‘It was Henry you saw.’
‘A few days ago you were sceptical, to say the least. What’s changed your mind?’
‘A letter from the curator of the county museum.’
‘What has he to do with it?’
‘Some years ago – many years ago, in fact – Henry’s father presented to the museum a small collection of what the curator tells me are Sumerian cylinder-seals. I’ve never actually seen them. I’m not even sure they’ve been on display recently. He didn’t say.’
‘And you don’t visit the museum often.’
‘No. Nor had Henry ever interested himself in the seals, as far as I know. Until last week. They were only on loan, it seems, albeit indefinitely extended. But last week, on the very day you thought you saw him in Lombard Street, he went to the museum and reclaimed them.’
‘Did he, now?’
‘Yes. The curator wasn’t there. He wrote to me asking for an address where he could contact Henry, in order to ascertain whether their removal was permanent. He mentioned that the seals are probably … quite valuable.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s clear to me Henry told no one he was in England because he didn’t want to have to explain the purpose of his visit. What could have taken him to Lombard Street, George?’
‘His bank.’
‘Money, in other words.’
George shrugged. ‘Probably.’
‘And I think we can assume he didn’t want the Sumerian cylinder-seals to decorate his hotel room in Paris.’
‘I admit it sounds as though he was … raising funds.’
‘I don’t care about ancient Mesopotamian knick-knackery. But I do care about this house and the estate. Ashley has his children to consider. Lydia’s expecting again, you know.’
‘You always said she was good breeding stock.’
‘I’m sure I never said anything so indelicate.’
‘Perhaps I said it, then.’
‘My concern is that if Henry was so desperate for cash that he resorted to pillaging the county museum, might he have mortgaged the estate?’
‘We’ll know soon enough if he did. Once the boys return from Paris with a death certificate, we can make the necessary enquiries.’
‘And learn the worst.’
‘Mortgages aren’t agreed and paid overnight, old girl. Even if he was in London to negotiate one, it’s highly unlikely the capital will have been released yet.’
‘Let’s hope not.’ Winifred sighed. ‘What can he have got himself mixed up in, George?’
‘It may be better for you never to know.’
‘Papa was so pleased when I told him Henry would be asking for my hand in marriage. “You can’t go wrong with a Foreign Office wallah, Winifred,” he said. And I believed him. I believed him absolutely.’
‘Why wouldn’t you? Henry always seemed such a fine fellow.’
‘He was. In his way.’
‘Brigham’s in Paris, isn’t he?’
Winifred propped herself up and frowned at her brother. ‘Half the Foreign Office is in Paris. What are you implying?’
‘Nothing. But if he crosses Ashley’s and James’s path …’
‘There’s no reason why he should. He may write to me, of course, offering his condolences. I’m sure many people will write to me. Henry was well liked wherever he went.’
‘Are you sure Ashley and James is a good idea? They always tend to rub each other up the wrong way.’
‘It’s time they learnt to cooperate. I don’t want their … temperamental differences … to fester into some kind of feud.’
‘An admirable sentiment, I’m sure.’
‘But a foolish one, in your opinion?’
‘Not at all. You know them better than I do. They’re your sons.’
‘Hah!’ Winfred laid her head back on the pillow. ‘Only someone with no children could suppose that having them means you understand them. You never do, George, believe me, you never do. Ashley and James are grown men, and Henry was their father. They must do their best for him. And I must let them.’
MAX TOOK A sip of whisky and replaced the glass on the chair beside his towel, then lay back in the bath and let the heat of the water ease some of the stresses and anxieties of the day. He had returned from Germany ten weeks before – ten weeks that sometimes felt much longer than that and sometimes much less – determined to live his life henceforth on his own terms. Being alive at all was so outrageous a piece of good fortune that he had no intention of squandering his existence on dull pursuits and workaday routine.
So much for intentions. They did not trump circumstances. The flying school was such a good idea. He did not want to abandon it. He knew Sam was pinning his hopes of liberation from the family bakery business on it. He was pinning a good many hopes on it himself. And the last thing he wanted to do was to let Sam down. But could he trust himself to dance obediently to Ashley’s tune in order to pursue it?
Everything had seemed so much simpler a fortnight ago. He had travelled to Paris, wondering how his father would react to his request. His memories of their meeting were confused by a growing suspicion that he had overlooked abundant evidence that all was not well in his father’s world, so preoccupied was he with the question of the flying school. To be sure, Sir Henry had been cheery and welcoming. But in retrospect his exuberance had been unnatural. He too had been preoccupied, happy to let Max do whatever he wanted with a portion of the Gresscombe estate, perhaps because he was caught up in matters which made the fate of four fields west of Epsom seem as distant as it was insignificant.
But what might those matters have been? And did they have any bearing on Sir Henry’s death? Max took another sip of whisky, rested his neck against the rim of the bath and tried to force his brain to reconstruct the details of their final encounter in search of the answers.
The journey from London to Paris was supposed to take seven hours, but there were delays all along the line in France and Max’s train eventually pulled into the Gare du Nord three hours late. He went straight to the hotel Sir Henry had booked for him, the Mazarin, in Rue Coligny. There was a note waiting for him there on Hotel Majestic writing paper.
5.iii.19
Dear boy,
Welcome to Paris. I am so sorry about this, but I have to cancel our luncheon engagement for tomorrow. I am not my own master during this damned conference. But dine with me instead. The Ritz at eight. It will be a grand evening.
Affectionately,
Your father
There they were again, Max, supposed: those famous exigencies of the service. The peace conference was important. No one who had fought in the war could doubt that. It was a re-ordering of the world map – the creation of new countries and boundaries intended to heal the old divisions. It was the shaping of a future that would be safe for all to live in.
Still, his father’s postponement of their reunion seemed odd, not to say unfeeling. As he unpacked, Max decided he would not simply wait for their dinner date at the Ritz. The Majestic was only a shortish walk away. Armed with directions from the concierge, he set off into the Paris evening. His hopes for a touch of spring were misplaced.
A fellow looking remarkably unlike a Parisian hotel doorman was guarding the entrance to the Majestic. He was, in fact, as he swiftly revealed, a Scotland Yard detective. No chances were being taken with security at the headquarters of the British delegation. Without a pass, or someone to vouch for him, Max was not going to gain admittance.
He was escorted as far as the reception desk, however. But Sir Henry Maxted was out. ‘He generally leaves very early and returns very late,’ the clerk informed him, discouragingly. The clerk, like the policeman, was English. ‘I’ve been imported from the Grand in Birmingham, sir,’ he explained, noting Max’s puzzlement. ‘The gentlemen from the Foreign Office wouldn’t be happy with French staff. They want people they can rely on. So, here we all are.’
‘Would you tell Sir Henry when he gets in that his son ca
lled to see him?’
‘Certainly, but I wouldn’t like to say when that might be, if you know what I mean.’
Max was far from sure he did know what the man meant, but he left it at that. He felt a sudden desire for life, colour and entertainment. He hopped into a cab and named the Folies Bergères as his destination.
Max rose late the following morning and treated himself to a gentle day. He walked down to the Seine and crossed to the Quai d’Orsay, briefly joining the small band of onlookers outside the French Foreign Ministry, hoping for a glimpse of someone notable – Lloyd George, perhaps, or President Wilson – coming or going. But those who came and went were anonymous functionaries to a man. He returned to the Right Bank and wandered east, noting the captured German cannons in the Place de la Concorde and the enormous bomb crater in the Tuileries rose garden. There were refugees everywhere from the war zones and disabled ex-servicemen begging at street corners. He rewarded them with cigarettes, which he suspected were more valuable than the sous and centimes in his pockets. The war was over. But in Paris it could not be said to have ended. It was settling around him: the dust of a vast upheaval falling slowly to earth.
The Ritz was as glittering an oasis of opulence as Max had hoped. There were no doorkeepers from Scotland Yard to be braved. It was open house for those with money and fine clothes, many of whom were laughing and flirting over cocktails in the bar. It was there that Max waited for his father, after leaving word for him with the maître d’ of the restaurant. To Max’s no very great surprise, Sir Henry was late.
‘Dear boy,’ were Sir Henry’s first words to his son, before astonishing him with a hug. Stiff handshakes had been their usual greeting, but Sir Henry was in an expansive, expressive mood. He looked older than when they had last met because he was. His dress and appearance were those of a senior civil servant of a bygone era: bow-tied, starch-collared, frock-coated and Edwardianly bewhiskered. But that, Max instantly sensed, was not the whole story. There was a sparkle in his pale-blue eyes, a warmth to his smile and something Max could only have described as a bounce in his bearing. He was not as stout as he had been either. He looked like a man with plenty on his mind, but uplifted because of it.
Champagne was ordered and Max soon found himself infected with some of his father’s unwonted good cheer. They moved into the restaurant and were plied with fine food and wine by waiters gliding to and fro beneath glistening chandeliers. Max was persuaded to describe a few of his more hair-raising exploits with the RFC and to recount some of his experiences as a prisoner of war. Sir Henry could hardly be said to have had a quiet war himself. From his post at the British Embassy in St Petersburg, he had had a ringside seat during the upheavals of the Russian revolution. ‘They were dangerous days, my boy. I could easily have got in the way of a Bolshevik bullet if my luck had been out. Fortunately, the Ambassador took pity on the older members of staff and took us with him when he was evacuated. The people we left behind had a very rough time of it, I can tell you.’
And what of his activities in Paris, which were evidently keeping him so busy? Officially, he explained, he was there to give advice to the leaders of the British delegation, as and when required, about the demands and expectations of the Brazilian delegation in respect of German merchant ships held in Brazilian ports and cargoes of Brazilian coffee the Germans had never paid for. ‘It shouldn’t matter a damn to LG.’ (Sir Henry referred to the Prime Minister so casually Max assumed they were on familiar terms.) ‘But our American cousins want to be seen to be doing their continental neighbours a few favours, so we have to be on our guard. And fourteen years in Rio de Janeiro made me the closest to an expert the FO could find. Most of the time, though, I just make myself useful. And when that fails I try to enjoy myself. I always wanted a posting to the Paris embassy, but I never got it. This is the next best thing.’
It was over Tokay and crêpes Suzette that Max finally unveiled his plans for a post-war career as a flying instructor. By then he was optimistic that his father would give him the use of the land he needed at Gresscombe. And his optimism was not misplaced. ‘You shall have it, James, you shall indeed. I’ll write to Ashley and have him tell Barratt to grub up whatever miserable crop he’s planted and make way for you. It’s the least I can do – the least he can do – after what you flyers endured in the service of your country.’
The discussion could hardly have gone better. And in the circumstances it seemed fitting to return to the bar after their meal to toast Max’s airborne future with the Ritz’s finest cognac. It was there that the evening took a faintly puzzling turn, when a man detached himself from a party in the farthest corner of the room and came across to greet Sir Henry as a close, if not necessarily cordial, acquaintance.
He was tall, lean and slightly crooked in his posture, immaculately dressed and groomed, but with rugged features bordering on rough and a scar, partially concealed by a pencil moustache, that distorted his left nostril. He had dark, wary eyes and a fine head of grey-flecked hair. He was not the sort of man it was easy to place at a glance, either as to nationality or profession, although, as soon as he spoke, it was obvious he was an American.
‘Good to see you, Henry,’ he drawled. ‘Who’s your young friend?’
‘My son, James. James, this is Travis Ireton.’
Max rose to shake Ireton’s hand. His grip was firm and cool, his gaze likewise. Max had the disquieting impression that he was being treated to swift but skilful scrutiny.
‘Are you with the US delegation, Mr Ireton?’
‘Sometimes. With but not of, that is. More often neither. I’m here in a freelance capacity. And you?’
‘Visiting my father.’
‘Ah, you’ll be the pilot. Henry’s mentioned you. Congratulations.’
‘For what?’
‘Surviving. Not many did, did they?’
‘I was lucky.’
‘Aren’t we all? To be here in Paris, having a swell time of it, while gatherings of old men in smoke-filled committee-rooms decide the fate of the world.’
‘If you take a look at Travis’s passport, you’ll see he records his occupation as cynic,’ Sir Henry remarked affably. ‘Who are you with, Travis?’
‘Rumanians.’ Ireton glanced back over his shoulder. ‘I’d better not leave them too long. Patience isn’t one of their strengths.’ Max glanced in the same direction and saw several dramatically moustachioed men glaring towards him. ‘But we need to talk, Henry, you and I. You’ve been … elusive … recently.’
‘Elusive? No, no, merely busy, I assure you.’
‘But busy with what? That’s the question. There are quite a few people who—’ Ireton cut himself off with a strange little half-smile of self-reproval. ‘We do need to talk.’
‘Then we will.’ Sir Henry grinned. ‘Those Rumanians are looking restive, Travis.’
‘Good of you to point that out to me, Henry. Excuse me, will you?’
As soon as Ireton was safely back on the far side of the room, Max sat down and asked his father, ‘Who’s he, exactly?’
‘He’s a man who talks to everybody and tells them nothing,’ Sir Henry replied. ‘He’s never been inside one of those smoke-filled committee-rooms he referred to. But he knows what’s said in them. Often word for word.’
‘How does he manage that?’
‘By persuading people like me to be indiscreet.’
‘You’d never be indiscreet, Pa. It’s against your nature.’
‘I’ll accept that as a compliment, my boy. You’re right, I’m glad to say. I’m impervious to the wiles of Travis Ireton. But he never gives up, even when he should. And now … I think this may be the moment for me to give up, before I have one cognac too many.’
They walked back to their hotels together along the Champs-Elysées. Sir Henry puffed at a cigar and listened with occasional nods of encouragement as Max expounded his case for the air as the universal medium of transport in the future. ‘Roads and railways are old hat, Pa. One day
you’ll be able to fly across the Atlantic – or round the world – as a fare-paying passenger. The war did aircraft design a big favour.’
‘I’m glad it achieved something, James. And that you may benefit from it.’
‘It’ll happen, Pa. Believe me.’
‘I’m sure it will. I wonder if I’ll live to see any of it come to pass, though.’
‘I should jolly well hope so. Why don’t you take a maiden flight with me once we have the flying school ready?’
‘I should like that.’
‘Consider yourself booked in.’
Sir Henry pulled up and turned to his son with a smile. ‘Capital, my boy.’ He clapped Max on the shoulder. ‘Capital.’
They parted at the door of the Majestic. Sir Henry did not look back as he went in. And it did not cross Max’s mind even as a remote possibility that he would never see his father again.
MAX STEPPED OUT early from Gresscombe Place on Sunday morning to post a letter in the box at the end of the drive. He had written to Sam, explaining that he would be out of the country for a few days, but that they should be able to complete the purchase of the aircraft they had their eyes on as soon as he returned. He said nothing in the letter about the possibility that the land for their flying school might no longer be available. There was nothing to be gained by worrying Sam at this stage.
Why he did not simply leave the letter for one of the servants to post he would have been hard-pressed to explain. But the war had taught him to bestow his trust sparingly. Self-reliance was his unspoken watchword.
Max’s progress back up the drive was observed by Lydia from her bedroom window, as she sat brushing her hair at the dressing-table. There he was, that strange brother-in-law of hers she had never understood nor greatly liked. She could not help reflecting how much more convenient it would have been if he had died in the war. Lydia would have been happy to pay tribute to him then. James valiantly deceased would have earned her fond praises. James stubbornly and inconsiderately alive was a beast of quite a different stripe.
The Ways of the World Page 3
