The FitzOsbornes at War (11 page)

‘If you need to send a package to New York,’ I said slowly, ‘you surely have dozens of methods that are more reliable than that.’

‘Oh,
I
don’t want to send anything,’ he said. ‘I just want you to have an excuse to visit the Embassy.’

‘Why?’

He glanced over his shoulder. The few people in sight were scurrying along with their heads bent into the wind, concerned only with getting under shelter before it started to rain. No one was within earshot. ‘Because I’d like to know what’s going on there,’ the Colonel said. ‘A copy of a certain document has turned up where it ought not to be, and I suspect someone at the American Embassy is responsible.’

‘Not . . .
Mr Kennedy
?’ I breathed.

‘Oh, no. He’s certainly doing his best to cosy up to the Germans, but he’s quite open about that. No, it must be one of his staff.’

‘Well, why don’t you go there yourself and find out?’ I asked.

‘Because the Ambassador knows who I am and what I do, and he doesn’t much like it. He wouldn’t allow me to set so much as a toe inside the Embassy unless I had a pile of evidence and an arrest warrant. And I can’t say I blame him. At the moment, all I’m going by is intuition, and I don’t have the resources to keep every member of his staff under surveillance.’

‘But . . . I mean . . . what would I have to do?’ I had a ludicrous image of myself creeping about the Embassy, picking the locks of filing cabinets with a hatpin.

‘Oh, nothing at all out of the ordinary,’ he assured me. ‘Simply get yourself invited to a couple of Embassy cocktail parties, chat to as many of the staff as possible, ask them how they think the war’s going, find out if any of them have visited Germany or Italy in recent months –’

‘I don’t know,’ I said uneasily. ‘I really don’t think I’d be any good at that. Perhaps you should ask Veronica instead.’

‘
You’re
the one Mr Kennedy knows,’ he said. ‘You’re his daughter’s friend. Anyway, Veronica’s too conspicuous.’

‘You mean, I’m forgettable.’

‘I
mean
, you’re far more discreet and observant than she is, and she’d only get into an argument about Fascism and give the game away. No, you’re perfect for the job, Sophie. You’ve the sort of innocent, trustworthy face that makes people confide in you. Just be your usual, interested self and I’m certain you’ll discover all kinds of useful things.’ Raindrops began to darken the ground and the Colonel shook open his enormous black umbrella. ‘Come on, I’ll walk you back. It’s terribly kind of you to help me out this way.’

‘But . . . but I haven’t said I’ll do it!’ I said, even though of course I knew I
would
. How could I refuse the Colonel anything, when he’s done so much for us? The problem was that I didn’t share any of his faith in my abilities. ‘I mean, even if I hear something suspicious, what am I expected to do about it? I don’t even know where you work.’

‘I’ll give you a telephone number. Tell whoever answers it that Colonel Stanley-Ross needs to contact “Elizabeth”, then hang up. Can you remember this?’ And he repeated the number till I had it. ‘Now – pay attention to names and faces, but don’t write anything down, except in Kernetin. You’re looking for someone with Fascist connections, probably a member of the British Union, the Right Club, the Nordic League or the Anglo-German Fellowship. They might also mention something called The Link. Show an interest, but don’t sound
too
enthusiastic. If anyone invites you to a meeting, get all the details, then telephone me at once, but don’t, under any circumstances, agree to meet anyone outside the Embassy.’

I must have looked completely overwhelmed.

‘Oh, my dear!’ he said. ‘Sophie, I
promise
it’s perfectly safe. The worst that could happen is that you don’t discover anything.’

‘No, the worst would be that they realise your lot are onto them and they get scared off.’

‘Then they’ll stop what they’re doing, which is what we want. But why would they harbour any suspicions about you? A well-born young lady, a close friend of the Kennedy children, dropping in to the Embassy to say hello? And I really think Mr Kennedy will be pleased to see you. He hardly gets invited anywhere these days, he’s so unpopular.’

‘He thinks we’re going to lose the war.’

‘Yes, although there
are
a lot of Americans, including his President, who disagree with him –’

But I was too busy wondering how I was going to manage this whole thing to care much about American politics. ‘I’ll have to tell Veronica, you realise,’ I said. ‘Otherwise, she’ll think I’ve gone completely mad, hanging about the Embassy all the time.’

‘Yes, I expected that,’ he said. ‘I trust her. Just make sure she doesn’t tell anyone else, not even that Communist boyfriend of hers.’

‘He’s not a Communist . . . and how do you know about him, anyway?’

‘Who do you think recommended him for that job?’

I sent the Colonel a look of mingled respect and exasperation. ‘Do you know
everything
about
everybody
?’

He pretended to consider this as we crossed the road. ‘Hmm. Not
absolutely
everything. For instance, while I
do
know my favourite nephew is returning to London on Friday, I’ve no idea whether you’d have dinner with him, if he were to ask you.’

‘I’m sure I would,’ I said. ‘If he asked.’ I always enjoy chatting with Rupert, and eating my own cooking is starting to get very boring.

‘Then I must remind him to ask,’ said the Colonel. ‘He’s turned out quite handsome, hasn’t he? People say he bears a remarkable resemblance to me . . . although he has a nicer personality, of course.’

‘Much nicer,’ I said, smiling. ‘He’s not as devious, for one thing.’

‘Yes, he completely missed out on the Stanley-Ross sneakiness. I think Julia got the lot. Well, here’s where I must leave you. Give my regards to that charming Miss Halliday. Goodbye, Sophie – and good luck with that thing.’

!!!

No need to translate
that
bit of shorthand.

15th December, 1939

B
ACK FROM A COCKTAIL PARTY
at the American Embassy, which was a complete waste of time. This is especially galling, given how much nerve it took me to walk through the doors in the first place. I’d been to Embassy parties before, of course, but always trailing in the wake of Toby and Veronica, knowing that Kick or Jack would be around to chat with me. Still, I suppose it was some consolation that I didn’t have to fight off Joe Junior tonight. Not even Joe Senior was present, despite the Ambassador being the one who’d actually invited me to the party, when I’d delivered Kick’s gift earlier this week. Poor man, he
did
seem lonely. Whatever faults he may have, he absolutely dotes on his children and must miss them terribly. He’s now on his way back to the States for meetings with the President and to spend Christmas with his family. Of course, this meant that there wasn’t a single familiar face in the room when I entered, and I had to approach a
complete stranger
and
start a conversation
. It probably won’t go down in history as one of those great acts of wartime courage, but for the record, I just want to say here that I think I was
quite brave
.

‘So, how do you think the war’s going?’ I said casually, after the young man I’d accosted had fetched us both a drink.

‘It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere at all,’ he said, which was pretty much what I’d thought, and therefore not very enlightening. Then I made the mistake of asking him which part of the United States he was from.

‘Vancouver,’ he snapped. It turned out he worked at the Canadian High Commission. Well, how was
I
meant to be able to tell the difference between an American and a Canadian accent? Anyway, he
could
have been sneaking off to photograph files whenever he came over to the Embassy for drinks, so I made a mental note of his name (and added it to my new dossier when I arrived home). Then I spent most of the rest of the evening with a group of glamorous Embassy secretaries. The conversation largely consisted of the same sort of office gossip that I heard at the Ministry of Food – who was in line for promotion, who ought to be sacked for incompetence, who was having an affair with whom – but was even less interesting because all the names were unfamiliar. Then the three of them moved onto a discussion of various American film stars and I tuned out for a while. I couldn’t help thinking of last Friday, when I’d had dinner with Rupert and we’d talked about books and animals and our respective families. There was no question as to which experience had been more enjoyable – but I reminded myself firmly that I was doing important war work and tuned back in to the conversation, which had progressed to a debate about the superiority of nylon stockings over silk. They were awfully nice girls, though, I must say, and they did invite me to their Christmas drinks next week, so perhaps I’ll hear something more useful then. And in the meantime, at least being invited to the American Embassy for drinks has raised my social standing in the eyes of Felicity and Anne.

24th December, 1939

T
HIS IS THE COLDEST
C
HRISTMAS
I can remember, although I’m not sure if it’s the weather or simply the lack of heating here at Milford Park. My breath forms a white haze in the frigid air, the water in the vase on my dressing table has frozen solid, and I had to knock icicles out of my toothbrush this morning. But coal has become frightfully expensive, and I suppose there’s no point keeping the central heating going when hardly any rooms are being used. There’s a fire lit at the start of each day in the breakfast room, where we have all our meals now, and another in the kitchen. I suspect Aunt Charlotte has a fire in her bedroom at night, too, but I don’t like to ask for one in my own room – the poor solitary housemaid is rushed off her feet as it is, without having extra grates to clean and coal scuttles to fill. So I’ve piled another three blankets and my dressing gown upon my bed, keep a thermos on my bedside table to top up my hot water bottle, and wear a coat and mittens indoors as well as out. And I’m still
absolutely
freezing
.

Some women from the village come in daily to do the laundry and help with the cleaning, and there’s a kitchen maid for the cook, but otherwise, there are hardly any indoor staff left. Even Harkness the butler, who seemed as much a fixture of Milford Park as the marble flooring, has gone off to France – the brigadier for whom he was a batman during the last war asked for him especially. Barnes is still here, of course, acting as a combination of housekeeper, butler, lady’s maid and secretary. But many of the rooms have had to be shut up to save on cleaning – the furniture shrouded in dust-sheets, the chandeliers enveloped in velvet bags, the carpets rolled up, the windows shuttered.

I was surprised that Aunt Charlotte, with her absolute mania for keeping up standards, had permitted all this. However, she’s so busy with her WVS work that I’m not sure she’s even noticed. The evacuees went back to London weeks ago (summoned home by parents who couldn’t see the point of their families being separated when there’s no sign of any bombs), but Aunt Charlotte is still in charge of the village sock-knitting campaign, the bandage-rolling roster, the paper salvage scheme, and so on. She’s also turned the Milford Park stables into a school to train racing horses and hunters to pull wagons and ploughs. Now that petrol rationing has started, horses will be needed more and more, to take the place of tractors, delivery vans, private motor cars, even the local bus. It’s as though England has slipped backwards by about half a century, and Aunt Charlotte couldn’t be more pleased. She much prefers horses to motor vehicles (indeed, to most human beings), and this way, she gets to keep her own favourite horses close at hand, out of reach of the war. Lady Bosworth is furious she didn’t think of the idea herself, because a dozen of
her
best hunters have just been requisitioned by the army to be trained as officers’ mounts. Aunt Charlotte’s first pupil was Lightning, Henry’s pony. He has settled into his new job quite happily and is now the household’s main conveyance. He and Henry met Veronica and me at the railway station yesterday morning.