Dark Palace (22 page)

‘Delighted.' Mr Huneeus offered his arm and she took it.

Mr Toptchibacheff followed.

Motta seemed surprised to find them there at the reception.

Huneeus said to Motta, ‘I liked you saying that Russia only uses the League as a propaganda station.'

‘I am sorry about the fate of your nation,' Motta said. ‘But we must leave that all behind us now.'

‘Unfortunately, it is my duty to not leave it behind.'

‘Will you continue with your delegation here?' she asked.

‘All is uncertain. As always, questions of money. We will go on. I cannot return to my country, of course.' He made a gesture indicating that it would mean death to him.

‘You are welcome here in Switzerland,' Motta said.

‘Thank you.'

Only as long as the Swiss and Russians were at each other's throats, Edith thought.

The conversation then turned to other matters, in which Mr Huneeus tried to take an interest, but as people with a single cause, all other matters seemed to be a waste of time.

Then Mr Huneeus turned to Edith in a side conversation, and said, ‘That club where we first met, the Club Molly? I do not get there in recent times. It is still open?'

She did not particularly wish to talk about the Molly Club but said brightly, ‘Oh yes, it's still there. I've been back once or twice.'

Ambrose had reintroduced her to the Club and she was liking it more than when she had been there with him in the old days.

She felt she was part of it now, if that were a good thing.
Bernard was, she felt, a guardian angel to them both, to their partnership. To their whatever. And the Club habitués treated her as one of them. Was she one of them? There were other women such as she, companions of the
true
habitués. She chatted with these women in the Ladies Room but although they knew what their role was they never mentioned its peculiar nature. But there was a bond among them. In some ways the Club was truly a refuge. Its dim rooms, the regular satirical burlesques, the inversions of the conventional world where men were women and women were men, all comforted her whereas once it had discomforted her.

She returned to her social obligations. It was time to move on. ‘Sadly, I see someone gesturing to me. Will you excuse me? Duty calls. Nice seeing you again.'

He looked at her rather plaintively but smiled and gave her a small bow. Mr Toptchibacheff did the same.

Edith extricated herself, receiving a champagne from a waiter as she passed, at the same time returning her empty glass. ‘Two', she noted, counting her drinks for the first time in her life. Or three, if she was counting the drink she'd had at home.

She saw Eden gesture to her. He was with some of the Committee.

She approached him and held out her hand. ‘Minister, how good to see you relaxing.'

He briefly took her hand.

She greeted the others.

‘Good to see you relaxing also, Berry. But are these things …' Eden gestured at the crowded room ‘… are these things really time off? Really relaxing?'

‘They are a form of work. But the form of work I prefer,' she said, laughing.

‘Is our Secretary-General with us tonight?'

‘I represent the Secretary-General tonight.'

‘Splendid. How is he or she?'

‘The stand-in Secretary-General is fine and the real Secretary-General is fine. I talked with him today. The Ethiopian thing is a pain for him.'

He turned her slightly from the group, so that they could speak
à deux
. ‘What does he feel about the situation?'

That was direct.

Eden was speaking to her as his equal and his ally. She felt charmed by that.

To dodge?

It came out. ‘He thinks as Lady Cunard thinks.'

‘Does he now,' he said with emphasis. ‘Does he indeed.'

She felt her stomach tighten.

Eden looked at her. ‘Thank you, Berry. Thank you for that.' He touched her elbow.

Eden then moved the conversation away to lighter matters and they turned back into the group.

If she were there tonight as the Secretary-General, she had, in fact, betrayed herself.

She pushed it aside.
I serve the Covenant
. Yes, but … She'd have to think through her action later.

After an interval she again excused herself. ‘I must speak with my compatriots.'

As she moved over to greet the Australians, Stanley Bruce, Frank McDougall and Mrs Rischbieth, she caught the eye of Frank Walters across in another group. She felt she was being spied on. How ridiculous. She wanted to mouth to him, ‘Only my second.'

Third.

She would, though, have to talk with him about it all. Give a rumour twenty-four hours start and you will never catch it.

Then why bother?

She felt the third drink feeding her spirit, giving her poise a surge of exuberance.

She made her way to the Australian group, trailing through the crowd with smiles and touches, feeling like the princess
she sometimes was on such occasions, known to many who came to Geneva only once a year, a familiar face. Once or twice she stopped for a word, at times almost flirting as she moved through the crowd.

She reached the Australians. Bruce was rumoured to be in line for Presidency of the Council next year.

‘High Commissioner Bruce, I present the compliments of Under Secretary-General Bartou.' She held out her hand, and he took it and held it. ‘And also I present the compliments of Secretary-General Avenol. Tonight I am three people.'

‘Edith—please return my compliments to Auguste. And to Avenol. And to your charming self. We've all heard of your work on the Committee of Five and the Committee of Eighteen. You're certainly in the thick of it.'

‘I
am
.'

And I have just done a bizarre thing with Eden which I cannot yet explain to myself.

She and Frank McDougall greeted each other. They'd met at other League functions over the years.

She was introduced to Mrs Rischbieth whom she hadn't got around to meeting during the ordinary session of the Assembly.

‘I really came over to break up this little group of Australians, to make you circulate,' she half-joked. ‘And the Presidency next year?' she said to Bruce.

‘I don't seek it. I really didn't want to land in the Council, as wonderful as it is for Australia to be represented there. I'd rather work behind the scenes.'

‘We'll be taking a strong stand against Italy?' she asked. ‘Australia, that is,' she said, smiling.

The Australians looked less than comfortable with the question.

‘We must, surely? After Hoare's strong speech against Italy? And Eden's consistent stand?' she persisted.

McDougall leapt in. ‘We thought our tactics this year
should be to talk up wider world issues—nutrition in particular.'

‘Still trying to sell dried fruit, Frank?' she said, lightly.

They all laughed.

She pushed on with her urgings. ‘The League stands or falls on what it does about Italy's aggression. Japan was too far away for us to do much—but Italy is in our own backyard.'

Mrs Rischbieth said, ‘Which backyard? The Far East is our front yard, I suppose. Is Europe our backyard?'

Point taken, Mrs Rischbieth. She smiled and nodded at her.

‘Mustn't drive Italy into the arms of Germany,' said Bruce. ‘But yes, we must see the thing through now. Hoare's right. Eden's right. For good or for ill, we must follow the Covenant.'

‘Italy will at least put a stop to slavery there,' McDougall said. ‘Something of a plus.'

She said, ‘Slavery was being put to an end, so I'm told.'

Bruce returned to the earlier subject, seemingly eager to convince her of the Australian approach, ‘There's a strong case to be made on nutrition and we made it. A world food policy is critical. Unsaleable surpluses, destruction of food—ridiculous.'

‘Better health means better people better able to solve their problems,' Mrs Rischbieth put in, following the line.

‘We're seen as the radicals for advocating equal distribution of food as a human birthright,' Bruce said. ‘And for suggesting food should be seen as a public utility the way clean water is. A birthright.'

‘And yes, Edith—to return to your earlier jab at me—as an agricultural country it is in our self-interest,' McDougall said, winking at her. ‘We have food to sell and the hungry people have no money to buy it. We need another way.'

She knew all this. They were talking about this to avoid Italy.

She thought she would have one more crack at the Italian question, in an attempt to strengthen Australia on it. ‘Don't you agree that if we let Italy get away with it, Germany will then know that it can do pretty much what it likes in Europe—can disregard the League? Hitler must be watching with interest.'

Always make your statement a question, her mother had said.

Bruce looked around to see who might be listening, and then ventured to say, ‘I think we should move ships about and make threatening noises and bluff Italy out of it. If not, we should let well enough alone.'

‘But if Italy calls our bluff, sanctions will never have credibility.'

‘It's the risk,' said Bruce, impatiently, wanting to move away from the subject.

She conceded to his tone. She'd pushed enough. ‘Have any of you seen John Latham recently?' she asked the group generally.

‘Now he's on the High Court, he's out of reach of mere mortals,' McDougall said.

‘Out of politics, lucky devil,' Bruce said. ‘As High Commissioner I seem to be neither in politics nor out of it.'

Edith said, ‘I saw him at the Disarmament Conference briefly. His last job as a politician. I had the feeling that he saw the hopeless way it would go and quietly slipped away.'

‘When America said it would never allow disarmament inspectors on its territory, the thing was finished,' Bruce said.

‘What country would?' Mrs Rischbieth said.

‘The best the League can do is make war more difficult,' Bruce said. ‘But I am with Eden on sanctions—we must push on with them.'

Edith came in then against herself, trying somehow to show
that she was analytical, not simply a League crusader, ‘John said another thing to me in a letter, which I took on board. He said, “Always remember that economic sanctions are themselves an aggressive act and likely to lead to conflict as much as stop it.” He thought that economic sanctions could be
casus belli
. I don't—I feel they should make it impossible for an aggressive nation to fight.'

She enjoyed letting the Australians know that she had a personal correspondence with John Latham.

She thought she might as well throw in another good piece, ‘Of course, you could adopt Baldwin's position—that in diplomacy, any firm stand is a danger.'

They laughed.

‘I can tell you confidentially that the Australian Cabinet is for automatic sanctions against any aggressor,' Bruce said.

It was a little gift to her.

‘Good,' she said. That pleased her.

Edith became conscious that someone had joined them at her right elbow. She glanced and saw that it was Huneeus and Toptchibacheff, smiling broadly. She knew that they were going to follow her throughout the night. Ugly ducklings were her specialty.

She introduced them to the other Australians. Again, she pronounced Toptchibacheff's name correctly.

‘Now I know more Australians than I know of any other nation apart from my own,' he said, laughing.

‘And you, sir, are the first Azerbaidjhani that I've met,' said McDougall.

The conversation became general, and they chattered about Bartou and his failing health.

Howard Liverright from Translation came over to them with a glass of champagne in each hand. ‘
Pour toi
, Edith'.

She laughed, but for the first time would have preferred not to have Liverright hanging around. He was known as a notoriously heavy drinker.

‘I have a drink already, but thank you, Howard,' she said, holding up her glass.

‘Have another.' He more or less forced her to take it.

She was now holding two glasses, laughing to cover the annoying inconvenience of it—and, truth be said, the look of it.

She hardly needed Ambrose's voice in her head to know that having two glasses of champagne, one in each hand, was, for a lady, definitely a breach of some rule of etiquette.

She turned and handed it to Huneeus, wanting it out of her hand.

‘No, no, no, I too have a drink.' He held it up.

Until tonight, she would've taken the glass from Liverright without a thought.

She became bothered. ‘Howard, please take it back,' she said, handing the glass back to Liverright.

He chose to treat it as a game, ‘No—no,' he backed away, laughing, ‘It's your glass. I am not an Indian Giver. It was my gift to you for looking so splendid tonight.'

There was general agreement on her appearance from the group.

She then saw Frank Walters making his way over to the Australian party.

Damn and blast it.

She drank down the least full glass and then poked the empty glass into Liverright's dinner jacket pocket. He barely noticed.

She felt she accomplished the manoeuvre before Walters arrived.

Then the dreadful thing happened. Edith took it on herself to introduce him to the others in the group and had accomplished the introductions perfectly when her champagne glass slipped from her hand and smashed at her feet.

She stared down at it, aghast.

Huneeus on her right and Liverright on her left both went down to pick up the pieces.

She told them to leave it, and looked around for a waiter.

‘Yes, leave it,' said Walters, also looking about for a waiter.

Huneeus and Liverright stood up with pieces of glass in their hands.