The Daisy Club (15 page)

‘It's all right, Dan, you just settle back, and let the others paint their windows, or put up whatever they have to when the time comes. If you don't use candles or oil lamps, there will be no need, will there?'

Dan sat down suddenly and heavily on Jean's old oak settle without being asked, which was normally all right by Jean, but not this morning, since Joe, on a glorious twenty-four-hour pass, was upstairs in her bed.

‘I had such an attack of nerves in the night I 'ad to give meself a dose of bromide kept over from the last one, from the trenches. Kept it in me haversack all this time, but I never thought to have recourse to it.'

Jean had little idea of what a bromide might possibly be. She imagined it must be some sort of laxative. She therefore gave Dan an understandably nervous look.

‘No, well, there is a good reason for all these things in war, I do agree, Dan, but surely you should save it up, in case you need it when the war comes, whatever it is – this medicine . . .'

‘No, Jean, I need it now. Calm me down, truly it will.'

‘Oh, I daresay you are calm enough, aren't you, Dan?'

Jean looked at the old man, unshaven white stubble on his chin, his striped shirt collarless, leather patches not just on the elbows of his much-worn jacket, but on the knees of his thick worsted trousers. And all of it set off by a splendid pair of clogs, which he was never without when walking through the village, or pottering in his garden.

‘I can't believe we's to go through it all again, Jean, that's the trouble, when all is said and done, just can't believe it . . . S'posing they send me back to the trenches, I couldn't take that! I'd rather stay here and hang meself with me own belt, if I can find one.'

Jean patted him on the shoulder, while pointedly holding out a hand to help him to his feet again.

‘There won't be any trenches this time, not to my way of thinking, Dan, no trenches this time round.'

‘But gas – there'll be gas! And that gives me the collie-wobbles, see what gas did last time, Jean? What'll happen to me hens?'

‘Well, yes, but that's why we have been given gas
masks
to take everywhere, Dan. We're lucky this time round, that's the way we should look at it, that we're lucky.'

Dan stopped by the door as there was a sudden sound from up the steep cottage stairs. Dan stared at the ceiling, immediately curious.

‘You got company, then, Jean?'

Jean pushed him out of the door. Dan was a typical Twistleton nosy parker. She suspected he wasn't frightened of being called up at all, he just wanted to poke his nose where it wasn't wanted, and next thing the news would be all round the village.

She closed the front door behind him and shot up the stairs to Joe.

‘What's he doing poking his nose around my cottage door, and talking laxatives, and I know not what?'

Joe burst out laughing.

‘A bromide, you silly girl, is something you put in people's tea to keep them calm, it's not a laxative!'

Jean shook her head.

‘I couldn't care what it is, but you will have to slip out the back way, because sure as eggs are eggs it's going to be all round the village that I have someone staying, and then I'll be the one to need a thingamabob – bromide for my tea.'

‘Come here, and let me calm you.'

‘What you have in mind, Joe Huggett, is far from calming. Besides, have you seen the time? You must be on your way, soldier boy, on your way back to your barracks, while I must to my early potatoes. As it is, since you arrived at midnight you have only ten hours left before your pass runs out and your mufti turns back to khaki.'

It was all too true, and Joe, passionate though he was about his gypsy Jean, now realised that he must start for the station. As he dressed, he only hoped that no one in the village would tell his parents that he had been back on a twenty-four-hour pass – that really would mean trouble.

The party at Longbridge Farm had gone with a swing, so much so that for a short time even Guy forgot that he was meant to be keeping his eyes and ears out for George and the Bros at Operation Z, and found himself, in post-influenza form, as horridly witty as ever.

Aurelia, however, had taken her role as his ‘eyes and ears' very seriously indeed. She had hovered with the canapés, she had listened as she poured wine, and she had sat up that night noting everything down in a small notebook, which she put under her pillow.

The following morning, as she slipped the same precious notebook into her handbag, she realised she was faced with a problem: how to get the information she had gathered to her new boss. Would she be able to give it to him before he went back to London? Should she telephone Clive Montfort and ask him what to do? Aurelia had always known that she was not over-imaginative, but finally it seemed to her that she would have to do the last, making some silly excuse to Jessica Valentyne, so that she could use the telephone. But then someone might be listening in. In other words, in the language of the movies – she might ‘blow her cover'.

‘Just going for a walk. Shan't be long,' she told Freddie, who, busy helping Jessica, hardly heard her.

Aurelia started to hurry towards the village, towards the telephone box, the change in her handbag at the ready, her notebook the same. As soon as the telephone was picked up the other end, she heard, not Clive Montfort's voice, as she had assumed that she would, but the beautiful rounded baritone of Guy Athlone himself. For the second before she announced herself she felt quite dizzy, but then she pulled herself together. She would be no use to him if she went all silly.

‘Come round at once,' he said, crisp as ever.

‘I have no transport.'

‘I will send Clive for you . . .'

Freddie stared at the motor car coming up the drive.

‘Golly, Aunt Jessica, look who's coming up the drive!'

Jessica took her glasses off the top of her head, and stared out at the drive beyond the window, while at the same time flapping her hand at the dachshunds, who were running around them both, barking excitedly.

‘Not Clive again, is it?' she asked in a deliberately vague voice.

‘Yes, it is, and look, Aurelia's getting in beside him . . .'

Freddie turned round and stared, but not at Aunt Jessica, at Daisy, who raised her eyebrows as far as they would go, which was really quite far since she had a good broad forehead. Neither of them needed reminding of the night before, of the fact that Aurelia had said that Guy Athlone had made a pass at her. They had joked that he was having her washed and brought to his tent, but the truth was that she really actually might be having to, as it were, go to his tent. Or she might even be about to go there willingly.

‘I really think she might have come and told us where she was going,' Freddie said, in an effort to prompt her aunt to do something to save her friend from a fate worse than death.

‘Oh, no, I hardly think so,' Jessica murmured, turning away. ‘Clive is entirely to be trusted, as is Guy. No, no – it is perfectly in order for him to come and pick her up. I daresay he was passing by our gates, anyway. Besides, Relia told me that she had left her face compact behind, or was it her cigarette case? At any rate, now I come to think of it – so much on my mind, you know – they already told me they were coming to collect her. Longbridge Farm telephoned earlier. Yes, I seem to remember that is what happened.'

This at least was true. Jessica
had
been telephoned by Guy Athlone, not only that, but she had perfectly understood the need for Aurelia to return to the farm, that it was utterly necessary, and of course it was also unspoken that Jessica's discretion was guaranteed. It was not her business to question why Guy needed to have one of his ‘little talks' with Aurelia, nor would she ever question anything that Guy asked of her. He and Jessica had been working away since the late twenties trying to prevent the war that was now all too inevitable. And as for fearing for Aurelia's virtue, everyone knew that Guy was currently having a raging affair – she paused, wondering to herself why affairs were always ‘raging' – yes, it was the talk of London that he had started having an affair with his leading lady Gloria Martine, having ditched a society beauty by the name of Desirée Hamilton. And Gloria was a creature of such stunning looks that dear little Aurelia of the wispy Pre-Raphaelite locks would not stand a cat's chance of even attracting his momentary interest. Guy Athlone had exquisite taste, and when it came to women he had always taken care to love the best. He chose from the top drawer, or nothing.

Of course Aurelia knew none of this, she merely felt important, excited, and naturally quite passionate about what she now saw as The Cause. She had wanted to devote herself to Guy Athlone, and now she could. From this moment on, her life would be quite simple. She would do whatever he wanted, spy on whoever he wanted, pose as a waitress, or a hat-check girl, cloakroom attendant, anything. She was in love for the first time, and she knew it, but more than that she was needed. After a childhood and youth spent alone in flats and houses, in an endless succession of rooms empty of everyone except herself while her parents socialised all over Europe, she was now a person in her own right, not just ‘the Smith-Jones gel' left at school by her parents, always waiting for someone else to take her out for the day, befriended by the servants at home, but needed and loved by no one.

‘You have done very well.'

Guy's expression was serious. From what she had been able to tell him of overheard remarks, this slip of a girl had done very well indeed, but something stirred in his mind – her name was ringing the wrong kind of bells.

‘Miss Smith-Jones – I am going to have to cross-examine you now, not on behalf of the government, but on behalf of the private organisation to whom I supply information. You must understand that the name over the door is mine, and so if you let me down, it will be very, very serious indeed. The organisation has underground connections all over Europe and America, and so serious are these that if you let me down it might have pretty vile consequences for both of us, not to mention Clive out there.'

He nodded at Clive, who was busying himself in the office outside, one ear to the studio, one ear to the door in the eaves.

‘The members of this private organisation do not take an oath, although the fact that I do know you socially is entirely natural, of course. But in future if we meet in London, we will acknowledge each other in a very flippant or cursory manner, you understand, making a joke of your helping me from time to time, that sort of thing.'

Aurelia nodded, thrilling to the whole idea that her life was becoming more and more like the movies.

‘I understand, Mr Athlone. And I will do everything you ask, and more.'

Oh dear! Guy looked at her with sudden compassion. She was like every other actress that he met at cocktail parties. He just hoped that she would not start telling him how dedicated she was, for if there was one thing he dreaded more than sin itself, it was a dedicated actress. And then it came to him, in a really quite blinding flash. Of course! Smith-Jones! The name was now very clear to him, he could even see the relevant file at the office, see George going through all the society names, murmuring them, nodding, turning to the next file, both of them discussing the people concerned, and studying their photographs, which inevitably made them all look both mad and bad, and certainly not people that you would ever want to know.

‘So.' Guy paused. ‘Why don't you sit down, Miss Smith-Jones, and let's have a little talk, “
of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages
—”'

She finished the line for him and continued the verse, quite cheerfully, as they both sat down, and Guy smiled at her with sudden appreciation. He always did like people who knew their
Alice in Wonderland
. He looked dreamily past Aurelia, thinking of his happy childhood days, bicycling to get his comic and a banana chew from the village shop, lying in the long grass beside the stream immersed in the antics of his favourite cartoon heroes. After a short pause, he opened up again, on a completely different literary tack.

‘
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning . . .
'

He paused, looking at Aurelia, eyebrows raised.

‘
Spring-cleaning his little home
,' she continued, realising he was waiting. ‘
First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs . . .
'

Guy appreciated people who knew their
Wind in the Willows
off by heart even more than those who knew their
Alice in Wonderland
.

‘I think we are going to get on very well indeed, Miss Smith-Jones, truly I do.'

Aurelia smiled without realising that her smile was stunning, and that to his astonishment it made Guy's heart turn over several times, because it was so heartbreaking in its innocent delight. It was the sun coming up in the morning in his garden. It was the light bouncing off the windscreen of his sports car as he drove back to Longbridge Farm. It was the warmth of someone's arms, someone whom he had loved so completely as a young man, and who had loved him – and who had died.

‘I will do anything to help you, Mr Athlone, and your organisation. Do you wish me to sign anything?'

Guy shook his head. No, that was not necessary, the Bros chose their people with great care. They would trust Guy's judgement.

After a pause Guy continued.

‘I wonder if you
would
do anything for me and the organisation. I mean, when you say
anything
, what would you mean by that? Would you mean anything at all?'