The FitzOsbornes in Exile (27 page)

20th December 1938

This afternoon, Veronica, Toby, and I were in Oxford Street doing Christmas shopping when we saw the most extraordinary thing. The traffic lights had just turned red when suddenly the road was filled with dozens of bodies, flat on their backs. At first, I thought they were
dead
, knocked down by the buses and vans. But how could so many have been knocked over at once? Then I realized that the men on the road were not only still alive but unrolling posters over themselves.

“Why, it’s the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement!” said Veronica. “Good for them!”

“But they’ll get run over!” I cried as the traffic lights turned green. Fortunately, not one of the vehicles moved. Meanwhile, the men had started chanting, “We want work or bread! We want work or bread!” A few policemen turned up and started dragging the men, limp as half-empty sacks of coal, off the road. But as soon as each protester was dumped on the footpath, he crawled straight back to where he’d been lying.

“You know, they’re using the same techniques as the suffragettes,” said Veronica admiringly. “And I’ve read about Gandhi’s supporters in India using passive resistance, too.” I sincerely hoped she wasn’t thinking of adopting similar techniques for
our
campaign—although I suppose they could hardly be any less successful than writing letters to Whitehall. At least these men seemed to have the support of the onlookers. Not a single person went to help the policemen.

“Well, all those men’ll
have
jobs soon enough, the way things are going,” said Simon, after we’d finally struggled our way home through the stalled traffic. “They’ll either be making armaments or using them when war breaks out.”

Simon is being very gloomy nowadays. I think he reads too many newspapers. Also, he and Toby have had another row, because Toby has been disappearing for large chunks of the day and refuses to explain his absences. Meanwhile, Henry was cross that she and Miss Bullock had missed out on seeing the protest.

“I would have thought seeing giant pandas would be some compensation,” I said, because they’d been on their way back from the Zoo at the time.

“Well, I could hardly see anything of the pandas—there were all these
children
in the way,” Henry said. “So I went to talk to the leopards. Do you think, if there was a war and Regent’s Park got bombed, that the zoo animals could escape? And live off rabbits and foxes and things?”

“More likely they’d live off
people
,” said Simon. “All the dead ones.” He really
was
in a black mood. It turned out that Mr. Grenville’s secretary had found another couple of boxes of old financial records—just as Simon thought he’d dealt with the last of them. I offered to help, but he just grunted at me and stomped off. Well, perhaps Christmas will cheer him up. Although, possibly not—he’ll be spending most of it with his mother in Poole. Poor Simon.

In other news, Alice has written from Cornwall to invite us to her
wedding
. It was a bit of a shock, but she is only forty, not really too old to get married again—possibly even young enough to have another child—and perhaps she fell in love with a handsome silver-haired Cornish fisherman. (I am ignoring Simon’s assertion that she simply wanted to secure British citizenship for herself and Jimmy, given all this talk of impending war.) Aunt Charlotte won’t let us go to the wedding, of course, but we’ve sent a bone china tea set and blue linen sheets as our present.

Rupert has also invited us to spend New Year’s at Astley Manor. Actually, his mother wrote to Aunt Charlotte to ask us, but Rupert dropped in yesterday, too. It was one of the rare days Toby wasn’t out (“All this fog,” he’d said enigmatically, frowning out the window), so we had a nice, long luncheon together, all of us.

We FitzOsbornes will spend Christmas at Milford, of course. It’s at this time of year that I feel most nostalgic for Montmaray, I think. When we were children, it was such an exciting time—making clumsy little presents for one another, hanging paper chains and cardboard stars around the castle, going carol-singing in the village. We can do most of those things at Milford, and in many ways, it’s
better
at Milford—the food nicer, the gifts more expensive (and useful), the decorations far more opulent (and there are servants to deal with the prickly holly and sweep up the pine needles under the tree). But somehow, Christmas doesn’t seem as
real
at Milford.

It could just be that I’m too old for Christmas now. Even Henry is too old to get
really
excited about it. She is as tall as I am, and I can see she’s going to turn into a beauty when she grows up, a female version of Toby. (It’s very unfair that the FitzOsborne girls least interested in their looks have the greatest natural advantages in this area.) Henry is annoyed that Aunt Charlotte persists in treating her as a child, and she claims she is too old for a governess now. She’s also taken to saying “When I was a child …,” as though that were a hundred years ago. For example, leaning over my shoulder yesterday, as I was trying to finish Virginia Woolf’s
Three Guineas:
“When I was a child, I used to think that word—‘fiancé’—was pronounced ‘finance’!”

“Well, they pretty much amount to the same thing,” said Toby glumly, because the rich Countess with the aging, unmarried daughter has been pestering Aunt Charlotte about Toby’s “intentions.”

“You ought to be honest with the girl,” I told Toby. “Do it now, so she doesn’t develop any false hopes.”

“Yes, you’re absolutely right,” he sighed. “Will you write a nice, tactful letter for me?”

“No,” I said firmly. “But I’ll look over yours once you’ve written it.”

And he has just finished the draft of it, so I’d better go and read it. I think he ought to post it next week, though. Poor girl, it wouldn’t be much of a Christmas present for her.

Three Guineas
is very interesting, by the way. It’s all about how men want war and women want peace, and how powerless women are to change anything in the world—so when I said “very interesting,” I suppose I actually meant “very depressing” …

10th January 1939

One of Daniel’s comrades is involved with Aid Spain, which has organized a fund-raising exhibition of Spanish art, so Veronica and I took the underground train to Whitechapel to see the paintings this afternoon. I don’t know whether it was having to go down into the tunnels or remembering that Jack the Ripper had strolled along those very same streets not so long ago, but I was feeling quite shaky by the time we reached the art gallery. And then—the
paintings
! There was an enormous black-and-white one by Picasso, full of disembodied limbs and screaming faces, with a woman clutching a dead baby, and a horse with a spear thrust through its belly, and another person being devoured by monsters, or flames, or both. I don’t really understand modern art, so mostly I ignore it, but this particular painting was so overwhelming, I almost needed to sit down (except I couldn’t, there were too many people). Then someone beside me said that the painting was called
Guernica
. That was what it was about! And I suddenly saw the
point
of modern art—that those twisted-up, agonized figures of Picasso’s showed the suffering of modern war far more effectively than any traditional painting could.
Guernica
almost seemed to vibrate with intensity, despite the lack of color—it brought to mind a wobbly newsreel image of soldiers at the front, or the ghastly type of nightmare in which one tries desperately to run away but can’t move.

Then I looked at the floor below the painting, and there was a sprawling pile of men’s boots, hundreds of them. That was part of the price of admission—everyone had to bring a pair of good, strong boots. The Aid Spain people were going to pack them all up when the exhibition finished and ship them to the Republican soldiers. But I couldn’t help imagining there were chopped-off feet inside the boots, just like in the painting—that if I peered closer, I’d see scarlet blood oozing through the dark leather, pooling on the floor. I really
did
need to sit down then. Fortunately, there were fewer people around by that stage, and Veronica, turning to speak to me, saw my face going white. She grabbed my arm and made me sit against a wall, and Daniel went off to find a cup of water. It was all quite embarrassing, but the Aid Spain man seemed to think it demonstrated sensitivity and true commitment to the cause rather than feebleness, so I felt a bit better. And I really
was
glad I’d gone to the exhibition, because it was the first chance Veronica and Daniel have had to talk to each other in weeks, and she wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the house without me.

I’m not sure what Daniel did to celebrate New Year’s Eve (probably went on a protest march with the unemployed, knowing him), but Toby, Veronica, and I had a nice time at Astley Manor. Lady Astley was especially kind to me, sitting me down beside her after dinner and turning the focus of her gentle conversation upon me. Did I prefer living in the country or the city? Yes, it
was
easier for children, growing up in the country, wasn’t it? Did I want a large family of my own? Yes, she could
see
I loved animals (Lord Astley’s springer spaniel had just galloped into the drawing room, planted his muddy paws on my skirt, and licked me on the chin). It was a sure sign of a sweet personality, she thought, being good with dogs and children (by “children,” I think she meant Henry; it was a good thing Henry wasn’t around to hear this). And really (Lady Astley now looked over at Julia, who was lying on the sofa, flipping through
Tatler
), an amiable nature was one of the most important attributes of a happy wife.

“Men may be drawn to glamour and excitement at first,” Lady Astley said, “but what they actually need is someone who’ll be sweet and understanding, who’ll tolerate all their little quirks and funny ways …”

Julia turned the page with rather more force than was required. She’d spent Christmas with Anthony’s parents, and he’d decided to stay on there for another week or two. I had the impression Julia had been summoned back to Astley Manor by her mother for a “little chat” regarding … well, certain things. Julia’s marriage, for one. Not that I could imagine Lady Astley triumphing in a battle of wills with Julia. Although, who knows, perhaps Lady Astley’s placid exterior conceals an iron backbone and a Machiavellian mind?

I must admit that she did contrive to throw Rupert and me together quite often during our three-day visit (as though she’d decided that, yes, I
was
sufficiently sweet, rural, and animal-loving to make a good wife for her favorite son). Not that I minded, really. Rupert’s a very restful person. It’s almost like being with Veronica or Toby—I never worry about what I should say next, as he’s quite comfortable with silence, and so I feel comfortable, too. We wandered around the grounds of Astley Manor, Rupert pointing out owls’ nests, and a badger sett, and the fresh tracks of a three-legged stoat in the newly fallen snow.

One day, he asked a lot of good questions about Montmaray, and I found myself recalling all sorts of things I thought I’d forgotten—the orange flippers of the puffins disappearing into the sea as they dived for fish, for example, and how lobsters always have one large claw and one smaller one, and can be “right-handed” or “left-handed,” just as people are. We also talked about Toby (Rupert was glad Toby seemed happier now, although Oxford was lonely without him) and about my writing (Toby—without my knowledge—had given Rupert a copy of my two
Evening Standard
articles on the Basque children). Rupert said they conveyed the refugees’ situation much better than some of the proper journalists’ articles in
The Times
, which was awfully nice of him to say, even if it wasn’t true. He suggested that if Aunt Charlotte ever followed through on one of her frequent threats to cut off our allowances, I could get a job writing the ladies’ page for a newspaper. I suppose I’d have to learn proper shorthand first, though. And proper typing.

The second afternoon of our visit, Rupert was called over to a neighbor’s place to help with a mole that had been caught in a trap, so I went off looking for Toby (I already knew where Veronica would be—in the library, immersed in the late Lord Astley’s memoirs). I found Toby sprawled across Julia’s bed, reading
Woman and Home
out loud while she did her nails at the dressing table. She offered to do mine, but Aunt Charlotte thinks nail varnish is vulgar, so I regretfully declined.

“Listen,” said Toby. “This is
so
educational. ‘Many women do not know that
habitual constipation
is a major cause of frigidity.’ Oh, and there’s a helpful advertisement for Eno’s Fruit Salts right beside it.”

“What’s ‘frigidity’?” I unwisely asked.

“ ‘A lack of interest in marital relations,’ ” he read with raised eyebrows.

Julia snorted. “I doubt it’s due to constipation,” she said. “More likely it’s caused by husbands who haven’t a clue what they’re doing.”

“Julia!” said Toby in scandalized tones, clapping his hands over his ears, then changing his mind and reaching for my ears. “Don’t say such things! Not in the presence of innocent, unmarried girls!”

I heartily agreed, wondering if I’d ever be able to look Anthony in the eye again without blushing.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Julia, blowing on her fingertips. “Look for an older man, Sophie. A French widower or some such, that’s my advice.”

“Speaking of which, how’s your
friend
?” said Toby.

There was a pause, during which Julia carefully replaced the lid of her crimson nail varnish. “We are no longer friends,” she said at last. “Happy?”

“Very,” said Toby. “Ant’s been like a bear with a sore head lately.”

“How would
you
know?” asked Julia, frowning at him. “Oh, I see him around,” said Toby, turning back to the magazine.

“Where?”

“Here and there,” said Toby. “Round and about. Up and down—”

“
You’re
the one he’s giving flying lessons to!” cried Julia, jumping up. “I
knew
it! He tried to imply it was some woman, in a pathetic attempt to make me jealous—but I always knew better!”

“What?” I said, gaping at Toby. “How long has
this
been going on?”

Toby put down the magazine and gave me a slightly sheepish look. “A month or two. Don’t tell Simon, will you?”

“Are you trying to pay him back about the law classes?”

“No, I’m trying to learn to fly,” Toby said with dignity. “And I’m really quite good at it. Ant says I’m a natural. I should have my flying license next month if the weather holds up.”

“But why do you want a flying license?” I asked.

“Well, it comes in handy if one wants to be a pilot in the Royal Air Force,” he said.

There was a stunned silence. Julia and I stared at him.

“The Royal Air Force?” Julia said. “But, Toby, darling—”

“Surely you didn’t imagine I’d ever want to join the
army
?” he said. “Those dreary khaki uniforms … And I get seasick, unfortunately, so the navy’s out.”

“But—” I started, then couldn’t go on. Julia flung her arms around me.

“There, see what you’ve done, upsetting your little sister!” she cried. “Don’t worry, Sophie, there’s not going to be a war!”

Except I knew there was a very good chance (that is, a very bad one) that there
could
be. And until then, I’d mostly thought of war as cities being bombed, civilians being gassed, refugees fleeing on foot to the country. Foolishly, I’d forgotten the armed forces, the soldiers and sailors and pilots who’d be risking their lives for the rest of us. I thought of Toby and Simon, Rupert, Anthony, Daniel, all the young men I knew …

“Really, if there
were
going to be a war, they’d introduce conscription,” Julia said firmly. “All they’ve done so far is try to get people to become Air Raid Precautions volunteers, that’s all.”

“Well, let’s wait and see,” said Toby, opening the magazine again. And he refused to discuss the issue any further, although I cornered him later and made him promise to tell Veronica and Simon about the flying lessons.

Then, that evening, Colonel Stanley-Ross came over for dinner. All the Stanley-Rosses fell upon him—I gathered he hadn’t been around much lately. As soon as I got the chance, I asked the Colonel whether he thought there was going to be a war.

“Well, let’s wait and see,” he said, too, taking in my anxious expression and giving me a kind smile. “The League of Nations isn’t dead, you know, Sophie. It’s still working towards peace. Very few people want a war, even in Germany.”

“If only Montmaray were a member of the League,” Veronica said with a sigh. “Then we might have a chance of some international help …”

“Have you heard anything more from the Foreign Office?” the Colonel asked.

“The whole thing’s been passed on to yet another committee,” she said. “Not that they’ll do anything to upset Germany, not while Chamberlain’s Prime Minister.”

“Don’t lose heart,” the Colonel said. “Just recall your triumph over old Adams-Smythe! They were still talking about that in the staff dining room the last time I was there. I don’t know if he’ll ever recover from the humiliation.”

“What, the humiliation of being outdebated by a mere girl?” said Veronica. “Perhaps if the Foreign Office employed some female diplomats, it’d be a bit more effective.”

“There’d certainly be fewer wars if
women
were in charge,” said Julia, looking pointedly at Toby. “
Women
don’t have ridiculous urges to fly off and be heroes …”

But then Lady Astley calmly ordered us to pay attention to the brandied chestnut pudding, a new creation of the cook’s, and to consider whether it went better with the chocolate sauce or the caramel. And I was more than willing to divert all my thoughts towards that—away from other, less pleasant matters.