Before the Dawn Read online

  Alyssa paid the taxi driver as the doorman hurried to close the door of the taxi for her and escort her into the lobby. Inside the hotel all was elegance and quiet, its cool marble floors, Aubusson rugs, and glass-dripping chandeliers so serene and removed from the world that Alyssa felt rested simply to be there.

  Once in her room, Alyssa was tempted to lie down for an hour or two, but she resisted. After all, she hadn’t flown all this way in the middle of a war just to take a nap at the Ritz. Instead, she washed her face and changed from her crumpled suit into a fresh linen dress before setting out for Jessica’s house.

  Jessica’s home lay on a quiet crescent in Belgravia. Though they had kept up their friendship for years through regular correspondence and an occasional visit, Alyssa had never visited this house before, and as she exited the taxi, she looked up at it with interest.

  A tall, narrow town house of a style known as Pont Street Dutch, unique to the Chelsea-Belgravia area, it was part of a row of connected houses, all four stories tall and no more than two rooms wide. Built of a dull reddish stone, each had an ornate, sharply peaked roof, jutting bow windows above the ground floor, and a black wrought-iron balcony on the second floor—or the first story, as the English called it. How like Jessica to live here, Alyssa thought, in a home quite English and subdued, yet with a flair, a romanticism, a spark of mischief and originality.

  It had been those qualities that attracted Alyssa to Jessica when they first met. Alyssa was sixteen and a little frightened when she entered Madame Brisbois’s boarding school and was placed in a room with Jessica Bainbridge. Jessica, with her serious gray eyes and blond hair pulled discreetly back and tied, appeared to be the model student. She made good grades; she studied; she was unfailingly polite to those around her, yet properly reserved. Alyssa thought, with a sinking heart, that she was a rather pretty prig and a bore—until a few nights after Alyssa moved in with her, when she awoke to find Jessica climbing out their second story window to attend a dance in the village below the school. Alyssa joined her, and they had been fast friends ever since.

  Certainly Jessica was reserved and proper, but she also had a sharp, surprising sense of humor, and she could sparkle with merriment. She was quiet and easygoing, but given the right reason, she could flash into fire.

  Alyssa knocked on the front door, hoping Jessica was home. Alyssa hadn’t cabled her, wanting to keep her visit a surprise. A maid answered the door and showed Alyssa into an elegant, yet unostentatious drawing room to wait. A few moments later, there was the tap of high heels on the marble of the hallway, and Jessica appeared in the doorway, her face settled into lines of polite inquiry. Alyssa turned and smiled. “Hello, Jessica.”

  The other woman stared incredulously. Then a great grin of joy burst across her face. “Alyssa!” Jessica opened her arms wide, and Alyssa stepped into them. They hugged each other fiercely, then stepped back at arm’s length to look at each other, grinning.

  “Good Lord, I never expected to see you! When Doris said there was an American woman at the door, I couldn’t imagine…” Jessica laughed with sheer pleasure and squeezed Alyssa’s hands. Her wide gray eyes sparkled. Though no match for Alyssa’s striking loveliness, Jessica was very pretty, with large, clear eyes, bright red-gold hair, and a marvelous, uniquely English complexion—translucent, dewy, and glowing with a natural high color that no rouge could ever duplicate. “Here, sit down, and I’ll ring for tea. You must tell me all about this change-about. In your last letter you said you weren’t coming for Claire’s wedding…”

  “I know. But the play I was in closed last week. No surprise; it was terrible. Not just the script. The two leads fought like cat and dog the whole time. I’ve gotten so tired of the theater. I’m tired of playing ingénues! After all, I’m twenty-eight years old now. How long can a woman go on playing pretty and sappy?”

  Jessica giggled. “I’ve seen some women do it their whole lives.”

  “Well, not me. Anyway, there I was: the play over, feeling sick to death of my career and wishing I could see you and go to Claire’s wedding. And Dad’s in Paris right now; I could hop over there after the wedding. It’s been almost a year since I’ve seen him. So I thought, why not? Of course, I couldn’t take the Queen Mary with the U-boats prowling the Atlantic. But I knew I could catch the Clipper, and I’ve always had a secret urge to fly in an airplane.”

  “How was it?”

  “Fantastic! Hanging up there above the clouds—it was so wild and beautiful.”

  Jessica smiled. “That’s how Alan feels. But the couple of times he took me up in his plane, I just felt mostly ill.” She grimaced. “But, tell me, weren’t you afraid to come here, with the war and all?”

  “What war?” Alyssa retorted quickly, and Jessica smiled wryly. “It’s been seven months since England and Germany declared war on each other, and nothing’s happened. At home everyone thinks England will sign a peace treaty with Germany soon.”

  Jessica sighed. “Yes. Everyone here is calling it the ‘phony war.’ But I’ve talked to people who don’t think the peace will last.”

  “You think it will come to actual fighting?”

  “How can it not? Hitler’s a madman. He doesn’t want appeasement. He wants the world under his thumb. We’ll be polite; he’ll keep pushing; and finally, when our back’s to the wall, England will turn and fight.” She fell silent as the maid slipped into the room with a tray, and Jessica began the ritual of tea.

  Alyssa decided to change the subject to something more pleasant than the war clouds looming over them. “You look gorgeous. Marriage must agree with you.”

  Jessica smiled. “Almost seven years now, and we’re still very happy.” She had married Alan Townsend when she was twenty. Alyssa had been surprised that she had waited so long. Jessica and Alan had been neighbors since childhood, and as far as Alyssa could tell, Jessica had loved him from the day she was born. Jessica had joined Alyssa in flirting with the local boys from the village and the ones at a neighboring boys’ school, but she never thought of them as anything more than a temporary diversion. Her heart was already given to Alan.

  Alyssa had never been able to imagine being quite so steady-minded about anyone. Nor, when she met him during Jessica’s “coming out” after they graduated, had Alan Townsend seemed to her to be a man to inspire such devotion. Two years older than Jessica, he was tall and lanky with thin, light-brown hair and a long, serious face. He spoke sparingly and smiled even less often. But over the years, as Alyssa got to know him, she discovered his charm. And it was obvious to everyone who knew them that he was mad about Jessica. They were “suited to each other,” as Jessica’s autocratic grandmother said, and while Alyssa couldn’t imagine marrying a man who exhibited no more fire and passion than Alan did, marriage to him seemed to make Jessica happy.

  “I just hope that Claire will be as happy,” Jessica continued.

  Claire Stanton had lived down the hall from Jessica and Alyssa at boarding school, and, being a fellow English girl, she and Jessica had formed a friendship before Alyssa arrived. The three of them had been friends until they graduated, Jessica forming the cornerstone of the relationship. Claire was considered the brains of their group, while Alyssa was the beauty, and Jessica the lady. Claire had gone on to study at a university and later had joined the Foreign Service, working in the British embassy in Spain, then in Poland.

  “Tell me about Claire’s fiancé,” Alyssa urged, leaning closer and resting her arms on her knees. “She hardly said anything about him in her letter, except that he’s Polish.”

  Jessica grinned. “You’ll like Ky. He’s terribly romantic. He even has a little dueling scar right here under his left eye.”

  “Ky?”

  “Casimir Andrzej Dubrowski, more easily known as Ky,” Jessica explained. “He’s tall, blond, and very handsome, with that sort of stern, fiercely blue-eyed look. You know, the kind you expect to come riding in on a snorting steed, saber in hand, a
nd pick a girl up and throw her over the saddlebow.”

  Alyssa chuckled. “Is that how Claire met him?”

  Jessica joined in her laughter. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t put it past him. But Claire’s positively close-mouthed about how they met. I’m beginning to suspect it involved something no one’s supposed to know about.”

  Alyssa’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

  Jessica shrugged. “I’m not sure, exactly. Did you ever meet Claire’s uncle? Ian Hedley?”

  Alyssa shook her head. “I don’t think so. I met her mother once; that’s all.”

  “Well, I’ve met Ian several times, and he’s very… interesting. I’m sure you’ll meet him while you’re here, and you’ll understand what I mean. He seems quite ordinary, yet there’s something rather compelling about him as well. Anyway, he’s an importer—antiques and things—and he has a lot of contacts all over the world. I think for the past few years he’s seen what was coming more clearly than most of us. He has been quietly collecting information… and friends… and favors.”

  Alyssa’s voice dropped. “Are you trying to tell me that Claire is involved in spying? Are you serious?”

  “Sound a little farfetched?” Jessica asked, smiling. “I thought so too until I started talking to Ian. He’s very patriotic. Very knowledgeable. He’s been rather a voice in the wilderness the past few years, warning us about Hitler’s intentions. He told me a year ago that Hitler wouldn’t stop with Austria or Czechoslovakia; he’d want Poland. And Ian was right. No one would listen, but that didn’t stop him. Ian’s been working steadily on his own.”

  “Spying? And Claire’s been working for him? I find all this a little hard to absorb.”

  “Yes, I think Claire was doing something for him in Poland. I think that’s how she met Ky.”

  “I never thought of Claire as an adventuress.”

  “Me, either. But, then, lots of things I’ve never thought of have happened.”

  “Well, what is this Ky Dubrowski doing here in London?” Alyssa thought of the newsreels she had seen of the debacle in Poland, of Polish cavalry charging German tanks in a final, desperate struggle.

  “He escaped. When Claire returned to London with the rest of our embassy staff after war was declared, she was worried sick about Ky. She was certain she’d never see him alive again. He was a pilot in the Polish Air Force, which the Luftwaffe destroyed. But somehow Ky managed to escape; he showed up here about six weeks ago to join the RAF, like other Polish flyers who escaped. And he and Claire are getting married.”

  “It sounds like something out of a book.”

  Jessica nodded. “Doesn’t it? Everything’s strange nowadays. People are marrying all over the place, as if they’re trying to seize their happiness before the war comes. Or as if they’ll somehow stave off the conflict. But Claire’s deliriously happy. Wait’ll you see her; her face glows. She looks like a different person from the woman who came back to London last September.”

  “I’m eager to see her.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll call her and tell her you’re here. We’ll have lunch at the Savoy tomorrow. She can get away from work long enough for that.”

  “Where is she working?”

  “In her uncle’s business.”

  “The one into shady dealings?”

  Jessica sent her a mock frown. “Not shady dealings, just… hush-hush.”

  “Ah. I see. I hope I’m going to get to meet this uncle while I’m here.”

  “I’m sure you will. No doubt he’ll be at the party I’m giving for Claire and Ky this weekend. It will be enormous. Grandmother is graciously allowing me to hold it at her home because it’s too big for mine. By the way, she wants to see you.”

  “Her Ladyship?”

  Jessica smiled at Alyssa’s nickname for her grandmother. “Yes. She thinks quite a bit of you, you know.”

  “Me? I would think she considers me terribly plebeian.”

  “Well, she does, but she accepts it because, after all, all Americans are plebeian. And she admits that for an American you come from a good family.”

  Alyssa laughed. “My grandmother would be thrilled to hear that.”

  “She says you have beauty and style—as women used to in her day, of course.”

  “Before they started cutting their hair and shortening their skirts,” Alyssa supplemented.

  “Precisely. Grandmother maintains that you could hide a multitude of bad features with long hair, long skirts, and a corset.”

  “I suspect she’s right.”

  The two women smiled at each other. Then suddenly Jessica reached across the couch and clasped her friend’s hand. “Oh, Alyssa, it’s so marvelous to have you back.”

  *****

  The Savoy Hotel was an elegant old place in the business district of London, its driveway famous for being the only road in England where traffic drove on the right, not the left. Its bar and restaurant were favorite meeting spots for the press, especially the American press, and it was particularly crowded these days, with the rush of correspondents to England and the Continent to cover the war.

  Alyssa met Jessica there at noon the next day, radiant and refreshed after a good night’s sleep. Snatches of conversation floated by as they followed the waiter to their table, the flat accents of Americans mingling with the crisper tones of the native Britishers: “… Sitzkrieg! How are you going to write about nothing?”

  “…bloody nuisance. The PM says…”

  “Churchill’s spouting off about Graf Spee…”

  “…but since the Finns surrendered to Stalin…”

  “Get a load of those legs, would you?”

  The maître d’ seated them, and Jessica looked across at her friend quizzically. “Why is it that whenever I’m with you, I feel as if everyone’s staring at us?”

  Alyssa chuckled. “It’s not just me, you know. There’s a dark-haired man over there who’s got his eyes set quite firmly on you.”

  “You’re joking.” Jessica swiveled her head to look. At a table against the wall were two men, one dark and rather broodingly handsome, the other supremely nondescript. The one with the black hair and brown eyes was studying her. Jessica turned back to Alyssa, her color flaming a little higher. “Well, what do you know? That gives the old ego a boost.”

  “I don’t know why you should be so surprised. You’re very attractive.”

  Jessica shrugged. “I get my fair share of looks. But I never expect to when I’m with you.”

  Alyssa rolled her eyes. “You want to know something? I intimidate most men.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. It’s the truth. I scare them off. All except the obnoxious ones, of course.”

  Jessica chuckled. “Now, Alyssa, I know that can’t be true.” She glanced toward the entrance. “Look, there’s Claire.” She raised her hand and waggled it, and Alyssa turned in her chair to get a look at their friend. Claire waved back and hurried toward them, arriving breathlessly at the table.

  “Hullo. Sorry to be late, but Uncle had some last-minute things I had to do.” She bent down to give Alyssa a half hug. “I’m so thrilled you came! I couldn’t believe it when Jessica rang me up yesterday and said you’d made it after all.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Alyssa assured her, trying not to stare at her friend. How much Claire had changed! Claire had never been unattractive, but she had been quiet and shy, lacking in confidence, a bookworm who had difficulty talking to people. When Alyssa first met her, she had worn her hair in an old-fashioned, unattractive style, was awkward with makeup, and seemed at a loss when it came to clothes. Jessica and Alyssa had managed to improve her clothes sense and hair style during the years they were at school together. But the last time Alyssa saw her, Claire still had that reticent air, a way of pulling back from a crowd until you’d hardly notice her.

  But now she was turning heads. She wore a trim jacketed dress in a s
oft rose that brightened her complexion, and her hair was swept back from her face and fastened with barrettes in a becoming style. But the change was more than that. Her face glowed. Her eyes were bright and alive. She moved with poise and assurance. It was an inner change that showed all over her.

  Claire sat down, and they ordered lunch. As they chatted, most of Claire’s conversation centered on her fiancé. Alyssa began to burn with curiosity; she couldn’t wait to meet this man who had made such a difference in Claire.

  “You’ll get to meet him at Jessica’s party,” Claire assured Alyssa. “He’ll be off duty then. You’ll love him; you can’t help it.”

  Is this the same girl, Alyssa thought, who struggled to keep any boy she dated from meeting me, certain that he would immediately lose interest in her?

  Claire had to leave as soon as they finished eating, sighing that tons of work were waiting for her at the office. Alyssa and Jessica lingered over second cups of coffee and tea, then spent a leisurely afternoon wandering along Oxford Street, looking in store windows. They ended up in Fortnum & Mason, where Jessica bought caviar, chocolates, and a few other expensive groceries.

  “I thought you had food rationing,” Alyssa commented, watching her select her goods.

  Jessica shrugged. “I haven’t seen much sign of it. Except for fruit—that’s scarce. The U-boats have been playing hell with the shipping.”

  Food wasn’t the only area in which London seemed little touched by the war. As the days passed, Alyssa discovered that nearly everything went on as before. The cinemas were open, and restaurants and nightclubs were jammed. Stage productions had moved their curtain times up to 6:00 or 6:30 because of the blackout, but other than that continued with their business as usual. There were several successful plays and revues, including a scandalous nude review at the Windmill Theatre, in which the women stood onstage still as statues, their bare breasts and G-strings permitted by decency laws only as long as they did not move.