The Quest

by Christopher Nicole

  “Not if she’s what you want, Father.”

  How grown up he was.

  Alicia clapped her hands. “I think it would be just marvellous.”

  “I think she’s perfect,” his mother said.

  “For the job, you mean,” Berkeley suggested.

  She flushed. “Well, of course not in that sense. But if you’re attracted to each other, and the children like her . . .”

  There remained the final aspect of the equation.

  “What do you think of them?” he asked, as they walked together over the downs, the dogs bounding about their feet. With the coming of February there was snow on the ground, but they were well wrapped up.

  “I think they’re absolutely charming,” Lucy said. “So well mannered. And so handsome.”

  “They take after their mother,” Berkeley said. “And their maternal grandmother. Both were absolutely beautiful women.”

  “Did you love her very much? Their mother, I mean?”

  “I suppose I did. Once upon a time.”

  “Would you like to talk about her?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have probed.”

  “You’re perfectly welcome to probe. It’s just that that is a part of my life I don’t like to remember.”

  “But the children . . .”

  “I’m trying to stop them remembering also. They were very young when their mother died. But they still need all the help they can get.”

  They walked in silence for several minutes, their breaths clouding before their faces.

  “Johnnie is coming up to fourteen,” Berkeley said. “Alicia is twelve. And you’re twenty-two.”

  She stared straight ahead. “I think we could be friends.”

  “But you don’t think you could be a mother to them.”

  “Is that what you would like me to be?”

  “Well, perhaps elder sister would be more appropriate. I know it’s outrageous of me to suggest it . . .”

  “Tell me why? Are we speaking of nanny status? Or . . .”

  “I’m actually asking you to marry me. But I understand that you may not like that idea.”

  “Because of the children?”

  “That. And my age.”

  “I imagine I could cope with both of those aspects of the situation.”

  He stopped walking, and they faced each other. They were quite alone, on a path leading between two fields, fallow in the winter sunshine.

  “I don’t really know what to say.”

  “What did you say to your first wife?”

  “We never said anything. It just happened.”

  “I like the sound of that.” She put her arms round his neck and kissed him on the mouth.

  She had no idea of what she was doing, he thought. She obviously thought he was a stiff-necked soldier who had spent his adult life as a military attaché, attending balls and receptions and being polite to middle-aged dowagers, so much so that he had forgotten how a woman might like to be treated.

  She had somehow to be warned.

  “You do realise,” he said, when she released him, “that in the course of my career I have had to look at the seamy side of life, from time to time.”

  “Of course I know that, Berkeley. That’s what makes you so interesting.”

  “And it doesn’t bother you?”

  “That you have had to act the spy, from time to time. I think that’s very exciting. It isn’t as if you’d committed a crime, or something. Spying isn’t a crime.”

  “That depends which side you’re on, vis-à-vis the spy,” he pointed out.

  “Well, I don’t consider it a crime, where you are concerned,” she said. “You’ll be telling me next that you once had to shoot somebody.”

  “Well . . . I did fight in four wars.”

  “Four?”

  “The Sudan, the First Balkan, the Second Balkan, and the Great.”

  “Good heavens. That’s tremendous. You have killed someone. Maybe more than one. But killing people in war isn’t like killing someone you know, like eyeball to eyeball. Is it?”

  “No,” Berkeley said. “It isn’t. Let’s walk. And talk about weddings.”

  *

  John senior and Alicia were delighted. So were the Horsfalls, with, Berkeley guessed, some reservations. But these were mainly on account of the age difference.

  “Mummy keeps saying that by the time I am forty you’ll be sixty-three,” Lucy told him. “As she isn’t even your age now, as yet, she regards sixty-three as having both feet in the grave, just about.”

  “We’ll have to prove her wrong,” Berkeley said.

  John junior and Little Alicia were equally delighted, especially as Alicia was to be a bridesmaid.

  Berkeley would have preferred a quiet wedding, but the Horsfalls wanted the best for their only daughter, and so the marriage did not take place until September. But it was a pleasant, if wet, summer. Berkeley, as an ex-government employee, could not help but be concerned, as were his parents and prospective parents-in-law, when Labour became the strongest political party in the country and assumed Government, even if without an overall majority, with all its threats of mind-deadening taxation and a government finger in every pie. But with no majority over the Conservatives and Liberals, these things did not happen, and the Government fell anyway before the end of the year amidst rumours of seditious dealings with the Bolsheviks. Very little of these political matters had any effect on life in Northamptonshire, as there was Lucy’s company to be enjoyed. She virtually moved into the Townsend house, spent hours with the children during the summer holidays, and seemed to be entirely on their wavelength.

  Normality. There was the key. In all these months he never did more than kiss her or hold her hand. Normality. The gentle, and thus genteel, life. And then at last, the day, celebrated just before John junior and Little Alicia had to go back to school. It brought back so many memories, and yet, for Berkeley, was unique, as he stood before the altar, Lockwood acting as his best man, and awaited the arrival of his bride.

  *

  They honeymooned in Guernsey. Here was probably the most peaceful place on earth, Berkeley thought.

  “Happy?” she asked, as they walked L’Ancresse Beach.

  “Yes,” he said. “For the first time in a long time.”

  “I’m so glad,” she said.

  “And you?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said.

  He believed her. He had been extremely nervous on their first night as man and wife, even if it had largely involved a train journey to Southampton, thence to join the cross-Channel ferry. But in the intimate warmth of their cabin he had found pure delight. Lucy was not a beautiful woman in the sense that Caterina had been, but she was shapely and considerably taller, and she loved without hesitation. And amazingly, for all her amatory self-possession, she was a virgin.

  “Am I allowed to have children?” she asked him.

  “Of course, my darling.”

  “I thought you might, well . . .”

  “That forty-six is too old to become a father?”

  “That you had enough already.”

  “I want you to be a mother,” he said definitely.

  There were aspects of their own lives in which she was equally positive. Naturally she wanted a home of her own, especially when she became pregnant. Berkeley was surprised to discover that this came as something of a shock, less the prospect of becoming again a father than moving out of the house he had lived in for as long as he could remember. Having spent no more than a few months in England in each year of his adult life, it had simply never occurred to him not to use his parents’ home as his base. But this was another aspect of retirement and normality. They house-hunted vigorously that winter, and in the spring found just what Lucy wanted.

  “Hm,” Berkeley commented, as he studied the specifications. “Bit pricy.” He was very reluctant to dip into his nest egg, the money he had received for the sale of the house in Sabac.r />
  “We’ll take out a mortgage.”

  “Even so. Mortgages have to be paid.”

  “Well . . . you could get a job.”

  “At my age?”

  “Pfft. You’re only forty-six. I know, you could go to work with Pa.”

  “What on earth as?”

  “Articled clerk. He’ll pay you well . . . well, enough to take care of the mortgage payments, anyway. I know he’d be glad to have you.”

  “My dear girl, I don’t know anything about the law.”

  Except how to break it, successfully, he thought.

  “You’d learn. All about it.” She giggled. “You might even get called to the Bar, in time.”

  Berkeley wasn’t sure he liked that idea. But she was so keen on the house that he paid his deposit, while Lucy fixed up a meeting with her father for the following week.

  “Now I feel we’re really getting somewhere,” she said, as they drove back to the Townsend house. “Hello. Looks like we have visitors.”

  Berkeley frowned. It was a rather large, black Daimler. Very official-looking, with a liveried driver looking bored behind the wheel.

  They went into the hall, where Alicia was waiting, distinctly apprehensive.

  “There’s someone to see you, Berkeley,” she said. “A general. Name of Shrimpton.”

  Lucy raised her eyebrows. “Do we know him?”

  “I do,” Berkeley said, and opened the drawing room door.

  Shrimpton had not changed at all, except that he was wearing civilian clothes. But his manner had. “Berkeley,” he said jovially, features carefully arranged into a benevolent smile. “How good to see you. It’s been some time.”

  “All but two years,” Berkeley agreed, and shook hands. “This is my wife, Lucy.”

  “Ah.” Shrimpton’s expression changed, for a moment, before he got it back. “What a pleasure.” He shook Lucy’s hand. “Do you know, I had no idea you were married?”

  “No reason why you should,” Berkeley said. “Drink?”

  “That would be very nice. Would scotch and water be all right?”

  “Certainly. I’ll join you.” Berkeley went to the drinks cabinet, poured. “Lucy?”

  “I won’t, thank you.” She had sized up the situation, that this was man talk, without understanding what it could possibly involve. “Will you excuse me? I think Mother needs some help in the kitchen.”

  She closed the door behind herself.

  “What a charming young woman,” Shrimpton remarked.

  “I think so,” Berkeley agreed. “Do sit down.”

  “Thank you.” Shrimpton seated himself. “Your health.”

  Berkeley drank.

  “I wouldn’t have thought a chap like you could afford to get married,” Shrimpton remarked.

  “It’s an expensive business.”

  “I wasn’t talking about money. Does your wife know who you really are?”

  “No,” Berkeley said, and realised he might have made a mistake. “And I intend to keep it that way.”

  “Absolutely. Nothing more shakes the marriage bed than the knowledge that one’s husband is a hired assassin.”

  “With respect, General, I was never a hired assassin. I was employed by HM Government, who from time to time required me to kill somebody. I obeyed orders.”

  “Absolutely,” Shrimpton agreed. “And, of course, the good lady knows nothing of your, shall we say, campaign to recover your daughter.”

  “She knows I looked, General.”

  “Oh, quite. So what are your plans for the future?”

  “To live as quiet a life as possible, and grow old as gracefully as possible.”

  “Very laudable. Let me see, your two surviving children are both in their middle teens about now, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, they are,” Berkeley said. “Look, would you mind telling me the reason for this visit? I am retired. I have nothing any longer to do with the Army, the War Office, the Government, or you. So I am a man with a past. It is my intention to forget that past as rapidly as possible, and Lucy is helping me to do so.”

  “Oh, quite,” Shrimpton said. “Admirable. I just thought, as I happened to be in the neighbourhood, that I’d drop in for a chat. Because, you know, it is never possible entirely to forget, or shrug off, one’s past. It’s there, and there it is.”

  “As you are no longer my superior officer,” Berkeley said. “I have every right to ask you to leave my parents’ house, and not to come back.”

  “Absolutely,” Shrimpton said. “I did not mean to cause offence. As I said, happening to be in the neighbourhood, I thought I’d drop by. See that you were all right. And perhaps bring you up to date on the news.”

  “What news?”

  “Well, for example . . . I suppose you remember that fellow Hitler?”

  “I do. He’s in prison, isn’t he?”

  “Ah . . . no.”

  Berkeley raised his eyebrows.

  “He was sent to prison, certainly,” Shrimpton said. “After that abortive coup in Munich. He was given five years.”

  “But you say he isn’t there?”

  “He’s been released on parole.”

  “After . . .?”

  “Nine months, as it happens.”

  “And is immediately causing trouble again, I assume.”

  “As a matter of fact, no. Not on the surface, you might say. In fact he has declared that although the Nazi Party is to be immediately resuscitated, as it were, it will from here on pursue power only by legal means. But this is verbiage, I imagine required by the government before they would grant him his parole.”

  “So what harm can he do, on parole and with a pledge to the government?”

  “Well, you see, during his brief imprisonment, which seems to have been in the most pleasant of conditions, masses of visitors, good food and wine, that sort of thing, he also found the time to write a book. I have a copy here.” From his briefcase he took the slender volume and laid it on the coffee table.

  Berkeley picked it up, read the title, which was in German: Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice.

  “Bit of a mouthful,” he remarked.

  “That is a first edition, just published,” Shrimpton explained. “However, it has sold very well. The second edition, out in a couple of months, I believe, has been shortened to My Struggle, which in German, as you know, would be Mein Kampf.”

  “More catchy, certainly,” Berkeley agreed.

  “I think you should read it. You do read German?”

  “I can get by. But I am not really interested in Herr Hitler’s tale of woe.”

  “I can understand that. And to tell you the truth, this is the most turgid rubbish. Except . . . is it rubbish? You see, it deals less with Hitler’s past than with his plans for the future. These are quite dramatic. He speaks of the determination, of the necessity, of the German people to expand to the East. He speaks of the Slav people and the Russians in general as being sub-humans, along with the Jews and the coloured peoples. He speaks of an Aryan race, the Scandinavians, the Dutch, the English, dominating Europe and thence the world.”

  “I always thought he was a little mad,” Berkeley said. “Prison seems to have sent him over the top.”

  “But in your report on him and his party back in 1920, you say that even then he spoke of creating a Third German Empire, a Third Reich, which would dominate Europe.”

  “As I said, I always thought he was a little mad.”

  “If he’s mad, he’s maintained a very consistent point of view over the past five years.”

  “And this bothers you, or even concerns you? The man has just come out of prison, he has no power base, and he has committed himself to a peaceful political career, supposing he has one at all. That he has written an inflammatory book is surely unimportant?”

  “That is what most people think, unfortunately, and what they are undoubtedly intended to think. But the reports coming out of Germany from our
various diplomats and agents stationed there are disturbing. Germany is in a very unstable state. So they now have Hindenburg as president, and apparently the whole country except for the Communists are supportive, but the Communists themselves are a destabilising element. This fellow Thalmann takes his orders direct from Moscow.”

  “I’ve met Thalmann.”

  “And what did you think?”

  “As I reported at the time, he is not a natural leader.”

  “Unlike friend Hitler, eh? However, the fact is that Hindenburg is an old man, and is not going to be around much longer. And while Hitler may not yet have regained a power base, he is not short of support, from two very important directions. One is the extreme right wing, who already fight the Communists in the streets whenever they meet up with them. The other, believe it or not, is big business.”

  “I really can’t believe that,” Berkeley said. “Hitler is a Socialist. That’s the name of his party.”

  “What’s in a name? It is my belief that Hitler is basing his ideas on the success Mussolini is having in Italy. Think of it. Mussolini actually began life as a Communist, and then developed Fascism as his own brand of politics. Everyone was afraid of him when he first took power, of what he might do. Now he’s the most successful prime minister Italy has ever had. He’s drained the Pontine Marshes, got the trains to run on time . . . and is entirely supportive of big business, as long as they support him.”

  “And with only a few murders along the way.”

  “That is the nature of the beast, Berkeley. The point is that nowhere in anything he has said or written has Mussolini advocated an all-out war of conquest. Certainly he would like to see certain adjustments in his borders with Austria or the Serbo-Croat state, but that has been going on for centuries. He is not a danger to anyone outside of Italy, and the Italians seem perfectly happy with him. The same cannot be said about this fellow Hitler.”

  Berkeley tapped the book. “If you believe this.”

  “It so happens that I do.”

  “And the Government?”

  Shrimpton flushed. “I don’t think many of them have read it. And those that have don’t take it seriously. The fact is, with our social problems the powers that be couldn’t be less interested in what’s happening on the continent.”