The FitzOsbornes in Exile

by Michelle Cooper

“I think we ought to go to Milford and see which it is, then offer the poor woman a raise and a holiday,” I said. “She deserves it, putting up with Henry all these months. Then Veronica can get Henry’s behavior under some sort of control and settle in the Basque children before Aunt Charlotte arrives. Veronica needs to get out of London, anyway. She’ll do something desperate if she’s cooped up here too long …” I broke off, because Simon was giving me an odd look. “What?” I said.

  “Have you been reading Machiavelli again?” he said.

  “No, I’m reading Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer. It’s about a beautiful heiress who conquers Society despite her unconventional manners, and it’s got Beau Brummell in it. But, Simon, the thing is, you’ll need to come with us to Milford as a chaperone and bodyguard, and I don’t think Aunt Charlotte will agree to it just yet. She needs to get over the whole shooting incident—I should give her till next week. By then, she’ll be caught up in Ascot Week and she’ll be too busy to worry about anything else.”

  “You used to be such a sweet, guileless girl,” Simon said, shaking his head.

  21st June 1937

  Milford Park is heavenly in summer. The garden is spilling over with warm, ripe fruit—raspberries and strawberries in the kitchen garden, plums and peaches and nectarines in the orchard, grapes and melons in the hothouse—and the flower beds are ablaze with color. Even more beautiful than the fifty-seven types of roses and massed plantings of lavender and scented lilies are the meadows full of wildflowers. I walk back from the village gathering armfuls of cornflowers and larkspur, marveling at the variety of hedges—hawthorn and blackthorn and holly, all tangled up with wild roses, ivy, and honeysuckle. The birds crowd into the trees and sing from dawn till dusk, and the long grass rustles with the frantic activity of little furry creatures—Rupert would know all their names, but I think they are mostly field mice and shrews, with the odd stoat. Once I even thought I saw a hedgehog curled up in a nest of leaves—although it may just have been a pile of twigs.

  The Basque refugees are not quite as enamored of Nature as I am, being mostly city children, but they’re doing their best to cope with its less appealing aspects—the mice in the pantry, for instance, and the bats that swoop past (and sometimes through) the windows each evening. There are seventeen children, ranging from five years old to fifteen. The Stoneham Camp organizers were very good about keeping the children grouped in families, so we have six Labauria siblings, five Morenos (who are related to the Labaurias), five Martínezes, and a López (who is cousin to the Martínezes). Two of the boys are named Jesús, which makes the Reverend Webster Herbert twitch a bit—he calls one Jim and the other Johnny. The girls are mostly Henry’s age or younger, with enormous dark eyes and wide, bright smiles. I don’t know the boys as well, because they disappear whenever it’s time to wash up after dinner or hang out the laundry. The group’s elected spokesperson (they are very democratic about that sort of thing) is a glowering, chain-smoking fourteen-year-old named Javier. His father is (or was; no one knows if he’s still alive) someone very important in the Basque government. I find Javier rather daunting, but he gets on well with Veronica, now that he’s interrogated her at length about her political views and judged them acceptable.

  All the children are vehemently anti-Fascist, of course. I saw an angelic six-year-old named María Teresa spit on the ground when Franco’s name was mentioned, and there was widespread rejoicing when General Mola, the leader of the attacks on the Basque Republic, died in an aeroplane crash a few weeks ago. But I really can’t say I blame the children—I feel much the same as they do, now that they’ve confirmed our worst fears about the Basque captain’s family. We asked the children if they knew him, and one of them said her cousin had gone to school with the Zuleta girls, and she’d heard they were all killed in Guernica when the church in which they were sheltering was hit by an incendiary bomb. I try not to discuss the war with the children anymore, especially now that the news from Spain is so bad. Yesterday was dreadful—we learned that Bilbao had fallen to the Fascists. Javier and two of the older boys immediately marched off down the road in the direction of Southampton, determined to commandeer a southbound boat and join the fighting. Veronica went after them in the Lagonda and only managed to persuade them to return by reminding them of their responsibilities towards their little sisters and cousins.

  “And I’m not sure I did the right thing,” she said to me last night. “Who am I to tell them to stay when their friends and families are being slaughtered over there?”

  “They’re children,” I reminded her. “Their parents sent them here to keep them safe.” Then I asked her how long she thought the Basque Republic could hold out.

  She shook her head. “Maybe another month or two,” she said. “They’re cut off from the Spanish Republicans, they’ve no weapons thanks to that non-intervention policy, they’re running out of food and fuel, the towns are being bombed into oblivion—it’s hopeless. They say they’ll never surrender, but …”

  I know she’s very upset about Captain Zuleta’s family, although she doesn’t talk about it. My growing suspicion, too horrible to be spoken of aloud, is that Guernica was singled out for destruction by the German bombers because of the Basque captain; that SS-Obergruppenführer Gebhardt is continuing his scheme of retribution against us; that anyone who is known to have helped us, anyone who might have witnessed what happened to Montmaray, is marked as a target. Sometimes this idea seems like wild surmise, but at other times (in the dark hours before dawn, when I wake, shuddering, from yet another nightmare), I know the Nazis are capable of anything, anything at all.

  I think Veronica’s also unhappy about her lack of progress on the Montmaray campaign. Where does she even start? A letter to the Prime Minister? But if all those Labour MPs haven’t succeeded in changing the Prime Minister’s mind about the Germans in the wake of Guernica, then what hope do we have? And how will we ever get Montmaray back without the British government’s support?

  And then, at times (when being laced into a new silk evening dress by my maid, being served dinner on Spode china by liveried footmen, slipping between fine linen sheets at night), I wonder if I could ever go back to our old life on Montmaray, even if it were possible …

  And then I feel terribly disloyal.

  “All we can do right now is look after the children as best we can,” I told Veronica firmly last night, pretending I wasn’t full of guilt and apprehension myself.

  “I know,” said Veronica, chewing her lip.

  “And keep them all too busy to think about the war,” I added.

  So we give them English lessons, and join in their football games, and take them on long nature walks. Ericson the groom offers them pony rides, the boys go fishing with the villagers—and the girls get bossed around unmercifully by Henry, leader of the newly formed Girl Guide Eagle Patrol.

  I regret to say the whole Girl Guide thing was my idea. I read about Princess Elizabeth and the 1st Buckingham Palace Company, and thought it might be a good way to keep Henry occupied while Miss Bullock is on holiday. It all sounded so civilized, with those neat blue uniforms and little badges and solemn pledges. I ought to have known that Henry would seize on the quasi-military aspects with fervor and ignore all the ladylike bits—hence her obsession with marching drills and acquiring proficiency badges in archery, tracking, and signaling. Needlecraft, hostessing, and child nursing might as well not exist in the Girl Guide handbook as far as Henry’s concerned. A Guiding Lady wearing a navy suit and plumed hat came over from Salisbury last week to inspect our girls, and she suggested a change of name.

  “What about Robin Patrol?” she said sweetly. “Or Lark? Or Dove?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Henry decisively. “I wanted Vulture or Buzzard, but Sophie looked in the handbook and said it had to be a bird found in this area.”

  “Er … yes,” said the lady, glancing over at me. “Well, Guiding will certainly provide you girls with wonderful opportunitie
s to develop new skills! Our company’s been having a lovely time this month learning Scottish country dancing!”

  “What I really want to learn,” said Henry, “is how to defuse a bomb. But there doesn’t seem to be a badge for that.”

  I did insist that participation be on a voluntary basis, and several of the Basque girls decided after the first meeting that they’d rather stay at the Old Mill House, helping Mr. Herbert’s housekeeper bake scones, than crawl through the woods on their knees and elbows evading imaginary pursuers. But, surprisingly enough, four of the Basque girls and a couple of village girls have stuck with it. Perhaps we’ve been underestimating Henry’s leadership skills all this time. At any rate, it’s keeping us all busy—and no one’s sustained any permanent injuries. Yet.

  It’s been quite good having it as a distraction, because, apart from my anxiety about the Basques and the Germans, I’m still troubled about Veronica’s attacker. Phoebe accompanied us to Milford, and then I sent her off to her mother’s for a fortnight. They needed an extra hand for the harvest, and she might be able to talk some sense into her brother. I deliberated for ages over whether to tell anyone about him. I didn’t want Phoebe getting into trouble and losing her job, and it was clear that she, at least, thought he was responsible for the threatening letters. Why else would she be going through Veronica’s post? But would a boy who’d left school at fourteen to work on the docks really be capable of typing those letters? Would he own an expensive Burberry coat, as the man outside the church had worn? Would he know how to use an old-fashioned American pistol? It seems unlikely. And yet, there hasn’t been a single poison-pen letter since Phoebe spoke to me about him. Is that just a coincidence, or is it cause and effect? Perhaps the gunman seemed so familiar to me because he looked like Phoebe. Should I telephone the inspector to tell him my suspicions? But what if it came to nothing and got poor Phoebe into trouble? And on and on my thoughts whirled. Eventually, I did what I ought to have done straightaway and discussed it with Veronica.

  “But he doesn’t know me,” she said, bemused. “Why would he go to all that bother?”

  “Perhaps he read about you in Action,” I said. “Or he thinks we’re exploiting his sister. Maybe he feels she ought to have better working conditions.”

  “He’s a Fascist, not a Communist,” she pointed out. “Besides, we’ve just given her a fortnight’s leave with pay. Honestly, Sophie, don’t worry about it. It was just some madman who’s now seen the error of his ways. Or else he’s been recaptured and locked up again in his asylum. I hope so, anyway—I’m certainly not wearing a corset in this weather. Oh, that reminds me, you must read Daniel’s latest letter. It’s absolutely fascinating—did you know that a bulletproof silk vest saved King Alfonso from an assassin’s gun in 1901?”

  “King Alfonso of Spain? Your second cousin once removed, or whatever he is?”

  “Yes, but don’t tell Javier that Alfonso and I are related. Apparently, layers and layers of silk slow down bullets. Isn’t that interesting? Archduke Franz Ferdinand heard about it and bought a silk vest, too. He was wearing one in Sarajevo when he was shot in 1914.”

  “But didn’t he die? And start off the Great War?”

  “Well, yes,” said Veronica. “Because they shot him in the neck, not the chest. If only he’d been wearing a silk balaclava. Goodness, one could write a book about how the silkworm has altered the course of world history. When one considers the Silk Road …” And on and on she went for a good quarter of an hour, but I think we were both desperate to talk about something other than our problems for once.

  Sometimes I think Life is best summed up as

  (a) Awful Bits and

  (b) Things That Successfully Distract One from the Awful Bits.

  However, I’m still working on this theory. Will write more later.

  6th August 1937

  Well, let’s get the awful bits over with first. The Basque Republic is on its knees, on the verge of total surrender. Most of the children at the Old Mill House have no idea what has happened to their families, but the Basque leaders all seem to be dead or in prison, apart from the few who’ve escaped into exile. Lord Elchester continues his campaign to deport the “little Basque hooligans” from England. Further east, the Japanese have invaded Peking and Miss Amelia Earhart remains missing without trace somewhere in the Pacific, having crashed her aeroplane.

  It seems heartless of Nature, but here, the sun continues to beam, the fruit to ripen, the flowers to bloom, the birds to chirp, and the little furry creatures to scamper about in the undergrowth. The lake is our most successful distraction right now—we spend half our day either in it or lying beside it. Carlos is permanently damp and smells of waterweed. Estella the piglet, now almost as big as Henry, wallows happily in the ditch she’s dug near the jetty. Veronica and Simon have turned the color of butterscotch, Toby and Henry have sun-bleached curls and a golden glow, and I have a new crop of freckles.

  We held a birthday picnic for Henry down by the lake, inviting all the Basque children, and they loved it (except Javier, who hates everything at the moment). And not even Javier could keep up his scowl when Estella stole his little sister’s cupcake out of her hand—the expression on Carmelita’s face as she tried to work out where it had gone was priceless. Goodness, even Aunt Charlotte found it difficult (although not impossible) to maintain her disapproving expression as she watched Toby lead the children in manic versions of Musical Cushions and Blind Man’s Bluff. She has made it clear to Henry that none of the Basque children, not even the Girl Guides, are to come within fifty yards of the house. She thinks they all have lice, or worse.

  Perhaps I ought to have included Aunt Charlotte’s arrival at Milford Park amongst the awful bits. She’s in a very grumpy mood because her best horse narrowly lost some important race, beaten by one of the horses of her most loathed rival, a parvenu industrialist without so much as a knighthood. She’s a terrible snob—she wouldn’t have minded nearly as much if it’d been Lord Rosebery’s horse that had won. Still, I suppose our aunt is a distraction. It’s impossible to do anything but pay attention to her when she’s in the room, especially as she’s renewed her campaign to get at least one of us engaged to be married by the end of the year. She pores over Debrett’s in the manner of a horse trainer scrutinizing the studbook.

  “There’s Billy Hartington, heir to the Duke of Devonshire,” she said this afternoon as we all sat around the tea table. “He’d do nicely for you, Veronica—apart from his many other advantages, he’s very tall.”

  “He’s very dull,” said Veronica. “If he’s that Cambridge boy you made me sit beside at the Fortescue ball.”

  “Although he’s probably too eligible,” Aunt Charlotte went on, right over the top of her. “The Palace is said to have him in mind for Princess Elizabeth.”

  Toby pointed out that Princess Elizabeth is eleven years old.

  “They grow up so quickly,” said Aunt Charlotte, turning pages. “Now, there’s Earl Fitzwilliam’s boy. Oh, I forgot—he married the Plunket girl. And really, when one’s nieces insist on getting tangled up with Communists and Basques and who knows what else”—she paused to glare at Veronica, who glared back—“and fail to accept a single house party invitation throughout the entire summer—not that there were very many invitations to begin with—then, sadly, one must accept that most of the decent English families are out of reach.” Heaving a sigh, Aunt Charlotte tossed Debrett’s aside in favor of the Almanach de Gotha. “Hmm, King Alfonso’s children are all of age now—”

  “Firstly, I’m related to them,” said Veronica through gritted teeth. “And secondly, all the boys are either deaf-mutes or hemophiliacs.”

  “Nonsense! The youngest boy’s perfectly normal—married already, unfortunately—but I was thinking of his sister. For Tobias.”

  Toby, who’d been quite enjoying the conversation up till that point, choked on his cucumber sandwich.

  “Infanta María Cristina,” said Aunt Charlotte,
peering at the page. “Catholic, of course—not that we FitzOsbornes worry too much about that sort of thing. Still, it wasn’t such a success with your mother, was it, Veronica? I don’t know if one can blame it all on religion in her case, though—”

  “Blame all what?” said Veronica, her eyes narrowing to dangerous slits.

  “Oh, look, everyone!” cried Toby desperately, waving his newspaper around. “The Rector of Stiffkey’s been mauled to death by a lion!”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised at anything that dreadful man gets up to,” snapped Aunt Charlotte. “And you know quite well what I mean about your mother, Veronica. As if finding a suitable husband for you isn’t difficult enough, without you running about dressed like a maid and acting like a chauffeur—there was no reason those children couldn’t have taken the bus to the dentist—not to mention writing that letter to The Times about Lord Elchester, I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life! And even if one could find a respectable family willing to ignore all that, there’s your scandal of a mother, bolted off from a perfectly good husband and who knows what she’s currently—”

  Veronica stood up, sending her chair crashing backwards. “He was not a perfectly good husband!” she cried. “He had a vile temper, he treated her contemptibly, and now she’s dead!” Then she whirled on one heel and stormed off.

  “What?” cried Aunt Charlotte, letting her teacup fall. “Dead? Why wasn’t I informed? Simon! Where is that young man? Simon! It is your responsibility to keep me advised of—And how did that dog get in here?”

  Carlos looked up from the rug, where he’d been busy chewing burrs out of his paws. It was obvious to everyone that he’d had the run of the house while we’d been away—he knew his way round better than I did. But I jumped to my feet to lead him outside, grateful for the opportunity to escape. I decided against trying to find Veronica—I was fairly sure she’d prefer to be alone just then. Instead, I opened a side door for Carlos and followed him down towards the lake, my copy of Ernst Toller’s Seven Plays tucked under one arm. Daniel had sent it to Veronica, telling her she needed to read something other than newspapers once in a while, and she’d passed it on to me. It’s rather depressing, though. The author was exiled from Germany after his books were burnt by the Nazis, and his plays are full of war and suffering and death, all of which he describes in gruesome detail. The book isn’t really much of a success as a distraction, but I feel I ought to persist with it, for poor Herr Toller’s sake. I was wandering along, flicking through the pages and trying to find my place, when I nearly stumbled over Javier.