London Dawn (8 page)

“Well, it’s Master Owen’s, isn’t it? But while it’s here at Ashton Park perhaps he’ll let us set it up on the great shelf under the oil of the
Victory
.”

“Is there anything for me?” Colm suddenly asked. “Do I get a Christmas Eve present too?”

“Hm? What’s that?” Lord Preston looked at five-year-old Colm, Owen’s brother, as if he had just woken up from a dream and was seeing him for the first time. “Of course, of course.” He mussed Colm’s black
hair. “Everyone receives a Christmas Eve present. We just need to find one with your name on it.”

“I’ll take care of that, Grandpa.” Peter, one of Jeremy’s and Emma’s twins, jumped up from his seat. “I like playing Santa Claus.”

His ginger hair and bright green eyes made his face vivid as he grinned and held up a box wrapped in red paper. “Who’s Colm Alexander the Fifth?”

Colm looked up at Lord Preston.

“Come, come, no one wrote that.” Lord Preston pointed his finger at the present and waggled it. “Read precisely what it says.”

“Half a minute.” Peter turned to his twin brother, James, with his brown eyes and dark hair. “D’you have a pen on you?”

James was wearing a navy blue blazer with an Eton public school crest. “Hang on.”

Jane smiled and poked James. “Faster.”

He plucked one out of the inside pocket of his blazer and handed it up to his brother. “Here we are.”

“Cheers.” Peter winked at Jane. “Santa could use an elf.”

Jane laughed. “Elves are short.”

“So you’ll count as three of them.”

She got up. “All right. You have such a clever way of putting things.”

“As clever as he is, I’m even more clever,” said James.

She flashed a smile at him as Peter was writing on the tag on the present.

“Ignore him,” said Peter without looking up.

“I have no intention of ignoring either of you. You’re much too much fun.”

“Even if we’re not bashing you over the head with a sword anymore?”

“Pardon? Who bashed who?”

“We let you do that because you were the only girl.”

“Indeed? I think it’s because I was older and stronger and smarter, don’t you?”

Peter held up his hand and wiggles a few fingers. “You’re only older by a few months.”

“Come, come.” Lord Preston clapped his hands together. “We could have had the real chap down from the North Pole by now. You can squabble later over cake and hot cider.”

Peter lifted the present. “It says Colm Alexander the Fifth right on it. Do you want it or not?”

Everyone in the room laughed but Lord Preston.

Colm looked up at his grandfather a second time. “Is it mine?”

“Yes, it’s yours, my dear. You’d better run and get it before they write King George the Fifth on it and give it to him.”

Colm seized the box and tore the paper off. “It’s a ship! It’s a ship! It has guns too! And it’s almost as big as Owen’s!”

Lord Preston laughed. “In real life I believe it’s bigger. HMS
Rodney
, Colm, my boy. But no bathtubs, all right? And no floating it on the pond.”

“No, sir, it will be a carpet ship.”

“Very good, a carpet ship, ha ha.”

Jane, wearing a red gown and bracelets, gave people their presents while Peter, in a white shirt and Eton school tie, handed them up to her as he rummaged through the boxes under the tree, often scribbling something on their tags. Soon Cecilia, at five, the daughter of Kipp and Caroline, had a dollhouse. Matthew, at twelve, and his brother Charles, at thirteen, Cecilia’s brothers, both had large models of airplanes. And Billy, younger brother to the twins at fourteen, had a brass microscope. The adults wound up with socks and shoes and ties, and Jane was given a necklace by James and a bracelet by Peter.

“How on earth can you two afford gifts?” asked Jane, immediately putting the necklace about her throat. “I thought you were both pinching pennies for Christ Church at Oxford.”

“So we are,” responded James. “But faint heart never won fair lady.”

“ ‘Faint heart never won fair lady.’ Oh, James, don’t talk such rubbish.”

“I’m serious. That’s my class stone, y’know. It’s real garnet.”

“And the necklace is garnet too.” Peter punched his brother in the shoulder. “Not to be outdone.”

James pushed him. “You’re always outdone and outgunned. Give up the ship while you still have breath in your lungs.”

Jane slapped them both playfully on the tops of their heads. “No one gives up ships in my family. Remember, my father is commander on the
Mighty Hood
.” She slipped the bracelet on her right hand. “Ohhh, it’s rather large.”

“Eat more cake,” teased James. “Eat till you puff up properly.”

“Thanks very much, Sir Galahad, I won’t. Perhaps I should stick with Peter from now on so I don’t think of myself as the fatted calf.”

“Hear, hear.” Peter clapped his hands. “I concur completely. Throw the scoundrel out on his ear.”

James tossed a wad of wrapping paper at him. “I’d like to see you try, Hercules.”

Libby laughed, watching them from across the room. “Aren’t the three of them sweet together, Mum?”

Lady Preston nodded and sipped at her tea. “I enjoy their antics. But the twins are practically men now. They can’t both pop the question.”

“Oh, Mother, surely it’s just a bit of fun and games, isn’t it? No one’s thinking of marriage.”

“Why, your father was at seventeen. Oh, yes. I put him off for three years but he never took the hint.” She smiled. “No matter. It’s turned out for the best.” Peter and James were chattering away, one on either side of Jane. “I shouldn’t mind at all if one of them did pop the question.”

“Surely they’re more family than anything else, Mum.”

“Family they are. But to my mind it’s a second- or third-cousin relationship. James and Peter are eminently suitable to wed Jane Fordyce. Especially since we are nobility.” Her gray eyebrows came together sharply as she smiled again. “Just not both of them at the same time.”

The Nelson Room

The men drifted upstairs to the Nelson Room, the ladies to the Rose Room. The younger boys and Cecilia stayed in the library with Harrison and Holly, and Peter and James and Jane decided to go for a walk in the rain. Kipp lit the fire in the Nelson Room while Edward glanced over the large wooden model of the
Victory,
Horatio Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Jeremy took a seat. “Fancy being back on the high seas, Edward?”

Edward immediately turned away from the model. “Hm? No, no.” He poured himself some hot cider from a teapot. “Just admiring the handiwork.” He took a chair next to Lord Preston. “That ship you gave Owen is extraordinary. Well, they both are, Dad, Owen’s and Colm’s. Thank you.”

Lord Preston tapped his hand on his armrest. “You’re most welcome, my boy, most welcome.” Abruptly he turned to face his son. “Have you ever thought of returning to sea?”

Edward was startled, pausing as he lifted the cup of cider to his mouth. “You’re joking.”

Lord Preston kept tapping his hand on the armrest. “Germany is rearming. They’ve broken the Treaty of Versailles. Heaven knows what Hitler intends to do in the long run.”

“Dad, he’s just restoring pride in the German people. You said yourself the terms of the Treaty were too harsh. A few planes, a few ships…what’s the harm?”

“This
Graf Spee
they launched in June, this
Panzerschiff
, it’s a powerful warship.”

“It’s within the ten thousand long tons limit—”

“I’m afraid not.” Lord Preston struck the armrest several sharp blows. “Her full load displacement is over sixteen thousand tons. She carries six eleven-inch guns in two triple turrets. It takes less than the fingers I have on one hand to count the number of French or British ships that could catch her and sink her.”

“Who’s talking about catching and sinking her? She won’t be finished for another year. And even when she is—”

“She’ll be capable of more than twenty-nine knots—fifty-five kilometers an hour.”

“Dad, honestly. They’re getting ready for the Olympics, not another war.” He looked around the room for support. “We know what it means to have national pride, don’t we? I mean, we’re sitting here in the Nelson Room, for heaven’s sake.”

“They’re laying down two more battleships in the spring.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know that, Edward. I even know the names that will likely be used—
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
.”

“There’s been all kinds of talk.”

Terry stood with his back to the fire. “Of course, the
Graf Spee
is out there for all to see, so no question as far as that goes. But we’ve heard the rumors about the new battleships, Edward.”

“Rumors.”

“They put up the Dornier 17 on the twenty-third of November.” Kipp
was pouring himself a cup of cider and picking up a few chocolate biscuits from a plate. “It was a successful flight.”

“A twin-engine mail plane,” protested Edward.

“A twin-engine bomber. And there’s the Heinkel. The single-engine version broke speed records. They’ll be putting up the twin-engine version in February or March. What will we have then? The fastest passenger plane in the world?”

“I don’t know. Why not? What’s wrong with that?”

Kipp sat down and sipped his cider. “They’re building another single-engine plane. Fast. Sleek. All the fliers have heard about it. The Germans will test it in the spring. A man named Willy Messerschmitt designed it. It’s no secret. What do you think it’s for? It doesn’t take passengers, and there’s no storage area for mail.”

“Look.” Edward held up both his hands. “I’m not the family apologist for the Third Reich. I just think they’ve come a long way and that they deserve credit. For the most part, it’s my understanding they’ve kept within the strictures of the Treaty—a Treaty that Dad’s condemned for fifteen years—and if they step over the line here and there, is it really such a crime? Look at what the Japanese Army has done in Manchuria, look at the blood and slaughter they’ve perpetrated in Shanghai, and what have any of us done about that? What has the League of Nations done? It’s sheer hypocrisy to go after Germany over a few well-made ships and planes that haven’t caused anyone any harm.”

“But neither Germany nor Japan are part of the League of Nations anymore,” Jeremy spoke up, dressed in his black clerical suit jacket and shirt and pants. “They both withdrew last year. You can’t expect the League to be able to exert pressure on them successfully. And America’s not a member either. So we’ve lost a good deal of clout there.”

“Oh, Britain will find the clout it needs if the Japanese go after Hong Kong. Count on it.” Edward raised his thick eyebrows. “For now it’s only Manchurians and Chinese who are dying, so it’s no great cause for concern. But Germany…ah, Germany, our nemesis in the last war, it’s found its sea legs again, so that has the lot of you shaking in your boots. Hitler’s harmed no one, mind you, hasn’t lifted a finger to France or Holland or England, but he’s the one to be chastised.”

“Except the Jews,” his father said.

“Excuse me, Dad?”

“Herr Hitler’s harmed no one except the Jews. And the Communists.”

“Jews and Communists, Father. Honestly, does that matter a great deal?”

“There’s your sister Catherine. And Albrecht. And their children. They had to flee Germany.”

“He was writing scurrilous comments about Hitler and the government. He’s a traitor. Isn’t that it basically? Albrecht turned against his country. We’d treat him the same here for going against the king or prime minister.”

Kipp drained his cup of cider. “People criticize the king and prime minister all the time, brother. Politicians do it every day. No one considers them traitors or thinks they should be tossed in prison. How does speaking up against Hitler’s policies constitute treason to the German nation? Isn’t it quite the opposite, in fact? The sign of a man willing to stand for what he loves about his country even in the face of those who have the power to harm or silence him?”

Edward shook his head, laughed, and pushed himself out of his chair. “This has turned into something of an inquisition. Pardon me while I step out for some fresh air. You can chat about the concentration camps we put the Boers into while I’m gone.”

“Edward.”

Edward stopped as he opened the door. “Yes, Dad?”

“Think over what I said. Kipp is taking to the air. You can take to the sea. A commission is available. You would serve on the battleship
Rodney,
a distinguished ship. Britain needs you.”

Edward shook his head again. “I don’t understand anything that’s going on in this room. You act like it’s nineteen fourteen all over again.” He patted the pocket of his suit jacket. “I have my tickets to the Berlin Olympics. I picked them up at the German embassy before we left London to come here. That’s what Germany means to me. Gold and silver medals, a pint of lager, and civilization.”

The Emerald Room