The Intrigues of Jennie Lee

by Alex Rosenberg

  “My, but I’m glad to see you. Haven’t had a word since the election, I dare say.”

  “It was well before then, your grace...”

  Elizabeth raised a hand as if to ward off the title. “None of that, Jennie. We’re alone, gloriously alone.” Then she turned, sought a chair, dropped the folio she’d been carrying on the floor beside it and looked back at Jennie. “May I?”

  Jennie nodded and Elizabeth sat. “Of course.” She went to the saggy chesterfield opposite.

  Nodding towards a sideboard, she offered, “Sherry?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Elizabeth pulled her folio off the floor and unzipped it, as Jennie poured the sherry into two cut glass glasses. Can she manage not drinking from crystal? Jennie couldn’t help forming the thought. Stop it! She commanded herself, came back to the seats, put one glass on the small table next to Elizabeth and downed hers standing.

  “Very well, Elizabeth. You have the floor. End my suspense.”

  The Duchess pulled a grey file from the portfolio and pulled at the bow tied in the middle by purple ribbons. There were several pieces of paper in the folder.

  “My husband”—she stopped, evidently searching for a word— “purloined this file.” The ribbon-tied oak tag was marked “Most Secret.” She handed the file to Jennie, who opened it. “Have a good look.”

  There were about a dozen papers, mostly onionskin flimsies, endorsed by marks in fountain pen with initials. The top two sheets, however, were evidently Photostats. They both were in Italian, one with a letterhead Ambasciata d’Italia nel Regno Unito above a London address, the second’s letterhead read Ministro degli Affari Esteri, Roma. Jennie looked up from these two sheets.

  “I don’t read Italian.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Neither does the Duke. There’s a translation of each. There’s also a letter in German, with a translation.”

  Jennie found the German letter. It was also onionskin, of a weight used for airmail letters, and had a heading in embossed black letters, Fritz Thyssen, Duisburg-Hamborn, Deutschland. She put it aside with the Italian Photostats, and turned to the documents in English. Three had an MI6—counter-intelligence—heading and the others were apparently documents from SIS, N-section. SIS Jennie knew was the Secret Intelligence Service, running British spies overseas. She had no idea what N-section was. MI6 was an organisation she knew and one she distrusted. It spied on Britons in Britain and had a reputation for infiltrating and undermining left-wing movements, on the pretext they were under Soviet control. Both memos were marked in dark bold capital letters that had been underlined, NOT TO BE TRANSMITTED TO CABINET OFFICE. FOR HM’s EYES ONLY.

  She began with the SIS N-section memorandum.

  N-section has removed copied and replaced the attached letter to the Italian ambassador from the Italian diplomatic pouch.

  This letter, copy attached, marked ‘ambassador’s eyes only’ is from Signor Benito Mussolini, the Italian Duce, acting as minister of foreign affairs.

  It states that Signor Mussolini has authorised the Italian ministry of foreign affairs to advance moneys to Sir Oswald Mosley, in amounts of 25,000 pounds sterling per month from December 1930.

  The letter directs the Italian ambassador at London to provide these funds personally and directly to Sir Oswald Mosley or his designated representative and to request no receipt. The chancery administrator will be reimbursed for these funds with a fortnight’s delay.

  Owing to the post Sir Oswald Mosley now occupies, it will be inconvenient to the work of this office should he become aware of its knowledge of his affairs. Accordingly this memo is to be retained in files and not circulated.

  The understatement in the SIS memo was breath-taking. Tom Mosley, the Prime Minister, was in the pay of a foreign government, a fascist one at that, and no one was to know. Jennie turned to the next SIS memo. It too was marked ‘NOT TO BE TRANSMITTED TO CABINET OFFICE. FOR HM’s EYES ONLY.’

  SIS Section VII

  It has come to the attention of our agents in Germany that certain industrialists hitherto associated with the German National Party, but now supporting the National German Socialist Workers Party candidate in the presidential election, Herr Hitler, are also seeking to make contributions to British political parties and movements.

  The attached letter from Fritz Thyseen, director of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG, [United Steel Corporation] to the Italian ambassador in Berlin expresses knowledge of payments by the Italian government to Sir Oswald Mosley and offers to add additional support, on the condition that Mosley confirms that Italian authorities do not take advantage of Thyssen’s support to reduce their own.

  We are unable to monitor the Prime Minister’s personal correspondence or the Italian diplomatic correspondence to establish whether or not such undertakings to Thyseen have been made by the Italian government, or whether payments have been made.

  Jennie let both memoranda drop to her feet on the floor. So, you were right, Frank, righter than you knew. She looked up at Elizabeth. Her tone was incredulity.

  “The Prime Minister is in the pay of foreign powers.” She caught her breath. “And not just any foreign powers, but the Italian Fascist government and the capitalists bankrolling that Hitler fellow in Germany?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “And how did you come by these documents?” “I told you, the Duke slipped them away from the King’s desk.”

  “Will he miss them?”

  “I doubt it. Albert says the King looked them over and then just kept working through his boxes. It was as though he didn’t care...or already knew, or wasn’t surprised. Anyway, that’s how it seemed to the Duke.”

  “And why did the Duke swipe them, exactly?”

  “Well, the King had put them into one of the red boxes. The box would have gone back to the PM’s office.”

  Jennie saw immediately. “Absentminded old fool. Mosley would have seen them after all, the very man SIS and MI6 wanted them to be kept from.” Jennie drew in a breath pondering the enormity of the next question. “But the King knows...?”

  Elizabeth could only nod.

  “And you brought these documents to me? Whatever for? What do you want of me?”

  “I don’t really know, Jennie...I’m...we’re at a loss what to do. We can’t take this to the government—that’s Mosley. We can’t take it to the Prince of Wales or the military, the civil service, the newspapers. We can’t take it any—”

  “Not without Mosley finding out,” Jennie interrupted. “Not without risking the King’s wrath, if you’re right about him.” One more thought intruded. “Not without destroying the monarchy if it becomes known the King is condoning treason.”

  No bad thing that, the Republican in Jennie said to herself.

  “The Duke thought about going back to the people who wrote these briefs. But we don’t know who they are. And if the heads of SIS and MI6 are loyal to the government, or support Mosley... well, the game would be up. We’re at a complete loss.”

  “Elizabeth, where do you and the Duke stand in all of this? You had no qualms about supporting Mosley, even when the King was trying to maintain MacDonald as a figurehead.”

  “Isn’t it obvious, Jennie? We were wrong! We helped create a monster. We should never have interfered. But now we have no idea how to stop it.”

  “And whatever makes you suppose I agree with you about Mosley?”

  Elizabeth’s eyes opened in fright. Had she made a terrible mistake? Was her friend about to betray her to Mosley, to the King?

  Jennie couldn’t let her twist in the wind. She smiled. “No, it’s alright, dear. I’m with you. We’ve both made a frightful mistake about Mosley.” Then her look clouded. “But what can we do?”

  “We’re at a stand, the Duke and I. And you’re the only person I could safely talk to about this...this...disaster.”

  “Well, you can talk safely enough, Elizabeth. But I can’t see what I can do.”

  Elizabeth rose. “Got to get back. Always worr
ied I’ll be missed and people will ask where I’ve been.” She glanced down at the papers and the folio on the floor between them. “Jennie, will you keep these papers for us?”

  “Must I? They’re dangerous.”

  “That’s why they’re safer with you than me.”

  Jennie looked to the grate. “We could just burn them?”

  “No!” Elizabeth’s face showed resolve. She bent down and began to gather them up. “If you won’t keep them I’ll have to...”

  “Very well.” Jennie gripped her friend’s hand and then took the papers.

  They both heard the low growl of an idling motor in the street. Both knew it was the Duchess’s car signalling its return.

  When her friend had gone, Jennie began to think, where to cache the folio? In the grate! Just as she had suggested to Elizabeth. Carefully, she moved the grate and swept away the lining of ash and dust beneath it, laid the folio down, swept the ash over it and replaced the grate. Then she sat down before it, contemplating the problem of what to do. The answer came back, with a dread fatalism: nothing to be done.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Every morning that week, Jennie was woken in the dark, long before dawn, from an apparently dreamless sleep, with the same gnawing hollow of anxiety in her stomach. She knew why, instantly. But for all the focus on the problem—what to do with the papers and the knowledge she was hiding—no answer came to her, at least nothing that she was willing to act on.

  She tried to fob the documents off as forgeries, plants, like the Zinoviev letter that destroyed the Labour Party’s chances in 1924. But whose interests would such a forgery serve? More likely these letters were real and dangerous, like the Zimmerman telegram—German’s attempt to ally itself with Mexico against the USA during the Great War.

  They have to be real, alas. But then she had to do something with them. Make them public? Destroy the monarchy? Destroy the Labour Party along with Mosley?

  None of that would happen. You’d not be believed for a moment, Jennie. There’d be a campaign to discredit or silence or even make you invisible, orchestrated by the press barons now fawning over Mosley.

  She’d start over, thinking through another strategy.

  Go to Mosley with them? Threaten him? Absurd. That would just get you back to the first dead end, disbelieved or worse.

  Jennie would roll over in bed and try to clear her mind of the problem, to steal a few more hours’ sleep, to think it through afresh in the morning. It didn’t work, night after night. You need to work this through with someone else. With Frank. Making contact, Jennie knew, would almost certainly be detected by his wife. With parliament in recess and having resigned his cabinet seat, Frank had gone back to Bucks and his family. But you can explain, girl. It’s a matter of state, of national importance!

  And what if the documents aren’t genuine? You may have wrecked his marriage for nothing.

  No, Jennie. You’ve already decided they must be real. You can’t take that step back.

  Then go to him in Bucks. Jennie had never been there, never wanted to confront Dorothy Wise, never wanted to make Frank choose. But now, he’s got nothing political to lose if she finds out. No, that’s not right. Frank has a future in politics, when all this is over. But it’s one that could still be destroyed by scandal. Each night, when her thoughts came to this point, Jennie acknowledged to herself that she still loved Frank, wanted to wind back the clock and recreate what they’d had, that she never should have broken with him. Worst of all, she acknowledged that he’d been right about what was happening to their country. The reckoning made her feel even worse, angry, frightened, alone.

  On the fifth morning after Elizabeth’s visit, Jennie picked up the telephone and called Charlie Trevelyan’s London home. A servant answered with the number. Jennie asked for Sir Charles.

  “Sir Charles is at Wallington Hall.”

  Jennie replied, “Shooting?” She knew this was a frequent pastime of Charlie’s.

  “I believe so, miss.”

  She was about to ask whether there were guests, but immediately realised the servant would not reply even if he knew.

  After a pause the voice carried on. “Is there a message, miss?”

  “Thank you, no message.” Jennie sat down and wrote a short note to Charlie Trevelyan.

  Charlie,

  If Frank Wise is with you shooting, please ask him to call me here in London. If he’s not with you but you can reach him, please tell him discreetly to ring me in London. He’ll have my number.

  Jennie Lee

  Should she say any more? Should she label the envelope ‘personal’? No, it was enough simply to underline the word ‘discreetly.’ Now, perhaps you’ll get a night’s sleep. With that thought, she rose, collected her case and left for the Middle Temple law library.

  It was near midnight, two days later, that her phone rang. Jennie was still awake, dreading the prospect of waking again as she had each night for a week or more.

  She lifted the receiver, giving her number, “Museum 6428.”

  The operator spoke. “Trunk call. Putting you through. Go ahead.”

  Then she heard Frank’s voice. The tone was quiet, almost as though he were whispering.

  “Jennie. Got your note. I’m here at Charlie’s place.” Wallington Hall was hundreds of miles north in Northumberland. “Can’t talk now. Here with Dorothy and the boys. Look, I’m coming back to London Monday week.”

  “That’s five days. Can you make it sooner? It’s urgent...It’s, it’s...business.” She hoped he’d understand it wasn’t pleasure or desire that was demanding his return.

  “Can you tell me anything, Jennie?”

  “Only that you were right...right about—”

  Before she could add the name Frank interrupted. “I see.” He must have understood completely. “I’ll call if I there’s a way I can come sooner.”

  He rung off before she could say anything more. He’d asked nothing, nothing at all. Suddenly Jennie began to wonder, What does he know? Does he already know what I’ve got to tell him?

  * * *

  Jennie had to fill those five days, waiting and worrying, finally, wondering whatever Frank and she could do, anyway, once he came. She spent more time in the law library than she needed to. She caught up with her damnable dinners. By Friday she’d even taken to wandering round her flat sorting things out, folding clothes away in drawers, clearing her dishes from the sink... she’d taken a tea towel to her drinks glasses as though she were a barman polishing them to a gleam.

  Finally, she sat at her desk facing a typewriter that The New Statesman’s editor had given her, in fact, had delivered, just to encourage her to write for the mag. It had been weeks since she’d even tried to say something about national affairs or European ones. In the winter after the British election, she had written about the appointment of Hitler as German chancellor even though his party had lost seats in the national elections. Then another piece about the fire that destroyed the Reichstag and gave Hitler the excuse to govern without a parliament at all. Now, as an MP supporting a government doing much the same thing in Britain, what was there to write about? It was no good. She had nothing to say. Maybe you should take back your attack on Herr Hitler, Jennie?

  If only Nye, or Ellen, or...anyone were around. I’d settle for an argument with Lady Astor! The wry laugh was no comfort.

  It rained Saturday morning. Looking at the bland reports in the papers consumed only a little time. Jennie turned to the film adverts. Losing herself in an Odeon had passed time before, even forestalled temptations. There, on the page next to the largest advertisement, for a picture with the intriguing name, The Bitter Tea of General Yen, was a notice and an article, “Board of Censors Requires Cuts.” The film, about a love affair across the white/yellow colour line, was in places too much for English sensibilities. Well, she thought, that’s for me. Felling better for something to do, to occupy her afternoon, to distract her from the weight of that damn folio beneath he
r grate, Jennie was able to count the hours till she could leave her flat for the cinema. By noon, the rain had stopped, and Jennie decided that the two miles to the Regal at Marble Arch would do her good, distract her longer. She set off in a blithe spirit, with an almost carefree step.

  Jennie knew London well enough to find the shortest way to Marble Arch, through the zigzag of differently named streets that made a hypotenuse of the triangle, bounded by Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. By the time she had turned from Windmill Street to Percy Passage, she was pretty confident that she was being followed. The same nice-looking young man, in conservative clothes, a bowler and tightly rolled umbrella, had been walking down exactly the same streets for nearly a mile now. No moustache, no special military bearing, plain-faced and just a pair of oval horn-rimmed glasses. Stopping at a shop window mirror, stooping to tie a shoe, even doubling back once, made her shadow evident. The man kept well back, however, and showed no sign that he’d been detected. Jennie decided to lose him in Selfridge’s.

  She did so, but as a result had cut it too fine. As she arrived, the vast organ—only one of its kind in a London theatre, as every moviegoer in that city was well aware—had just come to the end of its pre-programme concert. Slowly, it dropped from the stage as the lights went down. Sweeping her torch from side to side in a show of annoyance, the matronly usher showing Jennie to her seat made it obvious that she was offended by the discourteous tardiness.

  As a distraction from her mood, her problem, her affairs—personal and political—The Bitter Tea of General Yen was a frightful, comical, absurd mistake. A woman separated from her husband by unrest in Shanghai is saved and held hostage by a handsome, powerful, unscrupulous warlord, who falls in love with her, but whom she betrays. All portrayed by visibly western, Caucasian actors in rather transparent makeup and stereotyped accents. It was too easy, indeed hauntingly inevitable for Jennie, to see in the film, the entire cast of characters, in her real-life drama. She remained to the end, desperate to learn what the protagonist’s fate, and allegorically, Jennie’s own would turn out to be. The warlord, betrayed and deposed, learns that his captive loves him and then dies by his own hand. The kidnapped heroine returns to Shanghai. Hollywood, Jennie! You should have known better.