I had been living at the Alcotts for about three weeks when I came home from work to a darkened house. Because of energy conservation, only the light in the foyer was left on. Tonight there was no light in the foyer, but there was one coming from under the door to the morning room. When I opened the door, I didn’t see anyone, so I shut the light as I had been instructed to do. Out of the darkness came a voice saying, “If you don’t mind.”
I was so startled that I let out a very loud, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”
“None of the above,” the voice said. “I am, however, Geoff Alcott.” Rising from his chair and extending his hand, he asked, “Are you the Canadian or an intruder?”
“Neither,” I said, waiting for my heart to stop pounding. “I’m Maggie Joyce. I’m boarding here.”
“I apologize for startling you, but no one informed me we had a boarder, even my father, whom I saw three days ago.” Looking around, he said, “Where the hell is everyone? Don’t we have servants anymore?”
Taking off my coat and hat, I said, “Your father is probably at his club. Your mother is in Surrey with your sister, Lily. Mrs. Gooding is gone for a few days, and it’s Andrews’s night off. So it’s just me, and possibly Jim Budd.”
I had been warned about Geoff. According to just about everyone, he was extremely intelligent, loved to argue, and exasperated everyone who came in contact with him — with one exception — his father.
“Ah, an American,” he said. “Let’s see. You are from somewhere on the East Coast. I attended university in Connecticut, so I know you’re not from New England, nor are you from New York City. There’s a certain nasal intonation, so I’m going to guess…”
“I can help you out here,” I said. When I had first moved to Washington, I had been the butt of numerous jokes because of my nasal accent and my hick colloquialisms. “I’m from eastern Pennsylvania.”
“Damn. I was going to say Pennsylvania,” he said in a schoolboy voice. “How is it that we are so fortunate as to be graced with your presence?”
“I am a friend of Beth and Jack Crowell’s. When the Canadian boarder left, your mother asked if I would like to come and live here. I’m staying in Violet’s bedroom.”
“The Beatrix Potter suite, as it’s known around here,” he said, correcting me. Slumping into his chair, Geoff apologized. “Sorry. The Channel crossing was rather nasty.”
Geoff had seen my typewriter and asked what I was doing. I explained about the Catons’ plans to convert Montclair into a hotel and to market the mansion as the ancestral home of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy.
“Mrs. Caton has asked me to write a booklet giving a brief history of the Lacey family, especially its connection to the characters in Pride and Prejudice.”
“I may be able to help you with your research. While at St. Paul’s, I was assigned a history project that required family research. Since Mother was not a saver — if one of her children wished to preserve any of his or her school papers, they had to do it themselves — I have my school reports upstairs. If you can delay your research for tonight, I will give you my papers, and you may go through them tomorrow at your leisure.”
After a long day, I was more than ready to let it go for the evening.
“I’ll leave the papers on the table in the foyer,” Geoff said, standing and stretching. “Please be kind. I was very young when I wrote them.”
Geoff did leave the papers, and they were a treasure trove. When I came home from work the next evening, I immediately set to work incorporating his research. I was busily typing when Geoff came up behind me and, once again, startled me. I couldn’t decide if he was doing it on purpose or not. I was having flashbacks of growing up with a brother who thought there was nothing funnier than scaring the daylight out of his sisters.
“I am here to make amends,” he said and handed me a can of Danish ham. “I have a reputation for being obnoxious, and I certainly lived up to it last night. I smuggled this ham into the country from Belgium, and I am inviting you to join me for dinner.”
It was only a one-pound can, but the thought of real ham made my mouth water. Since arriving in England, I had eaten only spiced ham, or Spam, as it was known to millions of servicemen who had been forced to eat it during the war. I was able to get it from AAFES, but I never made the mistake of confusing it with real ham. I offered to set up a tray with cheese and crackers.
A cold front had moved through the city, and the house was chilly in every room, except the study. When I returned from the kitchen, I found Geoff sitting in a chair with his shoes off and his feet in front of a space heater holding a broken key from the ham. Without the key, the can couldn’t be opened. I decided a broken key was not going to keep me from eating ham, so I took the can downstairs and went at it with a variety of kitchen utensils until it surrendered. When I came in with a plate of sliced ham, Geoff started clapping.
“May I ask what you were doing in Brussels?”
“In March, the Western European nations signed the Treaty of Brussels establishing a military alliance. Since the United States has all of the money and most of the military materiel, we are now working on an agreement that would bring your country into the alliance. My current role is to deliver papers to the Foreign Office here in London regarding those negotiations.” Sighing, he said, “You would think there was no such thing as the telephone, telegraph, or teletype the way I go back and forth across the Channel.”
While cutting his ham, Geoff informed me that, in Brussels, the shops were full of every type of commodity and consumer goods. “Shoes, clothing, ham, eggs, bacon — all are plentiful. I don’t understand why Britain is still experiencing such privation when Belgium, a country occupied by the Germans, is back to normal. I’ve seen some very chubby, well-shod Belgians.”
“What did you do during the war?”
“I interrogated German prisoners captured during the Battle of the Bulge. But by time I got there, the poor bastards were sitting in groups, waiting — hoping — to be captured. They were more frightened of their fellow Germans than they were of us. The SS had been hanging those whom they considered to be deserters from whatever structure was handy, usually a lamppost or tree, although they tended to shoot the officers. So these war-weary soldiers allowed us to stumble upon them. For some, their uniform was their first pair of long pants. Thirteen- and fourteen-year-old boys. Damn depressing.”
All the while Geoff had been talking, he had been making cracker sandwiches of ham and cheese. Pleased with his creation, he asked, “Now, your turn. What did you do during the war? Did Americans have National Service?”
“No. There was nothing like that in the States, but we all tried to do our bit. I moved to Washington in ’44 and worked for the Treasury Department, and after the war, I got a job with the Army Exchange Service.”
“Boyfriend?”
“In Atlanta, Georgia.”
“Is there a reason for such a long-distance romance?”
“Rob’s currently working for a company headquartered in Atlanta until December 23rd,” I said uncomfortably. “He’s not sure what he wants to do after that, so until that time, I’ve decided to stay here in London.”
Geoff tilted his head and looked at me as if he wasn’t buying it. Rather than answer any more questions, I asked him about his love life. “I understand you might be preengaged.” I was repeating a comment his mother had made. Patricia had been considerably annoyed at her son for his failure to take seriously his relationship with the niece of her closest friend.
“That was a joke, but Mother didn’t stay around long enough to find that out.” After putting his cracker down, he continued. “For some time now, I have been seeing Alberta Eccles. Unlike me, she’s a caring and compassionate person. Her parents are in the midst of a nasty divorce, so Bertie runs from her mother’s house in Bucks to her father’s rooms in London in the fruitless pursuit of trying to salvage her parents’ marriage. It is not salvageable! Her mother ran off with her lover to Brazil. Bad decision all around. The British run away to Argentina not Brazil. Once she got to Rio, Mrs. Eccles realized her mistake and returned to England. Bertie blames her mother’s behavior on the ‘change of life,’ and I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. But she must have known she was stepping over the line when she made her affair so public.
“The irony here is Bertie wants her parents to take her advice and ‘forgive and forget.’ Yet, with everyone in her family telling her the situation is a hopeless mess, she refuses to let it go, because that’s advice she doesn’t want to hear. By the way, nice job of leading the conversation away from your love life. I suspect all is not well with your chap in Atlanta.”
I stood up and excused myself. I was tired from working all day and typing for a few hours each night. But I really wanted to get back to my room and reread a letter I had received from Rob. He was glad to hear I would be living with the Alcotts during the winter months because, “I don’t like to think of you curled up in front of that space heater and wearing mittens to bed. Remember how we used to fight off the cold?” Here was another example of Rob flirting with me, but with nothing to back it up, what was the point? He then wrote at length about his brother’s role as a pilot flying C-54s into Berlin before getting to the real reason for the letter.
Are Beth and Jack getting any news from Michael? I’m curious about his part in this business. I wonder how long it can go on, especially since flying in conditions in northern Europe in winter can be pretty bad. I know something about that. It’s too bad Michael was transferred to Germany. But like he said, he’s out in November, so what’s that, another three or four weeks? I imagine his first stop will be Crofton to see his parents, and his second stop will be Holland Park. You two seemed to have hit it off. Looking forward to your next letter.
Love,
Rob
I was becoming increasingly frustrated with Rob. It seemed as if he wanted to continue our relationship, or why else would he be writing me letters? But with an ocean between us, how was that supposed to happen? He was definitely trying to figure out if there was something going on between Michael and me, but he knew as much as I did. We had had some passionate moments together before he left for Germany, and I really liked him. But since that time, there had been total silence — that is, until today. When I came home from work, on my section of the foyer table, was a letter from Michael.
Dear Maggie,
I’m not sure if you read my letter to Mom and Dad, but I am now flying back and forth between Lubeck and Berlin repairing aircraft left behind because of maintenance problems. The return flights have been very interesting. Because of the fuel shortages, children and the elderly are at risk for hypothermia, so we have been flying old people and mothers with small children to the West. The kids seem to get a kick out of flying, but the adults are terrified. I can’t blame them because we’ve had some rough weather, and you can really get bounced around back there. I do what I can to divert their attention. I speak to them in German, and they either start laughing, or it becomes a game trying to figure out what I’m saying.
I’m really looking forward to getting home, but before I do, I wanted to apologize for my behaviour the week of the ball. I came on to you so strongly you must have thought me a total brute. The only excuse I have is that you were the prettiest girl I had met since leaving Australia, and I overreacted. It won’t happen again. I appreciate the letters. Please write again.
Mike
After finishing the letter, I thought I should mail it to Rob. In that way, he could see for himself that Michael’s second stop after getting home from Germany would not be Holland Park. His interest in me was apparently due to a shortage of goodlooking women at his station in Malta. It had been such a short time ago that I had been complaining that my life had become too complicated because two men were interested in me at the same time. That was no longer the case. Problem solved!