Even with bombs raining down upon London each night, I would have gone to her. If asked. And I telephoned the London House fourteen times.
Yet despite her cold silence and indifference, she asks me for a favor now. Eight days late, she finally telephoned tonight, but rather than open with an apology, she opened with a demand.
“I just talked to George and he’s furious, Margo. He came by the London House when I was sick. I didn’t know. I had told him I was coming home for our birthday, but then he spoke to you and learned I wasn’t at Parkley, and now . . . he thinks I lied. Will you talk to him?”
“You did lie.”
“I meant to come home, then I got sick. It was an accident, a misunderstanding, not a lie. He says after he talked to you, he came to the house and banged on the door.”
“I telephoned you as well. Fourteen times, Caro. You didn’t hear anything?”
“There’s a war going on, Margo.” She huffed. “Besides, the telephone at the house has been out for almost two weeks. I’m telephoning you from work. Talk to him, please. Do this for me. It’s important. He’ll listen to you. He’ll believe you.” She paused, yet I refused to acquiesce. “He wants to marry me, Margo.”
My heart bounced up, then dropped straight through me. I glanced to the carpet fully expecting to see it splatted there. “What did you say?” I breathlessly asked her to repeat her statement, certain I couldn’t have heard it right. But she misunderstood and continued on—sure I had.
“I didn’t say anything, because he didn’t ask. He said he had wanted to marry me, but now he’s not sure . . . I thought we were getting through all that . . . You have to talk to him, Margo. He’s not listening to me. He doesn’t trust easily, but he trusts you. He always has.”
That dagger struck deep.
“Trust . . . I can’t lie for you.”
“Margo,” she barked. “I won’t take that from you. Either you will help me or you won’t, but you know I love him and I would never cheat on him.”
That brought me up short, Beatrice. She said she would never cheat on him, not that she didn’t lie to him—or to me. I’ve noticed Caro has become careful with language that way.
That said, I know she wouldn’t cheat. We are cut from the same cloth. We are loyal. Why she lied, I have no idea, and such a silly lie. Because she does love Randolph. I see it every time she mentions his name. She glows. It’s so cliché to say that, but clichés are born from truths.
“I love you, Moo, and I’m sorry. There’s a lot I can’t tell you, or him,” she whispered over the line. I closed my eyes. As soon as Randolph had started calling me that, she joined in. Always with affection.
It never fails to wound.
“I love you too.” I pushed out the words.
“You’ll talk to him?”
“If I see him, yes.”
“Thank you. I must go now. It’s almost curfew and I need to race home.” She hung up.
I’m afraid for her. Something isn’t right. She never planned to come home. If she had, she would have telephoned me in advance to talk of plans and treats. She didn’t.
And I don’t believe she was sick.
She lied. But why?
Twenty-Eight
I laid down the book and backtracked over lost time. Margaret had written nothing in her diary between the May of Caro’s return in 1940 and the following November, six full months of lost time and two months after Caro joined the ISRB.
For a split second it surprised me. Margo had started her diaries in 1928 barely writing anything and always apologizing to her fictional “Beatrice” for her failure. But by 1940 she had hit her stride and recorded much of the world around her on a regular basis. What had happened?
I cast back to Caro’s May letter, and to George.
Margaret answered my question—sometimes writing helps one heal, and other times it opens the wound. I suspected that she hurt so much after Caro’s May letter and subsequent visit she couldn’t bring herself to commit anything to paper.
That meant anything important from the summer of ’40 and Caro’s initial months at the ISRB came directly from her. If crumbs were to be found, it was because she had purposely dropped each and every one . . .
London House
30 July 1940
Dear Margo,
London is too hot, too hard, and beyond quiet. All I want to do is cry. I want to hang my head in shame and cry. That’s not doing my bit, I’m fully aware, but . . . I didn’t realize how weak I truly am. I was so full of fire when I landed in Hastings. All that’s gone now.
And I’ve been a fool. All those platitudes—“Fashion is politics.” Bollocks!
I claimed it had meaning, substance, and power. I drank it in, believed it, even as rations were cut and Jews I knew and loved fled. I still believed I was doing the right thing and taking a stand. With silk and buttons? Buttons fashioned like birds, bugs, swimmers, butterflies, and zodiac signs? What the hell was I thinking?
I’m in a typing pool now. I can’t tell you where, and I may be transferring soon. At least I want to. There’s a new group forming that could use me—and maybe my fashion acumen. I’m kidding. No one has a use for that these days.
You should be proud to be in the ATS, by the way. I was recording the minutes in a meeting today—don’t worry, it wasn’t classified—and they talked about how brave the ATS women were. Did you know some of them—some of you—were the last to leave Dunkirk? ATS women worked the beaches with the troops, bombs and bullets cutting through them. I got a ride west, caught a train and safe passage home—all secured by Ambassador Campbell weeks earlier.
That’s why I feel like a coward, Margo. Everything I hear makes me realize how privileged I am and how little I saw. My version of reality was not reality. It was nowhere close to reality—and probably still isn’t.
This house is what I deserve—and even it is a beautifully gilded cage. Father refuses to unboard the windows, but I don’t mind. My large, dark prison feels appropriate. Mr. and Mrs. Coffey moved out to Richmond to be with family, but one of them comes in most days on the train. I’m not sure exactly what they are protecting me from. Loneliness? Starvation from my own cooking? Germs from my poor cleaning? Or perhaps I have that wrong and they are protecting the London House from me.
I remember how you wrote about the children leaving. I didn’t understand how that would feel. My reply to you was so pragmatic and rational—patronizing really. You must have despised me.