Inside, the mansion appeared untouched, fine linens and china intact, furniture not covered. In the dining room to the left, Marie could see a table set, as though company was expected anytime. Whoever had lived here had gone without notice, she thought, recalling l’exode, the flight of millions of citizens of northern France four years earlier ahead of the advancing German army. A thin coat of dust on everything was the only sign that the house was vacant.
There came a scratching from above, the faint titter of laughter. The man took the wide stairs two at a time without waiting for her and she hurried to follow. He opened a door to reveal what had once been a study. A handful of men, all about her own age, were gathered around a broad oak desk that had been pressed into service as a dining table. The heavy curtains were drawn and several candles flickered on the table. Overflowing bookshelves climbed to the ceiling.
In an armchair by the window sat Will, the pilot who had flown her here the previous night. Marie was surprised to see him and wondered what had kept him from flying out of France after the Lysander had taken off from the field. He was the only familiar face in the room and she started toward him. But closer she could see that he was dozing, eyes closed.
Marie stood uncertainly on the edge of the room. The group had presumably assembled on the upper floor of the abandoned villa to stay out of sight. Yet they laughed and joked as easily as though they were in a Paris café. The air was warm with the delicious smells of coffee and eggs. Remembering the cold, dark shed where she had spent the past several hours, Marie was suddenly angry. She glared in the direction of the courier, who was now standing across the room by the window. He might have brought her here the night before. But he had not. Perhaps it had been some sort of a test.
One of the men seemed to notice her then. “Come, come,” he said with an accent she recognized as Welsh. He had a wide moustache, ill-suited to fitting in among the French. “Don’t wait for an invitation. Have some bacon before it’s all gone.” Marie was certain that she heard him wrong. There hadn’t been bacon back home since before the war. But here it was, thick and crispy on a nearly empty plate, calling to her. The man held out the plate. “Go on. We don’t eat like this every day. One of the lads was able to buy a rasher off the black market near Chartres and it all has to go. We’ve got nowhere to store it and we can’t risk taking it along.” She moved closer. The table bore an odd assortment of food that might have not gone together in other circumstances: a bit of baked beans (far too English, she could hear Eleanor criticize) and some bread, cheese and fruit.
Marie’s stomach rumbled, reminding her that she had not eaten since yesterday. She reached for the bacon the man held out. Searching for a fork and finding none, she popped the piece in her mouth as neatly as she could.
The man with the moustache poured her coffee. “I’m Albert,” he said, holding out his hand. She reached to shake it, mindful of her newly greasy fingers.
But Albert took Marie’s hand and kissed it. Her cheeks flushed. “Bonjour,” she offered back, wondering he if was flirting with her and not entirely sure how to respond. “Enchanté.”
His eyebrows raised and she wondered if she had done something wrong. “Your accent is perfect. Are you French?”
“Half, on my mother’s side,” Marie replied. “I was raised in England, but spent summers in Brittany when I was younger.”
“That’ll be useful. Most of us speak French abysmally.”
“Speak for yourself,” retorted the ginger-haired boy next to Albert, who had not introduced himself.
“You’ll be a courier then?” Albert asked, ignoring him.
“Non!” she blurted out, alarmed. The idea of messengering all over the French countryside, constantly risking arrest, alarmed her. “Radio operator.”
“Ah, a pianist.” The term sounded strange. But she remembered someone referring to the wireless set as a piano once during training. “With your language skills, keeping you inside seems a waste,” he lamented. “But I suppose Vesper knows what he is doing.”
“Speaking of Vesper, I was wondering if you could point me in his direction,” Marie said. Albert’s eyebrows raised. “I’d like to speak to him about the courier who met me last night and brought me here this morning.” She spoke in a low voice so that the courier himself would not hear.
“Courier?” Albert threw back his head and chortled so loudly that the conversation around the table ceased. “Courier?” He tilted his head in the direction of the man by the window. “Oh, love, that is Vesper!”
The others joined, laughing with him at her mistake. The man who had left her in the shed and brought her here wasn’t merely some courier after all, but Vesper, the legendary circuit leader Eleanor had spoken about. She looked in the direction of the courier whom she now knew was Vesper, certain he had heard the exchange. Embarrassed by the gaffe, Marie felt her cheeks burn. But how was she to have known when he hadn’t told her?
“Shh!” Vesper hissed suddenly, raising a hand. Their merriment ceased and Marie heard a high-pitched keening noise coming from outside the château. Sirens. The agents looked at one another, their hardened expressions suddenly clouded with concern.
Only Albert looked unworried, waving his hand dismissively. “When Kriegler and his louts come for us,” he said calmly, “they won’t announce themselves with sirens.” A few of the men laughed uneasily.
The sirens rose to a pitch as they neared. One second passed then another. At last, they began to fade as the police car raced by the château, chasing other prey. “I heard there was an arrest in Picardy,” one of the men offered when the sirens had faded into the distance. “Two agents, picked up at their safe house.” Marie shuddered. Picardy, the region just to the north, was not far from here. She wondered if the arrest had taken place at a too-nice safe house like this, and whether the agents had been laughing and enjoying one another’s company just before it had happened.
Albert waved his hand. “Don’t speak of such things.” As though the bad luck was contagious—and might rub off on them.
But the other man persisted. “They must have been careless.” Heads nodded in agreement, wanting to differentiate and distance themselves from those whom ill fate had befallen.
“Don’t be too certain.” Vesper spoke sharply. Marie hoped he would dispel the rumor of the arrest, but he did not. His heavy brow was furrowed, expression grave. “Those were some of the best agents we had.” She could tell from his voice that the loss had been personal and hard for him. “It can happen to anyone, at any time. Don’t ever let your guard down.” Vesper turned away and the others sat around the table, now quiet and somber. One of the men lit a cigarette and its ominous burning filled the air.
Suddenly there was a clattering at the door. Albert leaped to his feet and across the room Vesper’s hand dropped instinctively toward his waist, as though reaching for a gun. Marie froze, remembering his warning seconds earlier that arrest could come anytime.