by John Masters
Lady Swanwick said gently, ‘Your accounts are always late, Miss Bewsher. And the reason is clear. Look at this desk. It’s a mess, Miss Bewsher. You can’t find your own papers – the indents, the receipts, the cash records. Everything’s higgledy-piggledy.’
‘There’s so much to do … it all comes at once …’ the woman muttered unhappily.
Lady Swanwick looked at her a long time. At last she said, ‘I’m going to tell Lord Walstone that you’re not fit to manage a HUSL store.’
‘Oh, oh!’ the woman wailed, searching for a handkerchief. Lady Swanwick continued – ‘But I think you may be suited for the accounts department in the head office.’ She rose. ‘I don’t know whether he will transfer you. You’ll lose salary, of course … and you’ll lose your participation in the store’s profits, but at least you will not be out of work … if he agrees.’
‘Oh, thank you, thank you,’ Miss Bewsher sobbed.
Lady Swanwick said, ‘I’ll return on Friday, to check these accounts. They must be ready in all particulars by then.’
She went out, walked through the busy shop, and stood a moment on the kerb outside, thinking. Five o’clock. No time to look at the Oxford Street shop, as she had intended. The Edgware Road shop always took more time than she had planned … Barbara was pregnant; might visit her on her way home, and find out if she was all right … she shouldn’t ride so much … but, being Barbara, the baby might well be born on horseback … She might drop in on Helen’s boutique and buy herself a new hat. She’d earned it … She hailed a taxi.
When she walked into La Boutique Amicale, as it was called, she found herself looking at a man’s broad back, which hid Helen. Ethel Fagioletti was there, at the side of the store, and hurried forward – ‘M’lady …’ she called over her shoulder – ‘It’s your mother.’
The man turned … burly, swarthy, nose broken a couple of times, one cauliflower ear, a friendly, comfortable face, incongruous liquid brown eyes. Helen came round the little glass-topped counter, her arms out – ‘Mother! I wasn’t expecting you. Why didn’t you call?’
‘Just thought I’d buy myself a little chapeau,’ the countess said. She looked enquiringly at the young man. Helen said, ‘Oh, this is David Toledano, Mother.’
Ah, the countess thought, that’s why he seemed familiar. She’d seen him before, at the Cates’, or at some wedding, she thought. He was a Jew … very, very rich, but a Jew. Helen was looking at him with a sort of obvious ease, and affection. They must be seeing a lot of each other. Roger would have a fit, but Roger need not know until some decision had been made … not by him, or by her, but by these two young people.
The Turkish lanterns glowed red, the carpet imprisoned the glow, with the shimmer of silk, and the sheen of dulled silver in the menorah, in the curved ancient urns and flagons and the dark red carpets hanging on the walls. The naked girl’s bronze breasts swelled in the shadows. A little bowed man in ragged clothes stood with hands clasped across his thin stomach before the old man sitting cross-legged on the cushions.
‘He is seeing a woman who calls herself Mrs Rowland. She owns a small shop for women’s clothes – not a dress shop, notions and such – in Great Marlborough Street, called La Boutique Amicale.’
‘Ah,’ Isaac Toledano said, sipping sweet, thick Turkish coffee. ‘What is her real name?’
‘She was born Lady Helen Durand-Beaulieu, the younger daughter of the Earl and Countess of Swanwick. They used to live …’
‘I know,’ Isaac said, ‘Walstone Park. Great wealth once, but not now. They are almost penniless. Anything more?’
‘Mrs Rowland had a baby boy last April. I haven’t found out yet who the father was, but I suppose it was someone called Rowland.’
‘A family of Walstone and Hedlington,’ the old man said. ‘I have holdings in two businesses managed by one of them, Mr Richard Rowland.’ He did not add, ‘and I intend that another, Guy Rowland, shall become a partner in my bank, and marry my daughter.’ There was no need for this petty hawker he hired occasionally as a spy to know that, even though he was a Cohen.
The man said, ‘He has seen her several times. Once was at her house, with another man. Also at her shop. Once he took her out to dinner, to Claridge’s Hotel.’
Isaac nodded, ‘See Levy on your way out.’
The other bowed and backed out. Isaac sipped his coffee reflectively. David, getting involved with a Gentile. That would never do, even though she was a peer’s daughter. He didn’t mind David acting like one of them – that Rugby football he loved so much; riding with the foxhounds; drinking and singing songs in public houses with other young men; but, the blood, the race, must be preserved.
He clapped his hands, and in a few moments his daughter appeared, gliding in like some young girl summoned to her sultan’s bed, head bent, eyes downcast.
‘You called for me, Father?’
The old man said, ‘David is seeing a Gentile woman … It is not serious yet, but it could become so. Who is the most beautiful young woman of your friends? Not more than twenty-five. And, of course, a Jewess.’
Rebecca said, ‘Oh, Rachel Sebag Montefiore, Father, without a doubt. But she is not very intelligent.’
Isaac waved a hand – ‘That does not matter, with David.’ Guy Rowland will provide all the intelligence they need for the bank, he thought; and at home, who wanted an intelligent woman? A fertile one, yes. A devout one, yes. One who could run a household, yes. But intelligent? No.
He said, ‘David must marry among his people.’
Rebecca said nothing; but she was thinking … David was devout, but he had seen much of the world. He had seen Jerusalem! He would respect his father, but – obey him in all things? She thought not. The times had changed, with all that blood on the sun, all those young men gone, gone. Gentile and Jew alike – gone.
Daily Telegraph, Saturday, March 29, 1919
THE TURF
GRAND NATIONAL DAY
For many reasons the first Grand National Steeplechase to be held with war a thing of the past will long be memorable. It will pass into history for the epoch-making occasion which it undoubtedly is, for the gigantic crowd which gathered on and about the racecourse, and for the triumph of a grand horse in Mrs Hugh Peel’s Poethlyn with the top weight of 12 st. 7 … Admiral Sir David Beatty, whose flagship, the Queen Elizabeth, is in the Mersey, and who is to receive the freedom of the city tomorrow, was present. He was in plain clothes, and just before the big steeplechase he joined Lord Derby on the roof of his private stand … The public were fortunate in the weather, for though the boisterous wind still raged, it remained fine until the horses for the Grand National were actually parading and forming at the start. Then snow began to fall heavily, appearing like a blanket which was going to overwhelm everything … it was then that Lord Lonsdale, acting most sensibly and promptly, hurried on to the course and ordered the whole field back to the paddock. A few minutes later the sun peeped through again and at once a transformation had been effected, giving place to perfect conditions for seeing the race …
Cate read the long report of the race with interest. Horse racing in general was not one of his passions; but the Grand National was different, in a class and category by itself. Piggott had obviously had the best horse in the field, but he had also ridden a good race. Poethlyn was by Rydal Head out of Fine Champagne, and the name apparently meant ‘liquor’ in Welsh. He’d started the hot favourite at 11 to 4 against …
Across the table his weekend guest Guy Rowland said, ‘Did you have anything on the race, Uncle?’
Cate laughed – ‘Not a penny. The National’s too chancy for me … but I always put a pound each way on something for the Derby.’
‘Have you ever won anything?’
‘Yes,’ Cate said, laughing again – ‘I won thirty-six shillings in 1891.’ He put the paper aside and sat back, ‘Tell me, Guy, how is the change in the Air Ministry going to affect you?’
Guy said, ‘You mean General Trenchard
coming back as Chief of the Air Staff, and General Sykes going to Chief Controller of Civil Aviation? … Not much. General Trenchard has always been very good to me, and still is. I thought he’d throw me out or send me to the farthest place he could find, as I believe in an independent air force, and when he left, he didn’t. But now he has changed his mind, thank heavens, and does … And General Sykes has told me that he’ll find something suitable for me in Civil Aviation any time I want to leave the RAF. I think that he, too, was sure Trenchard would get rid of me.’
‘And you’re still planning to fly to Buenos Aires?’
Guy nodded – ‘That’s coming along very well. We’ll have to put in extra fuel tanks to raise our total to 1600 gallons of petrol – that’s exactly double what a Buffalo carries now. She does 1.41 miles per gallon in still air, all four engines running. We can put the tanks in the fuselage over the main spar … and move the entry ports forward about three feet on both sides. The petrol will have to be lifted seven feet up and seven feet out … that’s too far to rely on engine suction through the carburettor, but I find that we can use little wind-driven propeller pumps, fixed on struts in the airstream to pump it out and up. I’m going to try to get Frank Stratton as my co-pilot … as mechanic and engineer, really, but he’ll have to learn to fly well enough to take over in good weather while I have a snooze. It’s a long way.’
‘Under whose auspices is the flight to be conducted – the RAF or the Civil Aviation people?’
‘Civil Aviation, though the RAF will help. We’re getting a lot of co-operation and promises of supplies, facilities, and money, from the big aircraft and oil companies … How’s Stella, Uncle?’
Cate said slowly, ‘Not well, Guy … The baby’s strong and growing, though.’
‘Will it be all right if I go over there tomorrow? I thought I’d try to get John to walk on the Down with me, and then perhaps I’d take them all to lunch in Hedlington.’
‘Stella won’t go out,’ Cate said heavily. ‘She’ll stay in the house, looking out of the window, but not seeing what she’s looking at. But you go. John needs to talk to someone his own age … someone like you … Here, here’s my first letter from Richard and Susan in America. They seem to be enjoying themselves.’
‘That’s more than Aunt Louise is,’ Guy said, picking up the letter with a laugh. ‘I don’t think she realised what little tartars Sally and Tim are, when she volunteered to “mother” the children while Uncle Richard and Aunt Susan were away. She’s had to go to Cheltenham Ladies’ College once already, to get Sally out of trouble there – she was caught running round the hockey field naked, for a bet … and Friarside School is threatening to sack Tim if they ever catch him making stink bombs again …’
Chapter 21
The United States of America: March, 1919
Blustery winds blew intermittently up the Hudson from the south, causing green-brown waves to lap over the pilings at the foot of the lawn. A sheen of spray hung over the river, here three miles wide, sometimes fully hiding the Westchester shore opposite, sometimes clothing it in a gauzy curtain, like a woman in a tantalising gown, now revealing, now hiding. Isabel Kramer sat in the window of the sunny room, facing down the lawn and across the river, the New York Times folded in her lap. WILSON ARRIVES IN PARIS, the headlines had said. Poor Mr Wilson was spending most of his time on shipboard these days, flying back and forth like a shuttlecock between the Peace Conference in Paris and the Congress in Washington, both equally turbulent, both equally hard for him to manage.
Her brother came, The Wall Street Journal in his hands. He had breakfasted in bed, sending word to her that he was feeling a little under the weather and did not intend to go into the city today. So now he sat down in another easy chair, and began to open his paper. Isabel said, ‘Are you feeling a little better, Stephen?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘But I think it would be wise not to face the Erie Railroad and the ferries today … I see Wilson’s reached Paris. I hope he’s taken a long spoon with him.’
She said, ‘Come now, it’s not fair to call Mr Lloyd George and Monsieur Clemenceau devils.’
‘They will be, in pursuit of what they want for their countries,’ Stephen said gloomily. ‘They’re very tough-minded, able, and ruthless politicians, and Wilson is … a high-minded schoolmaster. It’s no contest. And to make it worse, they both have enormous popular backing in their own countries, while opposition to Wilson has been building up ever since the last elections … and it’s grown by leaps and bounds since the armistice.’
‘Do you think the country wants this League of Nations?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he answered without hesitation. ‘And the Senate will reject it, however hard Wilson tries to ram it down their throats. Keep the country free from foreign entanglements, George Washington said, and he was right.’
She sighed – ‘But what if our help is needed to save something worthwhile? As it was in the war, really, wasn’t it? Suppose it comes about that we have to fight anyway, but if we’d had this League of Nations, properly backed, no one would have dared to start the war in the first place.’
‘That’s a hypothesis,’ he said. ‘We’re going to keep out of Europe and make sure they keep out of us … And obviously we shall insist that the League of Nations treaty has no effect in the Americas, because it would conflict with the Monroe Doctrine. We’re going to build a navy as big as the British, whatever they say. They’re never going to be able to force us into another war by blockading our trade … we’re going to look to our own country.’
‘Il faut cultiver notre jardin,’ she murmured.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We must … Heavens, when I think of the opportunities here now, and the much greater ones that lie just around the corner, I could kick John and Betty for staying over there in England. The future lies here! They are staying in the past … the sick, diseased past … And now Betty’s apparently made up her mind to marry that young man, the poacher’s grandson, Fletcher Gorse …’
Isabel said, ‘He’s a very good poet. And quite the lion of British Society.’
‘For the moment,’ Stephen said. ‘But being lionised isn’t the basis of a marriage … it isn’t a way of life.’
‘It can be,’ she said. ‘Though I don’t think either of them will want it for long … She’ll never come back here to live, Stephen. She’ll visit, I’m sure – but live – no.’
‘Why not? We have poets here. Our publishers will pay him as much as British ones.’
‘Yes, but he’s English, to the core. I know him quite well. He can’t be uprooted, brought over here, and expected to flourish. The soil’s not his, nor the water, nor the air …’
‘Then John won’t either, because of Stella. She’s just as English as Fletcher Gorse.’
‘Yes, but Christopher told me in his last letter that John’s beginning to understand that in her case, the roots are sucking in something bad, something rotten. If they can be broken, she’ll grow new sound ones. I think he will come … When are Richard and Susan due?’
‘Tomorrow, 10 a.m.’
‘I shall meet them at the White Star pier and drive them out myself. Will you be going in tomorrow?’
‘Probably. I’ll be back at the usual time, though.’
Isabel Kramer sat in the back of the big Packard tourer with Susan and Richard Rowland, while the chauffeur drove from in front. The canvas top of the car was folded down, and a fresh spring wind whistled round their ears and the turned-up collars of their overcoats. Susan had visited New York once with her parents while in her late teens, and had sailed from the city on the trip where she met Richard Rowland; but on neither occasion had she left the city, or, more precisely, the Borough of Manhattan. Now they had crossed the Harlem River on a crowded bridge and were winding through narrow lanes in Westchester County, the woods glowing a delicate green under the spring sun. It was a sort of countryside she had never associated with the words ‘New York’ … rolling woodland, cattle grazing i
n quiet fields, rocky outcrops, bright-painted wooden houses; and there, looming up across the river, the great dark brown cliff wall of the Palisades.
Now William the chauffeur had driven them on to the little ferryboat; its siren boomed and they throbbed out into the stream, and started across, crabbing to counteract the strong combined flow of the river’s current and the ebb tide.
Her husband whistled softly – ‘What a magnificent vista! … Look, down river, you can almost see the sea … and up … there’s another sea!’
‘The Tappan Zee,’ Isabel said. ‘Up there, on the right, that grey building just coming into sight is Ossining prison … Sing Sing.’
‘It’s like the Rhine!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘Why don’t we hear more of it? Why don’t people come here from all over the world to see it?’
‘Oh, some do,’ Isabel said. ‘But mostly Americans, and mostly Easterners at that. We don’t get many foreign tourists. Europeans are afraid they’ll be scalped by Indians, shot by outlaws, or poisoned by American cooks … And now Prohibition will be in force by early next year, and that certainly won’t help to attract tourists.’
Susan said, ‘I wish Sally and Tim and Dicky could see this.’
Isabel, standing beside her on the deck of the ferryboat, noticed a tear in her eye, and took her arm – ‘They will, dear, one day soon. Dicky’s a little young to appreciate it all, anyway.’
‘Of course,’ Susan said, dabbing at her eye. ‘It’s just … I miss them.’
