An Unlikely Spy Read online

  “Now there’s a thought.” Hugh sat back, his red-rimmed eyes raised to the ceiling. “Caroline. She’s one of Elizabeth’s distant cousins. Bit of a queer duck, a real bluestocking—does some sort of work with the War Office. Dull as ditchwater, I imagine, crossing t’s and dotting i’s, but there might be something in it for a clever thing like you. Better prospect than paying invoices for shipments to Cork.”

  The War Office. A small thrill of excitement worked its way down the back of Evelyn’s neck.

  “Would you, Hugh? That would be splendid.”

  “Of course.” He licked his fingertips, grinning. “Lady, with me, with me thy fortune lies. I’ll telephone her on Monday.”

  “How about that then, Ev?” Sally leaned across the table, voice lowered in conspiracy. “Sounds rather spicy to me.”

  “Yes,” Evelyn agreed. It did.

  “Just mind you don’t do too good a job.” Sally poured herself some more wine, a mischievous look in her eye. “Daddy’s been quite chuffed with the spike in consignments. All this war talk means business has gone through the roof.”

  “Dear, oh dear,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. “War and buttons—I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  Hugh picked at his teeth, thoughtful. “In my experience, darling, armies always need uniforms, whether we’re at war or not. And this means they’ll always need buttons.” He flashed Evelyn a cunning smile. “But yes, I suppose we are seeing a few new orders flow our way.”

  “I say, Daddy, why don’t you show Evelyn your old war wound?”

  Elizabeth stood up again and this time rang for the footman to bring dessert. “Sally, darling, don’t encourage him,” she scolded. “And Evelyn, for goodness’ sake, don’t look!”

  But they were lost in their own pantomime, Sally laughing as Hugh rolled up his trouser leg to show off where a piece of shrapnel had lodged in the back of his thigh, and even though Evelyn had seen it many times she still found herself enthralled by the scar poking through his reddish hair.

  “There it is!” he bellowed.

  Evelyn had once found her father’s uniform wrapped in green tissue paper at the back of her parents’ wardrobe. She had been nine or ten years old, and as Evelyn had no siblings to play with, the house itself had been made to act its part in an imaginary world of adventure and intrigue. On that particular morning, she had been Kimball O’Hara gleaning along the grimy laneways of Lahore. The parcel had been jammed down the back of the top shelf behind some shoeboxes and a jewelry case belonging to her mother. Placing it carefully on the bed, Evelyn unwrapped the paper to reveal a stiff brown jacket that stank of rotten eggs. Somehow she knew it belonged to her father. She ran her fingertips over the lapels and their dull brass buttons. There were some rust-colored stains around the collar and the cuffs, and a pair of trousers was also folded inside the tissue paper, along with a few creased and faded letters.

  Later that night Evelyn had asked her mother about the uniform.

  “Your father was a sergeant in the war,” she explained. “He took a bullet in the shoulder that got infected, and then the Germans gassed his battalion.” She went to the sink, where a window overlooked the small garden at the back of the house. “But it’s not easy for him to remember—it’s not easy for many men—so you mustn’t ask about it. If he wants to tell you, he will.”

  As her mother stood with her back turned, Evelyn felt anger uncurl inside her. She knew her father would never say a word. Why else would the uniform have been hidden away? But that was how her family behaved toward one another, only revealing what they chose, their secrets drawn out like string beneath sand, and from that day Evelyn understood that to gauge her parents’ real feelings would require a patient subterfuge.

  It was in this same secretive manner that each Armistice Day her father left the house to march with all the others on the high street, then went to the Arms and drank until closing, slinking back home late to pass out on the sitting room sofa. Evelyn would tiptoe downstairs the next morning to watch him snoring, his face pale and drawn, the first bristle of dark whiskers appearing on his smooth cheeks. She knew some children would feel pity for their fathers in such a state, but she didn’t. This was the one time of year when she saw that other side to him, the side that wasn’t restrained or polite or controlled. It was during those cold mornings that Evelyn learned that truth was found at the edges of people, and now, as she watched Hugh throw his head back and laugh, she wondered if that scar was the only unhappy part of him.

  * * *

  Later that night, after Sally had gone off to telephone Jonty at the air base, Evelyn wandered through the grand hall, which was as cool and solemn as a tomb. She stopped to admire the paintings, some early Renaissance, some Impressionists, and a new rose-colored Venetian glasswork piece. Such a fragile thing, she thought as she tipped it from the display column, testing its weight in her hands. Next she poked her head into the oak-paneled library, inhaling the musty scent of old leather-backed folios, and leafed through a few books left out on the desk near the ladder. It was military history, Prussian War stuff—not her cup of tea at all. Then on past the billiards room and the drawing room, the smoking room and the cards room, toward Hugh’s study.

  Here Evelyn paused. She was always curious about Hugh’s business and his friends from the club, but tonight she was reluctant to go inside. She had only been in there once before, three years ago, and turning over some papers on the desk she’d found a ledger from the Birmingham factory, full of rising figures in the expenses column. Parker had disturbed her before she’d had a chance to look around much further. To an outsider it had probably looked like snooping, Evelyn thought as she headed on toward the east wing. But there’d been no malice in it, nothing unscrupulous. She had just always been drawn to the things people didn’t reveal about themselves—what they believed, she supposed, were weaknesses.

  In her meandering, Evelyn had somehow arrived at Hugh’s conservatory. He collected orchids from Singapore and exhibited them in an enormous glass-domed room filled with steam from the gas humidifiers stationed beneath the trestle tables. She pressed her nose against the panel and spotted him stooped beneath the staghorn fern in the center of the enclosure, pruning the leaves. He had changed into red overalls and a corn-colored shirt, and when she tapped on the glass he turned and waved, inviting her inside.

  “Have you seen my new Brassavola?”

  Evelyn’s arms and forehead were immediately beaded with warm droplets as she followed him to a wooden frame attached to the back wall. There, tethered to three planks, were white heart-shaped flowers with stems thick and hard-cased like the propodus of a crustacean, something strange and beautiful about their composition, like nature had spliced together two different species.

  “They’re magnificent, Hugh,” she said.

  “Yes, I’m rather proud of them. They shouldn’t really survive in Britain, but it’s extraordinary what we can do to mimic their natural habitat. Their perfume is awfully sweet,” he remarked when Evelyn bent her head toward the stamen. “And only released at night.”

  “Nocturnal flowers?”

  “Splendid, isn’t it? I first saw them at Kew Gardens. Remember that visit? You and Sally had a run-in with that crane at the canteen.”

  “Goodness, yes.” Evelyn laughed.

  “They’re for Julia, actually. I’ve been cultivating them for months. I’m just so relieved she’s finally home. That husband of hers . . .” He pushed away some of the white hair sticking to his forehead. “I know she hasn’t always been an easy girl to handle, but my sister would have never forgiven me if something had happened to her.”

  Evelyn thought of Julia’s sleek black hair, the sharp cut of her bob. She’d never seen a photograph of her mother around the manor, and that absence seemed conspicuous now among the dewy orchids.

  “Did Julia’s father help bring her back from Germany?”

  “Lord Jennings?” Hugh’s face grew dark. “Don’t make me laugh. Spi
neless fellow. Only ever out for himself.” He mixed some salts into the tin watering can on the ground, then poured some liquid into a glass bottle and fixed a nozzle at the top. “He was never much of a father to her.”

  “Then Julia is lucky to have you.”

  “It’s what you do for family. And for your friends.” Hugh peered up at her, his bright eyes crinkling. “I’ve always thought you had a strong head on your shoulders, Evelyn. You found the good in my Sallywag when others couldn’t.” He picked up the bottle, squeezing a fine spray of water at the plants. “It’s a rare quality, that. Seeing what others can’t.”

  Evelyn watched him move on to the Cymbidium orchids, a pink hue through the mist on the other side of the conservatory. As she stood in the damp air, she reflected that perhaps there would come a time when she would outlive Hugh’s good opinion. It was only natural, wasn’t it? No admiration or respect lasted forever, and who could predict what lay in store for them all in the future? Still, she felt sadness at this prospect. There were few people whose opinion she cared for more. At her feet were the clippings from the orchid, and with a single sweep of her foot Evelyn scattered them across the floor. Through the mist, she watched Hugh spray a bright yellow stamen. At his back were a whisper of moths, rising and dipping about the flowers, their majestic flight invisible to all but herself.

  Three

  A BREEZE SWIRLED, growing thick with the promise of rain. From the terrace at the top of the garden stairs, Evelyn rested her elbows on the wrought-iron fence to gaze out across the dewy lawn that stretched on for a couple of hundred yards before the woods began. A flock of birds—starlings by the looks of them—screeched across the line of trees, while the sky had turned violet and the air was alive with the scent of fresh grass clippings. On the other side of the peach brocade curtains behind her, the party guests danced and drank in the lavish drawing room. Bing Crosby crooned from the gramophone and every now and then Evelyn heard a whoop or a shriek of laughter.

  The formal dinner had been served in the dining room, a dim, reverent space the size of a small country hall with elaborate Flemish tapestries and velvet curtains. It was a six-course banquet with ballotine of duck, filet mignon, potatoes roasted in butter and rosemary picked fresh from the garden, venison bourguignon, and soft cheeses from France, all washed down with champagne and a good French claret. Evelyn had been seated between Michael Talbert, a friend of Jonty’s from Cambridge, and Jonathan van der Hoort, who was older and grayer than Evelyn remembered. Jonty sat across the table, regaling the surrounding men with a tale about Ascot and a bet on a horse that went lame, which they all laughed at because they were drunk. This was what it must feel like to be trapped in the Pitt Club after midnight, Evelyn thought. Like the others, Jonty was dressed in a dinner suit, his cropped hair oiled flat against his scalp. He didn’t look much like his father; he still possessed the pompous vitality of a public school boy, but judging from the older man’s occasional boorish guffaws he had inherited some family traits.

  “So, Evelyn,” said Talbert, swinging his head around to gaze at her blearily after the plates had been cleared. “What are you up to these days?”

  “I’m working in London.”

  “Working?” He chuckled. “You’d be the only one at this party doing much of that.”

  “Speak for yourself, Talbert,” Jonty protested. “Northumberland has been punishing.”

  “It would be with a work ethic like yours.” Talbert sloshed some wine into his glass, grinning at Evelyn. “My family’s a navy one. I’m finishing my cadetship in Dartmouth. I love ships and the open water, don’t you?”

  Evelyn peered down the long table, searching out Sally. From the corner of her eye she sensed Jonty smirking.

  “Not especially,” she muttered. “I get seasick.”

  “What about you, Jonts? Ever fancy the big, wide sea?”

  “It’s always been planes for me, Talbert, you know that,” Jonty said. “And I’ve an interview for another division. Anglesea. Much larger base. Spitfires, too, in the fleet. Interview’s a formality—Father is old chums with the wing commander.”

  “That so? Well done.”

  Jonty sat back, folding his bulky arms. “It’s lucky us chaps are doing our bit.”

  Evelyn kept her expression neutral. “How do you reason that?” she asked.

  Jonty shrugged. “Not sure how useful face cream will be when Jerry comes knocking. Though maybe you could translate for them, Evelyn?” To Talbert he said, “You know she read German at Oxford?”

  “My sister went over there herself after school,” Talbert slurred. “Spent a year or two in Berlin. And what’s jolly well wrong with that, eh? They’re a sophisticated people, the Germans. All that lovely architecture, music, and”—he paused to belch—“theater.”

  “Pity about the Wehrmacht, then, isn’t it?”

  “Now, now, Jonts. We’re among ladies here.” Talbert rested a paw on Evelyn’s bare shoulder, his fingertips toying with the strap of her dress. “Let’s not bring politics into the conversation. Evelyn doesn’t want to listen to all that, does she?”

  She shrugged him off. “Actually, I do. We all need to know what’s going on over there.”

  “Going on?” Talbert’s fist dropped to the table, rattling his glass. “It’s all a lot of nonsense, that’s what. Why can’t we talk of something else for once? This is a party, not a Cabinet meeting.”

  Something warm and clammy had landed on Evelyn’s leg. It was Talbert’s hand, she realized, which was now creeping up her thigh.

  “So, you’re fluent in the old Deutsch, are you?” He leaned in, leering at her décolletage. “Perhaps you’d whisper a few words in my ear?”

  Evelyn shot a glance at Jonty, but he was only grinning back at her, perfectly aware of what Talbert was doing and refusing to come to her aid. All right, she thought. If this is how it is going to be . . .

  “Well, Michael, since you asked so nicely . . .” With a sweet smile, Evelyn cupped a hand over Talbert’s ear and whispered, “Verdammt, du schleichst.” Then she stood up, pushing back her chair, and muttered to no one in particular, “Excuse me.”

  The noise seemed to spike as she strode down the length of the dining table, but as she took a sidestep to slip out through the bay windows to the path below she still heard Talbert cry, “It really is such a beautiful language!”

  * * *

  The sun had sunk farther and was now just a glowing red tip behind the black outline of trees. There was movement at one of the trunks—a fox, perhaps, out for its nightly scavenge—and as she leaned against the terrace railing Evelyn recalled the visit she had made to the manor when the Wesleys opened the grounds for the annual hunt. The family had gone out on horses at dawn, leaving Evelyn, who politely objected to the sport, alone in the house. It was a rare opportunity to explore unsupervised, but she kept to Sally’s room, stoking the fire and trying to read. Her mind, however, kept wandering to those woods. All morning they had been serene, a low blue mist crawling around the base of the trees, and that stillness should have been tranquil—except for what Evelyn knew was coming. And when a horn shattered the silence and the frantic baying of the hounds cut through the air, Evelyn put her book aside and went to the window. From there she had a view of the neat, empty lawn, but a moment later there came the flash of two foxes, so small and lithe they could have been cats, followed by a dozen dogs. The stage had turned eerily quiet, and Evelyn remembered wondering if this was how the final moments of life were experienced: in a cold, unnatural vacuum. She had shuddered away from the glass, but not before she saw a dog break loose from the pack, gaining on the slower of the foxes, until it launched, teeth bared, and clamped its jaws around the poor animal’s flanks.

  There was a noise behind her and, recalled to the present, Evelyn turned, expecting to find Sally. But it was only Jonty, a tumbler in each hand, sauntering across the terrace. Against the curtains behind him were the faint silhouettes of dancers.

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sp; “You’re missing a treat, Evelyn. Hugh has brought out the cornet. He plays like a man with sausages for fingers.”

  He handed over a glass, then stood beside her and leaned against the fence.

  “Look, sorry about Talbert. He’s a great oaf, but he means nothing by it. In fact, I’m almost certain he’s a homosexual, if that’s any comfort. He behaves like that around women to compensate. I don’t know.” Jonty ran a hand over his cropped hair. “Is that one of Sally’s dresses you’re wearing tonight?”

  Evelyn glanced at him, convinced he was teasing, but he only stared back at her, an expectant look on his face. It was suddenly very quiet out there.

  “I didn’t pick you as a connoisseur of women’s fashion, Jonty.”

  “I’m not.” He drank some Scotch. “It looks different on you, that’s all. Fits your figure . . . better.”

  Evelyn kept her eyes fixed to where she knew neat brickwork ran beneath the terrace. It had always been like this between them. His condescension, coupled with a faint lasciviousness, as if she were a chambermaid and he the lord of the manor. She supposed that was exactly how he saw her—they probably all did, homosexual or not. The music from the house eddied through her head and she clutched the tumbler, tempted to hurl it into the garden.

  “When will you leave for Anglesea?” she asked. “Since the job’s in the bag.”

  “Next month.”

  “And what will you do there? The skies aren’t exactly swarming with Luftwaffe.”

  Jonty took another sip from his glass. “Take pot shots at schoolgirls, I expect.”

  For a moment Evelyn considered walking back inside and disappearing upstairs. But something her father once said sprang to mind—perhaps she had been reminded of it as she watched Jonty, a cigarette dangling from his lips, frowning into the moonlight, that faint look of amusement never quite leaving his face. A man’s conscience never dictates his politics. It had been a remark made apropos of nothing, which was how most of her father’s wisdom was imparted. She hadn’t known what it meant at the time, but now she supposed it was a question of pragmatism. Or, as her mother put it more bluntly, It’s just how the world works, dear.