FROM FITZROY'S PRIVATE DIARY (EXTRACT 3)

Euphemia and I have been talking. After trying to persuade her, yet again, to give up rewriting her notebooks, and failing, she raised the question of Hope. My Goddaughter is tiny.

I remember when Euphemia passed her to me at her christening, my first thought, somewhat unworthy, was that she weighed less than a box of ammo. I looked down and she gurgled. Her eyes opened wide – they are the very image of her mother’s – and she smiled up at me. I confess I felt something strange in my chest, in the place where other men have their hearts. I must have smiled, as Bertram leaned over to me and whispered, ‘It’s only wind.’ When I passed her back to the vicar, she urinated all over him. At that moment I knew I was in over my head. I had already begun to love her as the daughter I would never have.

We have enemies Euphemia and I. Bertram was never in as deep as Euphemia. If he knew half the things his wife and I had done for King and Country, the heart attack that Euphemia fears would long ago have set him free of this mortal coil.

All of us have no wish to see Hope follow her mother into the service. Why should she? But Euphemia fears, despite the quiet, hidden, life we constructed for her family, one day someone will link Hope to her, or me. Therefore, she has asked me to train my own goddaughter.

I do not want to drag this innocent down into my world, but I see her point. We argued back and forth for a while. At first all we could agree on was that Bertram should never be told. In the end I acquiesced to train her solely in observation and evasion with an understanding that should she ever feel in danger, she would come to either her mother or I. It is the best I am prepared to offer. I want Hope to have a happy life, and a normal one. I don’t want her to enter our world of shadows, where Euphemia and I must spend our lives forever looking over our shoulders.

Euphemia has also talked about coming back to full duty when Hope is older. I have agreed in principle, but I have no intention of putting Euphemia back into the field while Hope is still a child. I know what it is like to lose a mother when you are young. Hope is different to me in that she has a father who adores her, but it would still cut a scar through her life that would never heal. I will not allow it to happen to her.

I will use Euphemia’s knowledge. I may even take her with me on occasion. But until Hope is grown, I will never allow Euphemia to put herself in danger. I fear she will hate me for this, but if she does, I must bear it. I am immovable on this.