The Flower Garden

by Margaret Pemberton

  The conversation became even more stilted. Dieter’s boredom was obvious. Retrieving erring mothers-in-law was obviously not in his line. Nor was Madeira. When Nancy asked him how he liked the mass of sub-tropical flowers and the purple haze of the jacaranda blossom, he had said merely that he preferred Munich and the mountains. His own country had the most magnificent scenery in the world.

  ‘Is it very pretty?’ Nancy had asked desperately.

  Dieter had looked at her pityingly. ‘Germany is not pretty. It is majestic.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He had declined the wine and showed no intention of leaving her alone with Verity. In the end it was Verity that said she had a blinding headache and was retiring to her room. Nancy was ashamed at the relief she felt.

  ‘I’ve arranged a small dinner party for this evening. On the terrace, here. I’ve invited Reggie Minter, the son of the tin-plate magnate, and Lady Helen Bingham-Smythe. She’s your age, Verity, and very sweet. She’s recovering from a broken love affaire and would appreciate a friend.’

  How she had ever imagined that Verity could provide friendship for Helen, she didn’t know. Verity had never provided friendship for anyone. Her own head was beginning to pound.

  ‘I’ve also invited Bobo James and her current man-friend and Prince Zaronsky and Lady Bessbrook. They are all close friends and I want you to meet them.’

  Verity kissed her coolly on the cheek. Dieter shook her hand with the formality that never deserted him, and Nancy’s eyes were drawn to the swastika on his breast.

  When they had gone she lay down on her bed and put an eau-de-cologne-soaked handkerchief across her forehead. A year ago her daughter had been a rather introverted schoolgirl. Now she was as much a stranger as Dieter. She had asked when she was returning to America and had referred to her mother’s age with barely-concealed insolence. There had been a brief moment when Nancy had had to restrain herself from slapping her daughter’s face.

  Presumably, Dieter’s influence was paramount and he disapproved of wives who left their husbands. Jack’s letter would also have been no help. She could quite well imagine how Jack would have depicted the situation. What she needed was time alone with Verity. Time to explain gently and lovingly that she had her own life to lead; but not with the man she had left Jack for.

  ‘Hell!’ she said aloud, and to no one. ‘Bloody, bloody hell!’

  The Mezriczkys had been invited for welcoming cocktails at seven o’clock with Ramon Sanford. A gold-embossed card, delivered by a bellboy and signed by Villiers, requested Nancy’s presence as well. Gritting her teeth, Nancy dressed with consummate care. No plunging, backless Parisian creation to offend her priggish son-in-law. Instead, she chose a full-length, plain black sheath dress of crèpe de chine with a white crèpe de chine jacket. With unnutterable relief, she saw that her son-in-law had abandoned his uniform for conventional evening dress.

  Ramon’s sun-bronzed face was set in the hard, uncompromising lines that now seldom left it. He received the Mezriczkys courteously but exerted none of his usual charm. He barely acknowledged Nancy. Tessa was with him and she chattered happily to Verity although Nancy could see that her daughter was giving her very little encouragement. Marriage had not altered her incapacity for making friends.

  Tessa was beginning to look slightly crushed and uncomfortable and Nancy rescued her by intruding on them by saying: ‘Please excuse us, Tessa. The Montcalms are old family friends and haven’t seen Verity since she was a child.’

  Why, in God’s name, she thought as they approached Georgina and Charles, did she feel an affection for Tessa Rossman that she did not feel for her own daughter? Perhaps slow, mental instability was also a sign of her deteriorating condition. She could think of no other reason.

  As the Montcalms and Mezriczkys exchanged politeness, Nancy was aware of an undercurrent of hostility. Introducing Dieter to Charles Montcalm had been a mistake. It was as if each knew instinctively the political ideals of the other.

  Another few minutes were spent introducing her daughter and son-in-law to the exuberant Polly Watertight. The expression on Dieter’s face was one of distaste. With a shock, Nancy saw an exact replica of it on her daughter’s.

  Ramon’s arm was around Tessa as he moved with assured ease from group to group, studiously avoiding any further contact with the Mezrickys.

  ‘You’re making an utter fool of yourself, Mother,’ Verity suddenly said as they moved away from the unabashed Polly towards the Michaeljohns. ‘It’s patently obvious that Sanford barely knows who you are, let alone loves you.’

  Nancy felt as if she had been struck across the face. The Michaeljohns were upon them and she could not reply.

  The half-hour struck. The privileged few who were dining with Ramon and Tessa drifted together. Other twosomes, foursomes and sixsomes made their way into Sanfords’ opulent dining room. Nancy’s party strolled with happy anticipation of a pleasant evening, towards the mauve and green decor of the Garden Suite.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The staff had set the table on the balcony, and had swung gaily coloured fairylights from the palm that flourished in Nancy’s corner to the two jacaranda trees that gave Vere shade.

  ‘What a lovely idea, eating out of doors. It’s like a picnic,’ Venetia said enthusiastically as they were seated.

  ‘A very civilized picnic,’ Hassan said drily. ‘Not like your incomprehensible English sorties to the countryside with only ants and bugs and rain for company.’

  Everybody laughed – except Dieter and Verity.

  Venetia laid her hand lightly on Hassan’s exquisitely suited arm. ‘Darling, your trouble is that you’re simply not happy away from sand!’

  Again there was laughter. Nancy saw Dieter almost physically flinch with distaste as Lady Bessbrook addressed her friend’s lover.

  The hors d’oeuvres were slices of roasted grouse, woodcock livers, and water chestnuts accompanied lavishly by champagne.

  It should have been a pleasant, easy, casual meal. Instead, it was the hardest dinner Nancy had ever held. Verity’s heavy features never lifted. She spoke when she was spoken to. She barely touched her food or champagne. She never once laughed. Nancy tried desperately hard to believe that it was somehow Dieter’s influence, but beneath the table their hands would touch and when she looked at him, Verity’s eyes held an expression that was one of adoring worship. The tiny expressions of marital devotion were returned. The Mezriczkys were to all intents and purposes a devoted couple.

  Nancy found herself looking again and again at the face of her son-in-law. His colouring was the same as Vere’s. Blond hair, blue eyes, light skin. But there the similarity ended. One was immediately drawn to Vere’s quiet, understated English charm and equally repelled by Dieter’s almost indecent Nordic good looks.

  ‘I understand Syrie has left for Washington,’ it was Verity: speaking to her without being spoken to for the first time.

  Ridiculously, Nancy felt flustered. She hadn’t realized that Verity had known of Syrie’s visit to Sanfords. ‘Yes, darling, she returned some days ago.’

  ‘But not to Washington.’ Verity’s voice was flat and colourless and unrelenting. ‘I understand you spoiled things between her and daddy and that she’s had to go back to Chicago.’

  Nancy tried to speak but the words wouldn’t come. She had never imagined that Verity had known of her father’s affaire with Syrie. It was the sort of truth she had gone to endless lengths to protect her from. In her innocence she had thought Verity would have been devastated by such knowledge. Now, in public, she mentioned it as casually as if she were referring to Garbo’s performance in Queen Christina.

  ‘I didn’t spoil anything,’ Nancy said quietly, ‘and I think the remainder of this conversation is best conducted later, in private.’

  To her immense gratitude, Bobo had immediately grasped the situation and Venetia, Felix and Reggie and Helen were helpless with laughter as she described the departure of Viscountess Lo
thermere.

  Chicken halibut, dauphine potatoes, and cucumber salad replaced the crawfish. Rhein wine replaced the sherry. That, at least, should please the apparently unpleasable German.

  Bobo was giving her own version of the banned Ulysses and Helen Bingham-Smythe’s eyes were round and unbelieving.

  Nancy was glad of the respite. What had happened? How could Verity possible make it so cruelly plain that her loyalty was with her father and Syrie? Had her own behaviour in leaving Jack and Hyannis aroused such resentment that this was its only outlet? She shook her head and tried to clear it. If Verity had known of Jack’s affaire with Syrie, she had known before she had arrived in Madeira. Before she had even received her letter from Hyannis. She had accepted it and not even felt bound to tell her mother what was happening. She hadn’t cared whether Nancy was being hurt or not. Cold water seemed to drip down Nancy’s spine. She was being ridiculous. Of course, Verity would have cared. They had always been close. Jack had scarcely been a visitor. Verity would have kept the knowledge to herself to spare her pain.

  There was more laughter. Sherbets with rum punch followed the chicken and wine and then the moment that Nancy had subconsciously been dreading, arrived.

  ‘When is Hitler going to toe the line?’ Reggie asked Dieter in a friendly manner. Tact had never been one of Reggie’s virtues. Venetia tried to talk too loud and too quickly about something else but Dieter’s voice cut across hers.

  ‘The Führer is a law unto himself.’

  ‘How convenient for the Führer,’ Bobo said idly and helped herself to a grape.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with Hitler,’ Reggie said a trifle too hurriedly, seeing too late the spark of anger in Dieter’s pale blue eyes. ‘He’s simply whipping Germany into shape with typical Prussian thoroughness.’

  ‘He’s not Prussian,’ Bobo corrected with the same affected languour.

  ‘Isn’t he? I thought all Germans were Prussians.’ History had never been Reggie’s strong point.

  ‘Germany has been humiliated enough,’ Dieter said icily.

  Nancy closed her eyes. It was going to be a repeat of his Hyannis monologue. The one she had tried to hard to believe in.

  ‘I know the lies of your country. They still believe we started the war in 1914. It is not true. The Versailles Treaty crushed us. It was vengeful and unjust.’

  ‘But the Weimar Republic …’ Venetia began.

  Dieter rounded on her, his eyes pinpricks of brilliant blue light. ‘The Weimar Republic was dominated by degenerate homosexuals and was destined to fail. Germany will determine its own future. It will never again be a pawn to be moved around the chessboard of Europe by the United States and the British.’

  ‘I say, steady on, old man,’ Reggie admonished.

  ‘No. Please continue. I find the subject completely fascinating,’ Bobo said, resting her chin on the back of one hand. ‘I keep hearing so much about the new Germany and understanding so little.’ She reached for another grape. ‘If Hitler’s new Germany is so marvellous, why have all the Jews who can afford to been emigrating?’

  ‘Germany is for Germans – not Jews!’ The words were spat out with a viciousness that damped the previous gaiety.

  ‘Not even German Jews?’ Bobo’s voice was barely interested. She was examining her grapes with great care.

  ‘There are no such things as German Jews or Polish Jews or Czech Jews. Only Jews.’

  ‘I see. How simply you put it. Silly of me not to have seen that before.’

  Again Venetia tried to turn the conversation elsewhere but Dieter, silent for so long, was now impossible to stop.

  ‘Fascism is the greatest creed that Western civilization has ever given to the world!’

  ‘A creed that abhors modern art, modern music, Jews, Masons and Catholics?’ Felix said contemptuously. ‘That closes art galleries and opera houses if the paintings or music have been created by Jews? That makes Jew-baiting such a national sport that they sell all they possess, beg and borrow in order to leave a country that has been their home and their parents’and their grandparents’and their great-grandparents’ home? That has defiled Vienna’s Ring, the most magnificent boulevard in Europe, so that the Viennese can no longer sit in peace and sip their beer and coffee in sidewalk cafés and stroll and talk and enjoy the beauty of their city? There is no beauty left in Vienna now. The Nazis have destroyed it. Fascism is as destructive as Communism. Both creeds are an abomination.’

  There was a stunned silence. Prince Felix Zaronsky, gay, laughing, and carefree, had never before displayed such vehement feeling over anything other than a pretty woman or the fall of a dice.

  He’s like Nicki, Nancy thought, desperately trying to defuse the situation and failing. He’s like Nicki. On the surface a pleasure-loving playboy and below the surface a passionate revolutionary. Her suggestion that they go inside for coffee was ignored.

  ‘Is it true about the Jews?’ Helen asked. ‘Is it true that they are having to leave their country?’

  ‘They don’t have a country!’ There was foam at the corners of Dieter’s mouth.

  Verity said carelessly, ‘What is all the fuss about? They are just Jews and so must be got rid of.’

  ‘Verity, you can’t mean that! You don’t understand …’

  Verity faced her mother unflinchingly. ‘I understand perfectly, Mother. Jews are nothing but pigs and should be treated as such.’

  Bobo rose slowly to her feet, the scraping back of her chair drowning Nancy’s inarticulate cry.

  ‘I am a Jew,’ she said, as if she were saying that she was cold or warm or sleepy or happy. ‘A hundred and fifty years ago my great grandfather grew tired of having his shetl invaded and embarked for America with my great-grandmother and my grandfather. Along with hordes of Irish, Scots, Poles, Italians. America is a wonderful melting pot. You would never have known if I hadn’t told you, would you? You would have continued to eat with me, to drink with me and talk about something you know nothing about. I doubt, with your background and upbringing, if you have ever in your life known a Jew socially. You hate an abstract idea and have turned it into a terrible reality. There’s no need for you to leave the table to avoid contaminating your racial purity by eating with me. The revulsion is mutual. Goodnight.’

  She turned. Her silk lamé dress clung as tightly as her curves would allow, her skirt so narrow that every step was a work of art. Her dignity was breathtaking.

  ‘You will excuse us?’ Reggie’s discomfort was acute. Helen’s face strained and white.

  Felix took Nancy’s hand and kissed it. ‘Goodnight, ma chère. You can’t choose your son-in-law. Let the knowledge be a comfort to you.’

  Venetia kissed Nancy on the cheek. She stared at Verity for a long second and then accompanied her lover, who had shown such an unexpected side to his character.

  ‘Une animale curieuse,’ Nancy heard her say to Felix as they disappeared through the door of her salon. She knew Venetia was referring to her daughter.

  Hassan alone remained. He blew a wraith of cigar smoke upwards and leant back in his chair, regarding Dieter and Verity as he would two animals in a zoo. At last he turned to Nancy.

  ‘Thank you, my dear Nancy, for a most entertaining and informative evening. It is one that has changed my life.’

  For one wild moment Nancy wondered if the dark-skinned Hassan was going to embrace racial purity too.

  ‘I always said I would remain a bachelor until I met a woman worth more than rubies. I have. Goodnight.’

  ‘I hope there won’t be a repeat of tonight,’ Verity said, taking a cigarette from Dieter’s initialled, gold case. ‘A Jewess is bad enough, but a black …’

  ‘Get out!’ Nancy was on her feet, her eyes blazing and her face ashen. ‘Get out! Out of my sight! Out of my room!’

  Dieter stood and moved his hand towards Verity’s shoulder.

  ‘Leave my daughter with me. I want to talk to her!’

  ‘I don’t think so, Mother. No
t tonight …’

  ‘Stay where you are!’

  Verity blanched at the ferocity in her voice. Ugly spots of colour were staining Dieter’s unblemished skin.

  ‘Heil Hitler,’ he shouted and as he gave the Nazi salute Nancy knocked the offending arm so violently that he lost his balance and fell crashing against the table. Half empty bottles of champagne and brandy and grapes and cutlery fell around him.

  ‘Get out! Out! OUT!’

  There was a trace of chicken on his jacket and his hands were smeared with crushed grapeskins.

  ‘Jew lover!’ he hissed as he struggled to his feet, his eyes ferocious. ‘Immoral, decadent, American bitch!’

  He slammed the door behind him so savagely that it rocked on its hinges.

  Nancy rounded on her daughter. ‘Tomorrow morning you will go to Bobo and apologize!’

  ‘I will do no such thing.’

  ‘Bobo is a friend of mine. She gave up an evening with far more exciting company, just to welcome you here. Do you realize the things that you have said? The colossal rudeness you exhibited. The ignorance?’

  ‘No ignorance at all, Mother. Nothing was said that wasn’t true.’

  Nancy’s legs would no longer support her. She sank on to a sofa. Verity remained seated a few yards away, coolly smoking.

  ‘When did you became a Nazi?’ she asked at last.

  ‘I’ve always been one. I just didn’t know the right word for it.’

  ‘You haven’t. You were a nice, normal little girl. You used to go swimming, sailing, enjoy clambakes and strawberry festivals.’

  ‘No I didn’t. I endured them.’

  ‘You were shy.’

  ‘I was never shy.’ The grey eyes, so different from her own and Jack’s, regarded her with something like contempt. ‘I was simply bored. I had nothing in common with those dreadful girls at Dorchester and those terrible daughters of your friends. I had nothing in common with anyone until I met Dieter.’