The House of Flowers Page 20

  ‘How exciting. Lucky you.’

  ‘It all depends. Might be unlucky her if she doesn’t like where I’m taking her.’ Scott started to undo the present.

  ‘It’s champagne,’ Lily put in quickly before he could finish unwrapping. ‘Premier cru. We all shared another bottle last night, mixed it with brandy and heaven only knows what else.’

  ‘Champagne. But that’s incredible.’

  ‘Well, we are near the coast, Scott, things do suddenly appear overnight where they never were before. I found this with the milk bottles this morning. Heaven only knows who it’s from.’

  She took out a packet of Gitanes from her handbag and lit one. Scott stared at her and she started to laugh, waving the cigarette about.

  ‘It’s all right, I’m not going to be sick, Scott. Shall we open the champagne now?’

  Scott looked appreciatively at the label on the bottle. ‘Why not? A treat like this doesn’t come along every day. Like to get some glasses, Poppy darling?’

  ‘I thought we were in a hurry to get going?’

  ‘I am – but un tout petit coup before we go off will only add to the gaiety.’

  Poppy shrugged her shoulders and collected three glasses from the corner cupboard.

  ‘What is the toast?’ she asked, facing them both now from one end of the room, and perhaps because of that, for some reason she could not understand, feeling strangely wrong-footed, as if she was no longer in her own house.

  ‘Your marriage. Remember?’ Lily smiled, pouring the wine. ‘Oh, and Scott’s safe return. Cheerio!’

  ‘In thanksgiving for Scott’s safe return,’ Poppy agreed, with a smile to Scott. ‘Hear hear.’

  ‘You know Lily.’ Scott laughed, turning half apologetically to Poppy, knowing that this interruption was the last thing either of them wanted. ‘Everything and anything’s an excuse for a celebration.’

  ‘Not quite true—’

  ‘You know, we really should get going, Scott,’ Poppy interrupted. ‘We’re late already.’

  ‘Don’t be a spoilsport, Poppy!’ Lily said, taking the bottle from Scott and topping up both their glasses. ‘It’s not every day the hero is returned to the arms of his loved one by the heroine.’

  ‘Is there something I don’t know?’

  ‘Tell her, Scott! Tell her how I snatched you from the very jaws of death!’

  ‘I don’t think so, do you?’ Scott replied firmly. ‘Not if we don’t all want to end up in the Tower of London. Come on, Lily, time to go.’

  ‘Oh, but I so want to stay and celebrate. After all,’ she turned to Poppy smiling over-gaily, ‘I’ve now been married to Scott even longer than you have Poppy, although only in the most professional way, of course.’

  Poppy put down her glass and stared at both Scott and Lily.

  ‘I see,’ she said slowly. ‘By that am I to understand you two – that the two of you have just returned – from a drop?’ – she turned to her husband, eyeing him carefully. ‘Was Lily – was she – your new partner?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me, sweetie!’ Scott found himself protesting. ‘You know as well as I do we have to go where we’re sent, and no arguing. You don’t get to choose your partners in arms!’

  ‘I see,’ Poppy muttered, dropping her eyes.

  ‘Scott would never have chosen me over you, Poppy.’

  Poppy went to the door, Scott following her, still protesting.

  ‘I wasn’t in a position to tell you. Lily shouldn’t have said anything either—’

  Poppy left the room without a backward glance at Lily who was now standing smiling foolishly, the glass of champagne in her hand tipping dangerously at a right angle. Scott walked over to her and promptly confiscated her glass.

  ‘Go on, Lily, hop it,’ he said tetchily. ‘I imagine you must still be a bit tight from last night to have behaved so stupidly. But most of all I reckon it is time you went.’

  ‘I’m not drunk, Scott, not in the slightest,’ Lily retorted, resisting his push towards the door. ‘I’m just glad to be alive. You must tell Poppy how brilliant we both were. And how when the war is won we shall have our statues in Parliament Square.’

  ‘You are still tight. So go on – take your bottle of champagne and get out – go back to your party or wherever, but I want you out of here.’

  ‘Don’t be boring. Everything’s so boring after France. You can’t pretend otherwise. You can’t tell me you didn’t feel more alive in France? Because I simply won’t believe you.’

  ‘I feel a great deal more alive now that I’m home, Lily, and still alive, thank God.’

  ‘Oh, there you go, being Captain Stuffy again. Did you know he had this stuffy side, Poppy?’ she called up the stairs, having been helped out of the room and into the hall by a further push from Scott. ‘Do you know your husband can be extremely stuffy at times?’

  By now, Poppy was coming back downstairs with the second suitcase, her coat folded over one arm.

  ‘I think we ought to go now, Scott,’ she said, ignoring Lily. ‘Or we really are going to be late.’

  ‘How do you know you’re going to be late? If you don’t know where you’re going?’ Lily persisted as Scott opened the front door and eased her out. ‘You can’t possibly know you’re late if you don’t know where you’re going.’

  ‘Go, Lily, go, please.’ Scott ordered. ‘Go and drink the rest of the champagne with your friends. Celebrate your safe return with everyone else, but please leave us alone now.’

  ‘Spoilsport.’

  ‘You too,’ Scott said, closing the front door firmly.

  ‘Spoilsport!’ Lily shouted from outside. ‘Stuffy pants!’

  ‘She’s tight,’ Scott said to Poppy. ‘Extremely tight.’

  ‘It’s quite understandable,’ Poppy replied. ‘Remember how tight we got after our first sortie? We were tight for days.’

  ‘Look, sweetheart – I’m sorry about this. Really I am. I had no idea Lily was going to—’

  Poppy smiled, then bent down to put George on his lead.

  ‘It’s all right, I understand perfectly. You don’t have to say another word.’

  ‘Very well.’ Scott shrugged.

  He shut the front door behind them and they walked off down the wooded path to where Scott had parked the car, George happily trotting beside his mistress and Poppy with her composure regained, determined to put the whole incident behind her. She knew what a strain being undercover could be, just as she knew that people were often thrown together in difficult situations. She also knew that if those people happened to be attractive members of the opposite sex then temptation could enter the equation all too readily. However, what she could not deny was that the heart that only moments ago had been young, happy and carefree now felt as if it was made of stone. Whatever else she might or might not have done Lily had quite ruined Scott’s homecoming.

  ‘Could be someone close to the throne,’ Jack Ward said. ‘In a way it has to be.’

  Anthony stood staring at his wall chart, the number of black pins seeming to outnumber the red and green ones. It wasn’t so, of course; Eden had many more active agents in the field than inactive ones, yet the choice of the mortal colour of black suggested a far greater number were down than up.

  ‘What about the girl, sir?’ Anthony wondered, having as yet received no update on what if anything had been learned about his senior’s goddaughter.

  ‘Bit of a blank so far,’ Jack replied. ‘They’re still interrogating her, and she still keeps swearing the file was a plant and the whole thing a deliberate red herring.’

  ‘She would, wouldn’t she, sir?’

  ‘Of course. But then she could also be telling the truth. We’ll soon see.’

  ‘By further interrogation?’

  ‘By seeing whether or not the leak has been stopped. If she’s right, and she is a patsy, then it’s back to square one – and if it’s back to square one then I’m as out of ideas as I am of tobacco.’ Jack stared gloomily i
nto the oilskin tobacco pouch he had just pulled from his pocket and attempted to fill his pipe with enough tobacco dust to get some sort of smoke. ‘Trouble with this sort of thing is you don’t know where to start looking. Under the bed or in it.’

  Anthony frowned at him, not quite understanding the reference.

  ‘Is it one of ours – someone in the bed?’ Jack explained with a brief look over his spectacles. ‘Or one of theirs – hiding underneath it?’

  ‘For the life of me, sir, I simply can’t even begin to get into the minds of people who can play both sides of the net.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean to say there aren’t plenty of them about. My gut feeling, for what it’s worth, is that we have a difficult one here. Very difficult,’ he added factually.

  Anthony looked at his notepad to check the Gaelic word Eugene Hackett had recently used to describe someone working from the inside.

  ‘Hackett calls it a caochán, sir. Apparently it’s come sort of Irish creature – Gaelic for a small animal of some kind. Celtic, anyway.’

  ‘Spare me Celtic folklore. I get the picture. So.’ Jack lit the little tobacco he had managed to pack into his pipe, puffed away at it while regarding Anthony over the bowl, then stuck the lit pipe in the side of his mouth before continuing. ‘So. We had best initiate a covert operation. See what we can unearth. We’ll need some sort of framework. I’ll see to all that side of things and meanwhile I’ll do a bit of truffling myself. Might as well call it Operation— What was that word again?’

  ‘Caochán, sir.’

  ‘Operation Caochán. And the sooner we catch the damn thing the better for us all.’

  Some few months later, Marjorie saw him completely by chance. She was out walking George for Poppy, who was confined to bed with a heavy cold, when she saw him in the distance on his horse. There was nothing unusual about that at all, since when he was on leave Eugene spent the time he wasn’t with Kate riding his seventeen-hand great grey horse. She was however surprised to see him this morning because she was well out of the parkland proper, having decided since it was such a fine late October morning and the autumnal colours were still so vivid to walk the countryside around the park, an area she had always meant to explore but somehow had never got round to as yet. She knew George would enjoy it, for in spite of his short legs he was a very fit little dog and being a hound he loved to run for hours.

  And so it was that Marjorie found herself breasting a ridge that rose well above Eden Park, which she could see lying far below her in the distance when she turned to draw breath. George was hot on the trail of a rabbit and had half disappeared into the hedge when Marjorie first caught sight of him – or, rather, of them.

  For Eugene was not riding alone. There was someone riding after him on a bright chestnut horse, a woman wearing a coloured headscarf and dun-coloured rat-catcher who sat to her horse with perfect ease. Instinctively Marjorie sought cover for herself, bending over first to put George on his lead and then slipping back into the shadow of the small copse in front of which she had been standing. The two riders were headed in a course not quite towards Marjorie’s but not quite parallel either, which meant that if they stayed on that track they would pass her by with a good hundred feet or so to spare. But then as the woman caught up with Eugene she called him to a halt in a sandy clearing right at the bottom of the hill on top of which Marjorie stood hidden. Eugene reined his horse in at once, and as his mount came to a neat stop he looked round in order it would seem to ensure they were not being overlooked before turning his attention to his new riding companion.

  Nothing odd in that, Marjorie sought to reassure herself. People run into each other all the time when they’re out walking, or riding, or cycling. So there’s nothing odd in this so far – and yet somehow – somehow it still doesn’t look quite right . . .

  They were deep in conversation now, the woman seeming to do most of the talking while Eugene took something from his pocket, a piece of paper that Marjorie saw him unfold, check and then hand over to the woman. She glanced at it briefly, then looked about her before folding it and slipping it into her own inside jacket pocket. A few more words were exchanged, before the woman picked up her reins, only to drop them again as she leaned forward and raised herself out of the saddle to put her arms round Eugene’s neck and hug him.

  A peal of Eugene’s unmistakable laughter floated up to Marjorie’s perch above them before the riders, with a gathering up of reins and a couple of gentle taps on their horses’ flanks, spun away from each other, breaking into a slow canter, and finally disappeared from Marjorie’s view in a swirling curl of dust thrown up from the track.

  Marjorie stared at where they had just been, but were no longer. It had been like watching a scene from a film, or reading a particularly vivid passage in a book. Dramatic, odd, enthralling and yet ominous, for what else could Eugene be doing but betraying someone; or something. She could not believe what she had seen. It did not seem possible that the magical, enchanting and rambunctious Irishman, so beloved by all, could not be above suspicion in every way. Not that there had not been rumours about him before, especially when he had mysteriously vanished to Ireland, it was said at the time, suspected of making contact with the enemy on the west coast, where U-boats were meant to be finding shelter in certain famous bays. How the rumours had started no one knew, but nor did they know whether they were based on fact.

  So what was he up to this time? Was this an act of treachery? Had he been passing classified information? Or was it perhaps part of one of his covert manoeuvres, part of an Eden commissioned dodge – Eden slang for an operation – the woman either part of the ground force or even an enemy agent whom Eugene was codding, as he called it. Such was the difficulty of working in Security that everything had to be suspect, and yet nothing could be discussed, except with one’s superior officer. Marjorie knew it was her duty to report the incident, and yet she could not but shrink from doing so.

  Should she be right she could hardly bear the thought of Kate’s discovering that her lover was in fact a double agent; should she be wrong, and Kate learn from the gossipmongers who had blown the whistle on Eugene, it was equally unbearable to imagine what Kate would think of her then, let alone what Eugene would make of it. And if it turned out that all Eugene was actually doing was two-timing Kate, then that too would be something for which Kate would never forgive Marjorie.

  All the way up the drive Marjorie wrestled with her conscience, while George ran alongside her, happy but exhausted, his long pink tongue hanging out more and more the nearer they got to home. Marjorie found herself wishing that she was anywhere except at Eden Park; so much so that she started fantasising about handing in her notice to Anthony Folkestone and taking up some other occupation, in a factory perhaps. Normally she would have gone straight to the cottage behind the stable yard and made herself some tea, waiting for Kate to come off duty and for Billy to get back from school, but today she had to return one exhausted dachshund. So she bypassed the house, cut through the first set of woods, walked round the top end of the great lake and took the short cut through the second area of woodland that led her finally to the House of Flowers.

  Someone was waiting for her. But it wasn’t Poppy. Marjorie didn’t even get as far as the door of the house before she was held by a large firm hand on one shoulder, a hand that turned her round until she was face to face with the person who had been to the forefront of all her thoughts.

  ‘Not a word now, Marjorie Marjoram,’ Eugene said quietly and seriously. ‘One word of what you saw and I swear I’ll kill you with my own bare hands.’

  Kate sensed there was something up, but couldn’t put a finger on it. First of all there was an atmosphere in the cottage that was more than uneasy, it was claustrophobic; and second it was perfectly obvious that Marjorie was doing her best to avoid her. If Marjorie had not been such a gregarious personality it might not have been so obvious. Yet now she seemed to be avoiding not only Kate and Billy, but also everyone in H Secti
on. She went about her work wordlessly, as if deeply preoccupied, and although it was obvious to everyone involved with her that she was in fact working even longer hours than usual, instead of joining her usual large table of friends at lunch or supper whenever possible she would either sit with people she didn’t know at all or skip eating altogether, leaving the dining room the moment she thought she might have to sit with someone she knew. She also absented herself from drinking in the local pub in the evenings, choosing instead to work late, take other people’s shifts – anything rather than mix with her friends. Kate teased her, trying to joke her out of it, but to no avail.

  Once or twice Kate confronted her and asked her if anything was the matter, only to be told in Marjorie’s newly gruff way that she was perfectly all right – just a little tired. When she was out, Kate and Billy discussed Marjorie’s change in attitude, Kate suspecting it was probably some emotional disturbance and therefore possibly to do with Marjorie’s growing relationship with Major Folkestone, while Billy had his own theory, as always.

  ‘It’s ’er glands. Glandular disorders account for a really high percentage of mental instability, Kate,’ he told her seiously. ‘I mean it – don’t laugh. I betcha your glands played you up as you was growing up. I know mine did and all.’

  ‘As I was growing up,’ Kate corrected him.

  ‘That’s what I said,’ Billy replied.

  ‘No you didn’t. You said as you was growing up—’ Kate stopped when she saw Billy grinning impishly at her. ‘You just do it to trick people, don’t you?’ She laughed. ‘You’re a sausage.’

  ‘Well if I am, then you’re a sport. And listen – ’cos you’re a sport – I want you to give us a hand with somethin’.’

  Even Anthony Folkestone was beginning to get worried about Marjorie, in spite of the fact that because of Operation Caochán he had been so busy he had barely had time to sit down, let alone sleep, or pay much attention to someone with whom he now realised he was possibly hopelessly in love. As soon as he could find a moment he took time out to consider what could be wrong. His list of possibilities included feelings for someone other than himself, some sort of light ailment, or perhaps one of those things about which he had absolutely no idea but which he recalled his father referring to as women’s palaver. Other than the fact that they were not in any way the same as men, and despite having been married, Anthony was still blissfully ignorant on the subject of the opposite sex, and knew it. But this did not stop him trying to unravel that most complicated of creatures and make some sense of at least one.