and for those who could afford it, sitting in a front room above a bookshop wouldn’t do. Besides, times moved on. Permanent waves were all the rage.
In short, the world was ending. Hitler was invading; London destroyed. And all that was beautiful, was gone.
The Baron took it badly. He’d once pulled himself up by his bootstraps, known greatness; inspired love. Now he was left to sort through dusty second-hand books all day in the shop below while his wife Celia, a woman of property and social standing, scoured the streets for anything of value left in the bomb wreckage.
But life wants love. It demands it.
And so it came to pass that on a dark moonless evening, during the bitterest of winter months, in the middle of a blackout with sirens wailing, a young man rang the bell in Curzon Street.
Cursing, the Baron stumbled down the narrow stairs and opened the door.
It was a soldier, a young captain, beside himself with anxiety, clutching a photograph of the girl he loved. You see, he explained, breathless, his father had told him about the Baron, recommended he find him; said, in fact, that he was the only man in England who could possibly help.
As you can imagine, this bolstered the Baron’s ego no end. In a flash the young man was upstairs, drinking a hot cup of tea, explaining to both Celia and the Baron his terrible predicament. He loved this girl. And he was quite sure she loved him, only she had a rather fickle nature. The thing was, he just didn’t think he could bear to go off to war, to possible death, without knowing for certain that she would remain faithful.
They nodded.
It was an unusual commission, still, something might be done.
And where could they find her?
‘Well,’ he smiled nervously, ‘only in the most beautiful village in Wales!’
Ah.
Wales.
How could they influence a girl so far away?
Celia looked at the Baron. And he at her.
Then they both looked at the fresh face of the man before them, twenty-one if he was a day, eyes wide with terror. He was to set sail for Normandy in the morning. The photo he was holding, its edges worn from too much tender handling, trembled in his hands.
‘She will wait for you.’ The Baron clasped his shoulder. ‘I promise.’
‘But how will you manage it?’ he wanted to know.
‘Well …’
‘We have our methods,’ Celia assured him, tucking the last bit of not-too-stale bread into his rucksack. ‘Trust us.’
Off the young man went, swallowed up into the cold waiting darkness; brave, hopeful again.
And thus began a long series of sleepless nights while the Charleses racked their brains; what could they possibly do to help him?
Not long afterwards, picking through a bombed-out house in Lisson Grove, Celia happened across a slip of paper; nothing more than a single line, written across the back of a calling card.
If I tried to kiss you, would you let me?
The sentiment thrilled of illicit love; just reading it made Celia’s heart race. Tucking it into her pocket, her mind tangled with it; stories, images unfolding. There was a play somewhere, in French … a man who seduces a woman through letters … sexy … teasing … charming.
Somewhere between Marylebone station and Grosvenor Square it came to her – distance was no obstacle if you never saw the lover! What if they seduced the girl through a series of anonymous notes? If they could focus her romantic imagination on a mysterious stranger, perhaps she’d be too distracted to take up a real lover.
The very next day, an assault was launched on the fickle young woman in Wales. She couldn’t imagine who in London was so besotted with her, but the sparse, bold, often poetic sentiments fluttering in her letter box kept her intrigued; too consumed, in fact, to be interested in anyone else.
She had quite a collection by the time the war was over.
And I’m pleased to say that, despite a heady influx of American soldiers, she remained faithful to her noble captain, whose own letters had abruptly stopped after three weeks.
Who never returned.
Who died, in a frozen marsh, under a sky black with the wings of enemy planes, dreaming of a future happiness.
Certain that someone loved him.
At Smythson’s stationery shop, Flick purchased several dozen excruciatingly expensive thick, cream-coloured cards and envelopes.
‘Note the quality of the paper,’ she pointed out to Hughie. ‘Everything you use must be of the best possible pedigree, do you understand? Remember, these notes will be the only tangible evidence the subject will have. They’ll be read over and over again, shown to close confidantes, discussed, debated. In short, Hughie, they must be perfect. Always choose cream. Other colours look pedestrian. Never choose distinctive designs. They should be anonymous, so while she should be able to trace the fact that they come from Smythson’s – which, in itself, is always reassuring – she shouldn’t be able to discern anything further.’
They walked back to the office, where Flick referred to a small Rolodex full of cards, each filled with a few lines of text gleaned from poems, lyrics, even fragments overheard in conversation. Here she’d stored hundreds of clues for future use. Finally, she paused and smiled.
‘Perfect!’
Then, unpacking the cards, she slipped on a pair of thin white cotton gloves before taking up a fountain pen.
‘Gosh!’ Hughie observed.
‘You may think I’m being paranoid,’ she said, ‘but you’d be surprised at how many times a woman has resorted to having these notes dusted for fingerprints! Gloves are essential.’
Then in a large, firm hand, not too flowery, not too plain, she wrote across the middle of a blank card.
Blowing on it, she waited for it to dry before slipping it into an envelope and sealing it. Then she addressed it to ‘Olivia.’
‘Just Olivia?’ Hughie asked.
Flick paused thoughtfully. ‘The truth is, you could easily go either way. But I have a feeling that most people are quite deferential to her; that everyone calls her by her full title. I’m chancing that not many strangers would call her by her first name only. She might find that a bit provocative. Now, can you ride a bike?’
Hughie hadn’t been on a bike for quite some time – not since he was a child. So cycling across town had been a harrowing experience. By the time he finally pulled up in front of 45 Chester Square, he was little more than a collection of raw
