‘Why sadder for him?’she asked.‘Chamberlain will not be the one fighting,’ she continued tartly, and saw Minnie’s lip twitch.‘But I’m not here to talk about trenches … It’s about Alfred.’
‘Who?’
‘Fritzi’s man.You remember.Alfred, who disappeared at Kelvedon—’
‘Went off, notdisappeared,’ Chips corrected her.‘You make it sound so sinister …’
‘Well, but perhaps it is.Minnie has seen him …’ And she told Chips, although she had not planned to, because there was no one else to tell.‘What do you think it means?’she asked, when she had finished.
‘I think it means that we had better telephone to Doris immediately.’
‘You think it is bad?’
‘I don’t know what it is.But the timing of his disappearance … Perhaps we should have been more suspicious.’
‘Honor has been trying to reach Doris, but she told me her telephone never answers anymore.’
‘I see.’He looked beadily at her.‘Well, there are some other calls I can make.’
‘I thought you didn’t care for Doris,’ she blurted out.
‘I don’t.But that’s hardly the point now, is it?I will make some phone calls.You’d better wait in the drawing room.I’ll come and find you when I’m finished.’
‘Thank you, Chips.’
Minnie said she must get back, so Brigid went upstairs alone.The fire had not been lit and there was a smell of cold ash and soot in the room.She was about to ring the bell and order Andrews to light it.But she didn’t.Like the silent house at Grosvenor Place, the unlit fire meant something.It meant, she thought, that there were more important things now.That the comforts and convenience of families like theirs were no longer of much concern.
She strained to hear Chips’ footsteps, an opening or closing door; any sound that would say he was on his way up to her with news.But there was only silence.She looked out.A few doors down she saw a sliver of light from between blackout curtains.Even as she watched, it disappeared, drapes shaken into tighter folds by an invisible hand.She heard the rumble of a lorry, heavy over uneven flagstones, and in the distance the plaintive wail of an air raid siren.These had started days ago, within minutes of Chamberlain’s announcement, and none so far had signalled a real attack.One day soon they would.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Honor
The car moved slowly through the dark and empty streets, headlights painted over in streaky black so that the light they cast was no more than a bicycle lamp.A fog had gathered, surprisingly dense for the time of year.That slowed them further.Honor asked Michaels to let her out at the far end of the square, saying she would walk the rest of the way.The air raid siren started as she approached Number Five, mournful in the foggy night, and she wondered whether to continue on to the shelter around the corner.It was almost certainly another drill, but the shelter would be a way to avoid Chips for several more hours, until the all-clear was sounded.The idea was appealing.If only she had brought a book, to read by lantern light.But she hadn’t, and the reality of the shelter was less appealing.All those people.All that determined gaiety.
Andrews opened the door.‘Miss Brigid is upstairs.’
‘I’ll go up.Would you bring something on a tray?For both of us.’
Brigid’s head appeared, startled, over the balcony then and she called down, ‘Is it really you?Come quick, Honor, for something has happened.It’s Doris.’
Honor took the last few stairs two at a time.‘Tell me.’A story about Minnie, and that man Albert who had been Fritzi’s fellow at Kelvedon.A chance meeting.An English voice.
‘What does it mean?’Brigid asked when she had finished tumbling words out one after another.‘I cannot work it out.’
‘Possibly nothing,’ Honor said, sorting Brigid’s words quickly and deftly in her mind.‘If Albert was English all along, watching Fritzi for our side, our purposes – whatever those may be – then I don’t think any bad will come to Doris from it …’
‘But if he’s not?’
‘If he’s not …’ She paused, still trying to understand.‘If he’s German and now pretends to be English, then he is working for someone else.It can’t be Fritzi’s grandfather or he would not still be here.And so, if he is German, he was watching Fritzi for the Gestapo.But in watching Fritzi, he will have learned things about Doris.Dangerous things.Things that mean she needs to leave Germany immediately.’
‘How can we find out?’
‘We can’t.But we need to warn Doris either way.’
How little attention they’d paid to Albert’s disappearance, really, Honor thought then with dismay.Chips, with his urgent desire to see his new car.The ambassador, mind already on other matters.Even Honor herself, frantic to get away from Chips, back to London where she could disappear deeper into her own life and leave him behind.They had allowed themselves to believe it didn’t matter – a servant, running off – but it had.Clearly it had.They had ignored the timing of it, the implications of that, and allowed themselves to assume all was well.
Only Doris had realised, and she’d said nothing.Or not much.Simply shouldered the knowledge and gone back to do whatever it was that she did, now with one extra piece of instability in the map she flew by.They hadn’t stopped that.
