Authors: Fiona McIntosh
‘So your mother informed.’ It sounded like an accusation and precisely how he meant it to sound.
The man looked down. ‘May I come in, please?’
‘I suppose you’d better, although I was just heading upstairs with my wife and infant son. I planned to turn in early.’
‘I shan’t keep you long, Sir.’
‘Leave your hat, Bergheimer,’ he said, nodding at the stand nearby, trying to disguise the anxiety that the man’s worried expression and the memory of his mother’s intensity provoked. He led the way back into the sitting room. ‘Can I pour you a brandy or something to warm you? I’m afraid the fire is dying.’
‘I’m fine, Sir, thank you,’ the man said in a flat voice, following him into the room.
‘Take a seat,’ Joseph gestured, closing the door quietly. ‘Now, what is this all about? I haven’t seen you in years and suddenly your mother turns up at my office unannounced. It’s most unusual, Bergheimer, and may I say, disconcerting.’
‘You are a powerful, senior man in government now, Herr Altmann.’
‘All the more reason I’m frankly annoyed,’ he admitted. ‘Look, is it money? If you —’
The man looked aghast. He stood abruptly. ‘Herr Altmann, this is nothing to do with money. We are not a family with many assets but we are nonetheless a proud family. My father died two years ago but we manage as best we can.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Joseph conceded. ‘That was insensitive of me. Sit . . . it’s David, isn’t it?’
His guest nodded glumly.
‘Why did you send your mother to me?’
‘We were being cautious. We felt she was . . . well, less conspicuous than myself. An older woman, she can slip beneath people’s notice more easily.’
‘But why? What is this about?’ His exasperation was not well concealed.
Bergheimer actually looked around the chamber as if hidden eyes might be observing. Joseph watched in astonishment and only just held his tongue. He waited as the man reached beneath his coat into a jacket pocket and withdrew two creased pages that looked as though they’d been crushed before being pressed out flat again.
‘What is this?’ he said, more out of something to say and relieve the tension because presumably these were the notes that Mrs Bergheimer had referred to.
‘Herr Altmann, there is no recording equipment in your house, is there?’ his guest suddenly whispered.
‘Good heavens, man. Get on with it!’ he snapped.
But Bergheimer looked terrified just to be touching the pages. ‘Are you familiar with our Chancellor’s handwriting?’
‘What sort of a question is —’
‘Answer me, Sir,’ the man demanded, although his voice was even and remained low.
Joseph drew a deep, silent breath. ‘Of course I am,’ he scowled.
Bergheimer held out the two crumpled pages. ‘Would you recognise this as his handwriting?’
Joseph leaned in, not wishing to touch the scruffy pages. Heavy black ink scrawled in an almost illegible tiny hand, including the instantly recognisable affectation that the German Chancellor had adopted of an unnecessary vertical bar on certain letters.
‘This could be a forgery,’ he denounced before he’d read any of the content.
‘It could be but it was retrieved by my mother from the wastepaper bin in Adolf Hitler’s office a fortnight ago. She is a cleaner at the government offices in the Reich chancellery. My mother is one of the trusted few permitted to clean and tidy Herr Hitler’s monstrously large office, as she puts it.’
‘Your mother thieved papers from the Chancellor’s office?’ Joseph said in a hissed whisper. He watched Bergheimer swallow. ‘Do you have any idea of the penalty for such theft?’
The man licked his lips. ‘Read it, Herr Altmann.’
Joseph batted the pages away. ‘I don’t wish to. I want no part of this.’
Bergheimer stood and, visibly trembling, waved the pages at his senior. ‘I have thought of nothing else since I read these notes. My mother said she was waiting outside on instructions from his staff for the Chancellor to leave before she was permitted to enter his office. The assistant who entered with her first checked that his desk was clear. Neither of them noted these pages screwed up and tossed carelessly that had missed the bin, remaining hidden behind it until my mother began to clean. She brought them home more as a souvenir to say she had some of the handwriting of the leader of our nation – for posterity, you might say.’
Joseph blinked, his mouth dry, tongue feeling thick and far too warm but unable to swallow as the man continued.
‘She showed it to me for amusement. She couldn’t read it, Herr Altmann, but I could. You must also read it.’
‘I will not!’ Joseph snapped. ‘Get out, Bergheimer, before I call the police and have you arrested.’
Bergheimer nodded. ‘I’ll leave. But you’re a fellow Jew. You must act. I don’t know anyone else of your seniority or influence. Your wife’s —’
‘I said get out. If you so much as mention my wife or my family again, I shall not be responsible for the consequences of what happens to you. Now you have a mother to take care of, David, and out of respect for her age and for the fact you were one of my daughter’s favourite teachers, I am going to ask you once again to leave and never again make contact. Do you understand? I will denounce you.’
‘I understand, Herr Altmann, Sir.’ He turned to leave. ‘Please, I shall see myself out.’ Bergheimer moved quickly, hurrying to the sitting-room door, turning briefly. ‘I am sorry for the trouble.’
‘Go,’ Joseph said wearily, his mind already reaching towards a calming cognac. He would pour himself a big slug and take it upstairs where his wife’s willing, soothing arms awaited. She would take all this nonsense away with her kisses and tender touch.
He heard the front door close and duly walked into the hallway to lock up, suddenly fearful that Bergheimer might have a sudden change of heart. He bolted the door, checked it twice and then shifted to look out of the glass panel just to be sure that his unwanted guest had gone. There was no one on the stairs up to the porch or on the pavement outside handily flooded with light from the street lamp. His front gate was shut, Bergheimer had disappeared from his life and he sighed with relief.
‘Joseph?’ He swung around and the sight of his wife in a daring negligee at the top of the stairs instantly helped his mood. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘It is now, my love, especially glimpsing you through that skimpy lace.’
She laughed throatily. ‘If you keep me waiting much longer, I’ll be asleep.’
‘Nightcap?’
‘Why not,’ she said with a glinting smile. ‘Hurry.’
He blew her a kiss as she lifted the hem of her flimsy gown and disappeared off the landing into their bedchamber. Joseph stretched and heard a satisfying click. With an anticipation of beckoning pleasure, he turned back to the sitting room to pour the drinks and check the fire before he would switch off the downstairs lights but was halted in these steps by the sight of David Bergheimer’s hat on the credenza.
Joseph helplessly felt a pang of regret at the younger man’s wasted journey and the bad feeling that now existed between them. He lifted the hat to place it on the hat stand’s hook; maybe Bergheimer would call back for it. If so, he would see to it that only Frau Muller dealt with him – she would send him packing. But as he lifted the hat onto the hook he was disturbed to see revealed the crumpled pages of the notes that Bergheimer had brought. They had been deliberately secreted, the hat intentionally left behind to hide the notes. No wonder the man hurried away from the sitting room.
‘Damn you, Bergheimer,’ he cursed.
Even as late as when he’d poured two glasses of best French cognac into their Czechoslovakian crystal glasses that had been a wedding gift, Joseph fully intended to throw the pages into the dying embers, where they would turn to ash and float up the chimney so that he never had to confront the stolen contents again.
But over that nip of amber liquid, the fumes hovering about him and with a curiosity that was stronger than his resolve or the flames, he read the small, looped writing and knew as the sweetness of the cognac turned bitter in his throat that his life would never be the same again.
Stella was standing in her nearly empty wardrobe in Kent, wishing now that she had brought her black dress with her that so easily doubled for dinner wear. Her main luggage was yet to be delivered and she stared, embarrassed, at the two outfits hanging before her. She was certain a family such as the Ainsworths would dress for their evening meal, but she had nothing suitable.
She breathed loudly through her nose and it came out as a deep sigh. Stella reached for a navy afternoon dress which had bell sleeves from the elbow with a floaty navy and white polka-dot chiffon overlay and a small soft waterfall bow to one side of the collar. It was starkly simple despite the touch of whimsy and yet she’d loved it on sight in the department store for its effortless prettiness. The dress was sewn in sleek panels that were supposed to hug her hips narrowly but she could feel the room in the dress now. Never mind, she was eating three proper meals daily suddenly and had no doubt she’d fill it neatly again. She had brought this dress as an afterthought, having originally planned to mix and match the couple of day dresses, two cardigans, skirt and two blouses she’d been able to pack easily. Amongst her peers Stella knew she was considered well attired but she could only imagine the range and choice that Beatrice Ainsworth could select from. She dismissed any further pondering on the subject as being wasted energy.
She had bathed quickly, and having stood at the wardrobe for what must have been several minutes of indecision, clambered into fresh underwear and the navy dress. No, it was not as snug as it used to be, and Stella realised as she closed the door to regard herself in the long mirror that she had dropped more weight without being aware of it.
He’d noticed, though. She shook her head. Rafe was here and Rafe was her new boss; the man she’d been secretly thinking on in her private moments, mostly not admitting how disappointed she had become at the notion that after such a fleeting encounter she would likely never see him again. And yet while she’d been pining he’d been plotting, pulling strings behind her like a puppeteer . . . He’d wanted to help her – had made that clear that evening – but she’d treated his offer too casually . . . with disdain, almost. But he’d been true to his word. And Stella couldn’t deny the difference his help would make to her family but especially to her life, enabling her to shake off the dark burdens that had pressed upon her shoulders in London.
Nevertheless, was she always going to feel as awkward as she did now? As she regarded her reflection, Stella finally allowed herself to admit that she felt as though she was being coerced into keeping a secret. He hadn’t said anything but then he didn’t have to; she’d picked up on all of his silent signals that he didn’t want anyone to know they had met previously. What if his wife found out? How ugly would that look if it were proved Stella had lied? She lifted and dropped her shoulders with irritation. He had made her angry on their first meeting and here he was doing it again on their second.
Even so, he had seemed to understand her from that first awkward five minutes together. In the taxi to her house, though, it had felt as though they were removed from the reality of their worlds and that somehow in the dark of the vehicle while London streamed beside them they had created a world within a world that belonged to them. They had both been honest with each other, hadn’t they? Or had they? Stella smiled. He hadn’t directly lied but it was now clear that she hadn’t asked the right questions. She knew better now.
She had no doubt there had been a special connection between them that she had felt for no other person. She’d dated men; she’d kissed enough to not feel too much like the yearning spinsters of novels, and also slept with one, disappointing though it had been.
If she were honest, Rafe’s brief kiss of her gloved hand had been infinitely more arousing than Harry Farmer’s dinner at the Falcon pub in Clapham and his subsequent fumbling, anxious weight atop her in a darkened hotel room afterwards. She shuddered now to remember it and awkwardly tucked a curl of hair behind her ear as she admitted to herself that the ride with Rafe, their shoulders and thighs touching, provoked a tense, even romantic, air that was so lacking in Room 6 that night with Harry.
Stella’s gaze raised itself to meet the eyes staring back in the reflection and guilt was mirrored in their blueness. She knew she had to lose any aspirations she may have romanced about in her daydreams. There was no future to it and nothing but pain for her if she allowed herself to imagine anything but the obvious – that he was in London, living out of his club most weeks, and likely charming every pretty young woman he met. She was surely one of a line. And he was married with two daughters! Stella set her shoulders and straightened.
Grow up
, she mouthed at her image and walked to the bathroom.
She combed through her dark hair, wondering now whether she should have washed it again. But it was still glossy and the soft finger wave curls were holding their shape perfectly. She wouldn’t need it trimmed for a while. She pinched her cheeks and smudged a hint of a light rose lipstick on, careful to blot the colour back from her lips. Her father had always detested her wearing make-up but working in the store meant she had to keep up with fashions and when Didi had approved her light touch with the cosmetics, Evan Myles had shrugged and let it go. She was no longer that employee, though, and it didn’t feel right to wear too much colour as a governess – or tutor, as Mrs Ainsworth preferred to refer to her as.
She gave herself a final check over, twisting both ways to ensure she had no loose threads or marks on her dress. Stella dabbed a tiny spot of perfume at her neck from her mother’s bottle of Arpège by Lanvin and felt her reassuring presence as she checked her watch.
It was two minutes to seven. She didn’t want to be late but not overly eager to intrude on the family evening either. She hurried now, quickly closed the door behind her and took the back stairs at a steady clip to get down the levels, while trying not to make too much of a clatter. She emerged into one of the lobbies and nearly bumped into Hilly.
‘Whoops a daisy, sorry,’ she said, stepping back just in time. ‘Hello, Hilly.’
‘Good evening, Miss Stella,’ Hilly said, using the more formal language of above stairs that Stella instantly noted had been absent during luncheon.
‘I . . . er, I’ve been invited to eat with the family tonight,’ she said, words falling out as she tried to gauge the mood of her colleague.
‘So we’ve been told. I am just about to set another place.’ A smile was forced and Hilly glanced at her tray. ‘They’re in the winter drawing room.’
When Stella looked at her blankly, the maid, who was not a lot younger than her, gestured with a nod. ‘That door, Miss Stella. Enjoy your evening.’
Stella was left to watch Hilly disappear into a room she could only imagine must be the winter dining room. She felt as though she’d been silently, invisibly slapped by her fellow workmates who only hours earlier had thawed and made her feel welcome; even Mrs Boyd had sounded chatty. Now suddenly she felt on the outer. She took a breath to steady her nerves and walked towards the door Hilly had indicated.
Winter drawing room
, she mocked in her mind but without allowing herself to hesitate, she knocked.
Her knock was answered by Grace in a fresh set of clothes and her face gleaming as though a flannel had fiercely scrubbed away the day’s fun.
‘Stella,’ she gasped, genuine delight in her voice as she swung open the door and turned to the others. ‘Stella’s here.’
Stella stepped inside and the family looked up from what appeared to her a still-life snapshot. Beatrice Ainsworth, attired immaculately in a velvet green dress, was seated straight-backed in an armchair with a crystal glass of what was likely a gin and tonic if the half slice of lemon was an indication. Seated opposite, or rather draped opposite, still appearing thoroughly bored with her life, was Georgina, holding a small crystal glass. She wore a frock as liquid in shape and just as dark as the sherry she was presumably sipping on. But Stella’s gaze was helplessly drawn to Rafe, staring at her from where he stood by the grand white marble fireplace that was streaked through with grey and forming the perfect backdrop to show off his tall, fine figure enclosed in a dark suit. Surprisingly, a fire was lit, but she felt only the heat of her host’s gaze and she sensed once again that he was using it to communicate to her that their first meeting was no one else’s business.
He was less formally dressed than for his night in London. Nevertheless he looked as dashing. Tonight he was out of his practical plus fours and attired for dinner in a suit of midnight blue, without waistcoat, but cut with the new fashion of a double-breasted jacket and turn-down collar rather than the detachable, stiff version. There was no denying that Rafe Ainsworth was a paragon of fashion. He was wearing glasses, though. Small, round and horn-rimmed, they gave him a professorial air that made Stella want to smile.
‘H-hello again, Stella,’ he stammered. ‘I’m glad you could join us.’
She blinked. She’d not heard him stammer before. ‘Er, thank you all for inviting me,’ she said.
‘It was Dougie’s idea, I have to admit,’ Beatrice said, although Stella heard:
We didn’t want you but he did
.
Georgina sighed. ‘Yes, we’re not used to having servants eat with us.’
‘Stella isn’t a servant, is she, Daddy?’ Grace asked from where she toured the perimeter of the drawing room with her tumbler of what looked to be lemon barley water.
‘She is, actually, but you’re too dim to understand because you’ve played hopscotch today and think you’re now best friends,’ Georgina cut back. Stella held her breath in surprise, realising the young woman obviously felt she was in safe enough company to display her ugly behaviour.
‘Well,’ Stella said, achieving a benign smile she was proud of. ‘I don’t feel like a servant to anyone, to be honest. I do, however, see myself as one of your staff and if you’d rather I —’
‘Nonsense,’ Rafe said in a mild, almost frightened tone. ‘Manners, Georgie.’ He looked back at Stella. ‘You are most welcome and my invitation is genuine. I think it’s a fine opportunity for us all to make you feel more at home here at Harp’s End. Don’t you agree, Bee dear?’
‘Whatever you want, Dougie. Have a seat, Stella. What would you like to drink?’
‘Er, I’m happy with a sherry, thank you.’
‘Dougie, would you —’
‘Yes, I’m onto it,’ Rafe said, pushing the spectacles further up his nose.
Stella closed her open-mouthed study of his oddly taciturn way. She looked away, taking in the brocades and velvets that dominated this room while trying to make sense of his manner as he dropped the crystal stopper of the sherry decanter onto the silver tray, making his wife jump with alarm.
‘Sorry, everyone,’ he murmured with a sheepish expression as Grace giggled and Georgina glared at her father with disdain.
‘Gosh, Dad, you’re such a berk,’ Georgie remarked, rolling her eyes.
Stella couldn’t imagine how the effortlessly suave ways of the man she’d met in the dance hall, who glided down hills in a long, sure stride, was the same slightly bumbling person holding out a glass of sherry to her now.
‘Stella,’ he offered, not meeting her gaze, she noted.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured and took the glass.
‘Well, chin-chin, everyone,’ he said and moved back to the fireplace. Only now as everyone tipped their glasses did she see him fix her again with a penetrating gaze. It cut past his curious glasses to make her feel as though she were the only person in the room.
‘I must say, Doug, it’s nice to see you out of your hill walking gear. You do look so fine in an evening suit,’ Beatrice said.
‘Especially against Mummy’s Aubusson rug,’ Grace said in the background, now playing with her doll and a ball of wool. Her father cast her a grin and even Stella smiled inwardly at the unintentionally dry statement.
Georgie soon cooled the fun. ‘Mummy, perhaps you should just let Dad remain tweedy and boffinish. If you’re going to dress him like this, people have an expectation.’
Her mother looked surprised. ‘Darling, dress your father? I wouldn’t presume. He goes to his tailor at Savile Row and miraculously manages to look dashing like this when I agree he can often appear dishevelled. Thank heavens for Gieves & Hawkes, I say.’
‘Dishevelled?’ Georgina slid her gaze back to her father, who was wearing the most innocent of expressions. ‘You look like a tramp a lot of the time, especially out there on the bloody Weald.’
‘Don’t curse, darling. It’s vulgar,’ Beatrice said.
Beatrice’s admonishment was as limp as a damp day, Stella thought, and it seemed to her as though everything that rolled off the teenager’s tongue was designed to shock. Stella was appalled at Georgina’s harsh words towards her father, who simply chuckled as though hearing a silent joke that only he shared. She took immediate offence to the young woman’s cutting manner and deliberately changed the subject.
‘You were missed today for lessons, Georgina,’ she said.
‘Mrs Boyd said she’d passed on the message,’ her student replied, without even looking at her.
‘That’s not the point, though, is it?’ Stella pressed as she smiled kindly, recalling this was her smile she reserved for difficult customers at the store. ‘Your parents have employed me to help you with your education. I’m not sure that putting shopping first is the best way to go about improving your French.’ She glanced briefly at Rafe, whom she could swear winked at her.
‘Oh, this is so tiresome,’ Georgina said, putting down her glass a little too loudly.
‘Georgina . . .’ her father began.
‘No, Daddy, you don’t know what day it is most of the time while you go chasing your butterflies and stalking odd birds and . . . and . . . painting your silly watercolours. But this is
my
holiday and I don’t really want to be cooped up inside with Stella and her colloquial French. There, that’s the truth,’ she snarled, swinging her shoulder-length hair and standing up.