The Whispers of War Read online

  “Clearly not, and this time he’s grown a mustache and dyed his hair raven’s-wing black,” said Hazel.

  Tales of the Repeater had been a staple of their monthly suppers since the man had first shown up at the door of the Mayfair Matrimonial Agency, where Hazel worked as a matchmaker. The third son of a baronet with impeccable breeding but a serious deficiency of funds, the Repeater at first had seemed promising enough that Hazel suggested Nora might give him a go. Nora had laughed it off—just as she did all of Hazel’s matchmaking suggestions—and a good thing, too. Hazel soon learned that no matter whom she matched him with, the woman would never be good enough. The lady would be too talkative, too tall, too rosy-cheeked, too blond, too made-up, too stupid, too well read. The Repeater was impossible to please.

  “If you tell me that you’ve set him up again, I’ll walk straight out of this bar,” said Nora.

  “Then it’s been lovely seeing you, because I’m determined to find him a Mrs. Repeater,” said Hazel, her eyes narrowing at the thought of solving the puzzle of her troublesome client. “Although at this point I’m suspicious that he’s mostly interested in watching me jump through hoops like a trained circus poodle.”

  “Perhaps he keeps coming back because of you,” suggested Marie.

  Her friend scowled. “You say that every time I mention a difficult client.”

  “And yet you still don’t believe us,” said Marie.

  “Even after that grocer with two stores in Fulham who proposed with a cut-glass sapphire ring,” said Nora. “You said he wouldn’t stop telling you about his plans to expand his empire with you by his side.”

  “Oh, stop teasing me. I have Nathaniel. I’m happy,” said Hazel with a sniff.

  Marie caught Nora’s eye, but neither said a word.

  “Well, God help the poor girl who ends up with the Repeater, whomever she is,” muttered Nora, adjusting her steel-rimmed glasses before taking a sip of her gimlet.

  “Do you know, it’s funny, with all of this talk of war you would think that business would be slowing down. Instead, it’s never been better. I had three new clients at the agency today,” said Hazel.

  “Anyone interesting?” asked Marie.

  Hazel scrunched up her nose in thought. “One. A widower. Actually, Nora, you might know him. His late wife’s family runs with your mother’s set.”

  “That is not necessarily a recommendation. What is his name?” asked Nora.

  “You know I don’t share names,” said Hazel.

  “What are Marie and I going to do with his name?” Nora argued back. “Plus, if I do know him, I might be able to help.”

  Hazel sighed. “Mr. Richard Calloway.”

  Nora cocked her head in thought. “It doesn’t ring any bells.”

  “What happened to Mr. Calloway’s wife?” asked Marie.

  “Cancer. He didn’t go into too much detail, but it all sounds very tragic,” said Hazel.

  “Poor man,” said Marie.

  “He’s good-looking in a quiet, elegant sort of way. Smart, too. A civil engineer,” said Hazel.

  “Like Onkel Albrecht,” said Marie.

  “Precisely,” said Hazel. “I think he’s going to be one of the considered ones. Hard to place, but when he knows, he’ll know.”

  “That’s better than jumping into things feetfirst, I suppose,” said Nora.

  “If you’re interested…”

  Nora scowled at Hazel. “Don’t you dare.”

  Hazel sighed. “I wish you would let me match you up. Either of you.”

  “Not a chance,” said Nora with a firm shake of her head.

  “Marie?” Hazel asked hopefully. “You know, I won’t simply pair you up with just anyone. I am actually quite good at my job.”

  “You know we think you’re a smashing matchmaker,” said Nora. “It’s my skills as a prospective wife you should worry about. I’m hardly at home because I’m usually at the Home Office—”

  “Working too hard for a boss who doesn’t really appreciate you?” Hazel filled in sweetly.

  Now it was Nora’s turn to scowl. “All I’m saying is that I’m hardly domesticated myself. How could I possibly be expected to keep a husband?”

  “A husband is not a dog. It isn’t as though you’d need to walk him every day,” said Hazel.

  Nora shrugged. “Still.”

  “Marie?” asked Hazel.

  “Oh, no, thank you,” she said in a rush.

  “Why not?” Hazel pushed.

  “I—”

  “Maybe she already has a man in mind,” Nora teased.

  Marie’s mouth opened then shut again. Was she that transparent? She couldn’t lie to her friends, but there were things she kept from them—little bits of herself she wasn’t yet ready to share—and Neil was one of them.

  “Don’t worry, Marie. You needn’t tell a soul until you’re ready,” said Hazel, leaning over to pat her arm.

  “There’s no one,” Marie insisted before realizing she was fussing with the hem of her skirt for no good reason.

  “Mm-hmm. Marie’s the kind of dark horse who won’t tell us that she’s seeing a fellow until two weeks before there’s a ring on her finger,” said Nora.

  “And you’re the kind who would telephone the day before her wedding and invite everyone around without letting them know what the celebration is for,” Marie shot back.

  Nora pointed to herself. “I’m not planning a trip to the altar, remember.”

  Hazel slumped dramatically into her chair. “I don’t know why I bother.”

  “Frankly, darling,” said Nora, “neither do we.”

  three

  The mornings were Marie’s favorite time of day. Rising an hour earlier than anyone else in the family, she could pretend that she had the flat to herself, except for Frau Hafner, who came before any of them awoke. Her aunt and uncle’s housekeeper would set out toast and pale yellow butter for Marie along with the tall, chipped stoneware coffeepot that radiated comforting heat. Even after years of school breakfasts and teas while boarding at Ethelbrook, Marie couldn’t understand the British devotion to the insipid brown water that was tea.

  Steam curled up off the coffee as she poured it into her cup. A twinge of guilt gripped her, as it did every morning. Her aunt and uncle lived a comfortable life, although it didn’t touch the grandeur that Nora had given up when she’d left the family home after her father’s death. Still, Marie knew that if Neil ever found out that the Müllers employed a housekeeper to cook and clean five days a week, he’d disapprove.

  So when Marie left her aunt and uncle’s home every day, she became a different woman. No longer was she the devoted niece who had spent months helping Tante Matilda work intricate lace for the antimacassars that covered the sofa and armchairs in the sitting room of their Bloomsbury flat. She became Marie the university secretary, and every other Monday, she would take the bus to Tottenham and become Marie the comrade. That version of herself could walk into a party meeting next to Neil, shoulders back and head held high. That Marie felt special.

  Neil had asked her twice before she’d agreed to attend her first meeting of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Even then she wouldn’t have said yes if it hadn’t been for Anna, the secretary to the Russian Department. Her offices were just two doors down from the German Department, which Marie kept running in perfect order. Anna often came along for a chat at midmorning, cigarette hanging from her long fingers and cup of coffee in her other hand. But for all that Marie liked Anna, her friend enjoyed stirring the pot just because she could.

  Anna had been leaning against Marie’s desk, speaking with great authority on the “reducing” effect of cigarettes, when Neil walked out of Herr Gunter’s office. As the graduate student who showed the most promise and seemed most likely to obtain the one vacant role in the department after completing his dissertation, Neil had the run of the place. The way he swaggered into the offices might’ve repelled Marie, except that she found herself drawn to th
e sheer charisma of him. At some point, she finally admitted to Anna that he was handsome. Anna had teased her but agreed, and Marie had felt a squeeze of jealousy in her chest.

  On that day, he stopped in front of Marie’s desk, his hip leaning against the edge of the pressed wood. “Do you want to come see me speak tonight?”

  “Speak?” Anna asked.

  “At a meeting of the CPGB—sorry, the Communist Party of Great Britain,” said Neil.

  “I know what the CPGB is,” said Anna, flicking a bit of ash into the tray Marie kept on the far corner of her desk.

  “It’s just a party meeting, not a rally, but I could use the moral support all the same.” Neil grinned down at her. “I’ve been asking Marie to come with me for months, but she always says no.”

  “Is that right?” Anna asked, casting her a sly look.

  “It isn’t the easiest thing to get away on a Monday night,” Marie protested.

  “I think what’s really the matter is that her aunt and uncle disapprove of radical politics,” Neil told Anna.

  He was right, but that didn’t make Marie any less annoyed when Anna’s eyes narrowed—a sure sign she was about to do something mortifying.

  “I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Müller wouldn’t mind if you were to attend meetings of the Women’s Institute. Such a good Christian organization,” said Anna.

  Marie stared at her. “You want me to lie to my aunt and uncle?”

  Anna shrugged. “People do it all the time.”

  That might be the case, but Marie didn’t. Not to Tante Matilda and Onkel Albrecht. How could she risk their disappointment, when they had done so much for her? They’d given her a home, a family, a life here in London. They’d welcomed her to stay when nothing waited for her back in Germany but empty days and hollow disappointment.

  “I couldn’t lie to them,” said Marie.

  Neil laughed. “You sound horrified, kleine Maus.”

  Little mouse. It was the sort of endearment a man might bestow on his girlfriend—or a parent on a child. But there was something about hearing him say it that made her believe that maybe one day he, Neil Havitt, prodigy of Herr Gunter and one of Royal Imperial University’s bright stars, might see her as something other than the department’s diminutive secretary.

  “I’ll go.”

  Neil and Anna looked at her. “What will you tell your aunt and uncle?” he asked.

  She pressed her lips together, unsure of whether he was teasing her or not. “I will think of something.”

  “What about you, Anna?” he asked.

  Anna’s glaze flicked between Marie and Neil, and then she blew a stream of smoke out of the corner of her mouth. “Another time, maybe. I’m engaged this Monday.”

  “Then it will just be Marie watching, and I’ll consider myself a lucky man,” he said with a wink for Marie. He’d strolled off to the office he shared with another graduate student, leaving Anna holding back her laughter.

  Faced with her commitment to Neil, Marie had, in fact, told her aunt and uncle the fib about the Women’s Institute. It was so little a lie that it wouldn’t hurt them, she’d rationalized. Tante Matilda had been delighted Marie had decided to join the thoroughly respectable group of do-gooder women, which had made Marie’s stomach clench, but she smiled through the discomfort. On the following Monday evening, she’d met Neil for the bus to Tottenham.

  The party meeting had been a crush of people, all greeting each other and chatting. He seemed to know everyone and introduced her around as she hung close to his side until it was time for the speeches.

  Neil had spoken fourth out of a lineup of six and had come off the stage wearing a light sheen of sweat on his brow and a triumphant glow.

  “How was it?” he asked, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “You were brilliant,” she said, although in truth his speech had been shorter than she’d expected. She was so used to Neil, the apple of the German Department’s eye, that she’d been a little disappointed when he hadn’t been the main speaker.

  But before she could examine that thought any further, he’d leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, pausing long enough to say quietly, “Thank you, kleine Maus.”

  She’d let him persuade her to come to the next meeting two weeks later, and then the next. That had been four months ago.

  A door creaked open somewhere in the flat as Marie spread butter on a roll. She sat up a little straighter. Then the dining room door swung open and she relaxed again. It was only Henrik.

  “Why do you always wake up so early?” her cousin asked in German, squinting in the glare of the overhead lights that lit the room.

  “Good morning to you, too,” she said, watching him drop into his chair with a wince. “Do you have a hangover?” She clacked her cup hard on its saucer.

  Sure enough, he winced again and rubbed his forehead. “Not so loud.”

  Marie rolled her eyes but said, “Here,” and lifted the heavy coffeepot, pulled his cup closer, and poured. “Drink this.”

  He gripped his cup so tightly it was a wonder the handle didn’t snap off, and drained it. Then he extended it expectantly. With a sigh, she refilled it.

  “Where is Frau Hafner?” Henrik asked, slumping back in his chair.

  “Probably in the kitchen, where she usually is at this time of day.”

  He waved a hand before him. “And where’s my breakfast? What’s the use of a housekeeper if she doesn’t do her job?”

  “Frau Hafner isn’t a mind reader, Henrik. She likely didn’t know that you would be up this early.”

  “This is breakfast time, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “It is for most people.” This was the first time she’d seen Henrik at breakfast in weeks.

  As though summoned by his surliness, Frau Hafner pushed through the door, holding a plate in one hand and a pot of jam in another. The housekeeper’s eyes fell on him, and she stopped short. “Herr Henrik, good morning.”

  “I want breakfast,” he said.

  Frau Hafner’s nod was wooden as she set down the plate in front of Marie. “I will bring you something now.”

  “Thank you,” Marie murmured, and the housekeeper laid a gentle hand on her shoulder that seemed to say, He is a burden we all must carry.

  Marie turned her attention back to Henrik. He had stolen a slice of toast off of her plate and was crunching on it.

  “Are you going to work today?” she asked.

  “It’s Monday, isn’t it?” he shot back.

  She leaned on the table. “It really is fortunate that you work under your father, Henrik. Who else would tolerate you showing up late on a Monday morning stinking of schnapps?”

  “I don’t stink of schnapps,” he said. But then he gave the air a sniff. “I will bathe before I go.”

  “What exactly were you doing yesterday evening?”

  “I was out with like-minded men,” he muttered.

  Drunken fools who like the sound of their own voices is more like it, she thought, but kept her opinion to herself. They’d had this quarrel before, and it wouldn’t be very long until Henrik would snarl and remind her that she was his cousin, not his sister, and therefore a guest in this house no matter how long she’d been living there.

  She sighed and pulled the folded newspaper set at her uncle’s place toward her. All she could see of the main headline was “Britain to—”

  “Should you be touching that?” he asked.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s my father’s.”

  Her gaze flicked up, but Henrik’s head was turned, making his expression difficult to read.

  “Onkel Albrecht encourages me to read the paper. He says it’s best that we all know what is happening in the world. He doesn’t trust Hitler,” she said.

  That earned her a grunt and nothing else.

  An only child, she’d wished for a sibling, and she’d briefly hoped Henrik might fill that role. Instead, her cousin mostly treated her with contempt or simply i
gnored her. Once, when he was twelve and she was fourteen, he’d stolen Frau Hafner’s tin of cooking oil and dumped the entire thing over Marie’s bed while she was shopping with her aunt for Christmas presents. The oil had destroyed the mattress, bedding, and Marie’s suitcase that had been sitting next to the bed. That had been the one time Marie had ever heard Onkel Albrecht yell at the boy, and Henrik had spent all of the holiday sulking in his room.

  Accepting that she would never have an easy way with her cousin, she’d instead clung to her sisterhood with Nora and Hazel.

  She folded her napkin and pushed back from the table. “I should finish getting ready.” She left, but not before unfolding her uncle’s paper so she could see the full headline: “Britain to Germany: We Stand by Poland.”

  * * *

  “Our cause is the cause of the people. We must do everything we can to quell the spread of fascism across Europe. It is time for the people to rise up—rise up against the fascist state that has infected Germany!”

  The hall exploded into applause as the barrel-chested man who had barked his speech for the last hour brought his remarks to a thunderous close. Marie watched him clutch the podium and look out over the crowd before him with the satisfied expression of a man who knew his command over the public.

  The woman sitting next to Marie nudged her and shouted over the applause, “You’ll write to your friends and family in Germany, won’t you? Tell them that we are with them.”

  Marie started, but Neil leaned over her, his hands still clapping. “Of course she will. Marie is as dedicated to the cause as any of us.”

  The woman gave a satisfied nod and returned to her adulation of the speaker.

  “Neil,” Marie whispered to him.

  He shrugged. “We all have to do what we can, Marie. I’ve told you, it isn’t just about attending meetings.”

  She bit her lip. She was doing more than attending meetings. He, more than anyone else, should know that.

  After her first two visits to CPGB meetings, Neil had asked her to look over one of his speeches before he delivered it the following week. He’d probably thought she would just read it and hand it back to him with morale-boosting praise, but as she’d been sitting at her desk it had seemed natural to reach for a pencil. She’d marked up the text, scribbling suggestions in the margins and swapping out phrases with ones she thought would have more impact. He had the ideas, but the execution had been… well, she had been sure he’d simply had an off day.