Mr. Churchill's Secretary (17 page)

Dimitri looked at the assembled group and smiled. “
Milo mi poznac
. Pleased to meet you.” He clicked his heels together and bowed to Sarah, offering her his arm.

Simon offered his to Paige. “Charmed, I’m sure,” Paige cooed, obviously won over. She took his arm and led everyone into the library for cocktails.

Once everyone had taken their seats, Paige mixed a
pitcher of martinis, using what was left of Grandmother Hope’s liquor cabinet. “You look just like Myrna Loy,” Simon said, as he watched her put ice in the silver shaker, slick with beads of condensation.

Paige laughed and tossed her hair. “Well, it’s not the American Bar at the Savoy,” she said, handing him a glass, “but everything’s cold, and as you can see, the vermouth’s been kept to a minimum. Now, tell me all about your club at Oxford.”

After a few drinks, the group sat down at the table, set with Grandmother Hope’s good china and crystal. Nearly everything was from their victory garden. There was a thyme-scented vegetable soup to start, then carrot soufflé, peas with mint, glazed turnips. David had somehow procured some red wine, which they used to toast Chuck’s birthday. Although Maggie had been nervous about pulling it off, the dinner was excellent. Dimitri was funny and charming and, as it turned out, Polish, not Russian.

“Public likes Russian dancers,” he said over weak tea and birthday cake with white icing and tiny pink fondant roses; Chuck, Paige, and Maggie had all saved their sugar, butter, and egg rations for a month for it. “My real name? Stanislaw Wilecki.” They all laughed. “Dimitri” just seemed more dashing, somehow. “And Alicia Markova? Really Lilian Alicia Marks. English.”

“No!”
Annabelle exclaimed.

“It’s true,” Sarah replied, licking buttercream frosting off her fork. “And the great Margot Fonteyn is really little Peggy Hookham from Surrey. I thought about changing my name myself, except then all my friends from Liverpool would never learn when I become rich and famous.”

“What are you working on these days, Sarah?” John asked. “I don’t have as much time as I’d like to get to the
ballet.”
Really? Does being patronizing and moody keep you on a tight schedule?
Maggie thought.

“
Swan Lake
—music by Tchaikovsky, choreography by Petipa, staged for us by Nicholas Sergeyev, former regisseur for the Mariinsky Theatre. You should see Dimitri in it, David,” Sarah said, taking a sip of her tea. “He’s learning the role of Prince Siegfried.”

“I’d like that,” David replied, reaching for yet another petit four.

“David!”
Paige said, giving his knuckles a rap.

“What?” said David. “Carpe diem! Or carpe cake, I suppose.”

“Of course,” Dimitri said, “Michael Somes is lead, but I am understudy. So maybe perhaps I go on someday as lead.”

Simon smiled. “Fairy tales. Perfect for tutus.”

Sarah smiled tightly. “It’s a tragedy, actually. The story of
Swan Lake
is about two girls, Odette and Odile, who resemble each other so closely they can easily be mistaken for the other. Odette is the innocent maiden turned into a white-swan queen by an evil sorcerer. The prince falls in love with her and tries to save her. But the sorcerer deceives him—and tricks the prince with a black swan, Odile, who impersonates Odette. The prince confuses the two, and poor Odette is doomed to remain a swan forever.”

“Ah,” said Simon. “Freud’s old Madonna-whore dichotomy.”

“What’s interesting,” Sarah continued, “is that the same dancer performs both roles. Odile goes undercover as Odette, as it were. Conniving bitch,” she said, laughing.

“First of all,” said Chuck, “Freud’s a horse’s ass. Second, Sarah, that’s wonderful. I can certainly see you in both roles.”

Annabelle interjected, “Is it hard to go back and
forth?” She smiled. “I only have one role in
Rebecca
, and it’s hard enough—what’s it like to do two?”

“It is a challenge,” Sarah replied. “There are the technical demands, of course—but then there’s the fact that one character’s very soft and vulnerable, while the other’s quite steely and very sexy—but imitating the first. So it’s a balancing act.”

Dimitri turned to David. “When do you come to performance?” There was a silence that went on a bit too long.

Maggie could feel David’s discomfort at Dimitri’s public attentions and rushed in, changing the subject. “Well, with our schedules, who can? Anyway, that reminds me of a joke—well, it’s really more of a logic problem—called ‘The Liar and the Truth Teller.’ ”

“Oh no,” Nigel groaned. “Reminds me of Eton.”

“It’s not hard, if you think it through,” Maggie said. “All right, so there are two soldiers at a crossroads. One always lies, and one always tells the truth, but you don’t know which is which. You need to find out whether the left or right path leads to safety but can only ask one of them a single question. What should you ask? And what should you do, depending on what they answer?”

“Easy,” Annabelle said. “No matter what answer either gives you, take the
other
path.”

Maggie was surprised.

“I don’t understand,” Chuck moaned, shaking her head. She’d had too much wine to think clearly.

“Well, if you ask the truth teller,” Maggie said, “he’ll tell you which path the liar will tell you to take.”

“And if you ask the liar,” John said, “he’ll know which path the truth-telling soldier will tell you to take. However, since he’s a liar, he’ll point you in the wrong direction. So just take the other path.”

“Bravo!” Maggie said.
All right, so maybe he
is
smart.
But he doesn’t have to be so very condescending at the office about it
.

Chuck looked heavenward. “
This
is why I became a nurse.”

John looked over at Nigel. “So when do you push off, old sod?” Nigel was being sent to a secret location and wouldn’t be in contact with anyone, not to mention Chuck, for an indefinite period of time.

“About a fortnight,” Nigel replied, leaning over and giving Chuck’s thigh a squeeze through her dress. “Can’t say I want to leave my gorgeous girl here alone, but now that I’ve decided, it seems like it’s time to get on with it.”

“We know you’ll do splendidly,” Sarah said. “You’ll come back a hero, all decorated with medals and—little ribbons.”

Little ribbons?
Maggie mouthed at her. Sarah shrugged.

“I don’t care what I come back with, it’s what I’m coming back to,” Nigel said, looking at Chuck. They could all tell she was trying hard not to cry.

“Good Lord, I didn’t mean to do this now, and at the dinner table, of all places, but here goes.” He took a deep sigh and suddenly got down on one knee, taking her hand. “Charlotte, my dearest Chuck, would you do me the incredible honor of—becoming my wife?”

Chuck looked stunned. Everyone at the table was dumbfounded.

“Ooooooh!” the twins exclaimed together, eyes wide.

Chuck blushed furiously. But without hesitating, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him long and hard, causing everyone at the table to clap.

“Yes, yes,
yes
! I would
love
to be Mrs. Nigel Ludlow,” she declared, holding his ruddy perspiring face between her hands, laughing and crying at the same time.

As Nigel and Chuck turned back to each other for another kiss, Maggie led everyone in a round of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and David refilled everyone’s glass.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have a ring yet, sweetheart,” Nigel said as he sat down and pulled Chuck onto his lap.

“It’s fine,” she murmured, her lips against his collar. “Don’t need any goddamned ring. I’m not some gold-digging debutante.”

“Good gracious,” Annabelle said, taken aback.

“No ring?” Clarabelle added.

“I don’t care about any ring,” Chuck said to Nigel, burying her face in his shoulder. “I just care about you.”

“Well, you’ll have one by the time I get back from my first leave—and then we’ll start planning the wedding. What do you say, my love?”

Chuck considered. “Will your parents have to come?”

“Well, that
is
traditional, darling.”

A pause. “Why don’t we just elope?”

Nigel laughed. “Ah, that’s my girl,” he said as he wiped his red face with his handkerchief.

Later in the evening, as they left the table to relax in the parlor, Maggie realized why ladies and gentlemen were encouraged to separate after dinner. The men clustered around the fireplace, drinking brandy and engrossed in yet another political argument. At least David didn’t join in; instead, he played “Mad About the Boy” on the piano.

Maggie wandered over to David. “Sounds wonderful,” she said, suddenly conscious that the piano was out of tune and missing an F string. “Or at least as wonderful as possible on this old thing. You’re very talented.”

“Thanks, Magster,” David said. He moved over on
the bench to make room for her, then launched into a Noël Coward medley. Maggie took the opportunity to study his long and graceful fingers as they moved across the keys. He had a lovely tenor voice and was perfectly at ease at the keyboard as he launched into a sprightly melody:

As he segued into “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” he said, “Lovely dinner party.”

“Thank you. I’m so glad it turned out all right—”

But Simon and John’s discussion was quickly turning into an argument. John’s voice was getting louder. “Look, it’s like the Old Man said—the way you all wanted it, if Saint George had tried to save the fair maiden from the dragon, he’d have been accompanied by a delegation instead of a horse—and had a secretary, not a lance. Then, after signing some sort of meaningless agreement with said dragon, the maiden’s release would be referred to the League of Nations. Then, finally, Saint George would be photographed with the dragon, and it would have run on the front page of
The Times
.

“But when all was said and done, the damned dragon would have kept the damned maiden—and Saint George,
his secretary, the Round Table, the agreement, the entire blasted League of blasted Nations—all would have been burned to a crisp.”

“That’s hardly what I was proposing, John, and you know it,” Simon said, his voice turning menacing. “We were all there for the King-and-Country debate. I signed it, you signed it, David and Nigel signed it—”

“We were young, ignorant,” John exploded. “We didn’t know what was happening in Germany. We didn’t know anything about
anything
, for that matter.”

“Look, John,” said Simon, “here’s what
is
happening—when the government goes to war, it commits mass murder on a huge scale. Our side, their side. It’s all murder.”

John countered, “In a world with madmen like Hitler, war’s most definitely inevitable. Don’t you think he must have laughed when he heard about King and Country? Realized that without a strong military, England would be ripe for the taking? And look at us now. Germans have invaded Paris, we were beaten at Dunkirk and barely escaped, now they’re poised to invade at any moment.…”

“No, no, no!” Simon said, slamming a fist down on the mantel. “It’s inevitable because the government knows it has a ready supply of young men, willing to go out and die for their country—and who won’t ask questions. Well, I asked questions! I’m
still
asking questions! I’m disgusted with past wars for King and Country, disgusted with England’s treatment of Ireland, of India, of Palestine—and in my opinion, the jury’s still out on this war, too.”

“The IRA’s a bunch of murderers and thugs,” John said through clenched teeth. “And anyone who suggests otherwise is a traitor.”

Maggie stood up. “Stop it!” she cried, unable to take any more. “Stop it! Both of you!” she said, hands on hips. “To fight or not to fight? We’re
all
in this war. As
John says, invasion is imminent. I really don’t see how political parties matter anymore. When we’ve won this war—and I do believe we will—there’ll be time enough for philosophical arguments and debates. Until then, we’re all in England, we’re all in the same boat, we’ve all got a common enemy, and, and—Nigel and Chuck are getting married. Now, please, for King and Country, just
shut up
!”

As everyone took a moment to regroup, David selected the record
Me and My Girl
. He put it on the phonograph, starting the turntable and carefully placing the needle in the groove. As it popped and crackled, beginning “The Lambeth Walk,” he said, “I don’t suppose there’s any more cake?”