The Scarlet Nightingale Read online

  Contents

  About the Author

  Other novels by Alan Titchmarsh

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Devonshire

  Chapter 2: Devonshire

  Chapter 3: London

  Chapter 4: London

  Chapter 5: London

  Chapter 6: London

  Chapter 7: London

  Chapter 8: London

  Chapter 9: London

  Chapter 10: London

  Chapter 11: London

  Chapter 12: London

  Chapter 13: Surrey

  Chapter 14: Scotland

  Chapter 15: Wanborough and London

  Chapter 16: Occupied France

  Chapter 17: Fesches-le-Châtel

  Chapter 18: London

  Chapter 19: Fesches-le-Châtel

  Chapter 20: Sochaux

  Chapter 21: Fesches-le-Châtel

  Chapter 22: London

  Chapter 23: Baker Street, London

  Chapter 24: Fesches-le-Châtel

  Chapter 25: Fesches-le-Châtel

  Chapter 26: London

  Chapter 27: Piccadilly Theatre, London

  Chapter 28: Gestapo Headquarters, Montbéliard

  Chapter 29: Interrogation Room, Gestapo Headquarters Montbéliard

  Chapter 30: Interrogation Room, Gestapo Headquarters, Montbéliard

  Chapter 31: Newmarket to London

  Chapter 32: London

  Chapter 33: London

  Chapter 34: London

  Chapter 35: London

  Chapter 36: Villa Delphine, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat

  About the Author

  Alan Titchmarsh is known to millions through his career as a television presenter of shows including Ground Force, Gardeners’ World, Love Your Garden, The Chelsea Flower Show and The Alan Titchmarsh Show. He has written more than forty gardening books, as well as eight best-selling novels and three volumes of memoir. He was made MBE in the millennium New Year Honours list and holds the Victoria Medal of Honour, the Royal Horticultural Society’s highest award.

  Other novels by Alan Titchmarsh

  Mr MacGregor

  The Last Lighthouse Keeper

  Animal Instincts

  Only Dad

  Rosie

  Love and Dr Devon

  Folly

  The Haunting

  Bring Me Home

  Mr Gandy’s Grand Tour

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Alan Titchmarsh 2018

  Here, Winston Churchill, ‘War of the Unknown Warriors’ speech; here, Great Contemporaries, quotation. Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd on behalf of The Literary Estate of Sir Winston Churchill. / here: Alex Nunn, ‘The Worst Raid: 10-11 May 1941’, from West End at War, 2011. Courtesy of Westminster City Council. / here: William the Conqueror, from Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall, 6 vols. Oxford University Press, 1969–80. Reproduced with permission from Oxford University Press. / here: Dorothy Parker, ‘Inventory’, copyright © 1926, renewed 1954 by Dorothy Parker; from The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker, edited by Marion Meade. Reproduced with permission from Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd and from Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. / here: W. H. Auden, ‘Funeral Blues’, copyright © 1938 by W.H. Auden, renewed. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  The right of Alan Titchmarsh to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Hardback ISBN 978 1 473 65832 5

  Trade Paperback ISBN 978 1 473 65831 8

  eBook ISBN 978 1 473 65833 2

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Jilly Cooper

  who, twenty years ago, encouraged me

  to write my first novel.

  And in memory of

  Mary Ellis

  1917–2018

  the last surviving member of the

  Air Transport Auxiliary

  whose delightful company

  provided inspiration for

  The Scarlet Nightingale

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am enormously grateful to Sara Kinsella, Sharona Selby and Rowena Webb whose editorial guidance has been of great help and encouragement. Thanks also to Dee Tyler who recommended that I visit Wanborough Manor, near Guildford, to Stephen Callender who arranged my visit and Richard Suchard and Richard Lansdowne who showed me around the building that is now their home. The signs of its wartime role are still very much in evidence. Patrick Yarnold’s Wanborough Manor – School for Secret Agents was immensely helpful in providing information of the house’s role in training those who were sent on missions into occupied France. Anyone anxious to know more about the men and women who passed through its doors – and their extraordinary courage – should read it.

  PROLOGUE

  Rosamund Hawksmoor (formerly Hanbury) died peacefully in her ninety-third year in the tall-windowed bedroom overlooking the azure sea at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. She was discovered by her butler as he delivered her morning tea, her face set in a gentle smile, and the pure white gauze curtains that framed the open windows were rising and falling in the gentle breeze almost as though they were the wings of an angel, wafting the old lady’s unencumbered soul to heaven.

  At the foot of her bed, resting on a chintz-covered ottoman, lay the manuscript of her final novel. It was tied with red ribbon, as was her custom, and it was to become, as had her previous twenty-two works of romantic fiction, an immediate bestseller. Her literary agent would make sure of that.

  Her butler, Jonathan Finch, also passed to Rosamund’s executors a large manila envelope that he had discovered in the ormolu-encrusted cabinet at her bedside. It was old and worn and upon it, in stylish italic script, were written the words: ‘Only to be opened in the event of my death.’

  Rosamund’s wishes were adhered to, not least because until the old lady’s demise, nobody actually knew it was there. It revealed to her executors – none of whom were blood relations – tantalising clues about her early life. Rosamund – the hospitable old lady who lived a life of luxury in the south of France – had told no one about her childhood, of her experiences as a girl and her exploits as a young woman during the war. The few contemporaries who had managed to survive her had slipped from view, content to live in the past. Rosamund found far more stimulation in the company of younger folk who, like her, found more pleasure and excitement in the present.

  It seemed, to those who had entered her orbit within recent times, that Rosamund had always been old and wise, with a zest for life, delighting in the company of anyone with a spark of enthusiasm who could hold their own at the dinner table. She dispensed her worldly wisdom only when it was solici
ted, and listened with the attention of the genuinely curious when regaled with the convoluted or confusing emotions of the young and inexperienced. She would nod and smile – not the patronising smile of those who have seen it all before and know all the answers, but the understanding smile of those whose experiences of life have taught them that although they may have been there before, nothing is certain when it comes to human nature. Concerned though she would be for the welfare of the young who fluttered around her like moths drawn to a flame, little seemed to worry Rosamund for long; the years had taught her much about the futility of fretting over things that could not be changed.

  The contents of the ragged envelope told quite a different story. Assorted fragments, letters and luggage labels gave clues to a path through life that had been anything but smooth. They were all neatly contained in a buff folder, even more frayed at the edges than the envelope itself. Like the manuscript of her novels, the folder was tied around the middle with a length of bright red ribbon. It was of such an age that it should have been faded; the brilliance of its colour bleached by the sun of the Côte d’Azur. But since it had not seen the light of day for many years, it was as vivid as the day it had been woven. At the top of the folder, in black letters, a printed instruction gave an indication of its vintage:

  TOP SECRET

  EYES ONLY

  And below that, in red italic script, were just three words:

  THE SCARLET NIGHTINGALE

  At first glance the reader might have thought that the contents were snippets of inspiration for yet another love story, popped into a file appropriated after the war by a relation employed in some obscure branch of the Civil Service. They would have been wrong. The folder itself had a more interesting story to tell, and there was nothing fictitious about the fragments it contained. They were the souvenirs and accretions of a life that had most certainly had its share of romance – both on the page and off – but which had also put a young woman in danger. Rosamund might have come from a privileged background, but it was something that she had been quite prepared to sacrifice in the name of love and duty. This is her story.

  ROSAMUND HAWKSMOOR

  The notes which were the foundation of these recollections were penned somewhat erratically during and just after the war when I started to keep a journal. Some are exactly as they were written; others I have adjusted with the benefit of hindsight. I have not written an in-depth chronicle. My jottings are fragmentary and far from comprehensive. As a writer I have come to appreciate the value – and wisdom – of editing. I have simply touched on one or two matters that might interest, and I have left others to the imagination of those who come after. There are some moments I cannot bear to recall, still, and on occasion I may have skipped episodes which I would prefer to forget, but there are no real untruths here – perhaps just one or two ‘economies’. As Dame Edith Sitwell famously said: ‘There is no truth; only points of view.’ Through these few pages, perhaps my godson Archie will come to know a little more of my earlier life and, I hope, not judge me too harshly.

  My earliest recollection is that of sand between my toes. But is that really my first memory or simply the one I choose to cling to? A comfort blanket of sorts? Whatever the case, the feeling of those fine grains, smooth as silk against my infant skin, and the change in feeling when hardened into glistening ribs by waves at the water’s edge, nurtured within me a fascination for the sea and a love of coastal life which I have never lost.

  Despite this secure and cosy image, it is not a wholly comforting memory, for there is a rawness about the seashore. At any given moment it may be calm and serene, bathed in golden sunlight, the sky as pale as a forget-me-not. Then, when one’s back is turned for a moment – making a sandcastle or digging for a razor shell – lumbering clouds as purple as a ripe damson will push up on the horizon. In the space of minutes, the scene will be transformed from that Dorothea Sharp idyll into something redolent of John Piper on a bad day. The thunder cracks, the once-calm sea becomes a turbulent cauldron, and the sudden and violent wind whips up those grains of sand and hurls them into your eyes, blinding you as you stumble for shelter.

  To make one’s life on the coast is a constant reminder that we are all, quite literally, living on the edge – not just at the mercy of the elements, but also at the mercy of the whims and temperament of others. Somehow the sea is predictable in its capriciousness. Whatever may happen, and however violent the storm or tempest, one knows in one’s heart that eventually it will pass; that the tide will go out and the sky will clear. Calm will invariably follow storm. Alas, one cannot say the same of people …

  But I am racing ahead. When one is young the summers seem to last forever and the memory of dark clouds passes more rapidly than they do when old age causes us to brood upon them. As a young person of my acquaintance sagely remarked: ‘When you are seven, a year is a seventh of your life; when you are eighty it is an eightieth, and an eightieth of anything is so much smaller than a seventh.’ It is a trite analogy, but I have come to realise that it is a universal truth. As you age, the years fly past with ever-increasing speed. When I was young it seemed as though the halcyon days would never end …

  Chapter 1

  DEVONSHIRE

  1928

  ‘Kindness bestowed upon children is a long-term investment.’

  Alicia de Bournanville, The Waves of Time, 1919

  The water felt cold. Very cold. At first Rosamund thought that her toes might actually fall off, but gradually they became accustomed to the temperature of the sea and the wavelets as they lapped about her feet. The skirt of her floral-patterned dress was tucked into her knickers, the better to preserve it from a soaking. Her governess would not be best pleased if she returned from her excursion with a dress soaked in seawater and peppered with salt and sand. She did quite like ‘Semolina’ – the name she called her even if Celine de Rossignol did get cross and threaten to wallop her playfully whenever she heard her charge utter the nickname. But Celine de Rossignol was such a devil of a name for a seven-year-old girl to get her tongue around – and for her pen to master, come to that. Her lessons in the nursery, gazing up at the blackboard at Semolina’s italic script and endeavouring to copy it, almost always ended in disaster, with the white-aproned nanny-cum-tutor standing over Rosamund at the vast porcelain sink under the nursery window and trying, with the aid of a stiff-bristled brush and a bar of stinking carbolic soap, to remove the stubborn black Stephens’ ink from her fingers. It was usually to no avail and resulted only in stray wisps of raven hair escaping one after the other from the hairgrips that fastened it close to Celine’s head. When Celine could no longer see Rosamund’s hands for her own wayward locks she would abandon the job as a bad one, throw the brush into the sink with a muttered ‘Zut!’ and toss a rough-textured hand towel in Rosamund’s direction. It was, the child knew, only a matter of time during one of these personal hygiene sessions before her governess’s patience ran out. Released from Semolina’s grip, Rosamund would look up at her pleadingly, knowing that she, too, would prefer to be out in the sunshine, heading towards the beach on the sandy path that snaked down between the dunes. One smile and a raised eyebrow would, she knew, be all that was necessary for Celine to say ‘Go on then; but walk quietly downstairs, go out of the back door and do not run!’ Very occasionally the instruction was delivered in English, but more frequently it came in French.

  Whatever the language, the instruction was always in vain. How could one not run when one knew where the sandy path led? Especially when the tide was half in or half out and there was a decent strip of beach to run along and razor shells and whelks and dogfish eggs to prise out of its wave-flattened surface. They would be brought back, cradled in the front of her dress, and arranged on the table that stood outside the back porch of Daneway, its pale paint peeling away like old skin to reveal timbers bleached by years of sun and rain and sand-laden winds. It bore a glittering array of smooth buttons of glass, turned from broken bottle shards into j
ewels by the sea, along with shells of every shape and pastel shade. They were Rosamund’s treasures, though passed unnoticed by every other member of the household.

  While Rosamund chased the waves and scoured the sand for its hidden riches, Celine sat above the tide line on a tuft of marram grass, examining in detail a letter that had been sent to her by her beau. That was what she called him; not boyfriend or man friend or anything quite so straightforward, but ‘beau’, which sounded so much more romantic. So very French. Celine’s father – born and raised in Dijon – had made sure that his daughter was brought up to be bilingual, for although he had married an Englishwoman and lived for the greater part of his adult life in her country, he was determined that his daughter would reflect her joint parentage. Celine was eighteen now – just over ten years older than Rosamund. For much of the time they were more like sisters than a governess and her charge, though Celine knew her responsibilities and did her best to let Rosamund know them, too.

  It seemed odd to Rosamund that her governess should have a man friend. She had never seen him. She wondered how Celine managed to find time to have what she would call a ‘tryst’, when all she had off was one afternoon a week and one Sunday a month. But she always knew when Celine had met him. Nothing could be clearer. She would return with a pink face and an unusual air of dreaminess about her. Rosamund would ask questions: ‘Who is he, Semolina? What is a “beau”? Why do you like him? Is he tall? Does he have a moustache? Is he as handsome as … the grocer?’ None of which would receive a proper answer, just a hum and an absentminded instruction to get ready for bed, or wash her face and hands or some other vague instruction that was seldom followed through. Only when Rosamund asked ‘Has he kissed you?’ would Celine chase her around the bedroom wielding a slipper, threatening to ‘wallop her’ again. Though she never did. Rosamund liked it when Celine had been with her beau, for it produced in her an altogether different demeanour to the usual matter-of-fact and no-nonsense approach which brooked no argument. She knew that on such days she could get away, if not with murder, then with more than was the norm in the Hanbury household.