Dark Palace (18 page)

‘And what do you think is required?'

Léger now lost poise, he was disconcerted.

‘I need for you to convey to Laval that I offered, well … offered opposition to the final report. That I fought against the report …'

It was so abject a request that Edith had to look away to the flowers in the vase at the desk. Had Léger bought the flowers, requested the flowers? Were they a gift from a woman friend?

She could not look at him—his abjection could not be further removed from the image of the Léger that the world knew.

Edith looked back to him and then felt so much empathy for him that she felt tense.

She had never seen a man lose so much dignity.

And she felt for him that he should have to do it in front of England. England, the traditional prickly partner in diplomatic competitiveness and distrust.

Léger went on, ‘Convey, please, to Laval that you were dissatisfied and angered by my “opposition” last night.'

He was asking Eden to lie.

In diplomatic reputation, she supposed Eden was junior to Léger—Léger being the older bureaucrat of a great power—but Eden was a Minister of the Crown, Léger a bureaucrat. Politically, Eden had the power.

She felt no one could refuse to help Léger, yet she was fearful of perversion of the record and of the unorthodoxy of the meeting now taking place.

‘Of course, my dear chap,' Eden said. ‘I will do what you need for you to hold your position. Inconceivable that you could be in jeopardy.'

Edith wondered if Eden had thought this through.

And what should she report to Avenol? Had Léger included her in this meeting so that her report to Avenol would also reflect this rewriting of the meeting?

Léger said, ‘I thank you. These are strange times in French politics. We have left behind the time of grand design, of grand realisation. We are into the time of a political
décadence
. Sadly.' He sighed tiredly. ‘In the time of Briand there was never ambiguity in our position. Security for France, first, yes; but in step with the rhythm of the broader vision of collective action. Always.'

What he was saying may have been close to treason.

‘Of course I will consolidate your position with Laval,' Eden repeated. ‘The world needs your counsel. Politicians such as Laval and myself come and go. But you, you are the continuity of French national decency. And sound intelligence.'

‘I thank you,' Léger said again. He then tried to regain his poise. ‘I fear the days of international vision are nearly over; yet I feel now that I am a guardian of the guarantees of peace we put into place in the 1920s. The people believed us when we told them that these guarantees would bring lasting peace. We must act, preferably within the League, to prevent—or punish—treaty violations. Treaties must be made inviolate. Treaties are the handshake of world civilisation. Treaties are the walls of the city.'

He seemed to grow grey-faced.

He shook Eden's hand. He again kissed Edith's hand, saying to her, ‘I have taken you into my confidence, Berry, because of our love for the memory of Aristide Briand. We have to keep the promises he made to the world.'

‘Of course.'

Of course what? She was being encircled by this confidence. She was party to the perversion of the historical record.

‘I was at his bedside when he died,' Léger said.

‘It was a sad day for the world,' she said. He was using Briand as a way of tying her to him.

Léger held Eden by the arm at the door. He said, ‘You understand, I am sure, that I ask for this unsavoury manoeuvre not because of personal need—it is not for reasons of
career.' He made the French puff of dismissal. ‘I do it because I fear the person who would replace me—I fear on behalf of the world.'

Eden looked him in the eye. ‘I understand completely. Your position must be defended. In everyone's interest.'

‘Go to Laval, now. I will wait until called.'

They left Léger in his room.

In the corridors, on the way to Laval's suite, Eden turned to her and said, ‘Is it a French ploy?'

She was flattered and at the same time caught unawares. ‘Léger seemed genuinely upset. I found it upsetting, to see him like that.'

‘In your eyes he is not an actor?'

‘No. It was genuine distress and dilemma.'

‘I agree. I demean myself by suggesting that it may be a ploy. We can, however, use this situation to put iron into Laval.'

She saw how he might do that.

‘You are, of course, off duty, Berry. This is behind the scenes—not for the report to A.'

Could Eden decide that? How could he decide her duties and where her duty might lie?

She nodded, with misgivings. But things were happening too quickly for her to find her proper position.

They found Laval in his room, fiddling with a wireless set. ‘I have a financial interest in a Swiss broadcasting station but I cannot find it on the dial. Perhaps it is a fictitious broadcasting station. Maybe I have been duped.'

Eden then went into what Edith could only describe as a fabulous act.

He evinced annoyance. ‘I have a serious complaint.'

Laval gave up fiddling with the wireless set and assumed his diplomatic posture. He showed them into his sitting room. ‘Complaint? How so? Please—speak.'

‘You and I agreed that France and England would stand
together: that we would reach a position together and stick.'

Laval nodded. ‘Of course.'

Eden ploughed on. ‘That being the case, at the meeting last night of the Committee of Five, Léger did nothing but make difficulties. He showed none of your reason and moral strength. Since you have been out of Geneva he has obstructed us. I am sure they were not your instructions. It is my understanding that the report of the Committee of Five would be an expression of your country and my country's positions of strength.'

Laval seemed not to know quite how to handle this.

Eden then said, ‘I demand that you inform Léger of your moral and diplomatic position—that is, that we are together shoulder to shoulder, France and the United Kingdom.'

It was obvious to Edith that Eden still felt that Laval and the French had to be
dragged
into strong action. He was using the manoeuvre to do just that.

But people dragged into strong positions made the position less stable. She knew that also.

Laval took the bait and agreed to expressing displeasure with Léger's
obstructionnisme
.

He took them to his new wireless set and explained it. Its dial indicated that it could reach Berlin, Moscow, Athens.

As he fussed with a demonstration which did not live up to his expectations, she sensed that he was keeping them in the room so that he could further digest what they had said. After all it was not the first wireless set either of them had seen.

He was not letting them go just yet.

Perhaps he wanted Eden to let more drop. Perhaps he had not been convinced. But Eden did not reopen the subject and, after a polite length of time, excused them both.

Afterwards, when Eden and she had left Laval's room, they had tea in a private room off the lobby.

Edith thrilled at being
tête-à-tête
with such a glamorous figure. She felt that she was indeed
on stage
.

She even wished that someone from the office would see them there together taking tea.

She tried to prevent her tone of voice or demeanour from becoming too feminine, she tried to maintain a professional tone.

It was a matter of pride that she should not in any way flirt or be thought of as flirting.

But inside her was a silly girl, locked in her room hammering on the door, wanting to flirt. Wanting to flirt outrageously.

Eden said to her, ‘The French will be only as strong as they are compelled to be.'

‘Can you compel them?'

‘I can only try.'

A messenger arrived with a dispatch for Eden. He read it and handed it to her. ‘The Italians have bombed a Red Cross ambulance and hospital near Melka Dida. Where is that?'

Edith took out a map from her attaché case and spread it out and together they found Melka Dida.

‘You know what we have to do?' Eden asked her.

‘Yes. We have to dust off the economic sanctions plans of the Second Assembly so we can be ready to launch.'

‘Quite so.'

‘I have already called up the file.'

‘I think we should draw up a special list of commodities which must definitely be prohibited to Italy.'

‘May I raise a point, Minister?'

‘By all means.'

She heard the locked-away girl who wanted to flirt groan at her oh-so-correct tone of voice. Lordy, why not say,
let's leave the affairs of the world for now and relax. Why not say, ‘And tell me Anthony, what gives you most pleasure in life?
'

Edith said, ‘The Second Assembly thought that every effort
should be made with the economic sanctions to avoid their effect falling on the civilian population—the women and children.'

‘I am aware of that argument, but isn't the aim to use the Lesser Misery of sanctions to avoid the Grimmer Misery—the misery of war?'

‘During the blockade in the War—which was very much like sanctions, I suppose—it was the poor and the children who suffered in Germany; the ruling junta and the army were fed. Many cases of rickets have shown up among children.'

‘That's why the sanctions should be swift and total—before the Italians can arrange secret and illegal supplies and so on. The sanctions should cause a collapse of the economy. They should be automatic and terrible—make life intolerable to the ordinary man and woman. The theory of modern war is that the army and the people are one. Everyone is responsible for the war. Everyone a soldier.'

‘Except the very young.'

‘Of course.'

‘I rather favour gradual strangulation of the economy. And that food and medicines should come well down the list.'

‘Strangulation? You're both compassionate and rather cold-blooded, Berry. Glad you're on my side and not on theirs.'

She heard him say ‘on my side' and savoured the words for all their other meanings. Or at least the locked-away girl savoured them.

‘I am glad that I am on
your side
, Minister.' The words came out with a rather softer tone that she'd intended. She corrected her voice. ‘Naturally we start by stopping war materials,' she said.

‘Beg to differ. You are wrong. Swift and total, I think. Ton of bricks. The financial structure of Italy must be collapsed first.'

He then left that point, as being settled. ‘I have to move assiduously. It must not seem that the British are pushing
everyone on this—and my Co-Foreign Secretary, Sam Hoare, has been telephoning me asking that we not be seen as the initiator of all this strong stuff.'

He smiled at her. ‘So you see, Laval and Léger are not the only ones with problems in their Cabinet.'

It was always other squabbles of politics which tripped up their feet.

‘See if you can jolly the others along,' said Eden. ‘Anything you can do, Berry. I'm sure that Laval wants to be friends with Musso, but I think we can frog-march him—no pun intended—into sanctions.'

She said, ‘I will do what I can to get the Assembly moving rapidly.'

‘Good. All the commotion will now shift to the special Assembly. Do you think we're too far out ahead of the pack on this?'

‘No—not at all. I have been testing the water.' Edith began to tick off the members of the Assembly whose opinions she'd tested. ‘We are backed by almost all of Europe, the Dominions, Holland, Belgium, Soviet Russia, the Balkans, Scandinavia, the Little Entente—they are all firmly against Italy and for the sanctions. Romania worries about its oil exports to Italy which are substantial.'

‘Quite so. I suspect I will be hearing “
Encore du cognac pour les anglais, encore du cognac
” at dinner with Titulescu tonight. Did you know he always brings his own supply of brandy to Geneva?'

‘I have been privileged to taste Monsieur Titulescu's brandy,' she said, with a smile. Her reply sounded somewhat indecorous—Titulescu, the brandy, and Edith. She qualified, ‘I have been at an official dinner with the Romanians.'

‘Talking of brandy,' Eden said, ‘I was at a lunch in London with Lady Cunard and Nicolson—at Grosvenor Square—and others, just before I came across to Geneva. I'd just come from Cabinet. Emerald—that is, Lady Cunard—knowing full
well I can't talk about Cabinet, simply pops out as her first question, in full hearing of the dinner party, “You are all wrong about Italy. Why should she not have Ethiopia? You must tell me what Cabinet's thinking.” '

‘What did you reply to Lady Cunard?' Edith asked tentatively, not sure how far to inquire into his social life.

‘To make it worse, de Castellane from the French Embassy had to save me. De Castellane made the joke about
cocottes
and the
commandant de frégate
.'