Mr.Churchill's Secretary(7)
“I didn’t realize it was going to be so much like Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary for Girls.”
John looked over; his eyes, Maggie noticed, were rimmed with shadows. “Sorry?”
“Never mind. You had to be there.”
“Oh, the Tinzer is all right once you get used to her,” David said, “and it’s Number Ten Downing Street—what did you expect?”
“It’s fine, really,” Maggie said with bravado she didn’t necessarily feel. “I know I can keep up with the work, it’s just a matter of learning the ropes.”
“Let’s take you to the Rose and Crown to celebrate your first day,” David said as they strolled down Birdcage Walk bordering St. James’s Park, the Gothic arches and towers of Westminster Abbey visible in the distance. The area, with the Foreign Office, the Treasury, the Houses of Parliament, and the Horse Guards Parade, was one of arched importance, exuding both pomposity and grace.
Maggie always loved Monet’s paintings of the Houses of Parliament, which she’d seen at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston—the Gothic arches in the different lights of morning, late afternoon, and sunset. As they made their way along the park, she caught a glimpse of the Houses’ peaks, towers, and pinnacles. She thought they looked more like a fairy-tale castle than Buckingham Palace ever could. And it was easy to imagine Peter Pan and Wendy flying past the clock tower on their way to Neverland.
In the thick green grass of the park, set precariously near the sidewalk, a nest of seven newly hatched ducklings lay on the ground, brown and soft and breathing in unison. A protective mother duck waddled nearby, gazing balefully in warning at those passing. From its dark pagoda on high, Big Ben gave seven low mournful chimes through the fading saffron sunset.
“Merciful Minerva, I could use a drink,” David said. “And Paige has us under strict orders to bring you along so we can celebrate.”
Maggie smiled and linked her arm through his. “Well, we can’t disappoint Paige, now, can we?”
They walked the cobblestoned side streets of Westminster, past sandbagged Victorian government buildings, black-painted corner pubs, bone-colored Georgian homes turning violet in the dying twilight. Maggie loved the sense of collapsed time that permeated the twisted streets, where the clip-clop of horses’ hooves could still be heard. The air smelled of the salty Thames, car exhaust, and horse dung. In the growing darkness of the blackout it was easy for time to wash away and to imagine London several millennia ago, when it was just a cluster of huts along the banks of the river Thames, faces of ancient Britons painted blue.
The last rays of sunset illuminated the exterior of the Rose and Crown. Although the pub’s blackout curtains obscured the lamps within and the windows were taped in large crosses, when David opened the door, golden light spilled out, along with the sounds of laughter, music, and the clatter of glasses. Inside, the smell of spilled stout mingled with cigarette smoke. Men in uniform on leave and women in spring dresses like colorful blossoms shouted over the dull roar.
“Cometh the crisis, cometh the crowd,” John muttered.
Scanning the throng, Maggie saw Paige at a worn wooden booth in the back, waving frantically.
“Hello! Hello!” Paige exclaimed over the din as they all sat down at the wooden booth with her. Her voice was childlike and breathless. “David, John,” she said, angling her cheek to be kissed by each man. “Do you like my new hat? And, Maggie—love the outfit. How was your first day?”
Maggie hugged Paige, who was wearing Joy—jasmine and roses. Her nails were long, perfect ovals impeccably painted with one of the increasingly rare Elizabeth Arden reds Maggie knew Paige kept on her dresser.
Behind them, Chuck and her beau, Nigel Ludlow, threaded their way through the crowd. Paige waved them both over.
“Well, they didn’t fire me, that’s a good sign,” Maggie said, sliding over to give Chuck and Nigel some room, then reaching over and taking a sip of Paige’s shandy.
Chuck was coming from a shift at Great Ormond Street Hospital, wearing her usual serge trousers, battered shoes, and bottle-green cardigan pulled tight across her impressive breasts. Her brown bobbed hair was flattened by the exertions of the workday. She wore no lipstick, but a single string of pearls around her neck was a nod to femininity.
Nigel was a barrel-chested young man with ruddy cheeks and thick dark hair that flopped over one eye. He’d gone to Magdalen College at Oxford with John and David. He’d worked as a private secretary, as the others had, but for then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. When Chamberlain had stepped down, Nigel had revised his pacifist ideology, and was now in the process of joining the RAF. He was spending his last days in London with Chuck.