The Shadow Queen (20 page)

Wallis had no opportunity to speak to Win. He was far too involved in the preparations taking place for Rob’s flight. From a great distance Rob, in flight gear, his helmet already on, his goggles in his hand, shielded his eyes from the sun in order to make them out from the large number of spectators thronging the beach.

“He’s seen us!” Wallis began waving wildly. “Look! He’s giving us the thumbs-up!”

As the crowd around them saw the gesture, they gave a loud cheer, and then Rob turned away, putting on his goggles and, after a last few words with Win, climbed into the cockpit of his plane.

As the plane bounced and bumped its way across the water and then rose into the air, the excitement of the spectators was palpable. Naval aviation was still in such infancy that every record set was of huge importance.

Rob flew a circle of the bay and then began to climb.

“How high do you think he is now?” Wallis asked Corinne as she shielded her eyes against the sun in order to still see him.

Corinne shook her head, not having a clue.

“About six thousand feet. Nothing extraordinary as yet,” one of the mechanics standing close by said.

Against the brilliance of the sun, the fragile-looking plane made another large circle, creeping ever higher as it did so.

The tension in the crowd around her was now getting to Wallis. Initially she’d been feeling only intense excitement. Win had been so laconic yesterday about the test flight that, despite knowing it was dangerous, she’d been no more anxious for Rob’s safety than she was any time an officer she knew took to the air.

Now, however, fear was flicking bat’s wings at her, and her hands were clutched so tightly together they hurt.

“He must be at the eight-thousand-feet mark now,” a man standing next to the mechanic said. “What kind of pressure do you think the struts are beginning to take?”

“It’s a Curtiss AH-14. I’d have thought it would be okay for another couple of thousand feet.”

Even with binoculars the plane could now barely be seen.

“Please God,” Wallis whispered beneath her breath. “Please,
please
let Rob come back safely.”

“He will, honey.” Corinne’s voice held none of its usual careless indifference to events. Instead, it was nearly as taut as her own.

Then, with relief so vast Wallis felt as if her knees were going to give way, it was possible to see the tiny plane again, and this time its long, swooping circles were bringing him closer and closer to the glass-smooth waters of the bay.

When he landed, even though the height he’d reached was still not known, huge cheers went up and then, after a period of tense waiting, Henry Mustin, resplendent in his uniform as commander of the air station, announced through a megaphone, “Lieutenant Allinson has set a naval aviation record with a height reached of 11,975 feet.”

The cheers were deafening and, with the news semaphored to Santa Rosa Island, could even be heard from there.

“He’s going to do a lap of honor,” Corinne said, relief showing in her voice. “Tonight the air station will be afloat with champagne.”

Once again the small plane bobbed and bucketed across the water and took to the air. This time Rob made no attempt to fly any higher than was normal, but he did turn inland, flying over the beach and its crowds of spectators.

Leaning out of the cockpit, he waved down to Wallis and Corinne from a height of about 150 feet, then banked, making a turn and heading for Santa Rosa.

“Thank God he achieved what he set out to achieve.” Corinne took the binoculars she had been using from around her neck. “A record like this for a hydroplane is going to do his career a world of good.”

“Thank God he’s safe,” Wallis said with deep gratitude for a prayer answered.

Suddenly, above all the victory-laden chatter going on around them, came a distant choking sound that silenced everyone in midsentence.

For a brief second Wallis, not conversant with what different sounds from an engine meant, was bewildered. Then, before her horrified eyes, Rob’s plane began to plummet and spin seaward.

All along the entire beach there were gasps of disbelief, shouts of horror, screams.

It was a nosedive so steep nothing could have averted the plane’s impact with the sea and its instant disintegration.

As people began running toward the part of the beach nearest the bobbing wreckage, Wallis sank onto her knees. “Oh God,” she whispered, tears coursing down her cheeks. “Oh, sweet Christ!”

This time there was no answer to her prayers.

Dimly she was aware of Corinne helping her to her feet; of somehow forcing herself to move in the direction everyone else was moving in; of standing in a grief-stricken stupor on the sand as she watched Rob’s lifeless body dragged from the waves.

It was a moment that would be imprinted in her memory for as long as she lived, a moment that gave her a horror of flying she was never to lose—and a moment when she realized that, in loving Win, fear for his safety would now be her daily companion.

Chapter Twelve

T
he aftermath of Rob Allinson’s death subdued Pensacola for weeks. Henry became almost a different man. Dinner parties and cocktails on the bungalow’s tiny terrace came to an abrupt end. He had always been less outgoing than his extrovert wife, but his expression became one that was permanently thunderous as he complained bitterly about the lack of safety features in the planes his aviators were required to fly. It was he who had to break the news of Rob’s death to his parents, and when he returned from doing so, not even Corinne dared go near him.

There was talk of an inquest. There were endless emergency conferences and telephone calls as an official inquiry was demanded.

As for Win, he withdrew into himself in a way that frightened Wallis. As no dinner or cocktail parties were now being held at the Mustins’, they met in other ways. Occasionally they went to the movies together. Sometimes they met openly as a couple at Pensacola’s country club. Whenever they did, he was morose and taciturn, his grief for his friend so deep she couldn’t penetrate it. To her concern, it was a grief he began to drown in drink. Cocktails, as a leisure activity, were part and parcel of life at Pensacola, but now the only thing Wallis ever smelled on Win’s breath was gin, and though he outwardly never showed it, she knew that often when they met he was drunk as a skunk.

“I wouldn’t worry about it, honey,” Corinne said when Wallis finally expressed her concerns to her. “It’s his way of dealing with his grief, and once he’s come to terms with that grief, he’ll be back to normal. One thing about this tragedy is that Henry now has so many other things on his mind, he’s not even blinking at the fact that you and Win have begun spending time together on your own.”

It was, Wallis realized, something to be deeply grateful for, but she devoutly wished Henry’s acceptance of her and Win’s budding romantic relationship hadn’t been brought about by tragedy.

A
s the summer progressed, Henry and Corinne’s social life returned to normal; dinner parties and cocktails on the terrace resumed; and Win returned to being his usual self—a man who said little and smiled rarely, but who, when in a good mood, was always good company.

Dating him was nothing at all like dating John Jasper. There was always an edge of danger with Win. Wallis never quite knew what his mood would be—and accepted that this was due to the immense stress of his job. As the senior instructor at Pensacola, he carried a huge burden of responsibility for the safety of his trainees. When accidents occurred—and they occurred regularly—a siren would sound, announcing to the entire air station than an emergency had taken place.

The sound always made Wallis’s blood run cold, her fear always that the aviator who had run into trouble was Win.

In September when the siren sounded, it wasn’t because of one of the regular nonfatal accidents, but because the struts in a plane being flown by a twenty-three-year-old officer had loosened and the plane had crashed, killing him instantly.

Hateful as she found the thought of being separated from Win, Wallis craved a few days away from what had become the constant tension of waiting for the crash siren to sound.

“I haven’t the slightest desire to be back in Baltimore again, Corinne,” she said one evening when they were on their own together, “but I haven’t seen my mother in far too long. You don’t mind if I go back for a week’s visit, do you?”

“Goose! Of course I don’t mind. What about the old boyfriend, though? I thought you didn’t want to return to Baltimore until you had a whacking great diamond on the third finger of your left hand?”

“I don’t, but who knows how long I’ll have to wait until Win comes up to scratch? And I shan’t make my presence there public. I’ll simply spend time with Mama and Aunt Bessie.”

“Don’t forget your Uncle Sol. Once he knows you’re in Baltimore, he’s going to want to give you the third degree about life in Florida.”

A grin touched the corners of Wallis’s mouth. “Don’t worry about Uncle Sol, Corinne. I worked out how to handle him years ago—and when it comes to his getting an update about life here in Pensacola, he’s going to get a very watered-down version, with the name Earl Winfield Spencer not being mentioned even once.”

“W
allis, sweetheart! It’s so
good
to see you!”

Both her mother and her aunt were at Baltimore’s station to meet her at the train, and as her mother’s arms closed around her, Wallis was flooded with guilt for her long absence from home.

“And my, but you look sophisticated, Wallis.” Aunt Bessie looked her up and down proudly, liking what she saw. Wallis had never gone in for fripperies on her clothes, and the dress she was wearing, made by Wallis herself, was as far removed from floaty summer chiffon as it was possible to get. The material was navy linen; the tunic, collar, and cuffs were braided in white, worn over a narrow skirt daringly, and very fashionably, calf length. Her little navy hat sported a jaunty matching feather, and her shoes had the highest heels Bessie had ever seen.

Looking at her, Bessie saw what Alice didn’t. Wallis had left them a girl and returned a woman—and Bessie’s immediate reaction was to wonder as to the identity of the man responsible for the change.

She didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Wallis might have had no intention of telling her Uncle Sol about Win—or certainly not until she had a ring on her finger—but she had no such scruples when it came to her mother and her aunt.

An hour later, as the three of them sat around the table in Alice’s small apartment, drinking tea and eating slices of the lemon drizzle cake Alice had made to welcome Wallis home, Wallis wiped a crumb from her mouth and, her face radiant, her lavender eyes aglow, said dramatically, “Mama. Aunt Bessie. I have news I simply
have
to tell you. I’ve fallen in love with the world’s most fascinating aviator!”

Bessie, always pragmatic, received the news cautiously, hoping Wallis wasn’t going to emulate her mother’s heedless impulsiveness when it came to matters of romance.

Alice, romantic to her core, clapped her hands in delight.

“But that’s wonderful, Wallis honey.” She pushed the cake stand to one side so that she could take hold of Wallis’s hands and give them a loving squeeze. “Who is he? Where does his family come from? Has he spoken to Henry about his intentions? What does Corinne think of him?”

“His name is Earl Winfield Spencer. He’s twenty-seven, a lieutenant, and he comes from a small town in Kansas.”

“If he’s eight years older than you are, that’s quite a gap in age,” Bessie said, leaving the small town in Kansas to one side for the moment but not liking the sound of it.

Alice flared up immediately. “Nonsense, Bessie! Twenty-seven is a perfect age for a young man to think of marriage. Teackle was twenty-six when we married.”

“And you were twenty-four. Wallis is only nineteen.”

“Well, we’re not even engaged yet,” Wallis said lightly, before her mother and her aunt could have one of their spectacular differences of opinion. “Though I hope we soon will be. Would you like to see a photograph of him?”

She took a slim leather wallet from her purse and, from behind her newspaper cutting of the Prince of Wales, removed a photograph of Win.

It had been taken when he was in full-dress uniform, and when she handed it to her mother, Alice gave a gasp of admiration.

“Why, Wallis! He’s
very
handsome!”

Bessie, who had a lot of trust in the old saw “Handsome is as handsome does,” took the photograph from her.

The face that stared up at her from it was certainly arresting. Because he was in full uniform and wearing a cap, she couldn’t see his hair, but his eyebrows and mustache were dark enough for her to assume his hair to be black. There was a tough look to his mouth and an intense, arrogant expression in his eyes. He was a young man who obviously thought a great deal of himself, and he reminded Bessie of a cousin on her father’s side who had died in his twenties—and Bruce Montague had been something of a bully.

Keeping her thoughts to herself, she handed the photograph back to Wallis. “What about his family, Wallis? You said they were Kansans.”