The FitzOsbornes in Exile

by Michelle Cooper

  The effectiveness of the League of Nations is one of the topics most hotly debated by Veronica and Simon. The League is a sort of club for all the nations of the world, and it’s supposed to resolve disputes between countries by helping them negotiate. If negotiations don’t work, and if a country’s done something really awful, like invading another country, the others are meant to band together to impose sanctions, which means cutting off trade and eventually even travel and diplomatic ties to the country.

  Simon thinks the League has been a failure. Look at Italy, he said. It paid no attention whatsoever to the League’s warnings, and went on bombarding poor little Abyssinia with mustard gas and flamethrowers, until the Abyssinian Emperor was forced into exile. Veronica frowned at Simon and said Italy would have retreated with its tail between its legs if only Britain and France had stood firm on collective sanctions, instead of messing about with secret pacts that had nothing to do with the League. She then reeled off a long list of conflicts that had been successfully resolved by the League, but the only one I can recall is the 1925 War of the Stray Dog—not that I remember much except its name. I think it was between Greece and Bulgaria. Neither Veronica nor Simon knew what had happened to the dog.

  Personally, I think countries working together with regard to negotiations and sanctions sounds very sensible, so I wondered why Veronica didn’t just write directly to the League of Nations and tell them what the Germans had done to Montmaray. However, it turns out that the League of Nations is like most clubs, whereby one needs to be a member to use its services—and we simply can’t afford the fees. Apparently, they’re so high that even countries like Nicaragua and Honduras, much bigger and richer than us, are withdrawing their membership. Countries also need to be invited to join, and Veronica can’t recall Montmaray ever receiving an invitation. Of course, it could have been lost in the post (quite a few things from the supply ship got washed overboard, especially in winter, when we lived at Montmaray). But regardless, it seems the League won’t be of much help to us. We’ll simply have to work away at the British government.

  After a bit more discussion about Anthony Eden, Veronica returned to her letter, and I went upstairs to practice my typing. However, it was so cold that I was forced to don my fur-lined gloves, which were a bit of a hindrance as far as finger flexibility went. I soon gave up and started sorting through my wardrobe, because Aunt Charlotte has said Veronica and I will be having a second Season this year.

  “And I sincerely hope this one will be more successful than the last,” she said, giving us both a severe look. “Still, at least you’ve finally given up wearing head-to-toe black, Veronica. Perhaps that will help a little. Gentlemen are not attracted to gloominess, you know. They prefer cheerful, sparkling young ladies. Filial respect is all very well—and of course, mourning needed to be observed for a few months—but enough is enough.”

  Filial respect! I almost laughed out loud at that when I considered Veronica’s relationship with her father. “Troubled” is probably the politest way to describe it. I don’t think Aunt Charlotte ever grasped that Veronica was not in mourning for her father, or even for her mother, but for her home. And no doubt still is in mourning, although her grief appears to have taken on a less passive form now, thank heavens.

  Aunt Charlotte remains at Milford Park, by the way, recovering from a bad cold. She caught it while doing what Henry called “shooting peasants.”

  “Pheasants, Henry,” said Toby. “Those squawking, feathery things.”

  “Oh! I did wonder about that,” said Henry. “Because I didn’t think there were any peasants left in England.”

  “Oh, darling, there are, thousands and thousands of them,” said Julia. (This conversation took place at Veronica’s birthday tea.) “It’s just that we call them the proletariat now.”

  “And nobody shoots them, Henry,” I said firmly. “Not in England, anyway.”

  “No, just in Spain,” said Veronica. “And the Soviet Union—although they don’t usually shoot them there, just starve them to death.”

  It was a good thing Anthony was away at an air show—he hates hearing the Soviet Union criticized. In any case, Julia must be a bit tired of Communism by now, because she quickly diverted the conversation to the far more entertaining topic of Me and My Girl, which she saw in the West End just before Christmas. Pretty soon, she’d taught us her favorite song and dance from the show, and we were all strutting round the Velvet Drawing Room doing the Lambeth Walk. I must say, Julia is excellent at distractions. And we certainly needed some distraction at the time, what with the departure of the Basque children (Henry misses them dreadfully) as well as the ongoing saga of the Crazed Assassin.

  Veronica’s attacker, it turns out, is the niece of a wealthy baronet—not all that surprising, I suppose, given how high the fees are for the Poole clinic. However, much as her family would have liked to hide her away again in a more secure private institution, she’d actually been arrested this time, so proper legal procedures needed to be followed. Aunt Charlotte was horrified at the thought that Veronica or I might have to appear in court as witnesses (“The scandal! Mere months before the Season begins! Why, you won’t be invited anywhere!”). Luckily, Veronica’s attacker was found to be “of unsound mind” without any need of our testimony, and was rapidly packed off to Broadmoor “for her own safety and the safety of others.” Aunt Charlotte then decided Rebecca should also be moved somewhere more secure (and less expensive). But, after all, Rebecca hadn’t tried to kill anyone (not recently, anyway), and it’s not illegal to say mean things about other people.

  “Yes, it is,” said Veronica. “It’s called slander. Or libel, if it’s written down.”

  Then she and Simon got into an argument about legal definitions. However, even Veronica and Aunt Charlotte acknowledged that moving Rebecca would only agitate her, just when she finally seemed to have settled in at Poole—and no one wants to deal with an agitated Rebecca. So Simon went down to have yet another talk with the matron and the therapists, who’d already been interviewed by the police, and it was agreed that a very close eye would be kept on her. So perhaps anxiety over his mother is contributing to Simon’s grumpy mood …

  Oh, there’s the dinner gong. Hmm, wasn’t this journal entry supposed to be hopeful and happy? Well, at least it’s unsmudged.

  15th March 1938

  We have not had any response from the government about Montmaray, even though we’ve written two letters to the Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that the letters, sent to Toby for his official King of Montmaray signature, are lost on his desk at Oxford, buried under a pile of dinner party invitations and unread textbooks. However, Veronica has decided that the whole of the blame lies with Simon, for having edited her “forthright, well-argued missives” into “meaningless drivel.”

  “No wonder the Foreign Office hasn’t paid any attention,” she said at breakfast this morning. “An urgent issue of international injustice, and you made it sound like a spot of bother over a disputed right-of-way!”

  “I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that the Foreign Office might have other matters to deal with at the moment!” snapped Simon.

  “And I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that if the Foreign Office had been aware of the cold, hard facts about Montmaray’s invasion—as opposed to your pale, insipid version—they might have recognized Hitler’s ruthlessness earlier. They might have taken some action. And perhaps Vienna wouldn’t have Nazi storm troopers goose-stepping through its streets today!”

  “Oh, of course,” he said. “The Anschluss is all my fault!”

  “Don’t say ‘Anschluss.’ It’s not a union, it’s an invasion.” She stood up, threw her napkin on the tablecloth, and glared down at him. “Although I concede the invasion of Austria isn’t entirely your fault—you don’t have that much influence over world affairs. After all, you can’t even get me the names and addresses of those senior civil servants in the Fore
ign Office, which I requested a week ago. Which is why I am going out, to Whitehall, to obtain the information myself.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Simon. “Your aunt said you’re not to leave the house without a chaperone, and I’m busy.”

  “Coming, Sophie?” Veronica said, sweeping out of the room.

  I raised my eyebrows at Simon.

  “I’m busy, Sophia,” he said somewhat defensively. “I have a meeting at the bank at eleven o’clock, and I need to spend the afternoon at Grenville’s.”

  I sighed and followed Veronica down the corridor. Simon got up and stuck his head round the door in a final (and quite futile) attempt to assert his authority.

  “And don’t think you’re taking the car, because I’ve got the keys!” he shouted after Veronica.

  “Never mind. There’s this amazing invention called the bus,” said Veronica.

  “But do we have to do this today?” I asked as we went upstairs. “It’s pouring! And is it really worth all the trouble we’ll be in when Aunt Charlotte finds out? Couldn’t you just telephone the Foreign Office to get that information?”

  “Possibly,” she said. “But I’ve asked Daniel to meet us for luncheon, so we may as well pay a visit to Whitehall first.”

  “Oh!” I said. “Well then!” Because I was very keen to see Daniel again and, in particular, to see him with Veronica. His letters have been arriving very frequently of late, and they’ve taken on a tone that might be regarded as distinctly affectionate by some—although not by Veronica.

  “Of course he knows you read them,” she said after she tossed over one of his letters to me yesterday, and I suggested she might prefer to keep them private. “Well, I assume he does. He’s got some very interesting things to say about the Pope and Italian anti-Semitism in that one—it’s on the second page, have a look.”

  Veronica really is hopeless. I asked her this morning why she wasn’t wearing her new outfit (a tight-fitting black dress with scarlet bolero-style jacket and matching hat; she looks sensational in it), and she just glanced down at herself in bemusement and said her old jersey and tweed skirt were much warmer. But I made her change—even if Daniel wasn’t going to pay any attention to what she was wearing, the receptionist at the Foreign Office would. Then we walked outside and caught a bus to Trafalgar Square.

  One certainly feels closer to the beating heart of London when traveling by bus than when motoring about in a chauffeur-driven Daimler—not that this is entirely a good thing. People kept hitting my legs with their dripping umbrellas, and a heavy-set young lady stood on my foot (she did apologize very nicely, but I’d rather have had unbruised toes and no apology). Then we realized after we’d got off the bus that we were at the wrong end of Whitehall. Still, it was a pleasant walk, despite the drizzle. We were just in time to see the end of the very colorful Changing of the Guard, although I’m not sure whom they were meant to be guarding, as there didn’t seem to be any royalty around (except us, of course). The guard horses were lovely, though—I’ve decided I quite like horses, as long as I’m not expected to ride them. The people who designed Whitehall must have been fond of them, too, because every time I turned around, there was another statue of a horse, usually with a sternly triumphant bronze soldier balanced on top. Veronica pointed out lots of other interesting things: Great Scotland Yard, where the Metropolitan Police used to have their headquarters; the old Admiralty, where Nelson’s body lay in state after the Battle of Trafalgar; and Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lives. Right in the middle of the road was the Cenotaph, the memorial to the Great War.

  “ ‘The Glorious Dead,’ ” said Veronica, reading the inscription. “Glorious! What’s glorious about dying in agony in a foreign land?”

  I thought of all the poor Montmaravians buried in France—or not even buried, simply left to rot in the trenches where they’d been blown up. I said that it was as though the government had been certain there’d be another war, sooner or later—

  “And figured they’d need to persuade a new generation to die for their country,” finished Veronica grimly.

  We stood frowning at the memorial a bit longer, then turned our backs on it and marched over to the vast edifice that housed the Foreign Office. It had far too many doorways, none of which seemed to be the one we wanted. First we found ourselves in the India Office, then a broom cupboard, then Veronica got distracted by a set of gaudy conference rooms.

  “Look, Sophie!” she cried, grabbing my arm. “It’s the Locarno Suite! This is where the Locarno Treaties were signed in 1925. Imagine, three Nobel Peace Prizes were earned inside this very room.”

  “Gosh,” I said, peering at the scarlet silk walls and glittering chandeliers, wondering how anyone could negotiate anything peace-related in such a garish setting.

  “It was here that all the western European nations agreed to respect one another’s borders,” said Veronica, looking around eagerly.

  “But didn’t Germany occupy part of France a few years ago?” I asked.

  “What? Well, yes, the Rhineland. After the Nazis came to power.”

  “And now they’ve invaded Austria, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, the treaties are worthless.”

  I instantly regretted this statement, because Veronica took the sort of deep breath that signals the start of one of her long, largely incomprehensible historical lectures. I quickly tugged her forward, even though I hadn’t a clue where we were headed.

  “Now, that’s a very interesting question,” Veronica began. “Although I’m not sure I’d use the word ‘worthless,’ not when France and Britain are still committed to helping Poland and Czechoslovakia, if Germany were to—”

  A young gentleman darted in through a side door, shaking raindrops from his brilliantined head. He carried a greasy paper bag and was scurrying along in a manner that seemed oddly familiar. I stared at him as Veronica went on.

  “—and, having redrawn the map of Europe, some might say the Allies had a responsibility to—”

  “Wait a minute!” I said to Veronica. “It’s that diplomat, the one who came to Montmaray!”

  “Who … Oh!” said Veronica. “Mr. Davies-Chesterton!” she called out.

  He glanced up, saw Veronica, and froze, like a rabbit caught in the glare of headlights as a car bears down upon it at great speed.

  “Hello,” I said as we hurried over to him. “You visited us at Montmaray last year. Do you remember?”

  “Er,” he said. “Yes … How, how do you do?” He shook hands with both of us, giving Veronica a very nervous look. He’d been a day late for her father’s funeral, and Veronica had been extremely unimpressed at the time. However, she now generously decided to forgive his past transgressions.

  “You’re just the person we were hoping to see!” she said, beaming at him. “Someone who knows his way around the Foreign Office—because I need the names and addresses of a couple of civil servants …” She’d already extricated her notebook from her bag, and now she clasped his elbow and began propelling him down the corridor, all the while firing questions at him. Poor boy, he’d sneaked out to get an iced bun for his morning tea, and look where it had landed him.

  “Your Highness,” he gasped, “if, if you’d allow me to show you to the reception desk—”

  “Very kind of you, but I don’t think that’s necessary,” she said. “Oh, what a magnificent staircase! I wonder where this leads?”

  A quarter of an hour later, we’d visited seven offices, jotted down a dozen names, titles, and addresses in Veronica’s notebook, and watched a young lady in a fluffy pink cardigan type half a page in less than a minute.

  “Goodness, how did you get so fast?” I said admiringly. She explained her secretarial teacher had made them do keyboard drills with their eyes closed, rapping them over the knuckles with a ruler whenever they tried to peek.

  “Anyway, fifty words a minute is nothing. You ought to see Miss McIntosh upstairs,” she said, whipping another s
heet of paper out of her typewriter and setting it on the towering stack beside her elbow. “Seventy-five wpm, and twice as fast with shorthand.”

  “Miss McIntosh … she’s not Sir Julius Pemberton’s secretary, is she?” asked Veronica, perusing her list.

  “That’s right. Down the corridor, first staircase on the left, door next to the big glass case full of photographs.”

  “Thank you,” we chorused, and trotted off, trailed by a now-whimpering Mr. Davies-Chesterton. Surprisingly, no one had attempted to stop us at any stage, not even when Veronica marched through a doorway marked STAFF ONLY. It must have been the presence of our unofficial escort—unless it was Veronica’s regal demeanor and extremely expensive outfit.

  “Thank you so much,” said Veronica after a quick chat with Miss McIntosh. “You’ve been most helpful. Is this the way out? Excellent.”

  Mr. Davies-Chesterton said a hasty goodbye and scuttled off down a staircase, his iced bun now rather squashed and sad-looking. We stepped back out onto the damp footpath just as the Little Bens began hammering out the half hour from the Houses of Parliament. There was a bit of a wait for a bus, then we had to change to another bus halfway there. The Underground would probably have been quicker, but I’m not too keen on tunnels, so Veronica had kindly neglected to mention this option. I don’t think we were very late, but Daniel looked as though he’d been waiting for a while and was peering nearsightedly in quite the wrong direction when we arrived.

  “Oh! Hello!” he cried, jumping up and shaking hands. He wore shapeless gray trousers and a jacket patched at the elbows, and the frames of his spectacles had been mended with sticking plaster.

  “Sorry we’re late,” said Veronica. “We’ve been at Whitehall.”

  “Browbeating some hapless clerk into giving you information, I suppose,” said Daniel, clearly up to date on the Montmaray campaign. “Is that why you’re dressed up like the Duchess of Kent? Shall I take your coat? What is it, sable?”