The Quality of Mercy (8 page)

Verity laughed. ‘Tell me another one!’

‘No, it’s true, honest Injun.’ He told her all about Joan Miller.

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Don’t know yet. Nothing, probably. It’s not my business, though she is very beautiful,’ he teased, but Verity was too exhausted to rise.

When the taxi drew up outside Cranmer Court, Verity was sleepy and rather drunk. He almost had to carry her up to her flat and had to dig around in her handbag to find the door key which was, as he put it to her later, in ‘deep litter’. He was taken aback by how bleak the place looked. Verity had never got round to hanging pictures on the walls. There was a layer of dust on the table and no milk in the refrigerator. He had been thinking of making a cup of tea to sober her up. She had all but collapsed on the sofa and he wondered if he dared leave her in her present state.

He decided the best thing he could do was to put her to bed. He carried her into the bedroom, removed her shoes and stockings and then heaved off her dress. He looked at her with compassion. She seemed as vulnerable as a child and he wanted more than anything in the world to have the right to look after her. As he pulled the sheet over her, she half woke and to his alarm started weeping.

‘Don’t leave me, Edward,’ she muttered. ‘I’m so cold. Hold me.’ And she put out her arms to him.

With a sigh, he took off his tie and dinner jacket, lay beside her and held her in his arms. Within a few moments, she began to breathe deeply and regularly. After half an hour he thought he would see if he could disentangle himself and sneak out without waking her but, when he tried to move her arms from round him, she stirred and burrowed her face in his chest. He resigned himself to an uncomfortable night. Her weight on his arms, light as she was, was giving him pins and needles. In the end he did sleep and, though he opened his eyes several times during the night, Verity was still in the deep, unfathomable sleep of the exhausted.

The next morning Edward woke up early and lay beside Verity, not wanting to wake her, thinking about the tasks Liddell had set him. He had no idea how he was to get to meet ‘Putzi’ – Heinrich Braken – short of turning up at Claridge’s and asking to talk to him. Of the people Liddell had suggested might introduce him, he had met only Harold Nicolson and they had disliked each other on sight. Unity Mitford he had heard was mad and Randolph Churchill . . . well, much as Winston loved his son, Randolph had the alcoholic’s unpredictability and Edward knew enough about him not to want to get involved if he could possibly avoid it.

In the end, as so often happens, there was no difficulty. He didn’t know whether they had been put up to it by Liddell or, more likely, Mountbatten, but he received an invitation from Joan Miller and her husband to dine at Claridge’s, where they also were staying, to meet Braken.

Claridge’s was Edward’s favourite of the grand hotels. Charles Malandra, the king of maîtres d’hotel, was an old friend and he was warmly welcomed when he strode into the restaurant. The surroundings were austere but sumptuous, the chairs comfortable and the food excellent, but what Edward particularly liked was the quiet. There was no floor show and Geiger’s Hungarian Orchestra played in the foyer, where guests sipped their aperitifs before going in to dinner, not in the restaurant itself. The atmosphere was, Edward thought, choosing the word after due deliberation, episcopal.

He had wondered how he could break it to Verity that he was having dinner with a Nazi in preference to her but, before he had to explain anything, she told him that she had been invited to dinner by her boss, Joe Weaver, and he was not to be refused. In any case, there were to be politicians and other influential people whom she wanted to meet and possibly harangue. Verity was never one to pass up an opportunity of making her views known to anyone who would listen and the more important they were the better.

So it was with a clear conscience that Edward entered the hotel restaurant and looked about him. He saw Mandl at once. He seemed less coarse and objectionable than when he had seen him at Broadlands. Joan still looked melancholy but this was, he thought, something to do with the way her eyes never seemed to light up even when she smiled. As usual, she was smoking a Sobranie in a long white cigarette holder. Putzi appeared to be a classic ‘lounge lizard’ with smooth, brilliantined hair and eyes black as ink. He was a big man with a heavy ‘stupid’ face but he obviously was not stupid if he had first entranced Hitler and then escaped from him.

It was not the way of diners at Claridge’s to show that they noticed famous guests. It would have been odd if there had been no one in the room who was notorious for one reason or another. However, Joan’s extraordinary beauty – and no doubt her notoriety as the naked star of
Last Night in Vienna
– meant that she attracted some quick glances and one or two more deliberate stares. Neither of the men rose to greet Edward. A waiter pulled out a chair for him and, as he sat down, Mandl introduced Putzi with a wave of his hand which was almost contemptuous. Putzi smiled half-heartedly, like a schoolboy who knows he’s done wrong but hardly knows how to admit it. Edward guessed Mandl had been doing his best to persuade him to return home. Joan acknowledged him with the slightest of nods. They were drinking champagne and Edward had the feeling they were already on the second bottle. He decided this was not going to be an evening at Claridge’s he would look back on with any pleasure.

‘Am I late? You said eight, Herr Mandl.’

‘You’re not late, Lord Edward. There were some things I had to talk to Putzi – Herr Braken – about before you came.’

‘He was trying to get me to return to Berlin,’ Putzi bleated, sounding already half-drunk. ‘They are putting so much pressure on me. Last week Colonel Bodenschatz – Reichmarschall Goering’s personal adjutant – was trying to make me believe that all was forgotten and forgiven. Isn’t that what you English say?’ He spoke with an American accent the English he had learnt at Harvard and less salubrious institutions where he had played piano. ‘But I don’t believe it. I think I will be walking into a trap. The Führer used to love me. You see, Lord Edward, I knew him before he was . . . before he became our beloved leader. Did you know Herr Himmler’s father was my schoolmaster?’ He giggled. ‘But now . . .’ He shrugged expressively. ‘Bodenschatz threatened that, if I do not return to Germany, my family will suffer but I told him I did not care. My wife does not love me . . . there is only my son Egon, God bless him. Herr Hitler loved my wife. Did you know that, Herr Mandl? She was the first – before Eva or Geli. I played the piano and he danced with my wife.’

‘You should not say such things,’ Mandl rebuked him.

‘You were responsible for the foreign press?’ Edward asked.

‘I knew how to deal with them. I told them what they wanted to hear – Germany rehabilitated, part of the family of nations once again – you understand. The Führer decisive, responsible, a new Bismarck . . .’

‘But . . .?’

‘But it all went wrong . . . the Jews . . .’

Mandl tried to hush him. ‘Lord Edward does not want to hear about all that, Putzi.’

‘No, I am interested. We cannot make out whether Hitler wants war or . . .’

Putzi embarked on a long, ill-thought-out monologue on the Führer’s political ambitions at the end of which Edward was beginning to wonder what this wreck of a man had to offer Liddell even if he did decide to remain in England. He drank and smoked cigars while still making time to wolf down caviar, a steak and a very sweet pudding. Edward hoped he was not going to be asked to pay for the meal – Liddell had said nothing about expenses – but in the end Mandl picked up the bill.

Putzi was lonely, Edward gathered. He wanted to be invited into high society but so far he had received no invitations of any consequence. Unity Mitford had taken him to one or two parties but, reading between the lines, Edward gathered that he had not been a success. He had wanted to meet Unity’s parents, Lord and Lady Redesdale, but, apparently, they did not like the look of him and had refused to invite him to stay for the weekend. Harold Nicolson had taken him to the House of Commons and he had lunched with three or four Members of Parliament on the right of the Conservative party but that wasn’t enough. He seized on Edward as a means of cracking his social isolation and Edward began to realize that he would get nowhere until he procured him an invitation to one of the great country houses. He knew that Gerald would never have him at Mersham and he decided he would get Liddell to put pressure on Mountbatten to invite him to Broadlands.

It was a considerable relief to Edward when the meal ended. He tried to get away but this proved more difficult than he had imagined. Putzi had been introduced by Harold Nicolson to a cabaret club called Murray’s which Edward had heard of but never visited. It had a dubious reputation but was popular with some of the young men about town who liked ‘slumming’. It was in this Soho basement that Edward now found himself about eleven thirty when he would much rather have been at home in bed or, better still, with Verity.

Putzi – apparently already a temporary member – was made welcome and, to Edward’s embarrassment, they were given a table on the edge of the dance floor. Percival Murray, the owner, whom Putzi addressed as ‘Pops’, was unctuous and signalled two scantily dressed ‘dancers’ to come over to the table. Edward, feeling very out of place, watched as Mandl and Putzi fondled them. Mandl seemed quite unconscious of the impropriety of behaving in such a way with his wife present. It showed a contempt for her which made Edward angry and ashamed.

He saw him stuff banknotes into the pocket of the waiter who reappeared with what passed for champagne. Edward took one sip and almost choked. It wasn’t long before Joan was recognized as the star of
Last Night in Vienna
and she was applauded by several of the men sitting with girls at other tables, two or three of whom demanded autographs. She obliged, looking gloomier than ever but this did not seem to bother her admirers. In the end, Joan told Edward they should dance, solely in order to free herself from the mêlée she said, unflatteringly.

‘I know this sort of place,’ she growled in his ear. ‘We have them in Vienna. It’s little better than a brothel.’

‘I can’t stand much more of this,’ he responded, ungallantly. ‘Would you like me to take you back to Claridge’s?’

Mandl seemed not to care that Edward was taking his wife back to the hotel and his pride was stung that the possessive husband did not see him as a threat. He hoped it was because Mandl imagined English gentlemen did not behave badly, which he knew to be untrue.

As they were leaving the stuffy little basement, he caught sight of a face he knew. It was Stuart Rose. He was sitting alone staring at Mandl and Putzi. As Edward started to climb the narrow stairs up to street level, Rose turned and looked at him. He was smiling but it was not a pleasant smile. He raised a glass to his lips as though drinking a toast. Edward nodded but did not feel like making conversation. It had been a long evening and it might not yet be over.

He found a taxi in Soho Square and they were driven to Claridge’s, neither saying more than a few words to one another. It was almost two o’clock when they reached the hotel but the bar was still open. Joan begged him to have a nightcap and he did not feel he could leave her without being sure she was all right.

‘What about your husband?’ he asked when they barman had given them cognac in ridiculously large balloons. ‘When will he come back?’

‘Not tonight. He and Putzi will take a couple of whores back to their rooms.’

Edward was shocked. ‘Does he often do that?’

‘He’s not interested in sex with me,’ she said flatly, her voice cloudy with cigarette smoke. ‘I told you before, I’m just a useful possession. Anyway, it makes him feel good which means he leaves me alone. He thinks himself a
Teufelskerl
– the devil of a fellow.’

‘I could find you a place to stay,’ he said uncertainly.

She smiled for the first time that evening and raised a hand to stroke his cheek. ‘That is good of you but it would not be sensible. It would cause trouble for you, for your government perhaps, and certainly for me. I have to get my child out of Austria – or must I now say Greater Germany?’

‘Have you got anyone at home who would help you? Is there a nanny or a servant you trust?’

‘My little girl’s nanny would do anything I asked but she’s seventy-five – she was my nanny also, you understand. She could not do anything that needed . . .’

‘I understand.’

‘Have you an idea?’ she inquired, sounding almost eager.

‘I have the beginnings of one – a wild scheme but it might just work.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Not yet. I have to think things through. Are you to be at Broadlands next weekend?’

‘Yes. Mandl is to meet some navy friend of Lord Louis’ – something to do with selling the gun I told you about.’

Edward noticed she almost always referred to her husband as Mandl, as if she did not know him well enough to call him by his first name.

The bar was closing so he said goodbye, shaking hands formally as though a kiss might alter their relationship.

He got back to Albany after three and went straight to bed. ‘I’m much too old for late nights,’ he told himself as he brushed his teeth. The following morning he said it again feeling the fur on his tongue and the ache in his head.

4

One of the few disadvantages of being single, Verity decided as she twirled in front of the mirror, was that she had no one to tell her she looked good in a new dress. Although she went for months not thinking about what she wore, in London she tended to splurge in all her favourite shops. It was true that Vienna had its temptations, unlike war-torn Madrid. For a start, taxis were cheap – just fifty groschen for most journeys. At Zwieback’s, the department store in the Kärntnerstrasse, you could buy almost anything. The shoes were particularly seductive and she had bought several pairs at Coyle and Earle in the Karlsplatz, while for the hats she loved she went to Habig’s . . . but all these were still in her apartment in Vienna so, of course, it was incumbent on her to buy more in London.