Gregory read the first page and it appeared to consist of somebody's scheme to hold a big family meeting which was to include the discussion of certain business plans.
Many relatives were mentioned, mostly by their Christian names, and none of these conveyed anything to Gregory. There was no date on it and no signature at its end. The script was thumbed and dirty so he was inclined to think that it had been got out by some old gentleman who was a remote relative of Goering's and who at some time or other had wished to rope in the now famous 'Hermann' for some big social gathering that he was planning…
It seemed that he had risked his neck for a document which had no political significance whatever, so with considerable disappointment he folded it and put it back into his shoe for further examination when he had more leisure. He had only just relaced his shoe when Freddie came bursting into the room. His face was flushed, his eyes shining.
"Isn't it marvellous?" he cried. "Angela's here that was her I ran into downstairs a few minutes ago."
"I had a sort of suspicion that it might be," Gregory smiled, "and I gather it didn't take you long to make up your quarrel either."
"Quarrel?" Freddie repeated with surprise. "Oh, we never quarrelled really we've always loved each other."
"Splendid. Anyhow, I thought she looked a most lovely person and I'm more happy for you than I can possibly say, Freddie. But what's she doing in Helsinki?"
"Her father was transferred from our Consulate at Amsterdam to our Consulate here a fortnight ago. Apparently the pressure of work here has been increasing ever since the war started so Mr. Fordyce was sent out to lend a hand. He's a widower, you know, so wherever he goes Angela always goes too, to look after him. They want us both to lunch with them. If it's O.K, by you, I said we'd meet them downstairs in about ten minutes' time."
Gregory laughed. "I shall be delighted to lunch if they won't mind my slipping away immediately afterwards. I've got an appointment with a man at the Finnish Foreign Office for three o'clock."
"Oh, no, that'll be all right." Freddie dived at his suitcase. "I must get some of these parcels unpacked so that I can have a wash and change into my new clothes; then we'll get down to the lounge again."
Downstairs they found that the Fordyce’s had secured a table and were with difficulty retaining two empty chairs for their guests as the lounge was absolutely packed with people. Half the population of Helsinki seemed to have assembled there to see as many of their acquaintances as possible and discuss the latest rumours.
While Freddie made the introductions Gregory was smilingly taking in the father and daughter. Mr. Fordyce was a tallish man still in his early forties and as yet had not a single grey hair on his dark, smooth head. His double breasted lounge suit was of grey Glenurquhart tweed and he was unmistakably English. Angela was even prettier than Gregory had supposed from his first glimpse of her. Like her father she was dark and had blue eyes, a combination which suggested a touch of Irish blood in the family, but her skin was of that smooth whiteness which is spoken of as magnolia blossom and sometimes found in a special type of dark beauty. Gregory noticed that she used very little make up and thought that just a touch more colour on her lips and cheeks would have made her still lovelier; for her eyes, however, nature could not have been improved upon, as she had long, dark, curling lashes.
After a glass of aquavit they went into the crowded dining room and enjoyed an excellent meal. The smoked salmon which is as cheap in Finland as herrings are in England was, curiously enough, not of such good quality as that usually served in London; but the mussel soup was delicious, as the mussels in which the Finnish coast abounds had not been out of the sea for more than an hour. Stuffed pike, cooked over a wood fire, followed and afterwards Gregory and Freddie tried their first bear steaks. Ordinarily, bear meat is inclined to be tough but this had been treated with oil in the same way as the Italians prepare a tournado and the meat had a distinctive, rather pleasant flavour of its own. To celebrate Freddie's and Angela's unexpected reunion Mr. Fordyce stood them champagne, and they finished up with a good selection of cheeses and Turkish coffee.
As they were celebrating the meal was naturally a gay one but most of the faces about them were grave and anxious owing to the crisis. Many of the women in the room were quite good looking but very few of them had on any make up; the lack of which left their faces curiously colourless compared with the usual restaurant crowd in London, and Freddie remarked upon the fact.
"My dear," Angela laughed, "didn't you know that for a girl to paint her face is the one deadly sin in Finland? That's why I make up so little here. The tarts use cosmetics as a badge of their profession but even they use only as little as possible just enough to show that they are tarts otherwise they would never be able to attract the better class of men."
"I see," Gregory smiled across at her. "I thought it must be because they were rather puritanical, the old Protestant strain coming out. The Finns are said to be rather like the Scots in many ways, I believe, and nothing is more dreary than a Sunday in Scotland. They are Protestants, aren't they?"
"Yes, Lutherans," Fordyce volunteered. “And, curiously enough, Christianity was brought to them by an Englishman. King Eric the IXth of Sweden undertook, in 1157, a crusade to convert the heathen Finns, and with him he took his English chaplain, Bishop Henry of Upsala, who baptized the population en masse. The unfortunate Henry was assassinated the following year; but he evidently made himself popular with the Finns, as they canonized him and made him their patron saint.
"You're right about the Finns having much in common with the Scots, too. They're thrifty, hard working people with a passion for education and the same sort of dogged courage which has made the Scots such splendid pioneers all over the world… The Finns are also great travellers; but as they have no Colonies to settle in, all their more adventurous young men become sailors and they serve principally in British and American ships."
Gregory nodded. "I imagine it's the long winter nights which make people in the northern countries like Scotland and Scandinavia so keen on education plenty of time for reading and once people get interested in books they almost always educate themselves."
"Yes. They are terrific readers. You've only got to look at the bookshops here to see that. Practically every worth while book that comes out is translated into Finnish, and a bookseller was telling me the other day that the editions they print are very often as large as those printed in England; which is absolutely staggering considering the relative smallness of the population.
"This business of make up, then," Freddie brought the conversation back, "is, I suppose, due to the same sort of strict morality that the Church of Scotland enforces so far as it can?"
"Oh, no. It's not that they're the least straight laced," Angela hastened to assure him. "In fact, women are remarkably free here and the Finns have a passionate belief in the equality of the sexes. They were the first people to give women the vote; and if a servant girl here has an illegitimate child nobody thinks any the worse of her: she just stays on in her job and the child’s adopted into the family.'