'And the infantry?'
'No car keys. They collect all the keys and label 'em the night before, and the general has 'em under lock and key.
Air Vice-Marshal Rushworth was a tall, very thin, stooping old man, with washed-out blue eyes and short, untidy grey hair that stood up at the back as though he had allowed it to dry in the wrong position and had forgotten to brush it.
As soon as he had established to his own satisfaction that Audley was who he claimed to be he gestured him into the long, shadowy hall of Bridge House with curious jerky movements of a hand the fingers of which were crooked into a permanent arthritic claw, fussy imprecise movements which made it difficult to imagine that the same hand, strong dummy5
and supple with youth, had once wrestled a bomb-laden Lancaster into the air.
'Up the stairs, up the stairs . . . right to the top, right to the top—door in front of you, straight in front of you, white door, brass handle—waiting for you there. Ringside view, too.'
Audley wasn't sure what 'ringside view' meant, but that would no doubt reveal itself beyond the white door. In the meantime he had the young constable's courteous example to guide him.
'It's extremely good of you to give us house-room, Air Marshal.' He paused with one foot on the bottom stair.
'We're very grateful.'
With an effort the Air Vice-Marshal straightened up and looked Audley in the eye. 'No need to be. Been thanked already—by a pretty girl too, what's more. And I expect Tommy will send me a proper bread-and-butter letter on expensive notepaper in his own good time . . . which reminds me: there's a plate of sandwiches up there if you haven't had any lunch, granddaughter cut them. And a few bottles of beer ... but you tell Tommy it isn't necessary —save the cost of a stamp, and God knows they cost enough now. . . . No need at all, glad to be of service for a change. Besides, makes life more exciting—battle outside and cloak and dagger inside—
real cloak and dagger too, by golly.' He cackled briefly at whatever the joke was and then waved the claw again upwards. 'Don't keep them waiting —up you go. Right to the top, remember —white door straight in front of you.'
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Audley fled up the stairs. The Brigadier's Christian name was Thomas, yet he had never in his life heard anyone refer to him as 'Tommy'. Even Sir Frederick, in moments of rare camaraderie, had never gone further than 'Tom', but presumably the Air Marshal dated from some unimaginable time when the Brigadier was a pink and scrubbed subaltern.
Always supposing it had been the Brigadier who had pulled the string and opened this particular white door with the brass handle. But whoever it was, it was a piece of 'old boy'
expertise such as Audley loved and admired. Good for Tommy, whoever he was!
Bridge House was lovely, the more so as he climbed: up from the coolness of the hall to the light of the first- floor landing, white doors everywhere and sunshine streaming in through the tall windows. For a moment he felt quite euphoric, with the warmth and the whiteness and the good omens—and the intelligence that Brigadier Stocker had once been 'young Tommy' to everyone, and still was to someone.
Then the shallowness of the euphoria steadied him.
Arrogance was his besetting sin, he knew, because those who loved him were always warning him against it— arrogance that was fathered on pride by boredom. But arrogance had never betrayed him, all the same; it had been his passion for secrecy which had come closest to doing that, half a dozen years or more back, in the aftermath of the June War. And if that was another great sin it was at least the occupational sin of his work—and he had paid for it in full over the years since dummy5
then.
But what threatened him now was smug self-satisfaction, which wasn't so much a decent, God-fearing sin as a mean little weakness. His battle hadn't even started, and he was already trying Cromwell's hat for size when he ought to be worrying about his feet fitting Colonel Sir Edward Whitelocke's boots.
White door, brass handle.
It was the playroom—and the children were playing in it.
Children in fancy dress, under the disapproving eye of their tutor.
Grown-up children.
What hit him first was their beauty: they were both beautiful as they never had been before.
Paul Mitchell was a good-looking young man, he had always known that, though without remarking on it. But Paul Mitchell the cavalier, in loose light-rust tunic and dark-rust breeches, with exquisite cobwebs of white lace cascading over his shoulders, at his wrists and even falling over the tops of his soft-leather calf-length boots, wide yellow taffeta scarf at his waist and broad-brimmed hat, ostrich-plumed, on his flowing hair—this Paul Mitchell took his breath away.
This Paul Mitchell was beautiful.
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And Frances—
Where Mitchell was a blaze of colour and elegance, all velvet and lace and embroidery, Frances Fitzgibbon was total severity, starched white cap and collar, cut square and sharp, and a voluminous black gown censoring every curve beneath it.
And yet Frances too was beautiful now; and also in a new way which suited her as the old way had never done.
Which suited her—
That was it, of course: they were not dressed up at all, any more than they were children at all—for all that
