Rather than ask questions, those who loved her accepted the story they were fed and gave up on her. Publicly and privately. SOE files held no records of a search or questions posed over the following months and years, and her family effectively erased all memory of her.
In the early hours of the morning, mid-dream, Caro’s story became my own. If Dad was told something dreadful about me, like that memo relayed about my aunt, would he believe it? Would he never question, never search, never come for me? What about Mom? Sure, I’d told Mat they had shut down and shut me out, but wasn’t that mostly a reaction to loss and pain back then? Or was it now our true reality? Would they believe something harsh or hard today, figuratively wipe their hands of me, and be done?
I made my way to the attic room before Mat awoke. I wanted to revisit Margaret’s 1940 diary and Caro’s letters—alone. The cacophony in my head was too loud to invite another voice.
I had already marked everything within Caro’s and Margo’s writing I believed significant, but Mat was right. He had mentioned the night before that now knowing Caro was Rose changed everything. Reading again, we might catch more crumbs along her trail. He even wondered if Margo’s diary entries might prove more revelatory than Caro’s letters, as Caro could say things to her sister she might never commit to paper—but unknowingly Margo might.
I skimmed to the dairy entry on May 1, 1940, then slowed to absorb select entries, as that’s when things started to get interesting . . .
1 May 1940
Dear Beatrice,
Randolph came today, but not to see me. Usually we walk and talk alone when he comes for an evening, or when he stops by for a few hours on his way somewhere else. He doesn’t say where he is going anymore. But we still have a ritual. I ask where he’s been, he asks the same, then he teases me for my concerns here, and I tease him for having none out there. It’s all fantasy, but the banter feels good, normal, light, and fun. And he always brings me a gift—a book, a pen, a flower . . .
Today he barely waved at me as Trent showed him straight into Father’s study.
The door was cracked, yet there was little I could hear, despite arranging the flowers on the hall table for a full fifteen minutes!
I did hear he has a leave coming up and has convinced a buddy to drop him into France. My heart started racing and I stepped forward. My move brought me into Father’s line of sight so I had to retreat and missed the next few sentences. Then I caught . . .
“Tell that to my daughter.” By his tone, Father was speaking of Caro. I remembered that tone well. It was full of the notes once reserved only for me. It was derisive, almost to the point of mocking.
In that moment and in that tone, I finally recognized what Caro has been telling me for years. That tone is uniquely hers now—I’m not the one causing quarrels, chaos, and “challenges” anymore. I’m not the one he is set against.
“The window is closing, sir. She must listen now.” The urgency in Randolph’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.
Something more was said before a booming laugh sent me to the other side of the hall table. I thought their discussion had ended and they were coming toward me. “You do that, son, and you may just have the moxie to win the day.”
Whatever Randolph said, my father liked a great deal. Father has to be in very good humor to pull out his “American slang,” as he calls it.
I shoved the last flower back into the vase as Randolph pulled the door fully open. “Eavesdropping, Moo?”
Silly as it is, that old nickname, now shortened from Margo Moo to simply Moo, still makes my heart flutter.
“Practicing reconnaissance.” I smiled. I heard the note of flirtation in my voice and ducked my head, hoping he hadn’t caught it and terrified he did. What a fool I am.
When I looked up, his face was mobile again, relaxed. Whatever had upset him, the conversation with Father cured it. As playful as ever, he pulled me into a hug. “Carry on, Moo. No going rogue and turning spy. We need you to keep us on the straight and narrow.” He kissed my forehead. “Drive safely.”
I can still smell him. He is the most wonderful mixture of peppermint and spice soap. His is sharper than the shaving soap Father uses. I can’t put my finger on what it is. I only know I will never forget it. I can’t . . . I still have a bowl of it from when Caro and I stole it from his bathroom during a long-ago visit. We were fourteen that summer. He was eighteen. I’d die if anyone ever found that little bowl now. Such a silly treasure I’ve made of it. Does my absurdity know no bounds?
“Drive?” I called after him. “How did you know I transferred to the motor pool?”
He turned and winked. “I keep my eye on you.”
I love that he does, Beatrice. He always has. I just wish he wouldn’t keep such a close eye on Caro.
I’ve tried to let this go. Goodness knows, it’s been six years . . . Six years? That’s a very long time. I hadn’t thought of that. Six years and they’ve gone no further. No engagement. No marriage. Could it be over?
Caro declared she’d marry him at eighteen. We’re almost twenty-two and she hasn’t come home for him and, as far as I know, he hasn’t asked her to. He hasn’t proposed. He visits her in Paris when there for work, but he would visit me if I lived abroad. Maybe—
“Randolph,” I called after him.
He heard the panic in my voice and was back to me in four quick strides. “What’s wrong?”
“I . . . I . . .” I had no idea what to say, what to ask. It was out of the question to simply ask, “Are you still in love with my sister?” So instead I settled for, “Please be careful out there.”
His eyes curl into half-moons when he smiles. It’s extraordinary. With a small genuine smile and a sigh that tipped toward a moan, he pulled me close again. He folded me completely within his arms, tucking me tight. “No worrying about me. If you do, I’ll have to start worrying about you worrying about me and—”
“Vicious cycle. Yes, I know.”
He kissed my forehead again and left. This time I watched him go, saying nothing more.
He’s twenty-six, Beatrice. It’s time for him to marry. Randolph is caring, relational, and he needs someone to love and someone to love him.
And yet . . . Perhaps it’s not that he doesn’t love Caro but that he fears marriage. Frederick is such a horrid matrimonial model. In fact, Adele has been awarded a decree nisi. It doesn’t mean they’ll finalize their divorce, but it probably means Frederick should stop his affair with Maribelle Cummings. My bet is he won’t—he’s just like their father. And yet Randolph did always worship that reprobate—both of them.
Or maybe it’s the war. How can one consider marriage in a world like this? We are in such an odd, terrifying place right now and I doubt life will ever return to the cadence we once knew—the safety and comfort I confess that I believed would last forever. And to make it worse, I feel as though we haven’t really begun this war at all . . .