Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 (36 page)

‘You've parked your warship in the garage?'

‘How did you know, Kate?'

‘Because I did, Bobby Maddox.'

Robert opened the garage doors to gesture theatrically within. ‘Ta rah!' he sang, pointing with both hands to the gleaming white sports car that was standing where Professor Maddox's car was usually parked. ‘What do you think of her, then? Only got her last week.'

The two young women smiled in delight, and then sighed with admiration as Robert carefully reversed the car out of the garage for their inspection.

‘It's an MG,' he said. ‘Not new, of course, but hardly done any miles at all. Got her for an absolute snip from a bloke who'd just joined the Cavalry and found he'd been posted abroad. Even better news – I have scrounged enough petrol to run you girls back to your base. I'll still have plenty left to get me back to my ship.'

They were too excited over the idea of being driven back in such sporting style to linger over their goodbyes to Helen, something for which she was only too grateful.

‘Bye, dears. Take care.'

She closed the front door and leaned against it, closing her eyes as she did so. What a stupid thing to say. Take care! As if it was possible to take care in a war.

*     *     *

And so they drove back to what they all laughingly referred to as ‘somewhere in England', with the hood down and their spirits raised. They joked and sang most of the thirty-mile journey, Kate and Marjorie well wrapped up against the autumn chill, and Robert carefree and hatless with his blond hair standing all but upright in the wind. The car seemed to sing with them as Robert speeded across country until, far too soon it seemed, the entrance to Eden Park was before them, and the car was being stopped by the two new sentries posted at the outer gates. Kate and Marjorie showed their passes, but Robert was not allowed to proceed any further.

As the three of them prepared to make their farewells, they were passed by a small party of four women returning from their own day out, waving their passes at the sentries and blowing kisses behind them as they went.

Robert, who was just about to kiss his sister goodbye, stopped and watched the girls laughing and fooling about at the gates.

‘I say, Kate,' he murmured. ‘Who's that rather gorgeous imp in the red coat and saucy little hat?'

‘That?' Kate said, with a laugh. ‘That, dear brother, is a girl called Lily. And if you ask me she is more than a little fast.'

‘Really?' Robert's eyes lit up at that. ‘Suits me. I don't have a lot of time. Excuse me?' he called. ‘Hang on a jiffy! Wait for me!'

He hurried up to Lily, anxious to stop her before she passed through into the security area. Marjorie, seeing Kate looking at her, immediately smiled,
straightened her own somewhat windswept hat on her head and swung her handbag round raffishly.

‘Come on, Kate,' she said. ‘Or we'll be late for check-in.'

After a few yards they caught up with Robert, who had engaged Lily in conversation. Lily smiled at the two of them, while Robert quickly broke away to run over to them.

‘Cheerio, both,' he said, kissing Kate and shaking Marjorie's hand. ‘It's been an absolutely A1 day. Made A1 plus now. See you both soon! Cheerio!'

With that he hurried back to Lily, who was waiting patiently for him, smiling the smile of a girl who knows she has caught the eye of a handsome young man.

‘I do love a naval uniform better than any other,' Marjorie heard her say, as she and Kate started to walk up the drive.

‘Really.' Kate sighed. ‘She ought to have a better line than that by now, don't you think?'

Marjorie shrugged her shoulders.

‘That's Lily,' she said, staring ahead.

‘It certainly is,' Kate agreed, unable to prevent her own thoughts drifting towards the horseman she had first seen cantering on the grey horse and whom she still hoped to see again, one day, with or without a tennis racket, although she would not admit as much to anyone, except of course herself.

The following day Kate was making her way to the tennis court to collect a cardigan she had left there when she heard the sound of tennis balls being hit at a regular fast speed. She stopped, and hid
behind a tree in almost precisely the same place as Eugene had hidden to watch her.

He was practising his serve, sending the balls first to one corner of the square and then to another. Serve after serve was sent spinning down with breathtaking speed, the ball thrown high, the arm swinging the racket down towards it with an easy, athletic agility that was beautifully judged and executed. Kate stood on, watching him, until the sun went behind a cloud, and she moved fractionally between trees.

‘Come out of there, Kate Maddox, before I shoot you as a spy with my trusty weapon,' Eugene called to her.

Kate revealed herself.

‘How did you know I was there?'

‘Because, Miss Maddox, I have the ears of a fox, and the second sense of a deer. Because I am, in other words, the great, the inestimable, the fascinating Eugene Hackett.'

He turned towards her, and as he did so it seemed that he had stopped as if he had been shot by Kate, rather than the other way round. She was wearing a white smoking suit – short jacket, with wide legged sailor-style trousers – that her mother had sent her a few weeks before with a note.
Given this by Lady Daval. She thought it might suit you. She is running a second-hand clothes stall – rather good!
Kate had teamed it with a floral blouse and a single strand of pearls. It was far too dressy for life at Eden Park, but Kate took the attitude that with a war on it was a girl's duty to look as good as she could.

Eugene shook his head.

‘Kate …'

Kate picked up her cardigan from the umpire's chair and turned back to him, making sure as she did so that she was looking vague, as if she had hardly registered his presence.

‘Mmm?'

‘You look – you look like something me auntie would send from Cork in a badly tied parcel,' he joked, ‘as welcome as the sun coming up in the morning, or an ice cream on a hot day, or a long cold drink after coming off the tennis court.' He started putting the tennis balls back in their box, but as he did so even Kate noticed that his hands were shaking.

‘And you look,' she said, staring at his hands for a second, ‘you look as if you could do with that famous drink.'

‘I could, I could.' He turned towards her as she walked past him, putting out a hand to catch her arm. ‘Kate?'

‘Yes?'

‘You look like a picture, do you know that?' He ran ahead of her suddenly. ‘I will carry your image before me as I go into battle.' He fell to his knees, the expression on his face once more one of mischievous humour. ‘Give me at least a token to remember you by. Please?'

Kate picked up a small stone from the path that ran beside the tennis court.

‘There you are, Eugene Hackett. Place that next to your heart.'

He took it, and after kissing it placed it in his pocket, by which time Kate was walking quickly back towards the house – and sanity. Was
Eugene Hackett half clown, or half hero, or wholly both?

When it was Marjorie's turn to join her section's sitting at dinner in the former blue salon, now a canteen, a new arrival caught her eye as they queued.

‘You look as though someone has taken your fancy,' Kate remarked, as she took up her food. ‘I spy?'

Marjorie nodded discreetly at a tall, elegant young man who had just joined the waiting line of hungry personnel and was standing idly at the back.

‘I'm trying to place the face,' she said. ‘I know I know him, but I can't think from where.'

At that moment the newcomer looked in their direction, as if he had become aware of Marjorie's stare. As soon as she saw him full face, Marjorie remembered.

‘The cottage, Seagull Watch,' she murmured to Kate, turning her back on the man. ‘Aunt Hester's friend's cottage by the sea. We went on holiday last year. It was the first time I met Jack Ward, and he was with him.' She nodded back towards the waiting figure. ‘He's French. I knew I knew him from somewhere. Except I don't remember his hair being that colour.'

‘He's really quite handsome,' Kate admitted, as she managed to steal a glance at him behind Marjorie's back. ‘Even if it is in a rather Gallic way. Oh dear, he's noticed us noticing him.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Because he just bossed his eyes at us.'

‘I wonder what he's doing here?'

‘If he turned up at your aunt's with Mr Ward, I don't think there's any need to ask any further.'

‘True. And just when I thought it might be Fate,' Marjorie joked, collecting her food and moving off to a spare table. Having witnessed Marjorie's all too obvious disappointment when Robert had made a beeline for Lily Ormerod, Kate decided not to press the point, and instead she sat down, unloading her tray on to the table, before taking another look at the newcomer.

‘He's too good-looking for his own good, I'd say,' she told Marjorie.

Marjorie nodded.

‘He always was, even Aunt Hester was fascinated. I remember he and Mr Ward stayed until late, drinking and joking with her, and that wasn't Aunt Hester at all. Oh, for heaven's sake, don't look, he's only coming over.'

They both immediately glanced down at their plates, raising their forks to their lips, and not looking up even when the handsome newcomer placed his own tray opposite theirs.

‘
Bon soir, m'selle
,' he said to Kate. ‘
Et m'selle
' – to Marjorie. ‘May I be allowed sit with you, please? Do you think?'

‘
Mais oui
,' Kate replied in her excellent French. ‘
Mais je regrette que nous parlons français comme tous les anglais – mal!'

‘On the contrary,' the stranger replied in impeccable English. ‘I would say your French was really quite good.'

Both young women stared at him in surprise, Marjorie finally taking the initiative.

‘Sorry – I thought you were French.'

‘Yes?' The stranger looked at her, raising his eyebrows in astonishment. ‘Why would that be?'

‘When we met – because we have met, haven't we?'

‘Have we?'

‘Didn't you come to see my aunt? Last summer? With Mr Ward? Forgive me if I'm wrong, although as I was just saying, if it is you, your hair – at least I think it was – wasn't your hair a different colour?'

‘Mais oui, m
'
selle
,' he replied in perfect French once again. ‘
Vous avez raison – c
'
était brun, assez foncé, mais – plus maintenant!'

He turned his now reddish brown head round, tilting it to one side as if modelling a new hair style. Marjorie looked at Kate, widening her eyes, while Kate endeavoured to keep a straight face.

‘So what brings you here, monsieur?' Kate wondered. ‘You've just arrived – is that right?'

‘
Absolument
.'

‘You work here?' Marjorie enquired.

‘No, no,
m'selle
,' the stranger replied with a worried frown. ‘Work? What is this work? Is this not an hotel? For that is why I am here –
en vacances
.'

The two women stared at him in amazement, momentarily taken in by his act, until the stranger suddenly made a face.

‘Of course I work here.' He laughed. ‘Yes – and of course we met. You're Marjorie – if I'm not mistaken – and you are?'

‘I'm Kate. Kate Maddox.'

They all shook hands solemnly.

‘And you're not French really?' Marjorie asked carefully. ‘Or are you?'

‘Guess.'

‘You're not.'

‘Well done. I am utterly and entirely English. Scott Meynell.'

He smiled at them, quickly brushing his hair from his dark eyes.

‘You're also right about my hair – and the fact that I was French when we first met,' he continued. ‘I was working in France. I've just come back, in fact – via the beaches. Via Dunkirk.'

Marjorie looked at Kate, and Kate looked at Marjorie.

‘What was it actually like?' Kate asked.

‘I can only speak personally,' Scott replied. ‘And what I can say is that even if we win the war—'

‘When we win the war,' Marjorie corrected him.

‘When we win the war – sorry. Even when we win the war I don't think I'll be going to Dunkirk for my holidays.'

‘Are you going back?' Kate wondered ingenuously, before correcting herself. ‘Sorry, shouldn't have asked.'

‘Isn't this food terrible?' Scott sighed, ignoring her faux pas. ‘The one thing about France – no, actually there are lots of things about France – many, many things about France that I love, most especially her food. One of the units blew up this chap's camembert. Do you know the sobs could be heard above the sound of the guns.'

‘He probably had no option.'

‘No,' Scott said with a droll look first at Kate and then at Marjorie, ‘and it didn't do much for the old
entente cordiale
, as you can imagine. I mean
blow up his house, blow up his motor car, but not, absolutely not, his cheese.'

‘If it ever existed,' Kate remarked. ‘Anyway – you were saying the one good thing about France was?'

‘The food. Don't know about you, but French food …' Scott kissed his index finger and thumb. ‘Even with the bombs dropping, the guns blazing, they carried on cooking. And now – back to this.' He sighed, staring down at his plate of stew.

‘You don't think we can cook?' Marjorie asked him.

‘If you want the truth, no. We have the ingredients, but we overcook them.'

‘Of course the English can cook!' Marjorie insisted. ‘It's only because our ingredients are better we don't have to muck our food up with all those fancy sauces, and all that!'