by Ann Bridge
I have mentioned the dates on these letters, almost obsessed as they are with his family’s health and Jane’s education, because the case of Ironmonger v. Dyne was being heard in the King’s Bench Division during the week from 26 January to 1 February, and of course, was fully reported in the Press; yet Owen does not so much as refer to it. However, on 3 February, after six pages devoted to the question of buying a car (he had sold ours when he left China, and had been lent one by a friend) he writes:
‘Aminta has lost her case, and I don’t know what will happen to her now. There’s apparently been immense excitement over Don’s participation and an official enquiry is being held into the truth of the statements made in court about the actions of civil servants. I didn’t know anyone but Don and Fitz [Lieut Commander Maxse] had been mentioned in court, but I must have been as Nevile [Nevile Bland, Private Secretary to the Head of the Foreign Office] tells me I shall be wanted to give evidence someday soon. I come into it as having given Don De Wael’s [the stockbroker’s] name in the first instance, besides which I bought and sold some francs some time in 1923 or 24... I’ll tell you as soon as there’s any more news about it.
Did I tell you Bichard had written a very decent sensible letter? Yes I did. I shall hope to see her in about a week.’
A letter of 4 February begins with a long account of having taken Jane over to a lantern lecture at Ockham, our home village, given by Ursula Nettleship; for this they had stayed at Westbrook, Ruth Mallory’s family home. It goes on
‘I’ve got an appointment with this committee which is examining the statements made in the Dyne trial for Wed. at 11, which is convenient as it won’t clash with Bichard – and I want to see them soon as I feel uncomfortable not knowing what they are after or what line they are going to take, and whether they want to victimize Don or Fitz or me or any of the other people in the service who have ever bought or sold foreign government loans or currencies. I shall keep away from Don and Aminta as I don’t want to be called into their counsels. I can give any committee perfectly plain answers about anything I did myself, but I hope to goodness they don’t ask me about what other people have done.’
The next letter, of 5 February, again devotes six pages to the question of buying a Buick Saloon, and adds,
‘I am going up to London again on Wednesday to be examined by the “Dyne Case” Committee. I haven’t got any further clue as to what it’s all about, as I have kept clear of everyone connected with it.
I envy Bichard her job of teaching Jane. I make her rush at her Caesar – construe unseen – and the thing really begins to go. Jane is no fool, and she is really interested in her work... I only hope Bichard won’t brutalize her – but there! – it’s a gamble.’
Chapter II
Then, at last, we come to it.
Denton, Feb. 8.
‘I have just got your two letters (thanks for stockings!) from which the news of you and John sounds really good – I’m delighted that he’s getting to look hard and brown and that he is learning to take his slopes straight and to dash at bridges. Oh how well I know that dashing at bridges! I am also very glad to hear that you are absorbed in him. I have given much more time and attention to Jane as you say than ever before, and I am bound to say she is a most engaging and intelligent pupil and companion.
I went up by road this morning and attended this here court of enquiry at the Treasury. Apparently I was mentioned in cross-examination by Aminta as having dealt in francs, which is true.
The court consisted of Warren Fisher, Malcolm Ramsay and one of their lawyers. I told them exactly what I’d done and why I’d done it. They were quite nice and friendly, but they are not sitting in judgement on us; they are merely ascertaining facts on which the P.M. and Foreign Secretary will eventually mete out punishment or censure.
I explained to them that the origin of my dealings in francs was a desire to lay off the risk of depreciation in a holding of French bonds which I knew Father had and in which I naturally had a reversionary interest. I had lost on my deal, had endeavoured to recover the loss, lost again and then shut up shop (a) because having had a stab and lost it seemed wisest to cut my loss (b) because I was uneasy about the propriety of dealing in francs at all.
On the whole it seems to me unlikely that they can give me the sack. I myself can see no distinction between French francs and French bonds payable in francs, or between French bonds and the bonds of any other country. It’s all a question of degree and taste.
Ironmonger & Co. apparently tried to make out that there was a group in the F.O. who used Aminta as medium and I think the Court’s object is largely to expose the falsity of this. They will almost certainly say that everyone involved (and they’ve got one or two cases besides D, F, and self) were mugs and acted without due regard to the unwritten laws of the Service, but I don’t think they can go much further than this; and in my own case they probably won’t go so far as in the other cases and will probably pay due regard to the very intelligible reason why I started on this thing at all. It seems to me therefore as I say rather unlikely that they can give me the sack. My reputation in the F.O. (not as an honest fellow but a wise one) may suffer for a time, and I suppose they could devise means of penalizing me in some way, but as I say, I don’t really think it’s likely to come to hunting for another job. It certainly wouldn’t except for its having got mixed up with politics (attack by Labour party, Don, echoes of Zinoviev letter and so on) and I don’t incline to think that even political expediency could move the P.M. to make a clean sweep of us.
I continue to hold no communication with anyone else involved; but I went to see W.T. [Sir William Tyrrell] today, who does not seem at all savage or vindictive or unreasonable. It’s horrid for you being away with a show like this going on, but I hope you won’t lose sleep or weight or cease to enjoy the sun and snow on my account. I suppose the court will make its report in ten days or so and that the Government’s verdict will follow in a week or so after that. Meanwhile I am grateful to you for not being excited or resentful at my having involved the family, not thank goodness in the risk of a disgrace but in the risk of being made to look a fool and being made to suffer in some way or other.’
Denton, Feb. 10.
‘My dear. There’s no more news of any sort today. I am just off to take Jane to the Meet at Cowley.
The Vincents hold out hopes of leaving Bridge End on Oct. 8.
J. and K. flourish.
I spent yesterday correcting my transcript of evidence given before the Court of Enquiry. I suppose I shall be examined again at the beginning of next week. I’ve no more light or view on their operations.
It’s a continuing pleasure to think of John getting brown and hard and making a fair show of his work.’
A letter the following day, again from Denton, after welcoming my satisfactory report of the effect of the first three weeks at Chateau d’Oex on John’s health, again goes at length into the question of buying a car, and how to raise the money for it. We had had a set of crystal trees in alabaster pots made in China, to economize on flowers on the table for dinnerparties, and these we had decided to sell; Owen had left them for that purpose in an objets d’art shop partly run by Mrs Bradley Dyne. He writes, ‘The shop is a Limited company, so isn’t affected by Aminta’s financial difficulties. I went in there immediately, afraid of a receiver getting his hands on them, but on finding things as I’ve said, left the trees.’ He goes on,
‘I think I’ve decided what answer to give [at the Board of Enquiry] to a request for the names of colleagues who bought or sold exchange. It’s this. I shall say that I find it extremely difficult to settle such a question of divided loyalty for myself, but if they attach sufficient importance to it, and will agree with me on the name of some independent person about whom I have no doubts as to a sense of personal honour and about whom they have no doubts as to public spirit, I shall be ready to surrender my decision into his hands, and do as he advises when he has heard the case stated.’
Owen’s preoccupation with the matter of giving evidence about his colleagues was shared by his father, old Sir Edward O’Malley; clearly they discussed it a great deal. Among my masses of papers about the francs case, not seen for many many years, I was surprised and touched to come on a bundle of sheets in the old gentleman’s writing – once so beautiful and so clear, now rather wavering and even illegible – rehearsing arguments about various points for and against; the possible effects on others, the probable effect on Owen himself of withholding or showing reluctance to give evidence. Sir Edward had spent his active life, from the age of thirty onwards, holding various overseas judicial posts under the Colonial Office – he ended up as the principal British judge of the Supreme Court of the Ottoman Empire, and even after his retirement he had been chairman of Quarter Sessions in Oxford for seventeen years. So the legal aspects were very much in the forefront of his thinking: he asks whether the people whose activities are being enquired into may themselves call witnesses? How the Cttee (he means the Board) was appointed? By whom and how Owen was invited to give evidence? (Most relevant, this.) In fact, there is clear evidence in these sheets of paper of a fine legal mind wrestling with a problem which concerned him closely and cruelly. But, alas, my father-in-law was now nearly ninety, and the effort to marshal his ideas and arguments and set them out in lucid language was almost too much for him. There are crossings-out, insertions, repetitions, even when the writing – sometimes in ink, sometimes in pencil – is legible; often it is quite undecipherable. I find this very pathetic. I am eighty now myself, and am familiar with the increasing effort that it requires to marshal and express my ideas, even when I am tranquilly writing a novel or setting down peaceable and cheerful reminiscences – what must have been the distress and frustration of the old old man, striving to do battle for the son whose hitherto successful career in the public service had so rejoiced his heart?
But, if the legal aspects were kept well in mind, another aspect, the religious one, dominates the whole. On the first sheet of all, quite clearly and unhesitatingly, are written these words:
‘On the morning of Feb. 15th, 1928, before dear O. went off, we stood together and prayed –
Show Thou me the way that I should walk in, for I lift up my soul unto Thee. Ps. 143, 8. That and Ps: LXXVIII, 7 and 8, are precious today.
When thou passest through ... I will be with thee.
E.W.O.M.
Let me enter into and dwell in the Sanctuary.’
On a later page, in pencil
‘Does your conscience require refusal?
Conscience is the one safe and honest guide, under God.
It has been the guide of all martyrs and Saints.
Pray God for its supreme guidance.’
This is hardly the family background, one would have thought, from which a deliberate wrong-doer, such as was depicted later in the Report of the Board of Enquiry, was likely to have come.
A day later Owen writes again.
Oxford & Cambridge Club. 16/2. 5 p.m.
‘My dear
I had another hour and a half with the Board of Enquiry this afternoon. We got out of the difficulty of talking about other people’s affairs quite well. They brought it up again and I said I couldn’t meet them. Neither could they accept my proposal for a mediator. Finally after much pow-wowing among themselves they proposed to tell me the name of a man not hitherto publicly mentioned whose name will anyhow appear in their report. Was it Villiers? [Gerry Villiers, a colleague.] Yes it was, so that was that. Then I told them the other, about whom I was uncertain, was Lindsay [The Rt Hon. Sir Ronald Lindsay, then till recently Ambassador in Berlin] having pretty well guessed from their conversation that they had already gone into his case. It turned out that they had – so that difficulty was laid to rest and honour preserved on both sides.
The only other thing worth saying is, I think, that Warren Fisher and Malcolm Ramsay seemed rather friendly. Very little importance attaches to this ... but all the same the fact makes it less difficult to bear this period of suspense. I am grieved that you should have to suffer in the same way as myself.’
On the 19th, however, his mind was again entirely on his family. He writes from Pendell Court
‘My dear
You will be anxious for the first impressions of Bichard. I picked her up yesterday at 11 in Reading, and got here for lunch. She is rather older and rather smaller than her photograph leads one to suppose – on the other hand, she is extremely self-possessed, nicely dressed and goodmannered, and bears out the photographic impression of strength of character. All the Ottley-Bell crowd consider her most promising. She makes no fuss about anything and is starting straight in to get on with the job. I’m going to have a talk to her now about lessons and then drive back to Denton.
Denton
‘I’d meant to go on later but now no time owing to tyre trouble. After discussing lessons my opinion of B. is very favourable.’
He resumes his account of the new governess next day.
Denton, Feb. 20.
‘I’ve sent one letter off today to give you some reassurance about Bichard. I went to have a heart-to-heart with her, then found a flat tyre and had to bustle in order to get everything fixed in time to get here tonight to take Kate and Nannie to Virginia Water [my sister Helen’s house] tomorrow. Charlie’s tyres are getting a little old. [Charles Orde had lent us his car.]
When I talked to Bichard everything she said was sensible, competent and sympathetic. She is much more of a professional teacher than anyone we’ve had yet, but not opinionated or pig-headed. The only thing she wants to buy for the present is a book on the theory of music and some scale or sight-reading exercises.
I think the Pendell ménage will work out all right. Jane is assistant-general of a Brownie corps and there are several girls of 14-16 in the offing.’
But as the time for the Board’s report to appear approached the tension began to increase. On 22 February, Owen writes from Pendell,
‘My dear
Yesterday I deposited Nannie and Kate at Stonington [my sister’s house] and went on to lunch with Don, who is living with Gwen [his wife] in a new house near St Albans Road. What follows is private. Don’s real gain is that Gwen has played up like a man over all this business – D. said she had done everything that a perfect brick would do, down to seeing Aminta and jollying her up ...
He and Gwen’s view of the issue is that Don would emerge a fool but not a knave with a grey mark on his name. Naturally not a white one, improbably a wholly black one. He says Tyrrell and Wellesley [a Deputy Under-Secretary of State in the Foreign Office] have been very helpful and nice to him.
Tyrrell’s appt to Paris [as Ambassador] and Lindsay’s succession are I think quite unconnected with all this. Vansittart [a colleague and friend in the Foreign Office, afterwards Head of the Foreign Office, and subsequently Lord Vansittart] has gone as P.S. to No. 10.
All well here. Jane and Bichard being very workmanlike with time-tables and so on. We can’t settle plans till the report is out. Nannie hasn’t got Pat’s P.O. savings book.’
On 23 February, again from Pendell.
‘Yesterday I went down and lunched with Eva [his unmarried sister] and had an hour or two of talking round and round her plans ...
That report is supposed to come out next week. Then we shall be able to make plans. I go to S. and B. [friends] this afternoon till Sunday, then home again to change clothes, cheer Father and await judgement.
Jane and B. getting on well. B. says she is backward in Algebra, Geom and Arith and getting a crash on those. B. very pleased with her French. May [Mrs Bell, Jane’s hostess at Pendell] is of course as kind as possible and I may come whenever I like.
Don’t do too much – that ski-carrying walk sounded to me too much. Keep your courage up and get fit and strong.’
And once more, on 25 February, he writes from Kent, where he was staying with Stephen and Bridget Tallents – after describing their
lovely house, St John’s Jerusalem, Sutton-at-Hone – ‘Tomorrow I’m going home again, looking in on Kate and perhaps Jane also on the way. Then I shall stay at Denton till I know what’s going to happen to me; and then at last it will be possible and necessary to make more definite plans for the spring and summer.’ This was the last letter to reach me before the Report was published and the blow fell.
Chapter III
But before coming on to my personal contemporary account of the impact of that blow on me, out in Switzerland, I should like to quote from my husband’s record (in his book, The Phantom Caravan) of how it fell on him. After describing the tone of his sessions, giving evidence to the Board of Enquiry, he says that after the last of these,
‘Unlikely as it may now seem, I went back to Denton with the impression that I had left them ruffled, but without any serious grounds for penalizing me. This impression was fortified by the fact that even when my evidence had been completed I was not suspended from duty, as had been my two colleagues.
I heard nothing more of this affair until a fortnight or so later, when I was staying alone in Oxfordshire with my father, now aged eighty-six. At about eleven o’clock one night the servants were aroused by the back door bell – a most unusual occurrence at Denton, which lies remote from railways and high roads. I was summoned to see a Foreign Office messenger, who handed to me an official envelope. The house and garden were plunged in their habitual deep silence, and all lights had been put out but one oil lamp in the hall. By the light of this I read a letter from the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs enclosing first, a copy of the Report of the Board of Enquiry, and secondly a minute signed by Mr Baldwin, Mr Churchill, and Sir A. Chamberlain and containing their decision that one of my colleagues be dismissed from the Service, one adjudged to lose three years’ seniority and myself to be permitted to resign. The report and the minute were to be given to the Press in the course of the night.