Catching the Wind(99)
Quenby tilted her head. “Of course not, but—”
“Quenby,” Hannah said, stopping her. “I took a genetic test a few years ago and discovered that I’m of Jewish descent as well as German.”
“From your father’s side?”
“No, from my mother.”
Quenby leaned back against a chair, stunned by her words. “Rosalind was Jewish?”
She nodded slowly. “Passed down from her mother.”
“Lady Ricker?” Quenby whispered.
“Precisely.”
Which meant that Quenby was of German and Jewish descent as well. “I wonder if she knew . . .”
“It was a grand cover-up scheme if she did. Perhaps she was afraid of what Hitler would do if he took England. She wanted to be known in Germany as someone who supported him.”
Jack ducked under the open doorway and stepped into the room, holding up a porcelain teapot. “Would you ladies like some more tea?”
All three women readily agreed, and he began filling their cups with the steaming brew.
Jack didn’t need a job—Mr. Knight had taken good care of both him and Eileen in his will too—but he’d asked Bridget if he could accompany her to England. And then he’d stayed. The children loved him, and Quenby thought there was a spark between him and Hannah, though they’d probably both deny it.
Her phone rang, and she saw Lucas’s number on the screen. The other two ladies pretended to be engrossed in their books, but she’d learned they were both quite nosy. And they both adored her guy.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” she asked when she answered his call.
“How about tonight?”
“The weather is terrible,” she said, but then she saw headlamps outside the window, and her heart filled with joy.
Hannah excused herself to help Jack in the kitchen, and Bridget pretended to have fallen asleep in her recliner, though Quenby saw her peeking through her eyelids.
“How’s my fiancée?” Lucas asked when he walked into the door. He liked calling her that, ever since she’d agreed to marry him. And each time he said the word, it made her smile.
“I’m much better now.”
He kissed her lips instead of her cheek and handed her a winter bouquet with red roses, white calla lilies, and glossy magnolia leaves.
“What are these for?”
“Just because,” he said as he settled down on the rug beside her as if he belonged here. “Because I love you, Quenby Vaughn.”
When she kissed him this time, the winter wind rattled the glass, but it didn’t startle her. Finally she, too, had found her way home.
Author’s Note
More than a year ago, I sat down with a mug of green tea in my favorite coffee shop, scribbling down my ideas for this novel. Outside the window stood an old tree, a weeping cedar with its sturdy branches and dangling leaves that ballooned like a giant umbrella over the people drinking coffee and tea below.
In my mind’s eye, I saw two German children—the best of friends—playing high among those branches. In a tree house. They were in danger, though at the time I didn’t know what threatened them. I just knew the boy and girl had to run. And the girl would be lost along the way.
As I sipped my drink, the plight of Dietmar and Brigitte began unfolding. It was a gift to me, this story. Given by the Master Creator, who, I believe, works powerfully through stories to redeem His children.
My journey to research this novel took me north to the misty San Juan Islands, across the Atlantic to visit the historic streets and heaths in London and the beautiful gardens and villages of Kent, then down to Switzerland to tour the medieval fortress Chateau de Chillon.
Years ago, my husband and I hiked in a forest of bright green behind Moselkern to visit another medieval castle called Burg Eltz. I drew on my memories of touring both Germany and Belgium and then living in Germany for a season to tell the story of Dietmar and Brigitte’s escape. The Disney scenes were from my own childhood—and adult—fascination with the magic of story in Orlando.
While in London, I spent an entire day at the National Archives reading through a stack of recently released top secret files as well as older documents about German espionage in the United Kingdom. Many British citizens sympathized with Nazi Germany for a multitude of reasons, and I read account after account of men and women who either gathered information for Hitler or attempted to wreak havoc on England’s facilities. There were handwritten letters from suspected spies; documents about microphotography, invisible ink, and secret codes; a worn file about a Nazi parachutist who became a double agent; and the transcriptions of interrogations conducted during and after the war.
Before World War II, hundreds of German agents gathered information in England about airfields, military bases, and factories, but hours after Great Britain declared war against Germany, British agents apprehended many of these men and women. They were either detained or deported back to Germany. Still the Nazis continued sending men over during the war via plane or boat to gather information and sabotage the country.
England has a grand tradition of documenting the normalcy of life through volunteers who submit their diaries to an organization called Mass Observation. These accounts from the 1940s were an invaluable reference for me as the diarists recorded their fears about espionage, the preparations for war, and the explanation of how the resentment toward Nazis spread to a hatred of all German people, many of whom already lived among the British.