Page 100 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)
He entered with trepidation, but Cynthia was fully dressed and sitting on a chair on the near side of the desk. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, and her cheeks were red, but she seemed calm. Young placed a chair for Richard beside her, and went round the other side to sit down.
‘I thought you would probably like to hear what I’ve already told your wife,’ Young said, clasping his hands on the desk top. He was good-looking, Richard thought, and he’d have bet a lot of his patients fell in love with the fair curly hair, the kind brown eyes and the crinkly smile.
‘Please,’ said Richard.
‘After careful examination, I cannot find anything abnormal in Mrs Howard’s physiology.’
‘Then why did the other doctor say—?’
‘I’m sorry to say it of a fellow practitioner, but perhaps he didn’t know what he was looking at. But I assure you, this is my area of expertise. I see no reason why she should not be able to conceive and carry to term in a perfectly normal way.’
‘That’s good to hear,’ Richard said.
He turned to smile at Cynthia, and reached out a hand, but she didn’t take it, and gave him only a glance before turning her head away. There was no responding smile.
The 11th of March was a damp, windy day, but mild, and not actively raining.
Lennie had slept apart from Polly that night, at her request. Her maid, Rogers, came in early with tea and toast, and went through to run her bath, with an anticipatory smile: she was an experienced lady’s maid, and it was not often that she had a chance fully to exercise her skills.
Polly had long ago decided that it would not be appropriate to her age or widowed status to wear white.
She had designed the wedding gown herself, and her own Makepeace ladies had made it up.
It was of pale yellow figured silk, fitted at the bodice, with long sleeves, the skirt falling straight in front, with wide pleats at the back to create a modest train.
She wore a circlet of yellow and white flowers, twined with pearls, on her head.
‘You look lovely, madam,’ Rogers said, when she had finished.
‘For goodness’ sake, don’t start crying or you’ll set me off,’ Polly said. ‘I don’t look too old to be a bride?’
‘You look like a fairy princess,’ Rogers assured her. ‘Mr Manning is the luckiest man in the world.’
When she went downstairs, everyone was gathered in the Great Hall, and when Mimi stepped forward to give her a tiny posy of jonquils and winter jasmine to carry, they burst into spontaneous applause, and several of the women into tears.
Bertie came forward to give her his arm.
The pages and bridesmaids, all in cream silk, fell in behind, and they processed to the chapel.
Daffodils had been massed on every available surface, like pools of sunshine.
James was acting as supporter, and Lennie stood at the altar in sober morning suit, made resplendent by Wilma’s waistcoat, yellow and gold poppies on a background of forest green.
Polly had no idea what expression was expected of a bride at this moment, but she knew that at the sight of him and the realisation that she was really marrying him, her face had broken into a smile of delight so wide it was practically an urchin grin.
So they were married. And Morland Place rejoiced in a very traditional manner, with so much joy it must have soaked into the walls inside, as the sunshine was warming the stones outside.
The fate of Czechoslovakia was being decided even as Polly was getting married.
Slovak agitation had become so violent that the government in Prague had declared martial law on the 10th of March.
On the 11th Hitler sent two emissaries to Bratislava, the Slovak capital, to urge the nationalists to declare independence from the Czech republic.
But they hesitated, so on the 13th he summoned Tiso, the leader of the Slovak People’s Party, to Berlin, berated him for his pusillanimity, and forced on him a document to sign, prepared by the German Foreign Ministry, declaring Slovak independence and dated the 14th.
German troops were already in position on the Czech border.
Hitler then summoned the Czech president and foreign minister to Berlin, and told them they must accept Slovak independence and a German protectorate, or Germany would bomb Prague.
At four o’clock in the morning of the 15th, they gave in, signed away Czech sovereignty and agreed to hand over Czech military equipment.
‘And two hours later, the German troops marched in,’ said Basil, ‘and Hitler was in Prague by the evening, giving orders for rounding up anyone considered dangerous to the new order. Not even a pretence of getting consent from the people this time. This looks like a new phase – blatant occupation by force. And so Czechoslovakia has ceased to exist.’
‘You really have changed,’ Gloria said, running a finger over his bare chest. ‘Two years ago you hadn’t the faintest notion of politics or world affairs.’
He turned on his side and stroked her shoulder. ‘There are better things to talk of with a beautiful woman.’
‘Don’t do that,’ she said. ‘I’m not a silly girl. I’m quite capable of talking about world affairs, even in bed.’
Basil preferred to kiss her, and found her ready for love, despite her words.
It felt very natural to be back in her bed.
He’d have called the experience comfortable, except that the word suggested the love-making was not exciting, which it was.
Sex was always exciting to a healthy young man, of course, but now, two years on, it was more than that.
It was satisfying in a way he had not expected: it was not something he did, but something they did.
Was he becoming a less shallow person? If so, he owed it to her, which was funny, because he could never tell his nearest and dearest the cause of his improvement.
After love, they sat up and lit cigarettes, and talked some more. ‘Do you think it will all end in war?’ she said.
He thought about it seriously. ‘I used to pooh-pooh the idea, but now I can’t see how it can be avoided.
If you let a burglar into your house and watch him take your silver without saying anything, he’s not going to thank you politely and go away, is he?
He’s going to take everything else in the house.
The question is, at what point do you say, “Enough!”, and grab for the poker? ’
‘We haven’t reached that point yet,’ she said.
‘No, evidently. But I can’t see this particular burglar stopping until either he’s defeated, or one of his own side murders him.’ She was silent. He went on, ‘There is one other possible defence – make your house impossible to break into.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Make our armed forces so powerful that Mr Hitler decides to leave us alone. But that will take time, given that we’ve never maintained a large standing army.
And arms are even harder to get hold of than men – in the final event, you can force the population into uniform, but you can’t just will guns into existence. ’
‘So we’re playing for time?’ Gloria said. ‘For how long?’
‘I have no idea,’ Basil said. ‘Mr Chamberlain doesn’t confide in me.’
‘I was thinking, you see, of Anthony. He finishes at Eton in June.’
Basil preferred to forget she had a son; he didn’t like being reminded of how old that son was. ‘They won’t send an eighteen-year-old to the Front,’ he said shortly.
‘No, but a nineteen-year-old they will. They did last time.’ Basil couldn’t deny it. ‘Have you thought what you’ll do, if there is a war?’
He thought of the dinner party, and Lord Culbeath, and Special Services. But that was secret stuff. ‘Oh, I’ll do something in Intelligence, if I get the choice.’
‘You may not,’ Gloria said. ‘You’ll have to go where they send you.’
‘Well, one has to do one’s duty.’
‘Cedric wants to run away to America, and take Anthony with him.’ Cedric was her husband.
He was thirty years her senior, and they lived more or less separate lives, he mostly at their house down in Surrey, while Gloria stayed in Town.
Anthony spent most of his time when he was not at school with his father in the country.
‘I don’t want him to make Anthony a coward.
He says he can’t risk losing him because he’s his only son – but he’s my only son too! ’
He said awkwardly, to comfort her, ‘No-one in this country wants war.’ That was not true, he knew: there were always hotheaded young men who couldn’t wait to get out there and biff the enemy – and belligerent old men who couldn’t wait to send them.
‘But you wouldn’t run away, would you? You want to fight?’
‘Well …’ He hesitated. ‘… it’s not exactly that I want to fight. But it would be awfully poor spirited to scuttle off and miss all the fun. Does Anthony want to go?’
‘I don’t know. Cedric won’t let me ask him. But he’s not of age, so if his father takes him away, he has to go.’
‘What about you? Will you go?’
‘Not on your life! I’m staying. If the Germans come, they’ll have to come through me.’
Basil laughed and rolled her into his arms. ‘Wildcat! That’s the spirit!’
‘I think war is going to let a lot of things off a lot of leashes,’ she said, between kisses.
Oliver walked into the House of Lords bar, and raised a hand to Kit.
Kit nodded to him, and said to the barman, ‘Two pink gins, George.’ He brought the drinks to the table where Oliver had settled, and said, ‘Well!’
‘Well!’ said Oliver.
‘A defence pact with Poland. I didn’t see that coming,’ said Kit.
‘Nor did I. It was only two weeks ago the Old Man was saying everything in Europe is serene. I thought he’d do anything rather than precipitate war.’
‘Better a deal with the Devil than a plunge into the fiery pit,’ Kit said.
‘I can’t tell if that was approval or irony,’ Oliver said.
‘Oh, approval. Anything but war. It’s all right for old fellows like you. I’m forty-six, still within range for being called up.’
‘May I remind you that conscription went up to fifty-five in the last war? And that there was no practical limit for the Medical Corps?’
‘May I remind you that I don’t practise medicine any more? They’d chuck me in the Poor Bloody Infantry, and that’d be the end of me.’
Avis came in, spotted them, ordered whisky-and-soda, and came over to sit down. ‘Well!’ he said.
Kit nodded. ‘That’s exactly what we said.’
‘I’ve been talking in the corridor to young Elphinstone from the War Office.
They’re still hoping a deal can be done with Hitler over the Polish Corridor and Danzig: let him have his route to the sea and he’ll leave Poland alone.
But just in case …’ His whisky came. ‘Just a splash,’ he told the waiter with the siphon.
When he’d gone, Avis gulped some of his drink as though he’d needed it.
‘Now we’ve made this pact, if Hitler does move against Poland, that will be that. ’
‘We need time,’ Oliver said.
‘Exactly,’ said Avis. ‘The French are in a mess, nobody knows which way the USSR will jump, the Dominions are wobbling, and you can’t rely on the USA giving up its neutrality.
And Halifax believes it’s by no means certain that Hitler will move against Poland.
Elphinstone said the Americans think he’ll invade Holland. ’
‘Which makes much more sense,’ said Kit. ‘Nice and handy for jumping to Blighty. In any case, what’s Poland to us? We didn’t object to the wee moustached one taking over Czechoslovakia.’
‘That’s because France wouldn’t defend the Czechs but she will defend the Poles,’ said Oliver. He intercepted Kit’s raised eyebrow. ‘I talk to people too. Why do you think I have all those dinner parties?’
‘To be sure of getting decent grub,’ said Kit, promptly. ‘But Belmont here just said the French were in a mess.’
‘Yes, but they’re arming as hard as they can go,’ Avis said.
‘They have more to fear than us,’ Oliver noted.
‘And they still have twice as many men under arms as we do,’ Avis concluded. ‘In the end, they’re the only Allies we can count on.’
‘All the more reason not to go to war,’ Kit said.
Avis nodded. ‘You can be sure Chamberlain will do anything he can to avoid it, whatever Churchill and his friends say.’
They drank in silence for a moment. Then Kit said, ‘So, what now?’
‘Well, the die is cast,’ said Oliver. ‘We’ll have to go all out for rearmament.’
‘That’s what Elphinstone told me,’ said Avis. ‘Apparently the order’s already gone out to double the size of the Territorial Army. And they’re planning to have in place an expeditionary army of two corps – four divisions – ready to go to France at the outbreak of war.’
‘And when,’ Kit asked with delicate irony, ‘will that be?’
‘God knows,’ said Avis. He drained his glass. ‘Another?’