The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches (27 page)

Like Atlas, forced to put down the world from his shoulders
in order to fetch apples from his daughters, the Hesperides, Father would not likely have the heart to take it up again.

In the old legends, anyone who willingly took up the Earth upon their shoulders was doomed to carry it forever: a curse, it seemed, with no way out.

“All of this belonged to your mother,” Aunt Felicity said through the speaking tube, shouting to be heard above the roar of the engine, her voice coming through the tube in machine-gun bursts. “She loved it here. Nothing was more precious to her … than her home and her family. Harriet went away only because she had no other choice. It was a matter … of life and death. Not your life and death or mine … but that of
England
.… Do you understand?”

I nodded and looked out at the England that was beneath our wings.

“Your father had already been taken prisoner by the Japanese … but your mother was unaware of that … when she volunteered to go on a mission … which only she could accomplish successfully. She was … devastated at having to leave her three children in the care of others.”

Aunt Felicity’s words brought back barely recalled memories of being dressed and fed by strangers—a failed succession of nannies and governesses, none of whom, I later learned, had been Mary Poppins.

“But your mother knew her duty,” Aunt Felicity went on. “She was a de Luce … and the life of England was at stake.”

Behind and below us to the southwest, Buckshaw Halt was vanishing in the slight haze that had appeared, and I
remembered the words that Mr. Churchill had spoken to my father.

“She was England, damn it,”
he had said.

“She was more than that, Prime Minister,”
Father had replied.

Only now was I beginning to realize how
much
more.

Harriet had volunteered for the mission Dr. Kissing had spoken of in his so-called fairy tale: a mission to bring home to justice a traitor who had sold himself out, and England with him, to the Emperor of Japan.

“Under diplomatic immunity, she had made her way to Singapore,” Aunt Felicity continued, breaking into my thoughts, “where, unknown to her … your father was already attached to the Far East Combined Bureau. But before she could discover that … he was captured by the Japanese—on Christmas Day!—and thrown, with a handful of his staff, into Changi prison.”

Aunt Felicity’s voice came strangely to my ears, constricted to an insect buzz by the speaking tube. But her words were clear enough. Father had been imprisoned and Harriet was likely to be.

“At this crucial instant … the Japanese were still playing a double game. On the one hand, they had captured your father.… while at the same time, they were trying to demonstrate that they were … masters of the world. They even took your mother on a guided tour of the prison … at Changi … to show off to her the British officers they had in custody. She was to carry the word back to London … and the War Office would capitulate at once. Such was their thinking. Sheer madness!”

My mind was as blurred as the spinning propeller. How could this whole chapter of my family’s history have taken place without my suspecting? It seemed impossible. Perhaps Dr. Kissing had been right: Perhaps it
was
a fairy tale.

“It was there … in that dreadful compound at Changi … that your parents were thrust suddenly and unexpectedly face-to-face—your mother being shown the prisoners who had been trotted out for her inspection … your father being taunted with the sight of an English visitor. Neither of them knew the other was in Singapore … but neither batted an eye.”

Oh, how it must have torn their hearts
, I thought.
How killing it must have been to show not a flicker of recognition: to have to pretend that they had never been in love, had never married, and that their three children—the youngest no more than a baby, left behind in England to be brought up by strangers—had never existed
.

I twisted round in the seat so that I could see Aunt Felicity. Her eyes were enormous—like an owl’s behind her goggles—as she gave a nod as if to say, “Yes! It’s true—every word of it.”

My own eyes stung with tears. I didn’t want to hear any more. I threw my hands up to cover my ears, but they could not block out Aunt Felicity’s words, which came seeping again through the rubber tube.

“Flavia, listen. There’s more—you must listen to me!”

I could not ignore the sound of crackling command that had suddenly come into her voice.

“The traitor your mother had come to deal with had apparently vanished. The political situation had become far
too dangerous to remain in Singapore. She was making her way home … by way of India and Tibet. But … she was followed. Someone had betrayed her.”

My mind went numb. Black thoughts tossed in my mind like the billows of some dark sea.

Had Harriet been murdered? I had wondered that before but set it aside as incredible beyond belief. But was that now the suspicion of the Home Office? Was that why Sir Peregrine Darwin had shown up so unexpectedly on our doorstep? Was the killer still at large?

I wanted to curl up like a salted slug and die.

Aunt Felicity’s voice broke into my agony. “You’ve heard no doubt of MI5 and MI6?”

I managed a nod. Because she could see only the back of my head, she could not possibly know I was crying.

“Well, you need to know that there are MI numbers beyond 19. Indeed, there exists a section with so high a number that not even the Prime Minister is aware of it.”

Now the tube fell silent. What was she telling me?

Far below, the green world circled.

On the ground, you were like a bug in a carpet, believing every crumb to be a castle. But from up here, you had a whole new view of things. You could see far more.

More, perhaps, than you ever wanted to.

I gave a feeble wave to show Aunt Felicity that I was listening and that I had understood her words.

Seeing my hand, she went on: “We de Luces have been entrusted … for more than three hundred years … with some of the greatest secrets of the realm. Some of us have been on the side of good … while others have not.”

What was the old woman saying? Was she mad? Was I alone in the air with a person who should be locked away in Colney Hatch?

And yet—she was flying
Blithe Spirit
, wasn’t she?

Again I remembered asking Father what Buckshaw looked like from the air, remembered his reply:
“Ask your aunt Felicity. She’s flown.”

I had assumed, I suppose, that she had flown with someone else as a passenger. But Father’s words had been literally true.

“Did you hear what I said, Flavia?”

Aunt Felicity reduced the throttle, and the sound of
Blithe Spirit
’s engine died away to a whisper. Now there was only the howl of the wind around us as her voice, containing a new urgency, came crackling through the rubber tube.

“We must go down now. There’s no more time. But before we begin our descent, you must understand: From this day forward, much will be expected of you. Much has already been given to you. In many ways, your training has already begun.”

Realization crept slowly into my mind.

My laboratory … the almost magical way in which the gases and glassware had never been exhausted …

Someone had seen to it.

“You must never speak of this to anyone but me—and then only when we are out of doors and absolutely alone.”

That day last summer on the island of the ornamental lake!

“You must never be deflected by unpleasantness,”
Aunt Felicity had told me.
“I want you to remember that. Although it
may not be apparent to others, your duty will become as clear to you as if it were a white line painted down the middle of the road. You must follow it, Flavia.”

“Even when it leads to murder?”
I had asked.

“Even when it leads to murder.”

The full impact of her words came crashing upon me now like a breaking wave. My father’s sister had been guiding my life for ages—maybe forever.

It was only with the greatest effort that I managed to grip the sides of the cockpit and twist round in my seat so I was looking Aunt Felicity directly in the eye—or, at least, in the goggles.

Her face was utterly impassive as she stared directly into mine.

Borne up by no more than the rush of the wind, it was as if we were riding the hurricane.

Slowly—but with great deliberation—I raised my right hand and gave her a thumbs-up that might have made Winston Churchill proud.

And Aunt Felicity returned it.

An instant later, she poured on full power and we were diving towards the ground.

As we glided in over Bishop’s Lacey, I could tell by the shadows that it was well past noon, and cars were already being parked on the road on both sides of St. Tancred’s.

Even before our wheels touched like thistledown on the Visto, Tristram Tallis was striding in the distance towards us.

Aunt Felicity cut the ignition and we both scrambled out onto the wing. I had already torn off my helmet and waited until she had removed her own.

For one brief moment we were out of doors and we were alone.

“Pheasant sandwiches,” I blurted suddenly, risking all.

My aunt’s face was as impassive as if it were cut from cold marble. A stone sphinx, perhaps, transported by magic from Egypt.

Tristram Tallis was now halfway to the aircraft. There were just seconds left before he was upon us.

“You’re the Gamekeeper, aren’t you?” I asked.

Aunt Felicity stared at me, her face a mask. I had never been so bold in my life. Had I said too much? Had I gone too far?

And then my aged aunt’s mouth opened just wide enough to allow one small word to escape.

“Yes,” she said.

TWENTY-SIX

A
UNT
F
ELICITY AND
I spoke not another word as we entered the house from the kitchen garden. To an observer, it might have appeared as if we were a couple of casual acquaintances returning from an afternoon stroll on the lawns of Buckshaw.

Things were beginning to make sense; pieces were falling into place. Aunt Felicity, I knew, had rather a peculiar and unlikely circle of acquaintances. As far as I could deduce, she seemed to have been some kind of Queen Bee at the BBC during the War but had always refused to discuss it.

Had the MI department—the one with a number so high that not even the Prime Minister was aware of its existence—been quartered at Broadcasting House? It was a distinct possibility.

By “the Prime Minister,” she had obviously meant the
present
Prime Minister. Winston Churchill, the former
PM, as everybody knew, still had certain secrets which he kept even from God.

And Tristram Tallis had seemed not at all surprised at our sudden departure in
Blithe Spirit
. He must have had some prior understanding with my aunt, since, when we landed, he had done no more than inquire pleasantly if “the old girl,” as he put it, had behaved herself.

As Aunt Felicity went silently to her room, I walked slowly through the narrow passage to the front of the house.

The foyer was empty. The last mourners had gone, and the place was now steeped in utter silence. It was the dramatic pause in the moment before the curtain goes up on a different and as yet unknown world.

The scent of flowers hung heavily in the air. What was the word Daffy had once used to describe it? Cloying. Yes, that was it: cloying.

It felt as if your sinuses, your nostrils, and your adenoids, all at the same time, were about to vomit.

Perhaps I was coming down with a cold.

In spite of the fine weather, my laboratory, too, seemed unusually cold. Had I caught a chill during one of my flights in
Blithe Spirit
? I shrugged into an old brown bathrobe I kept hanging on the back of the door for just such emergencies and bundled myself as tightly as if I were setting out for the Pole.

I must have looked like a medieval monk or an alchemist fussing over his flasks as I prepared my experiment.

From the bottom drawer of Uncle Tar’s desk, I brought
out the oilskin wallet which had contained Harriet’s will, placed it on one of the benches, and lit a Bunsen burner.