The Intrigues of Jennie Lee

by Alex Rosenberg

  “Well, you weren’t the only one in the party upset by the Jewbaiting.”

  “And you’re still worried? Why did you join the government?”

  “That’s obvious. Power.” His honesty was numbing. “But there were conditions, Jennie. Some of us—Atlee, Lansbury, Morrison”—these were three of the most senior members of the Labour parliamentary party—“we told him we wouldn’t serve if he insisted on a junta.”

  “A junta?” Jennie wanted the label justified, or at least explained.

  “A handful of men governing without parliament. No debate, no compromise, just decisions. That’s the scheme that’s worried me from the start. You can’t run a country like that, certainly not an economy like ours. Remember what we saw in Moscow?”

  In the dark, Jennie frowned. She wouldn’t dispute the matter yet again, but she couldn’t accept Frank’s qualms. Two years on the back benches had done nothing to shake her conviction, that parliament was an obstacle to change when it wasn’t simply a charade. She drew on her fag and sent another column of smoke rising into the dark.

  “So, what will happen?”

  “For the moment, we’ll go on pretty much as before, when Lloyd George was PM, and Mosley was in charge of spending money on public works—roads, schools, railway repair, anything that soaks up unemployed men.” Jennie wanted to intervene to remind him women needed work, but she didn’t. “Except we’ll add Mosley’s tariff. It probably won’t help create any industrial jobs, but it’ll be popular.”

  In the dark she laughed. “Frank, it’s me you’re talking to. This isn’t a press briefing.”

  She leaned on an elbow, looming over him in the gloom, then pulled on the lapel of her dressing gown, opening it with a smile he could just discern. Frank reached up, cupping her proffered breast, and brought his mouth towards hers.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  After an evening of frustration, seeking the Speaker’s eye without success, Jennie realised she’d been in the chamber too long and was losing the thread of the debate. She wanted badly to ridicule the Conservative speakers. Each had reflexively attacked the policies outlined in the Speech from the Throne that had opened parliament. Serious debate had given way to hours of mock indignation, hyperbole and adolescent japes. It was fun listening. This mockery was Jennie’s metier too. She wanted badly to intervene, but wasn’t given the chance.

  She left the floor of the House and wandered into the members’ lounge. Looking round and seeing no one, she went to the bar, asked for a gin and tonic and carried it to a chesterfield. She lit a cigarette and let the smoke exhale through her nostrils. It would ward off the fatigue of the session, she knew.

  She’d not been seated for a minute, when she saw Nye Bevan come into the bar, look round and make directly for her. She hadn’t seen him in the Commons, but he must have been there, perhaps annoyed that she had not spotted him. Typical man. Thinks he’s the main sight in the House. Bevan arrived at the chesterfield and, without asking, deposited his large bulk on the leather cushions, sighed and took Jennie’s hand, in a brotherly embrace between his two large miner’s paws.

  “Jennie. At last. I’ve been looking for a moment to speak to you. Wanted to know why you hadn’t gotten so much as parliamentary private secretary’s post?”

  “Why should they offer me anything?” Jennie was perplexed.

  “Because...” Was Nye going to say ‘Because of Frank’? No. He started again, “Because you’re a thorn in the side of the Tories.”

  Jennie frowned. “There are three or four Labour women who have a much better claim on a job than me—Ellen Wilkinson for one.”

  The real reasons she’d been ignored were obvious to Jennie: the Speaker of the House probably had full knowledge of her role in the conspiracy that destroyed her father. But she could hardly mention any of this to Nye. She changed the subject.

  “What about you? You supported Mosley from the start. I expect that sort of loyalty would be repaid. But here you are, still a back bencher.”

  “He offered. I declined.”

  “Oh Nye! Whatever for?”

  “The job was of no interest. Something to do with the post office.” He paused, looking at Jennie. “Besides, something doesn’t smell right. Can’t explain. Instinct.”

  Jennie thought a moment. “Nye, is it too late to change your mind, or at least to tell them you’d accept another offer?”

  “I suppose not. Why?”

  “Well, you are not the only one with suspicions, and inside the government you’d learn a little more than outside.”

  “Max Beaverbrook used the same argument on me.”

  “Naturally, he’d love someone on the inside feeding titbits to The Daily Express. You must do it.”

  “Very well, if they ask again. I’ll do it, for you, sister.” He winked. “But if you ask me, you should be in a better position than I am to keep a finger to the pulse.”

  Jennie reddened slightly. Does he know about Mosley and me?

  Nye went on. “After all, was you who engineered this whole thing, wasn’t it? Getting Lloyd George and Mosley to scupper MacDonald’s scheme.” How does he know? From Mosley? From Frank? From the Speaker or Beaverbrook? Could it be known in Fleet Street? “Don’t deny it and don’t ask how I know.”

  Jennie was now worried. Is this what he meant when he said something doesn’t smell right? “How many people know?”

  “Know you had a hand in destroying MacDonald? Can’t be many. It’s too good a story not to make the papers. It hasn’t, so your secret is probably safe.”

  Not just my secret, Jennie thought. There’s the Duchess, the Duke, the King for that matter. She dared not ask how much more Nye knew.

  He was going on. “Anyway, it gives you a hold over the PM that should land you some job in government you’re qualified for.”

  Quite the contrary, Jennie thought. Far too dangerous. If I got a plum job, people would begin to ask why. And that could be a disaster.

  Instead she replied, “I’m too young, I’ve got no particular qualification. I’ve only just arrived at Westminster.” She looked at her friend. “But you’re a man. A big, boisterous, loud, opinionated man. You must have something for your loyalty to Mosley!”

  “You’re all of that too, Jennie, including most of the man-bits! But I see your point about not drawing attention after what you did.”

  What I did? Jennie was listening carefully to Nye’s words, gauging how much was knowledge, surmise or bluff.

  Nye went on. “But you needn’t go all silent, as you did in the last session. We need those fiery speeches you gave when you first got here.”

  “Can’t get the Speaker’s attention.” Jennie knew why she couldn’t. FitzRoy blamed her for the Labour victory, she was certain. Now, she realised that everything she’d done to thwart MacDonald, to support Mosley, had made her almost completely invisible.

  Jennie looked up. There, looming above both of them, was Sir Charles Trevelyan—Charlie, now back in government as Mosley’s Lord President of the Council. It was the third time Charlie Trevelyan had held this post, which made him responsible for the government’s education policy. He was holding a pint of dark ale in one hand and a file of order papers in another.

  “May I?”

  Nye smiled. “If you care to be seen with the small fry.” He patted the chesterfield.

  Charlie sat heavily and smiled at Jennie. It was the conspiratorial smile of a former lover, now friend. Nye Bevan decided he didn’t want to compete for Jennie’s attentions, whether chaste or not. He waved his hand in the direction of a knot of men at the bar, and rose, turned first to Jennie and then to Charlie Trevelyan. “Must be off.”

  Charlie sighed after he’d gone. “How much does he know?”

  Jennie frowned briefly. “How much do you know?”

  “Frank has pretty well put me in the picture. I made him, once Mosley asked me to come into the cabinet again. Had to know what I was in for.” He gestured towards the dep
arting Nye Bevan. “So, how much does he know?”

  “Well, I think he knows I went to see Lloyd George with Mosley. Not much more.”

  “But he hasn’t asked why you went with Mosley? Rather dim of him.”

  “Clever of you to have twigged to it, Charlie.” She patted his hand. “Perhaps Nye has too. That would explain why he didn’t ask me about Tom Mosley. Nye Bevan fancies me. He can’t have me.” No one can. Silently, she said the words to herself. “But he doesn’t want to know about my”—she searched for the right word—“my attraction to other people. Not for you”—again she reached out a hand to his—“and certainly not to Mosley. Nye would never ask a question that presumed...intimacy.”

  “But what about you and Frank? Surely he knows.”

  “Nye Bevan is prepared to lose me to Frank Wise. Frank is that much older than either of us, he thinks the relationship is almost paternal.”

  “Well, I’ll answer your question. How much do I know? I’m in the picture pretty completely, Jennie...all the way up to Buckingham Palace.”

  “Then you know why I’ve been thoroughly frozen out here at Westminster.” Trevelyan was silent. Jennie concluded, “Perhaps I’ll just resign. It’s a safe Labour seat. My successor may be able to do more good than I can.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Jennie Lee.” Trevelyan put an avuncular hand on her knee. “You’re the future of this party. You may not have a role now, but you’ve got to prepare for one in the future.”

  “How?”

  “It’s all well and good to give rousing speeches in the Commons. But government means drafting laws, arguing about them on the floor of the House, and defending them in the courts.” Jennie opened her mouth to protest. But Trevelyan raised a hand. “Jennie, you’re being a self-indulgent revolutionary. It’s time to grow up. We need trained solicitors, Jennie. You read law at Edinburgh along with the teacher training. But you’ve never qualified. You need to find a firm, here in London that’ll take you on as an articled clerk, and learn the practical bits of the law.”

  “Not for me, shuffling papers or rearranging subordinate clauses in contracts.”

  “Well then, become a barrister. Pleading before a judge or jury suits your skills at advocacy.”

  “And sit those tedious dinners at the Inns of Court?” Jennie frowned. “Never. Besides, I can’t afford it, not an MPs salary.”

  He looked at her hard. “Jennie. If you make a start, I’ll pay the fees, and I’ll find someone to serve as your pupil-master too.”

  It would, Jennie recognised, be at least a stopgap, a next step, a way that might lead her out of the impasse she’d found herself in. Studying had come as natural to her as speaking. It would certainly take up her days, but leave her evenings free for the Commons. And Charlie Trevelyan was right. It might equip her for something more than rousing rabbles in the coalfields. Then, of course, there were hardly any women barristers. The prejudice against them was fierce. But as a sitting MP she’d be in a stronger position to get briefs, to resist discrimination in court or make it public. Like politics, it might be another field in which Jennie could do as much as any man could.

  “Very well, Charlie. I’ll think about it.”

  * * *

  The image of herself as a barrister appealed to Jennie. You can be as aggressive as you want. It was a thought that ran through her head. There had only ever been one woman barrister so far, Jennie knew. She’d had to struggle merely to secure the title. Indeed that an act of parliament had been required to make it possible for her to serve as a barrister at all. Knowing all this made the whole prospect even more attractive to Jennie. That, as a woman, she might never attract a brief with real money behind it didn’t discourage her over-much. After all, Charlie Trevelyan would be paying for her training. Jennie giggled a bit when she thought of herself in a black academic gown with a white, curled wig on her head, showing mock deference in a law court. But still, the idea appealed to her. She might do in a courtroom what she probably could never do in the House of Commons—take something important from start to finish and undeniably get the credit for it.

  And then so many things changed that the opportunity seemed to turn into an inevitability. Suddenly there was nothing much else to do but swot up the law.

  * * *

  The budget had been passed, not even narrowly. None of the handful of Liberals left had supported it, but a dozen Tories defied their Whips and voted with Labour.

  Then, once he’d gotten the government’s marching orders through the Commons, Mosley struck.

  In a speech that combined invective and cold reason, he rose and carried the House through a withering criticism of its day-to-day politics, its decade of ineffectiveness, its waste of words, paper, and most of all, of time. His voice dripping with contempt, the Prime Minister hurled abuse on the pettifogging of the opposition; the endless meetings of the House as committee of the whole, hearings that offered MPs opportunities to grandstand for the press, select committees writing endless white papers and blue books, the obstruction of permanent secretaries in every ministry and the legalism of the solicitor general’s office. It was Mosley at his rhetorical best, a performance that hypnotised even those who would disagree with every word.

  “The crisis we face does not allow us the luxury of parliamentary debate suitable in its courtesies and prerogatives to the wit of a Disraeli and the temporising of a Gladstone.”

  He looked across the House, to the elderly men still ranged in frock coats and detached collars on the opposition bench.

  “As was said long ago to another rump of parliament, ‘You have sat here for too long for any good you have done. In the name of God, go.’”

  They were the words of Oliver Cromwell every English schoolboy learned. He turned to his own backbenchers.

  “All of us must go. And let the government get on with the task of saving our country.”

  As he spoke, the almost morbid fascination of his listeners grew, their attention was rapt, their emotions drained away, their very wills surrendered. Mosley disarmed even the most fervent defenders of the mother of parliaments. When Mosley had finished, Winston Churchill had risen. Called on by the Speaker, FitzRoy, he had been shouted down, and not just by Labour Party MPs supporting their PM. As Churchill rose again, seeking once more to secure the attention of the House, Mosley stood, turned his back, bowed briefly to the Speaker and strode from the chamber. It was an expression of contempt, so well timed that most of his backbenchers rose and made to leave with their leader.

  Swept along with the others by Mosley’s emotional torrent, Jennie too left the chamber to the opposition, flailing in its frustration. At the door of the House, Jennie halted, turned back and began looking for Frank. Mosley’s voice had held her so firmly she had not even watched Frank to gauge his reaction to the speech. Now she could see him, still standing at the dispatch box along the government bench, in fierce argument with another man, presumably another cabinet minister, though she couldn’t tell whom. She decided to wait. But ten minutes later he walked right past her without noticing, still arguing.

  That night, Frank called, well after midnight to say the cabinet were meeting.

  “In the middle of the night?” It was all Jennie could think to say.

  “’Fraid so, got to go.” He rang off without saying anything more.

  Too disturbed to sleep, Jennie cast round for someone else to ring up, someone to talk to. She needed to try her thoughts out against someone else’s. Had others been swept away as she had been? Were they still swept away in the cool quiet of the middle of the night? She tried Nye, Ellen, even Charlie Trevelyan. None were answering telephone calls, no matter how long she allowed the instrument to ring. Finally, she took three fingers of Scotch and threw herself on the bed.

  * * *

  Looking at the alarm clock, she realised with a start it was nearly ten thirty in the morning. Quickly, she dressed and made for the newsagents, next to the Russell Square tube stop. From ten feet
away she could make out the huge font in the tabloids, “Commons Recessed.” Buying the three broadsheets, Jennie retreated to her flat, glancing at the articles as she walked. The Leader of the House had announced at eight thirty that morning the recess of parliament “until further notice.” She couldn’t wait but began reading the details, even as she fumbled with her latchkey. The three papers expressed themselves almost identically: “The Prime Minister, Mr Mosley, has announced that having passed a budget, both Houses of Parliament will be recessed, and the government will begin implementing policies by Orders in Council.”

  Yes, Jennie thought. That’s it, that’s the way to get things done. Framed as an Order in Council, a cabinet decision would need only pro forma Royal Assent to come into legally binding force. The excitement of decision, action, movement welling up in her, the same emotions that had animated her listening to Mosley the night before. Hurrah, she found herself thinking. He won’t let himself be hobbled by endless, pointless debate. He won’t waste time, suspend principles or dilute legislation to secure compromise. Things will really change now.

  Jennie dropped the key on the hallway table and, without taking off her coat, found a chair and sat, scanning the front pages for reaction. She found it in Harmsworth’s Times. Thoroughly conservative, even right-wing, the paper had occasionally approved of Mosley’s politics before he became Labour leader, but not since then. It crowed in a front-page leader that he had wisely followed a trend sweeping Europe. Everywhere, notably in Italy and Germany, strong governments had shut down talking shops in order to get on with the business of recovery. Now, Britain too had seen that the crisis was too serious for politics as usual.

  Where is Frank? She reached for the telephone again, dialled the number and waited. No answer. Nothing, at 11 in the morning? Jennie put down the papers and rose. Taking her latchkey from the side table and putting it her pocket, she strode out the door, turning left towards Russell Square. She would stand at Frank’s door on Bedford Square all day waiting for him, if she had to. And she didn’t care who might see. Entering the building she mounted the stairs to his flat, knocked and waited. Nothing. Descending, she walked to the kerb, looking up to see whether there were lights on in the flat. In the daylight, there was no way to tell. Where are you, Frank?