No More Dying

by David Roberts

  Verity blushed and stammered, ‘I . . . love him.’

  ‘Well then,’ Laski responded benignly, ‘that’s all there is to say about it. I hope you’ll be very happy. He must be something special to make you want to marry him. As a child you always swore never to marry.’

  ‘Don’t rub it in,’ she said with a smile. ‘I tried not to fall in love with him but in the end I just couldn’t stop myself. We’re not getting married in a church or any of that rot,’ she continued, trying to regain some points. ‘And I’ll go on working, of course.’

  ‘What is his name?’

  ‘Lord Edward Corinth. He’s the younger brother of the Duke of Mersham.’ She stuck out her chin defiantly. She wasn’t going to be ashamed of Edward. He was what he was and there was no point in pretending otherwise.

  ‘Of course!’ Verity wondered if Laski was going to claim to be a friend of the Duke, which she knew would be an impossibility. Instead he said, ‘You persuaded the Duke to turn over the castle into a reception centre for refugee children, didn’t you? I read about it in the New Gazette and intended to write and congratulate you. Here at the LSE, we are doing our best to bring over our Jewish friends from German universities, but,’ he sighed, ‘it’s not enough . . . it’s never enough. The fight against Fascism is the great struggle of our times and history will judge each one of us on what we did or didn’t do.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Oh dear, I’m late for a meeting. I love the teaching but the administration gets me down. With regard to Joe Kennedy, I’ll do what I can. It was good to see you, my dear. Do you see anything of Harry? I’ve rather lost touch with him.’

  ‘Mr Pollitt?’ Harry Pollitt was the secretary of the Communist Party. ‘I have only met him once.’

  ‘Only once! I must tell him about you. Yes, I must get the two of you together over dinner. A dear friend . . .’

  Verity left, feeling that she had been in the presence of someone with as much personality and intellectual strength as Churchill. Like all such men, he had his weak nesses and vanity but she was still inclined to think he was a great man.

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘I’m going to lunch with Lady Astor. No harm in that, surely?’ Edward repeated truculently

  ‘Of course there’s harm in being seen with that band of . . .’ Verity hesitated as she searched for the telling phrase, ‘that band of Fascist conspirators.’

  ‘Oh please, V, don’t exaggerate. I don’t pretend they share my vision of the world but . . .’

  ‘Share your vision . . .’ She was incandescent. ‘They are friends of Hitler. Their poisonous tentacles stretch across banking, journalism and industry, and it’s all politics.’

  ‘Lady Astor has been MP for Plymouth since the war and Major Astor has represented Dover since 1922. Nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘And William Astor has been MP for East Fulham since 1935 and the Astors’, son-in-law is MP for Rutland . . . I could go on,’ Verity said icily.

  ‘They have a lot of influence,’ Edward conceded.

  ‘Edward! Who is chairman of The Times? Major Astor. Who owns the Observer? Lord Astor. In the hands of these two brothers lie the newspapers who consistently put over Hitler’s policies to the British people.’

  ‘You’re being silly.’ Edward was rapidly losing his temper. The trouble was that he couldn’t tell Verity why he had all of a sudden accepted an invitation to dinner from the so-called Cliveden Set and that made him feel guilty.

  Claud Cockburn, a colleague of Verity’s at the Daily Worker and a committed Communist, had coined the phrase ‘the Cliveden Set’ to describe the Astors and their friends. In a leaflet he had published the year before, he had demonized them as a conspiracy of powerful politicians and industrialists who wanted some sort of agreement with Germany whatever the cost. Cockburn was unscrupu lous and happy to distort the truth to serve the Party, but Edward was forced to agree that the Astors had surrounded themselves with a powerful group of like-minded, influential figures which included the Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Montagu Norman, Sir Harry McGowen, chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries, Geoffrey Dawson, editor of The Times and Sir John Simon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Most significantly, the Prime Minister frequently dined at the Astors’ magnificent house in St James’s Square

  ‘You know how the family became so wealthy?’ Verity demanded. ‘Selling liquor to poor negroes in America,’ she answered for him but, seeing him look ever more gloomy, she calmed down. She had no wish to precipitate a row and it occurred to her that Edward must have a reason for accepting the invitation.

  ‘So who’s going to be at this lunch of yours?’ she said in a normal voice.

  ‘How should I know?’ Edward tried to sound breezy and Verity was immediately suspicious.

  ‘You do know! Confess. Who’s going to be there?’

  ‘The usual crowd, I suppose. Lord Lothian, Lord Londonderry . . .’ Edward thought he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Lothian was one of the figures most excoriated by the political left. He was a close friend of the previous German Ambassador, von Ribbentrop, and had seemed to welcome Hitler’s invasion of Austria. He had met Hitler on several occasions and claimed to admire him. Londonderry was, if possible, even more hated by the left. His huge wealth was based on the family coal-mines and, though he treated his workers better than some, he was still regarded as a prime example of a capitalist exploiter.

  ‘Londonderry!’ Verity was scandalized. ‘You do know that his miners get less than a shilling for each ton mined while Londonderry, who does nothing more than own the land under which the coal lies, receives more than a shilling for every ton mined? Londonderry is paid more than two million pounds a year for doing nothing!’

  ‘And the American Ambassador, Joe Kennedy,’ Edward soldiered on, pretending he had not heard her.

  He looked up in surprise. The diatribe had stopped.

  ‘You’re lunching with Joe Kennedy?’ Verity asked in quite a different tone of voice. ‘I suppose you couldn’t get me invited, could you? No, of course you couldn’t. What am I thinking about? A Communist journalist among that pack of hounds! I’d be torn to shreds.’

  ‘Why are you suddenly so keen to meet Kennedy?’ It was Edward’s turn to be suspicious.

  ‘I suppose I’d better tell you. I never was much good at keeping secrets. The fact is David Griffiths-Jones wants me to get to know him.’

  ‘Why on earth . . .?’

  ‘I really don’t know. He says the Party wants to know what Kennedy’s up to and, in particular, what he’s telling President Roosevelt. There! I’ve told you and you can “shop” me if you want.’

  ‘But how did David think you would be able to meet Kennedy?’

  ‘Well, as it happens, my father is a great friend of Harold Laski and Kennedy sent his two sons to be taught by him at the London School of Economics. I’ve just been to see Laski as a matter of fact.’ Verity tried to sound nonchalant. ‘And, if that doesn’t work, Kay Stammers teaches his children tennis.’

  ‘I see,’ Edward said meditatively. He grimaced and then came to a decision. ‘Since you’ve been frank with me, I suppose I ought to be honest with you although I swore not to tell anyone . . .’

  ‘Especially me!’ Verity interjected.

  ‘Specially you,’ he agreed, ‘but, damn it, I really can’t go on with this unless you’re in on it. So, please, this is not to be repeated to anyone, least of all David.’

  ‘As if I would.’ She was genuinely hurt.

  ‘They’ve had information that there’s going to be an attack on Mr Churchill. They don’t know where it will come from or who will make the attempt but they believe it may be someone working in the American Embassy or a friend of Kennedy’s or at least someone known to him.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Special Branch,’ Edward prevaricated. He really didn’t dare tell Verity about MI5. She knew about Special Branch but believed it was mainly concerned with persecuting the Communi
st Party.

  ‘Golly! You mean someone’s going to try and kill Mr Churchill – a Nazi?’

  ‘A Nazi or a Communist . . .’

  ‘Don’t joke, Edward. No Communist would stoop so low.’

  Edward wasn’t so sure about that but let it pass. ‘It might be the IRA or an Indian extremist . . . the Nazis may use someone else so they can distance themselves, especially if it doesn’t succeed. That’s why I’m going to lunch with the Astors.’

  ‘I see. That explains everything. For a moment, I thought you had gone off your chump.’

  Shortly after they married, the Astors had bought a magnificent eighteenth-century house on the east side of St James’s Square. Although their country house, Cliveden, was where they were most at ease and did most of their entertaining, St James’s Square – particularly when the House was sitting – was a focal point for those who supported the government. In reality, Lady Astor probably exerted much less political influence than she was given credit for but the perception among her enemies was that it was at St James’s Square that conspiracies were hatched and government policy made.

  Leaving his cab, Edward was rather taken aback to find a small group of photographers and reporters barring the way to the Astors’ door. A constable stepped forward to make a path for him and, before he could even knock, the door swung open and Edward was admitted, but flashbulbs had popped and his name had been written down in half a dozen notebooks. It was ridiculous, he knew, but he had been unprepared for the journalists and his heart sank at the idea of being numbered among Lady Astor’s coterie.

  On Tuesdays Lord Astor had ‘committees’ in the House of Commons and, in his absence, his wife held lunch parties for her own close friends. As Edward was ushered into the drawing-room Lady Astor came up to him and was charming. She asked after his brother and described him as one of the most honourable men she knew and Mersham as the most beautiful house in England, ‘after our dear Cliveden, of course’. She insisted that he call her Nancy and treated him with a delicacy and tact which seemed to make nonsense of her reputation for blunt speaking and insensitivity. There were no women, apart from his hostess, and only six other men in the room. Two of them he knew. He had met Lord Lothian at Mersham and had not liked him, finding him supercilious and uninterested in anyone but himself. However, on this occasion, he could not have been more gracious.

  ‘I was talking to Van the other day and he was singing your praises,’ Lothian began. Vansittart had been Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office when Edward had undertaken a delicate investigation for him and was now the government’s Chief Diplomatic Adviser.

  ‘That’s very kind of him,’ Edward replied and, wanting to change the subject, said, ‘I gather you have just returned from Washington?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Kennedy and I returned to England together on the Queen Mary two weeks ago.’

  ‘Did you have an opportunity of meeting the President?’

  ‘Indeed I did,’ Lothian said, his face lighting up. ‘I had an hour with Mr Roosevelt and I found his views entirely sound. He will stand with us against the dictators.’

  Edward pretended to be unaware that – contrary to what he was now being told – the President had found Lothian exasperating. Vansittart had told him just a few days earlier that Roosevelt had been disgusted by his defeatism after Lothian had apparently expressed the view that there was no possibility of Britain opposing Hitler or Mussolini and it was up to the Americans to ‘take up the torch of civilization from our drooping fingers’. According to Van, the President had gone for him and told him that, if Britain took that line, America would not offer one iota of help.

  ‘And did you find support for Mr Chamberlain in America?’ Edward asked innocently.

  ‘Except among radicals, Jews and academics, I did,’ Lothian replied without a moment’s hesitation.

  What a crew, Edward thought – Ribbentrop, Joe Kennedy and Lothian. Hitler used anyone who could help him get his way. Ribbentrop, he knew from what Vansittart had told him, considered Lothian to be Germany’s most important ally in Britain.

  Nancy soon swept Edward away to meet Lord Londonderry – whom she referred to as ‘Charlie’. In other circumstances, he would have been very interested to meet him. The Londonderrys were a match even for the Astors in wealth and influence and their annual reception for the Opening of Parliament was regarded as one of the major events of the London season. As with Lothian, Londonderry’s pro-German tendencies and frequent meetings with Hitler had made him something of a figure of ridicule and he was lampooned in the popular press as ‘Londonderry Herr’.

  Geoffrey Dawson came over to join them bringing with him Joe Kennedy and his good-looking sons. Edward had first met Dawson at one of Lord Weaver’s parties and had taken to the great man although he deplored his political views. Dawson, like Lord Lothian, had been in South Africa as a young man and had come under the influence of that arch-imperialist Lord Milner. Milner had collected around him a ‘kindergarten’ of bright young men including Leo Amery, the author John Buchan, and Lothian, all of whom were taught that the British Empire was civilization’s highest achievement and they owed it to the world to embrace the whole of Africa, if that were possible, within its kindly arms. There was a certain irony that so many of these men now seemed happy to see the British Empire fall under the sway of the German Reich. Edward assumed they mistook Hitler’s brutal regime for the strong hand that Milner had offered as a solution to Africa’s tribal chaos.

  Dawson had been editor of The Times when it was owned by Lord Northcliffe but had resigned in 1919, not approving of his boss’s political views. After Northcliffe died and The Times was bought by Jacob Astor in 1923, Dawson was reappointed editor. He sincerely believed that it was in Britain’s interests to placate Hitler and had become a close friend of Neville Chamberlain. Verity had long complained that The Times refused to report what was really happening in Germany for fear of annoying Hitler. Like Lothian, Dawson was a friend of Ribbentrop’s and was Churchill’s most virulent critic in the press.

  Dawson was all smiles. ‘Ambassador, I would like to introduce you to a most interesting young man. I’m very glad to see you here, Corinth. I thought it would not be too long before you saw the light and joined those of us who believe that war can still be averted if we satisfy Germany’s legitimate demands.’

  ‘Glad to meet you,’ the Ambassador said, shaking Edward’s hand and sounding very American among cut-glass English accents. Edward realized with a grin that everyone in the room apart from their hostess, the Kennedys and Grindlay, the Astors’ butler, had been educated at Eton. He was not certain it did the school much credit but it certainly bore out something about which Verity always teased him. Much as she liked some Etonians, she thoroughly objected to the fact that the British Empire appeared to be the personal fiefdom of Eton past and present.

  Before Edward had time to say anything intelligent which might justify Dawson’s good opinion, Grindlay announced that luncheon was served and, led by their hostess and Ambassador Kennedy, they obediently trooped out of the drawing-room. Edward, as befitting the least important guest, lagged behind and found himself beside Joe Kennedy Jr, a young man with a ready smile whom Edward liked at first sight.

  ‘Are there always this many lords, Lord Corinth?’

  ‘Always,’ Edward grinned.

  ‘Is that what I should call you – “Lord Corinth”?’

  Edward had no wish to correct him and to have to explain the vagaries of English titles so he merely said, trusting in Americans’ liking for immediate intimacy, ‘I hope you will call me Edward.’ It was not an invitation he would normally extend to a stranger and one much younger than himself but he thought that, if ever there was an occasion to make an exception, this was it.

  ‘Why, thank you, Edward. And you must call me Joe. To tell the truth, I’ve not yet figured out your English titles. In the same family, you seem to have different names. My father says he has met your brother an
d he’s the Duke of Mersham. It’s not so grand or so complicated where I come from. By the way, we were talking about you this morning.’

  Edward laughed. ‘We? Who’s “we”? Should I be worried?’

  ‘Not at all. I guess you know Kay Stammers. She’s been helping me and my sister Kathleen – “Kick”, we call her – to improve our tennis.’

  ‘Kay, yes indeed. You couldn’t be in better hands.’

  ‘She told me you were marrying a Communist,’ Joe said with a grin, hoping for a reaction.

  Edward had prepared himself for this. His engagement to Verity had been commented on in the gossip columns and he was resigned to a degree of ribbing.

  ‘Miss Browne’s a Communist but she’s not yet converted me. I’m afraid what I have seen of the Party doesn’t convince me that Stalin is much to be preferred to Hitler.’

  ‘But do you believe . . .?’

  Fortunately, perhaps, the young Kennedy was unable to complete his question. Nancy was directing them to their places around a table bright with silver. Edward, to his embarrassment, found himself sitting next to the guest of honour, Ambassador Kennedy. These great men must surely wonder why he was so favoured. As though read ing his thoughts Nancy said, ‘I decided, Ambassador, that you should meet some of our younger men. You already know all the stuffed shirts . . .’ She beamed at Lothian and Londonderry who looked less than pleased at being so described. Edward now understood why his hostess could cause so much offence with her little jokes.

  ‘Lord Edward is one of Mr Churchill’s bright young men.’ Now it was his turn to frown at her description. Kennedy looked at him with interest.

  ‘Indeed? I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr Churchill but I have to tell you that I was less than impressed. Forgive me for saying so, Lord Edward, but I found him full of wind. He blusters about the menace posed by Herr Hitler but he has nothing to offer in exchange except posturing and empty threats – mere sabre rattling and that’s always to be avoided when one’s scabbard is empty.’ He was obviously pleased with his remark even if it didn’t bear close examination. ‘He wanted me to convey to my friend, Mr Roosevelt, England’s determination to fight. Well, I had to laugh. I gave him some statistics about Germany’s armed forces and asked him if England had anything comparable. He had to confess that she did not. I think his reputation is over blown by his acolytes. As Mr Chamberlain put it, rather amusingly I thought, “Winston’s success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”’