All Clear (75 page)

“Much younger than—” She stopped and bit her lip as if she had only just realized how cruel that sounded, and then rushed on. “I only met him a few weeks ago, here, and his regiment’s due to be shipped out any week now, so we haven’t much time left.”

And that at least was true. There was almost no time left at all. “You do understand, don’t you? You’ve been in love, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I have.”

He sat there for a long minute, looking at her, his face unreadable.
I did it
, she thought.
I’ve succeeded in sending him away for good
.

And in hurting him cruelly. I am
so
sorry, Sir Godfrey, but it’s for your own good
.

“I
am
sorry,” she said carelessly. “I’m afraid I’ve got to go on in a moment.” She bent down and began fastening the gilt strap on her shoe. “I’ve got a costume change.”

“Of course,” he said. “I understand. You mustn’t miss your
entrance.” He watched her struggle with the stiff strap for a moment, then stood up and, with great care, took his coat down from the screen and turned to go.

I’ll never see you again
, she thought, keeping her eyes firmly on her shoe.

“Goodbye,” she said without looking up.

He moved the chair aside, put his hand to the doorknob, stood there a moment, and then turned back to face her. “Have I ever told you what a wretched actress you are, Viola?”

Her heart began to pound. “I thought you said I was born to be on the stage,” she said, her chin in the air.

“And so I did,” he said, “but not because you could act. Your acting wouldn’t convince Trot. Or Nelson.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing I turned down your offer, isn’t it?” she said angrily. “Luckily, ENSA audiences aren’t quite so critical.” She reached past him for her railway-station costume. “Now, if you’ll forgive me—”

“There is nothing to forgive,” he said, “except perhaps that unnecessarily unkind reference to my age. But then again, you
were
attempting to send me away—”

And I didn’t succeed
, Polly thought despairingly.

“—so you may be excused for employing extreme measures. You
are
meant for the stage,” he said, “but not for your ability to dissemble. Quite the opposite. It is because everything you feel is there in your face—your thoughts, your hopes—” He looked hard at her. “Your fears. It’s a rare gift—Ellen Terry had it, and, on rare occasions, Sarah Bernhardt—though it is not an unmixed blessing. It makes it quite impossible to lie, as you have so obviously been attempting to do to me for the last quarter of an hour. It is equally obvious you are in some sort of trouble—”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “I told you, I’ve met a young man. We’re in love—”

He shook his head. “Whatever your reason for turning down my offer, it is not some green and callow youth you met outside a stage door. It is also clear this trouble is something you think you must face alone, else why would you hide yourself away from your friends?”

He cocked his head inquisitively at her. “Perhaps you are right to do so. Illyria is a dangerous place. But silence is not always the best defense.” He looked at her steadily. “Are you quite certain I can’t help?”

No one can help
, Polly thought.
And I’m putting you in danger just by standing here talking to you. Please go away. If you love me, please
 …

“Two minutes,” Reggie said, sticking his head in the door, and she had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

“Coming,” she called. “It was ever so nice to have seen you, Sir Godfrey, but as you can see, I have a show to do—”

“Very well. We shall act the scene as you have written it. You have found young love and have no time for an old man with a foolish fondness for you. And I, heartbroken, shall retire from the field and set about finding another principal boy. Miss Laburnum might look well in tights,” he mused.

“I’m sorry you had to come all this way for nothing,” Polly said, taking her costume off its hanger.

“Oh, but it wasn’t for nothing,” he said. “I learned a good deal. And I found a theater to house our pantomime. On my way here last night as I came down Shaftesbury, I saw that the Phoenix was standing empty, and I arranged with the owner—an old friend of mine, we did
Lear
together—to let us use it for
Sleeping Beauty
. If you should change your mind—”

“I won’t.”

“If you should change your mind,” he repeated firmly, “I shall be there both tonight and tomorrow. I will be backstage looking at possible sets and attempting to forestall the disaster which I know is to come. So if your young man should turn out to be a bounder and a cad, and you should reconsider—”

“I’ll know where to find you,” she said lightly, stepping behind the screen. “Now, I’m afraid I really
must
change. Goodbye.” She shrugged off her wrapper and flung it carelessly over the screen. “Tell everyone hullo for me, won’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, and after a pause, added, “my lady.”

And it was a good thing she was behind the screen, that he couldn’t see her face, because that was the line from Lady Mary’s final scene with Crichton. She had to clutch her costume to her chest to keep from holding her hand impulsively out to him as Lady Mary had done, to keep from saying, “I will never give you up.”

She swallowed hard. “Tell them to break a leg,” she said lightly.

There was no answer, and when she peeked around the screen a long minute later, he was gone. For good. Because that was what that last scene of
The Admirable Crichton
was all about, lovers parting forever. And that was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? What she’d—

The girls came tumbling through the door, grabbing costumes, plunking down to touch up their makeup. “No wonder you wouldn’t go
out with the stage-door hangers-on,” Cora said. “Clever girl. You had your eyes on something
much
better, didn’t you?”

Polly didn’t answer. She stepped into her costume and turned to have Hattie do the slide fastener.

“What I don’t understand is, what are you doing at ENSA?” Hattie asked. “He could get you a part in a
real
show.”

Reggie leaned in again. “Curtain.”

Polly hurried onstage, glad to have something to take her mind off Sir Godfrey. When she came off, Mr. Tabbitt told her to go change into her Air Raid Adelaide costume.

“But what about the barrage-balloon skit?”

“Cora can do it,” he said. “I have a feeling the raids are going to be bad tonight.”

He was right. She’d scarcely had time to get into her bloomers before the sirens went, and it was a bad raid—nearly all HEs. Polly, changing into her nurse’s costume for the hospital skit, felt her heart jerk with each one. What if she hadn’t sent Sir Godfrey away soon enough?

I shouldn’t have talked to him at all
, she thought.
I should have shut the door in his face
.

Tabbitt knocked and then leaned in. “The bombs are making the audience nervy. I need you to do another air-raid bit,” and sent her out to show her knickers again.

“I don’t like this,” Hattie said nervously as Polly came off. “That last one sounded like it was next door.”

“It was two streets over,” Reggie said, pulling on his general’s uniform. “On Shaftesbury.”

“How do you know?” Hattie demanded.

“I was outside, smoking a fag, and the warden told me. The Phoenix got hit.”

ERNEST STARED STUPIDLY AT CESS ACROSS THE RAISED
hood of the car. “We’re to take Colonel von Sprecht to Kensington Palace?”

“Yes,” Cess said, looking from him to the colonel, still asleep inside the car. “What’s wrong, Worthing?”

Kensington Palace is only two streets away from Notting Hill Gate Station, that’s what’s wrong. It’s only a few streets away from Mrs. Rickett’s
.

“You don’t think the colonel will die before we get him there, do you?” Cess asked nervously.

“No,” Ernest said, pulling himself together. “I thought we were done with him, that’s all. Every mile we’re in that car with him, there’s a chance he’ll tumble to what we’re doing.”

“Not if we keep our mouths shut,” Cess said. “There’s nothing he can see now to give it away. It was brilliant, your driving while he was asleep so we’d come in from the east. And Kensington Palace isn’t far.”

“Where is it exactly? Show me on the map,” Ernest said, hoping it wasn’t as close to Notting Hill Gate as Cess had said, but it was. There was a road which went directly to the palace, though. He wouldn’t have to drive past the tube station, and with dignitaries like Patton there, civilians wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the palace.

And there wouldn’t be any air raids till after the invasion, so Eileen wouldn’t be going to the tube shelter, and the chances of running into
her, even in Notting Hill or Kensington, were tiny.
You looked for her and Polly for
weeks
during the Blitz and couldn’t find them
.

Right, and you managed to collide with Alan Turing not ten minutes after you’d arrived in Bletchley
. And this was the time of day when she could be arriving home from work.

But she wouldn’t still be working in Oxford Street. When the National Service Act had gone into effect, she’d have been assigned to some kind of war work. She might not even still be in London.

And if you didn’t get them out, you didn’t get them out, and seeing Eileen—or not seeing her—doesn’t change whether she’s here or not, whether you’re going to be able to reach Atherton or not. It’s already happened
.

But he couldn’t rid himself of the idea that now, at the very last minute,
this close
to contacting Atherton, he’d ruin things by catching sight of her stepping off a bus or coming down the street in her green coat, and it was a huge relief to turn down the road to the palace, to pull up to the gates.

The guard looked at their papers and said, “If you’ll just pull in there, sir, behind that staff car.” He indicated the last car in a long line stretching all the way to the palace.

“Our passenger’s ill. He can’t possibly walk that far,” Ernest said. “We need to take him to the door.”

After examining their papers again and looking in the backseat at the colonel, the guard waved them on, but Ernest wasn’t sure they’d make it through the already-parked staff cars and Rolls-Royces. It was like threading a needle.
This is where Churchill or Patton steps out suddenly in front of me and I run over him
, he thought, but they made it safely up to the palace.

He pulled the car up to the foot of the stairs, got out, and came around to help the colonel out of the car. It took both of them. Ernest had to hold him up, while Cess got his suitcase out and shut the car door.

“I’m sorry to cause so much trouble,” the colonel said to Ernest, and he felt a sudden pang of pity for him.

You’re going to cause them to lose the war
, he thought,
and not even know it
.

“Sorry, sir, but you can’t park there,” a regimental guard said, hurrying up. “You’ll have to move your car.”

“It’s only till we can get the colonel inside,” he said.

“This is Colonel von Sprecht,” Cess said, holding out their papers. “We’ve just brought him all the way from Dover. We have orders to deliver him directly to General Moreland.” But the guard was shaking his head.

“Sorry, sir. You can’t leave your car here.”

“Well, then, at least let me run inside and fetch someone to assist Lieutenant Wilkerson,” Ernest said. “The colonel can’t make it up those stairs without assistance.”

“I can’t let you do that, sir. Captain’s orders. You must move it now.”

“I want to speak to the captain—” Ernest began, but Cess shook his head.

“We can’t stand here arguing,” he said. “I can manage the colonel.” He draped the colonel’s arm around his shoulder. “You go park the car, Lieutenant Abbott.”

“But—” Ernest began, and Cess nodded toward the top of the steps, where two officers were hurrying down to help.
Good
. “Where do you want me to park?” he asked the guard.

“At the end of this road,” he said, pointing, but that end of the narrow lane was packed with cars, too, some with young women in FANY and ATS uniforms at the wheel, waiting for the generals they’d delivered.

Oh, Christ, what if one of the drivers was Eileen? She’d talked about trying to get the National Service to assign her to be one. He glanced in the rear-vision mirror. Two more staff cars were pulling in to the lane behind him. Jesus, it was more dangerous here than out on the streets of Kensington.

He pulled his visored cap down over his forehead and drove as fast as he dared to the end of the lane. Another guard stood there. He came over to the car. “Sir, you can’t stop here.”

“I know. Tell Lieutenant Wilkerson that Lieutenant Abbott’s taken the car round the corner to park it.” Then he drove out onto Kensington and back along the edge of Kensington Gardens, where they’d been when Polly told them she had a deadline.

Polly. She might be one of the drivers, too, only that wouldn’t be her name. It would be Mary Kent, and right now she was at an ambulance post in Oxford, waiting to be transferred to Dulwich, but he knew from the FANYs he’d run into that they were often assigned to driving officers, and it looked like every officer in England was here tonight. What if she was, too?

She can’t be
, he told himself,
because if she was, you could rap on her window and warn her, and if you warn her, she’ll go back to Oxford and tell Mr. Dunworthy what happened, and he’d never have let them come through. Just like with Bartholomew
.

It’s Atherton you need to concentrate on finding
, he thought.
And there’s a phone booth. And Cess isn’t here
. And Lady Bracknell had sent along a purse
full of money in case something went wrong while they had the colonel and they had to phone the castle. He pulled over to the curb, took the purse out of the glove compartment, and got out of the car. He went into the phone booth, dialed the operator, and gave her the number the Wren had told him. “Just one moment, please,” the operator said.