She is keeping something from me and it’s not good. She’s pale, withdrawn, fidgety, and skittish. She doesn’t light up when I mention Randolph. Yes, I’m that desperate to reach her—I mention Randolph frequently.
I thought that in coming to London we could break through whatever is wrong. We would have long evenings to talk and it would be like I’d imagined when we were young—the two of us striking out on life together.
What na?veté . . .
Just as Caro couldn’t understand England while in France, I failed to understand London from Derbyshire. I was fully aware of the facts—the bombs, the crime, the rations, and the quiet. I knew no children played there or lived there. I knew sandbags covered the entrances to buildings and Underground stations were converted to bomb shelters last year. Yet nothing prepared me for the reality of it. It has probably been three years since I visited London last. I didn’t recognize it or myself within it.
The London House looks sad and forlorn. It is no more so than any other house on the street, but that surprised me as well. All the windows are either blacked out or boarded shut. Only Caro’s bedroom has the thick blackout drapes that she can open and close.
But the house still stands and that’s something. A bomb hit one block over last month. Half of three homes slid like a rubble waterfall into the street. Caro said it quaked the neighborhood so badly her head hurt for a day after.
She led me down to the kitchen upon our arrival. We were both cold and wanted tea. The London House’s kitchen isn’t a single room. It’s a mass of tiny ones I recalled as being warm, lit, and full of life when we were young. They are grim, dark, and silent now.
“Since it’s just me”—Caro passed straight through the main kitchen to a smaller one at the back of the house—“I only use this servants’ kitchen and my bedroom. I haven’t opened any other room because I basically flop into bed as soon as I get home each night.”
She pulled a teakettle off the most massive table I’ve ever seen. It could seat at least sixteen people. She laughed as I marveled at it.
“Have you never seen this? It’s where the staff used to cook and eat. Mrs. Coffey thinks they built the house around it.”
“She still comes?” I questioned, remembering the kind woman who used to hide treats for us in the library.
“Once a week to clean and make sure I’m still alive. She always brings me a pie that lasts a few nights. Mostly vegetable with a potato crust, but a little meat now and then.”
“That’s hardly enough. You can’t live like this.” We’ve never fended for ourselves.
Caro gave me a small, almost mysterious smile. “You’d be shocked at how little you need to survive.”
I wanted to call her bluff. How could we know how little one truly needed? When have we ever been deprived? In our world, such talk is as tasteless as it is disingenuous. But I kept myself from commenting as I wasn’t talking about surviving. In that instant, I realized I was thinking about comfort. Comfort, Parkley still afforded.
I almost said as much, but something in Caro’s eyes stopped me—an awareness I had never seen before. I realized Caro knows of a world I do not. She actually may know something of deprivation and survival after all.
“What aren’t you tell—” I only got that far before she cut me off with a sharp slice of her hand. The discussion was over before it began as Caro busied herself making a weak tea and chatting nonsense.
That night, curled together in her huge bed, I broached the subject again. “What are you hiding, Caro?”
She turned my question back on me. “I was going to ask you the same thing. In this last year, you’ve gone away.”
There were many things to say and maybe, if I had the courage, pure truth could have been ours. But I shrank from it once more.
“I didn’t go anywhere. That’s just it. I stayed.” I arched away from her to see her more clearly. “You keep saying I stepped away from my true self, but I didn’t. Yes, I got scared. I almost died, Caro, and it scared me enough to finally recognize what I had and who I had, and it was enough. I grew up and stopped chasing every rainbow.”
Caro swiped at her eyes like she used to do. “They thought you would—die, that is. Not quit chasing your rainbows. They sent me away. They didn’t let me say goodbye.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be, and I’m not angry anymore. But I can’t deny it happened and that it changed everything. I felt guilty and sad, and then just angry. I’ve been angry for so long now . . . But perhaps that was the plan all along. You are where you need to be and I’m doing what I can.”
I gripped her hand. “You told Father you were going to Scotland, to Arisaig to scout fabrics. There’s more you can do. Rejoin the ATS here in London, come serve in Derbyshire. Parkley has just been commissioned for the Army. We will have lots to do. Come help us.”
“I can’t. Please understand.” Caro’s fingers traced the quilt’s counterpane as if counting the stitches. “You’d be surprised at how important a working zipper and sturdy canvas are to an army.” I sensed the smile in her voice, the secret, and the lie.
She scooted closer. “I need you to believe in me, Margo. Now. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.” I wrapped my arms around her.
She spoke, her head resting against mine. “I’ll be gone for a month and there may be more trips throughout this year as the Army implements uniform changes. Please don’t let Father go sideways about all this. Trust that what I am doing is right and important, and defend me. Can you do that?”
She had asked the same question twice. What was she really asking?
Caro twisted to search my face. She needed an answer.
“Yes. Of course.”
She nodded as if committing my answer to memory. And, rather than feel like everything was clear or assured between us, I felt the gulf open wider.
London House
16 June 1941
Dear Margo,
Martine wrote from Paris last week. I don’t even know how she gets her letters out, but I suspect she employs Schiap’s connections. Word had it that, at some point, Schiap was even using the diplomatic mail of the German ambassador to Vichy France, Otto Abetz, to get her missives out. Then again, Bettina’s husband is in the Nazi ranks. Maybe he’s helping Schiap.
Either way, Schiap or Bettina would have Martine’s head if they knew what she wrote . . .
I shouldn’t, but I have to tell you. I can’t keep this horror inside. Writing it somehow lessens the pain.
élisabeth de Rothschild came to a showing a couple weeks ago and some stupid girl now working at the salon signed her death warrant. The girl either didn’t realize de Rothschild converted to Judaism when she married or she purposely sat her next to Abetz’s wife out of spite. De Rothschild moved seats.
Martine said she didn’t make a fuss about it; she simply got up and quietly moved. But the offense was noted, a warrant issued, and now she’s been arrested.