going, but it didn’t seem fair somehow. I might not be as strong as a man physically, but I have courage and stamina.’

  ‘I see. Those are certainly important qualities. Now tell me more about what you did in the FANY, Miss Marlow.’

  She told him about her work during the Blitz, and he asked detailed questions about situations she’d found herself in and how she’d dealt with them. There followed further questioning about her family and her schooling, and her brush with polio.

  ‘You have recovered your strength fully?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I made myself exercise until I did.’

  ‘Very commendable. And what do you know of the situation in France?’

  ‘My mother and I follow it closely. We got word that my grandfather had been killed,’ she explained. ‘It’s such a short distance over the Channel, isn’t it? The Nazis are so near. Sometimes I lie awake at night and think of them being so close, and how important it is that we win this war.’

  ‘My sentiments exactly,’ Mr Potter said. She was aware of him watching her intently, as though she were an interesting insect. Not unkindly, though.

  Finally he came to the end of his questioning. How long had she been here? An hour, perhaps more. And now he asked if she had any questions.

  ‘What is it you want me for?’

  ‘I was thinking that your knowledge of France and the language could be useful to us,’ he said. ‘But there would be some risk involved.’

  ‘Is it spying?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But it involves similar skills and training. We need people to go into France who speak the language and will be invisible to the enemy. Who will fight this war from within their camp.’ Mr Potter was quiet and mild-mannered, and yet the force with which he spoke was chilling.

  ‘What would my work be exactly?’ Beatrice asked.

  ‘To put it simply, we are trying to make things as difficult and unpleasant for the Germans as possible. This involves working with local Resistance groups, sabotaging lines of communication, troop trains and arms depots. It is dangerous work, and if one is caught, well, the reprisals can be brutal.’

  Beatrice felt horrified and strangely thrilled at the same time.

  ‘We find women are particularly good as couriers,’ he said. ‘They can move around more freely without suspicion.’ They talked some more about what couriers did and then he said, ‘I should like you to go away and think about it all very seriously, then contact me. And, of course, now that I’ve met you, I need to think about everything you’ve said about yourself, too.’

  ‘Are you all right, love?’

  She looked up in a daze. The waitress was about her age, a skinny little thing, with a small round face and front teeth that crossed.

  ‘Your tea’s gone cold,’ the girl said, her eyes full of concern. ‘You’ve been sat here for hours. I thought there might be something wrong.’

  ‘There isn’t,’ Beatrice said. ‘I was just thinking. Oh, is that the time?’ She laid a few coins on the table, feeling the girl’s puzzled stare, then buttoned up her jacket and hurried from the café.

  All the rest of the day she wandered about without noticing her surroundings, her thoughts a seething tangle. She was in a state of shock, that was it; hardly believing that she’d been picked out like this, plucked from her ordinary routine into some parallel world. How had it happened? she wondered. Who or what had brought her to the attention of the enigmatic E. Potter? Her thoughts always led back to the same place: it could only be something to do with Michael Wincanton. And yet that was difficult to accept. Michael knew about her child; he knew, but he’d still put her into this terrible quandary. And it was a quandary.

  What she had to confront about herself was the fact that she had chosen not to mention to Mr Potter that she was a mother. Why not? Her son was the obvious reason why she shouldn’t step forward for this role that he was offering her, but she’d allowed the other part of her, the part that wasn’t a mother, to listen enthralled as he described the work of his department – secret work that took its agents into the heart of danger.

  Sitting on the bus to Camden, the shock began to fade. Now the image of her little boy filled her mind. She couldn’t leave him, couldn’t put herself in danger, because what would he do without her?

  When she reached Mrs Popham’s, heard his shout of joy, saw the way he crawled across to her crying with relief, she almost wept herself. To think she’d ever, even for a moment, considered going away. She snatched him up and hugged him, inhaling the familiar smell of him.

  It was after the baby had gone to bed that this resolve crumbled. She was alone in the flat. Dinah was on a tour of night duties at the moment. The house was silent, except for the distant sound of a wireless. Downstairs, poor Mrs Elphinstone would be sitting alone, hoping to hear news that might suggest what was happening to her son. Restless, Beatrice turned on their own wireless and the Prime Minister’s voice crackled into the room. ‘Everybody is making sacrifices,’ he said. She turned it off again quickly. Everybody was indeed making sacrifices. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and images of Guy and Ed Wincanton and Rafe came into her mind. Her friend Judy. And now something important was being asked of her. Michael Wincanton had as good as picked her out. She was being chosen.

  Pictures spooled through her mind, newsreels she’d seen in the cinema, of marching soldiers, lines of refugees, huge-eyed children, families pushing cartloads of belongings, men covered in burning oil, screaming in the sea. She thought of her mother’s family in Occupied France, of all the other families like them who were suffering. She was being given a part to play to win this war.

  And yet here at home her innocent young baby needed her.


  She dropped her head into her hands and wept.

  The worst thing of all was that she could speak of this matter to no one. Each day for the next week, she went through the usual motions, dropping her child with Mrs Popham, going on the bus to work, shopping in the lunch-break or the early evening, putting the baby to bed. She hardly saw Dinah. And her thoughts raked deep and agonizingly into her mind.

  She tried to imagine what the work Mr Potter had alluded to might mean. Would she be brave enough? It was impossible to say; only that she had no fear of the idea. She knew she was strong, physically and mentally; she had always had an innate sense that she’d get through. The important thing in life, she’d already learned, was to put one’s head down and get on with the next thing. This had always worked for her. If they’d asked her, they expected her to be able to do it, whatever it was. People got on and did things; she’d seen the most extraordinarily brave people in this war, people pushed to the limits of their endurance. Why should she be excused?

  She was a little shocked to find excitement in the idea. She wasn’t sure how to regard this aspect of herself, whether with horror or delight. All she knew was that she wanted to meet this challenge. She wanted a more active part.

  Yet as she gave the baby his bottle and watched his dark dreamy eyes as he drank; as she cuddled his strong little body, felt his chubby arms tighten around her neck, she knew she couldn’t bear to be separated from him.

  Gradually she started to be able to rationalize it. Perhaps she could go a little further, see what might be involved. She could always pull back; Mr Potter had given her that impression. It would be the least she could do.

  Her supervisor, Miss Goodwin, a trim, efficient woman, with short greying hair and black-rimmed spectacles that she wore on a ribbon, called her into a side office one morning and said, ‘Mrs Marlow, I understand your difficulties, having a young child, but I am beginning to question your commitment to your work here. You are frequently absent, and when you are here, it seems to be in body rather than in mind. One or two of the other girls are complaining that you’re not pulling your weight. Now I do like to try and help if I can, dear. Is there anything that’s bothering you?’