Princess Elizabeth's Spy (5 page)

“Yes, sir,” Mr. Thompson and Maggie both answered.

“When do I leave?” Maggie said.

“Friday,” Frain replied. “I’ll arrange for Mr. Greene to drive you. I doubt he’d mind.”

He’ll be thrilled to be thought of as a chauffeur.
“How long will I be there?”

“It is … unclear,” Frain said.

Windsor Castle. Of all places.

“That will be all, Mr. Thompson,” Frain said. “I’ll send Miss Hope down to your office shortly.”

“Yes, sir.” Mr. Thompson gave Maggie a quick smile and then left.

When the heavy oak door had clicked shut again, Frain turned to Maggie, a softer look on his face. “And, Maggie, I’m sorry to hear about John.”

“Thank you,” she managed, as her heart lurched. Then she raised her chin. “Will that be all, then?”

“Yes,” Frain said. “Mr. Thompson’s office is three floors down.”

Maggie made her way down to the smoke-filled windowless offices crammed with battered wooden desks, dented beige filing cabinets, and worn green carpeting that the junior MI-5 agents called home.

Mr. Thompson caught sight of her in the hallway and waved. “This way,” he said, ushering her into the small office he shared with fellow agent Mark Standish. He moved a pile of papers from a wooden chair to the floor. “Please sit down.”

“Hello,” Maggie said to Standish.

“Pleasure to meet you, Miss Hope,” he replied, blinking and looking up from his paperwork. Like Hugh, he was dedicated to his work. Unlike Hugh, he was married to his childhood sweetheart, with a two-year-old girl and another baby on the way.

Hugh took the seat behind his desk. “Miss Hope, ah, Maggie,” he said, “there’s a bookshop in the town of Windsor, Boswell’s Books—the proprietor is a retired MI-5 agent, Mr. Archibald Higgins. There’s a room in the back. We’ll meet there the second Sunday afternoon you’re at the castle. Afterward, we’ll work out a system where we can indicate meeting times and various places that won’t seem suspicious.”

“Yes,” Maggie said. There was a long silence. In the silence, she took in his desk, piled high with papers and folders. Perched at the edge, nearly pushed over, was a framed photograph of a young blonde woman in a spring dress, laughing at the camera.
His wife?
She rose to her feet.

Hugh sprang to his as well, almost knocking over a pile of folders and running his hands through his wild crop of hair.

“I look forward to working with you, Hugh,” she said, extending her hand.

“Me too!” Hugh blurted as they shook. “I mean, I look forward to working with you, also.” Maggie gave him a pained smile.

When the sound of her footsteps receded, he sat down at his desk and began sorting through papers madly.

When the click of her heels could no longer be heard, Mark spoke. “So, you’re the handler for Maggie Hope.”

Hugh reached for several more folders from his inbox. “Yes, thank you, Sherlock. Now I know why you’re such a brilliant agent. Those ace skills of deduction.”

Mark grinned. “Lucky bastard. She’s a looker, she is.”

Hugh opened the top folder and began making notes. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Maggie was pulling on her gloves in the building’s lobby when she caught sight of a familiar figure, tall and thin, with receding mouse-brown hair streaked with gray. “Dad?” He didn’t notice her. “Edmund?”

Edmund Hope spun on his heel. “Margaret!” he said, shocked. “What are you doing here?”

“Meeting with Mr. Frain,” she replied. “You?”

“Just … meetings.”

Maggie and her father hadn’t seen each other since their awkward reunion a few months earlier. And since Edmund Hope was undercover as a mad cryptographer at Bletchley, there wasn’t much opportunity for social interaction.

“How—how are you?” Maggie asked. “How have you been?”

He looked down at her in the way he used to sort out a maths problem or squint at crossword puzzle. “Uh, fine … fine. And, er, you?”

“Persevering.” She paused, searching for something to say, then added, “John’s missing. His plane was shot down over Berlin.”

“I heard.”

You did?
Maggie thought.
And you didn’t even call me?

There was another awkward pause. “Well, I should go,” Edmund said.

“Wait—”

There was a tense silence.

“Dad,” Maggie said, trying to keep her tone light. “Could we have tea? Lunch maybe? I’d still like to talk with you about my mother.”

He looked at her strangely. “I’m afraid I must return to Bletchley, Margaret.”

“Well, I could meet you next time you’re in London. When do you come in?”

“All right,” Edmund said finally. He still looked distracted. Panicked, even. “Dinner. Two weeks from Thursday. That would be fine.”

“Let’s meet at six at a place called Bell’s Tavern in Slough.”

“Fine,” Edmund said. Then, “I need to go, must hurry back.…”

Maggie watched him leave.
Who is this man, really? This father I’d believed was dead all my life—until last summer.
She shook her head.
Well, dinner together will be the start to finding out.

David had picked up ingredients for dinner. “Poor Man’s Stroganoff, I’m afraid,” he said in the kitchen in his flat.

“I’m impressed you’re cooking at all,” Maggie replied. “Sounds delicious, especially after what passed for food at Camp Spook. What can I do to help?”

“Set the table, if you don’t mind. You remember where everything is, yes? This shouldn’t take too long.”

David puttered in the kitchen, opening a tin of tomatoes and adding them to the small amount of ground beef he was frying. “Mmmmm …” he said, taking a deep appreciative sniff as the tomatoes sizzled in the hot frying pan.

Maggie, taking out silverware and napkins from the drawers, looked him over. David was a young man, slim and handsome, with fair hair and round, silver-rimmed glasses. It hadn’t been that long since she’d last seen him, but he’d seemed to have filled out and become less boyish, more mature.

“There are candles too, and a bottle of decent Bordeaux in one of the cupboards if you can find it,” he said. “Black-market special.”

As Maggie finished setting the table, David brought in the two plates.

“Smells wonderful,” Maggie said, sitting down and putting a linen napkin in her lap.

“Not bad,” David admitted, pouring the wine and then sitting down.

“Cheers,” she said, and they clinked glasses.

David watched her cut a tomato with her fork in her left hand and knife in her right, then put down the knife at the right-hand edge of the plate and switch the fork from left hand to right. “You still eat like an American,” he said, rolling his eyes in mock horror. “I was hoping maybe they’d drill that out of you at spy camp.”

“I
can
eat the way you do, the British way,” she retorted, “but I choose not to. Why I’d want to hang on to my knife the way you all do is beyond me. You look positively medieval.”

“I think in medieval times they used their hands,” David mused. “And these days it might be smart to hang on to one’s knife. But at any rate, you’re looking good, Magster. Maybe you didn’t love Camp Spook, but the fresh air and sunshine have been good for you. You’re not as pale. Or as skinny.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said dryly. David was like the brother she’d never knew she’d always wanted. “Looks like I’ll be getting more fresh air and sunshine in the future.”

“Really? Where’s Frain sending you?”

“Windsor Castle. I’m going to be tutoring the Princess Elizabeth in maths, of all things.”

“Merciful Minerva, you’re going to be a
governess
? I thought—”

“Me too.” Maggie shrugged. “But apparently there’s chatter about some sort of threat to the Royal Family, including the Princess Elizabeth, who’s next in line to the throne.” She laughed. “Besides, I know I’m a good tutor. After all, I taught those two boys next door maths for more than a year before I came to work at Number Ten.”

“Oh, right,” David said, remembering. “Cheeky boys.”

“Well, they had a lot of energy. Surely the princesses will be more decorous.”

David snorted. “Don’t know about that,” he said, reaching for his wine. “You grew up in America, after all—exactly what do you know about British aristocracy?”

“Not much beyond the historical, I’m afraid,” Maggie said.

“All right, impromptu quiz—what do you say when you meet the King and Queen?”

Maggie gave David a wry look. Frain had forgotten about royal etiquette lessons. “Hello?”

David smacked himself on the head. “Oh, my dear Eliza Doolittle—we have a long night ahead of us.”

After an evening of curtsies, and when to speak, and when to use “Your Majesty,” and when to use “Your Highness,” and how to back out of a room without tripping, Maggie and David collapsed on one of the angular deco sofas in a fit of giggles.

“So you’re off on Friday, then?” David asked, after they’d quieted somewhat.

“Yes,” Maggie said. “Frain suggested you drive me.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” He smirked. “Fine, as long as MI-Five gives me petrol rations.”

There was a comfortable silence, then David ventured, “Are you going back to the house?”

“No, I haven’t been back. I don’t want to go back.” She smoothed her skirt. “I’ve rented it out to several of Chuck’s fellow nurses. Apparently, the old pile is still standing.”

“I understand. But it might be good for you to go back. Get rid of some old ghosts, perhaps?”

“Too much—too much happened there last summer. I have no wish to go down memory lane.”

“I’m not sure denying everything that happened is helping, though, Magster.”

“I’m not ready,” Maggie snapped. Then, more gently, “And how are
you
doing with all this?”

“Well, you know the Old Man promoted me, yes?” Prime Minister Winston Churchill had named David as head private secretary—his right-hand man.

“Yes, congratulations. You deserve it.”

“It’s bloody serious stuff, Magster. As the Old Man says,” David said, pulling in his chin and affecting his best Churchillian tones: “ ‘The price of greatness is responsibility.’ “ Maggie had to laugh, remembering all of Mr. Churchill’s mannerisms and verbal tics.

“Look at this.” David pulled a small silk drawstring pouch from his pocket.

“What is it?”

“One of the perks of my position.” He opened it and deposited its contents on the table. It was a single oval capsule. “Cyanide tablet. The brown is rubber casing,” He explained, “to protect it. If I need to use it, I’ll have to crush it between by teeth.”

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “Put it away.”

“I try not to think about it,” David grinned as he put it back in the pouch and deposited it in his pocket. “It’s been good at Number Ten, Maggie. Only …?”

“Yes?”

“It’s not the same. With you away, of course.” David paused. “And—without John.”

“Yes.”

“I still can’t believe he’s gone.”

“He’s
not
gone. His plane was shot down. That’s all we know. Everything else is speculation and conjecture.”

“Maggie, if there were anything to know, any hope to hold out, I think the office would know. The Old Man’s pretty torn up over it too. John was practically a son to him, after all.”

Maggie swallowed. “I refuse to give up hope.”

“Good for you, Magster—good for you. It is your name, after all.”

Maggie had a sudden memory of her first day working with the P.M. He’d called her Miss Holmes by mistake, and when she’d corrected him, he’d said, “Yes, yes—Margaret Hope,” and then, “We need some hope in this office.” Maggie was convinced it was one of the reasons he’d accepted her and let her stay on, at least in the early days.

“Besides—it’s just like Schrödinger’s cat, after all.”

“Cat?” David said, roused slightly.

“Schrödinger’s cat,” Maggie insisted. “Surely you must have discussed it in physics class? Erwin Schrödinger’s illustration of the principle of quantum theory of superposition.”

David groaned. “Oh, Maggie. I’ve been out of university for far too long. This war’s killing all my brain cells.”

“Look, Schrödinger proposed that you place a—theoretical, of course—cat into a steel chamber, along with a vial of hydrocyanic acid and a very small amount of a radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the substance decays during the test period, a relay mechanism will trip a hammer, which will, in turn, break the vial and kill poor Mr. Puss.

“Now, an observer won’t know whether the vial has been broken, the hydrocyanic acid released, and the cat killed. And since we cannot know, the cat is simultaneously dead
and
alive—according to quantum law, at least—in a superposition of states. It’s only when we break open the box and learn the condition of said cat that the superposition’s lost, and the cat becomes either dead or alive.”

“So John’s dead?
And
alive?” David said. “And, this being the real, not theoretical, world, he may never come back and we very well might not ever discover a body. What I’m trying to say is—we may never know, really.”

The words
dead
and
body
hung in the air. Maggie realized the pain David must be feeling. He and John had been best friends at Oxford and had gone to work for Churchill together. They’d defended him when all of England thought him crazy with his Nazi warnings and worked together through the first of the Blitz. They were brothers in all but blood.

“And that’s why I refuse to give up hope,” Maggie said simply. “Because until we know, it’s both.”

“I’ll tell you this, wherever John is, he’s
not
overly thrilled to be compared to a cat.”

“Oh, David!” Maggie exclaimed, tossing a sofa cushion at him.

“Whatever helps, Magster. But you are,” he said, patting her head, “a very strange girl.”

When David had gone to bed, Maggie stayed up with her untouched snifter of cognac. She riffled through the newspaper.
“Suicide at Claridge’s!”
screamed one of the headlines.

Why can’t David get a respectable paper and not these tawdry tabloids,
she thought with a twinge of irritation. Maggie scanned the article: Apparently some poor girl had killed herself in the bathtub.

But without the tasks of the day to distract her, her thoughts, as they always seemed to do, went to that fateful phone call she’d received earlier that autumn. It had started with a note left on the cot in the room at Camp Spook that she’d shared with two other women. With excellent penmanship, Mrs. Forrester had written,
“Flight-Lieutenant Nigel Ludlow rang at 11:30 a.m. He asked you to return call.”

The world had stopped for a moment as Maggie considered the meaning of this. Nigel was in the RAF too—he had joined even earlier, while John was still working with Mr. Churchill. He’d never called Maggie before, but it could be about anything, really. Something to do with Chuck? The wedding?

As Maggie ran downstairs to use the black telephone in the parlor, she tried to ignore the fact that her hands were cold and trembling. She picked up the receiver and dialed the numbers.

She reached the pilots’ mess. “Flight Lieutenant Ludlow?” On the line there was a crackle of static and the sound of men’s voices in conversation and the clatter of dishes and cutlery. “Of course. Just a moment.”

There was a loud
bang
as he must have thumped the receiver down. Interminable minutes as Maggie waited, waited for Nigel to tell her everything was all right. They’d laugh about what a nervous Nellie she’d been and she’d make him promise not to tell John.… 

“Maggie?” She heard Nigel’s voice boom over the wires. Was he somber? Distracted? Jolly? She couldn’t tell.

“Hello, Nigel.” She fought to keep her voice steady. “You rang?”

“Yes, yes, I did.” “Are you sitting down?” He spoke to her as if she were a small child. Maggie slumped into the chair next to the telephone table, feeling suddenly faint.

“Tell me,” she said.

“John asked me to call you, you know—in case of anything—”

Maggie’s nerves were stretched to the breaking point.
Just tell me!
“Yes?”

“Well, a bit of bad news. His Spit went down somewhere near Berlin. The plane’s gone. It’s possible of course, he managed to jump, but I’m afraid we haven’t heard anything in over a week.…”

The plane’s gone?
She pictured John hitting the ground in his Spitfire, a ball of flames.

“You, you think he could have jumped?” she managed.

“Well, it is possible.” A long pause, which made Maggie think Nigel didn’t pin much hope on it. “Anything’s possible.” Then, “Maggie? Are you still there?”

“Did you, did you—” Her voice broke. “Call his parents?”

“His commanding officer did.” Then, “Maggie, I’m so sorry—if there’s anything I can do—” But the receiver had slipped from her fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud. Maggie drew up her feet and laid her head on her knees as the tears finally came.

She didn’t know how long she’d sat there, crying, when Mrs. Forrester found her. “Are you all right, dear?” she inquired from the doorway.

Maggie looked up, her face tearstained, hot, and red, and made an attempt to wipe at her nose with her hand. She tried to speak and nothing came out but more silent sobs.

“There, now,” Mrs. Forrester said, sitting beside her and replacing the phone’s receiver. She procured a starched linen handkerchief from the depths of her bosom. “Here you go,” she said, handing it to Maggie.

“Thank you,” Maggie managed, wiping at her eyes and nose.

Mrs. Forrester sat next to her, a plump and comforting presence, not saying a word.

Maggie took a rattling breath. “I think—I think he might be dead,” she said finally.

“Who, dear?”

“John, Flight Lieutenant John Sterling.”

“Air Force?”

“Yes.”

“His plane crashed. In Germany.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. He might have jumped before the crash. No one knows.…”

“Then that, my dear, is what you have to hold on to. That your young man’s alive and he’ll send word. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. But that he
will.
”

Mrs. Forrester stared through the window, a distant look on her face. “It’s what I did. When I got the phone call about my Bernie.”

Maggie wiped again and looked up.

“My husband. The Great War. He was a pilot too. Plane went down over France. He was missing too.”

“And—did he come home?”

There was a pause as the question hung in the air. “No, dear,” Mrs. Forrester said. “But I felt it was my sacred duty to hold on to hope for as long as possible.

“Now, I want you to go and wash your face with cold water. And then come to the kitchen and I’ll make us both a nice cup of tea. You’ve got a long journey ahead of you—waiting and then dealing with what you learn—and you won’t be any good to anyone if you don’t keep your strength up.”

When Maggie made no effort to move, Mrs. Forrester stood up and grasped Maggie’s hand, pulling the young woman to her feet. “One foot in front of the other, dear. That’s how all journeys start. Go upstairs. Go.”

As Maggie, zombie-like, made her way up the stairs, she heard Mrs. Forrester mutter to herself, “And
this
is why we didn’t want this damned war.”