parlor—she’d have gone with him that night in the clothes she stood up in, hang propriety, but the captain insisted on collecting her very properly the following afternoon, giving her his arm to the station as though they were off on holiday. The only one to see Eve off was the tabby cat, whom she had kissed on the nose and whispered to, Look to Mrs. Fitz next door; I made her promise to feed you extra scraps while I’m gone.
“Should anyone ask,” Captain Cameron said as they settled into their empty compartment, “I am a fond uncle taking my favorite niece to Folkestone for the sun.” He closed the doors firmly, making sure they had the compartment to themselves, and did another check for eavesdroppers.
Eve tilted her head, surveying his lean face and rumpled tweeds. “Rather young to be my uncle, aren’t you?”
“You are twenty-two and look sixteen; I am thirty-two and look forty-five. I am your uncle, Edward. That’s to be our cover, now and in future.”
His real name, she had learned, was Cecil Aylmer Cameron. Prep schools, Royal Military Academy, a stint serving in Edinburgh which must have added the faint Scottish mist to his English voice—Eve knew his public credentials now, listed meticulously when she accepted his offer. The private credentials would be given only as necessary in this very private business . . . And now she had the first of them: a code name. “Uncle Edward it is.” Another flutter rippled through Eve’s stomach. “What will my c-code name be?” She’d read Kipling and Childers and Conan Doyle—even in silly books like The Scarlet Pimpernel, spies had code names, disguises.
“You’ll find out.”
“Where will I be g-g—where will I be going in France?” She no longer minded stuttering in front of him.
“Wait and see. Training first.” He smiled, the lines about his eyes crinkling. “Careful, Miss Gardiner. Your excitement is showing.”
Eve smoothed her face into porcelain innocence.
“Better.”
Folkestone. A sleepy coastal town, before the war. Now a bustling port, ferries crammed with refugees arriving every day, more French and Belgian heard on the docks than English. Captain Cameron didn’t speak until they were out of the busy station and heading down the boardwalk in some measure of privacy. “Folkestone is the first stop from Vlissingen in the Netherlands,” he said, setting their pace to keep well out of earshot of the other strolling couples. “Part of my job is to see that the refugees are interviewed before they are allowed farther into Britain.”
“Looking for people like me?”
“And those like you who work for the other side.”
“How many have you f-found of each?”
“Six of one, half a dozen of the other.”
“Are there many women?” Eve wanted to know. “Among the—the recruits?” What did one call them? Apprentice spies? Spies-in-training? It all sounded absurd. Part of Eve still couldn’t believe this was happening at all. “I never thought women would be considered for such a role,” she said honestly. Captain Cameron (Uncle Edward) seemed able to hook the truth out of her in odd ways. He must be a marvel in an interrogation, she thought. He slipped information out of you so gently, you were hardly aware it crossed your lips.
“On the contrary,” the captain said. “I like to recruit women. They frequently have the ability to pass unnoticed where a man would be suspected and stopped. I recruited a Frenchwoman, some months ago”—he gave a sudden, fond smile as if at a particularly good memory—“who now manages a network covering more than a hundred sources, and makes it look simple. Her reports on artillery positions come so quickly and accurately, we can see them bombed in a matter of days. Quite remarkable. She’s the best we have, male or female.”
Eve’s sense of competition stirred hungrily. I will be the best.
He hailed a cab—“Number 8, the Parade.” A shabby little place, not much different from the boardinghouse where Eve had lived, and a boardinghouse was probably what this address passed for if neighbors proved curious. But when the captain ushered Eve inside and she came to stand on the faded parlor rug, it wasn’t a starchy old maid with a pinched mouth who greeted her, but a tall major in full uniform.
He gave Eve a dubious look, fingering the waxed points of an impressive mustache. “Very young,” he disapproved, looking her up and down.
“Give her a chance,” Captain Cameron said mildly. “Miss Evelyn Gardiner, meet Major George Allenton. I leave you in his hands.”