Hollow Crown

by David Roberts

  ‘And they were relieved?’

  ‘Our leaders were overconfident. They wanted to show off before the world’s press. They thought they had time. They thought they could starve them into submission and that their ammunition would soon be exhausted but . . . but there wasn’t time. We were surprised . . . betrayed I shouldn’t wonder. It was rumoured some of our top people were in Franco’s pay. We were defeated. No, not defeated, routed.’

  ‘But there is something else?’

  She looked directly at Edward for the first time and said, ‘You swear you won’t say “I told you so” or “What did you expect?” or sneer?’

  Edward was hurt. ‘Do I need to swear, Verity?’

  ‘The politicians, the apparatchiks, the party bureaucrats . . . they were . . . they wanted something different from simple victory but I never could quite understand what it was. People like David, their first loyalty – I see that now – is to Stalin, not the Spanish Republic. They obey Stalin’s orders but they never tell us what those are. We just had to obey orders from our superiors in the Party and I . . . I wouldn’t. They threatened me, Edward, they threatened me . . . they said if I didn’t do what I was told I would . . . I would be shot.’

  ‘David said that?’ Edward asked, horrified.

  Verity nodded her head. David Griffiths-Jones had been Verity’s lover, her hero, the epitome of what was good about being a member of the Party and now she was learning that he was not the idealist she thought him. Edward suppressed a feeling of utter delight that she should at last have seen through this man and recognized him for what he was. He had always hated and despised him, not just because he had Verity’s love and loyalty but because he was a ruthless ideologue who used people without scruple. For Griffiths-Jones, the Party was the alpha and omega of his life and it could do no wrong. Edward’s heart went out to the girl sitting opposite him. It must have been so painful to have had to recognize the truth and it was a tribute to her innate honesty that, in the end, she had made herself face it. She was too brave and too intelligent to live a lie but she had obviously been wounded to the core. He wanted to hold her in his arms and comfort her. He thought she would let him but he decided that it might be too easy. She must come to him as an equal and there must be no taste of defeat in her decision – if she ever made it – to love him. He dared hope now that it might happen but it must happen in a different way.

  To ease the tension he said, ‘There was a philosopher at Cambridge when I was up called Wittgenstein. I went to a lecture he gave once – just out of interest, don’t y’know. I hardly understood a word he said, and not only because he muttered and mumbled, but he did end with one phrase which has stayed with me and which makes me feel, against all my instincts, that he must have been a wise man. He said, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” I think that’s what I feel about what you have been through. Your wounds are still open and you must give them time to heal. Don’t torture yourself with imagining things could have been different.’

  He looked at her now and was troubled to see that her lower lip was trembling and her eyes were wet with tears. Hurriedly, he tried to avoid the embarrassment which he, like most Englishmen, suffered in the face of raw emotion.

  ‘Let me tell you what I have been up to. I promised Joe Weaver not to tell you. He thought you might feel you had to put it in the Daily Worker but this is one time I don’t have any compunction in breaking my promise. I told you Molly died . . . was killed, but I didn’t tell you why.’

  She raised her head and looked at him with interest, and he was glad to see that he had distracted her from her troubles.

  ‘The silly girl had stolen some love letters from Mrs Simpson.’ Edward went on to tell Verity everything and his story acted on her like a tonic. She was angry, too, at the way Molly had been let down.

  ‘It confirms all my prejudices against royalty,’ she said. ‘I was talking to Charlotte – your childhood friend – and, do you know, she had to curtsy to a cake!’

  ‘A cake?’

  ‘She was a deb – got presented at Court and all that tosh – and she had to go to Queen Charlotte’s Ball with all the other debs and parade around in pearls and curtsy to a cake! Can you credit it?’

  ‘Oh, that cake! Yes I can, actually. I did the season, you know.’

  ‘You poor fish!’ Verity looked at Edward with contempt. ‘What on earth made you go through such an idiotic charade?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I suppose my mother expected it and I didn’t want to hurt her. Anyway, I enjoyed it – sort of.’

  ‘You couldn’t have.’

  ‘The dances – some of them were fun. I remember one – I expect Charlotte was there, the Prince certainly was – at Melton Mowbray . . . Craven Lodge. Michael Wardell had a grand party there. The Prince had taken to riding with the Quorn and the Belvoir . . . ’

  Edward was well away remembering his foolish youth and Verity looked at him with amazement.

  ‘Freda was the belle of the ball in Lanvin – I’m sure it was Lanvin – anyway, she looked exquisite and there were fireworks and I . . . I thought I was in love . . . ’ He suddenly caught sight of Verity’s face. ‘Yes, well, I got bored with it all. I think the girls did too. I remember Connie telling me she had an alphabet.’

  ‘An alphabet?’

  ‘When she had to dance with these boys they were mostly tongue-tied and she struggled to find some topic on which they could exchange a few words without stammering to a halt. She would start with apples and go through the alphabet until she reached – I don’t know – zebras, I suppose. I know she said she got to rabbits before Gerald found anything to say for himself.’

  Gerald was the Duke of Mersham, his elder brother, and Connie was the Duchess, a woman of whom he was extremely fond and whom he admired for making his brother happy without going mad with boredom.

  ‘Well, I think it’s all bosh and, come the revolution, it will all be swept away and a good thing too.’

  ‘I expect you’re right,’ Edward said mildly, still feeling nostalgic for times past. ‘To be honest, I never thought it would survive the war but class seems to survive the worst that democracy can throw at it.’

  Verity was now throroughly disgruntled and insisted on going home. When she had gone, Edward lit a cigarette and sat in his armchair still in a dream. There was however something in his smile which hinted that, in annoying Verity out of her self-pity, he felt he had done a good day’s work.

  He had not had lunch so, when he turned up at the Hassels’ house in the King’s Road that evening, he was hungry. He had taken the precaution of telephoning Charlotte to confirm that he really was expected – Verity might easily have forgotten to tell her hosts that she had invited him to dinner – but she had been gratifyingly enthusiastic about his coming. He was curious to see how the years had changed her. He reckoned it must be at least twenty years since Charlotte’s family had moved away from Mersham. She had not been a particularly pretty child but he remembered her delightful fits of giggles, her tomboy pleasure in the life they led roaming the countryside from dawn to dusk without much in the way of adult supervision. Looking back on it, he thought their childhood had been close to perfect but at the time he took it for granted as perfectly natural. Now he could see how privileged he had been.

  ‘Edward darling!’ Charlotte opened her arms and planted a kiss on his cheek. She ushered him into the house, talking all the time so that he was not called on to say anything himself. The tomboy child had turned into a plump, comfortable-looking woman whose high spirits manifested themselves in chatter punctuated by loud guffaws. She made a comic companion for her husband who was thin, etiolated, and never without a cigarette which he smoked from an absurdly long, green, onyx holder. Adrian’s paintings covered every spare wall and were packed like playing cards in neat piles wherever there was space. If Verity was right and he was beginning to sell his work it looked as though he could sit back and do nothing for several years and
still have paintings to sell.

  ‘Lord Edward,’ Adrian said, taking the cigarette holder from his mouth and putting out his hand, ‘how good to see you again. And before you ask, yes, I’m still painting thin green men and orange suns and you will still hate them.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Charlotte expostulated. ‘Why should Edward dislike your work?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just a joke,’ Verity chipped in. ‘Tommie invited him to one of Adrian’s parties last year to meet me. Adrian asked him how he liked the paintings – not, of course, letting on that he was their creator – and Edward said he hated them.’

  ‘It wasn’t quite like that,’ Edward said faintly.

  ‘Tommie’s coming tonight. He said he hadn’t seen you in ages.’

  ‘Oh, that’s excellent,’ Edward said, genuinely delighted.

  Edward liked and admired Tommie and, although they didn’t see very much of each other, they had kept in touch, particularly as Tommie was one of Verity’s few close friends. Tommie was not a Communist – he called himself a Christian Socialist – but he and Verity went on marches together, protested in front of the same embassies and generally pursued the same left-wing causes.

  Tommie was late and, when he did arrive, he was sporting a black eye.

  ‘I say,’ Verity exclaimed, ‘have you been punching your parishoners? The bish won’t like that, you know.’

  Tommie laughed weakly. “Ah, Edward, good to see you. I could have done with your support a couple of hours ago.’

  ‘Good heavens, why?’

  ‘You know I run this boys’ club near my church? Well, just recently, Mosley’s people have been recruiting in places like mine. The fact is, there are plums ripe for picking – for the most part, my lads are unemployed, tough, bored . . . it’s the boredom mostly, and the feeling of not being part of respectable society. Mosley makes them feel important and valued. They get some sort of uniform, they march up and down a lot and they gain some sort of self-respect. I try and tell them they’re being used but they don’t listen.’

  ‘So what happened today?’ Verity inquired sharply.

  ‘Oh, one of Mosley’s toughs came to the club and started haranguing the lads. I told him the club was not to be used for political purposes and . . . and we got into a scrap.’

  ‘I bet the Mosleyite thug got the worst of it,’ Charlotte said with a laugh.

  Tommie had played rugger for Cambridge and might have been an international if he hadn’t had ‘the call’.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m afraid I did lose my temper and then I repented.’

  ‘But not before you had laid him out?’

  ‘Well, yes, V. I think he’ll complain to the police.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘The police are soon going to have much more to worry about than a punch in the eye.’

  Edward looked puzzled. Tommie explained: ‘Mosley’s planning to march through the East End on Sunday and we’re going to stop him.’

  ‘Mosley?’

  ‘And his bully boys,’ Verity confirmed. ‘That’s the party I’ve invited you to, Edward. Didn’t I say? Educational for you and convenient for me. It will be useful to have a chauffeur and if the worst comes to the worst – which it probably will – the Lagonda can pretend it’s an ambulance.’

  ‘Hey, I say. I can’t risk the Lagonda.’

  ‘I see. Eye of the needle stuff, is it? Tommie, what does the Bible say about that rich man who couldn’t give up all his possessions to follow Christ?’

  ‘Hang on a moment, V. Tommie may be more up-to-date than I, but since when has Christ been a member of the Communist Party?’

  ‘Stuff! He’d have much more likely joined the Party than the C of E. Can you imagine him sitting through matins at Tommie’s barn in Kilburn – the church empty except for three old ladies and that girl who’s in love with . . . ?’

  ‘I say,’ Tommie broke in. ‘Verity, you know how I hate it when you talk like that.’

  Verity was immediately contrite. ‘Sorry, Tommie, but Edward has that effect on me. He’s so . . . so . . . uninvolved.’

  It wasn’t quite what she had meant to say and it surprised Edward too. He supposed she meant he wasn’t passionate and she needed passion like adrenalin.

  Adrian said mildly, ‘They’re planning to march through the Jewish quarter, Lord Edward, and that can’t be allowed. It’s deliberate provocation.’

  ‘Just call me Edward, won’t you, Adrian, or I won’t feel able to be rude about your painting. All right, Verity, I’ll be your chauffeur but . . . ’

  ‘Good. You’re a brave little boy and Mummy’s proud of you.’

  Charlotte was not a good cook but, as Verity remarked afterwards, at least she did most of it herself with only a maid to help and a half-witted boy to wait at table and wash up. The soup was frankly watery but the poached salmon, though a little overcooked, was good and Adrian produced some perfectly acceptable Muscadet.

  Edward was persuaded to give a censored account of Molly’s death at Haling – he did not, of course, mention finding Dannie in his bed. Rather surprisingly, Charlotte said, ‘We know the Benyons quite well. In fact, Inna bought one of Adrian’s pictures. They’re really super people. We also know something of Leo Scannon, don’t we, Popsie?’ Popsie was her pet name for her husband.

  ‘We do. I’m afraid he’s not quite so nice. He made a friend of a boy we know – an artist. Well, he was trying to paint pictures but he wasn’t very good and I’m afraid he knew it. Anyway, I’m not sure where – at a party, I think – he met Scannon who took him up in a big way. He introduced him to a lot of people; sponsored a show at the Albemarle which was a bit of a disaster. Made Matt look rather ridiculous, you know, like putting costume jewellery in a Cartier case. For about six or seven months they were inseparable and then, as suddenly as he had taken him up, Scannon dropped him. To cut a long story short, the poor boy got more and more depressed and, despite everything his friends could do or say, he cut his wrists.’

  ‘Good God!’ Edward exclaimed. ‘Is Scannon a . . . you know, a pansy then?’

  ‘So I believe though, of course, I never discussed it with Matt.’

  Nothing more was said and Edward got the impression Charlotte was unhappy that Adrian had told the story of their friend’s suicide. However, the dinner was a success. He talked to Charlotte about childhood adventures and caught up with her career. It appeared she had gone to New Zealand, married and divorced a sheep farmer, returned to London and gone rather wild. ‘As anyone would,’ Adrian said loyally, ‘after New Zealand.’ Then she had met Adrian and they had – as he put it – ‘done what neither of us had thought we would ever do: fall in love. The old cliché but somehow, when it happens to oneself, it don’t seem a cliché but just as though one had invented it.’

  Edward was touched and liked Adrian even more.

  As Edward was leaving, Charlotte said, ‘I’ll do a bit of sleuthing about friend Scannon. You never know, I might find something interesting.’

  ‘Well do,’ he said, ‘but be careful not to seem you’re accusing him of anything. There is such a thing as the law of slander and no reason to believe he has anything to do with Molly’s death, even if it does prove to be murder.’

  ‘Don’t worry, “I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove”, as Shakespeare puts it. See, Verity, even as a child he was timid and a bit of a prig. No wonder I had to put an ice-cream down the back of his neck.’

  ‘Half a jiff, he told me he put ice-cream down your back!’

  For the next few days Edward rattled around London talking to people in Molly’s ‘set’, friends of the King such as Fruity Metcalfe and Dickie Mountbatten. He had dinner one evening with Perry Brownlow at his club and questioned him about the weekend Molly had robbed Mrs Simpson. Perry, indiscreet to the point of idiocy, told him stories of what went on at Fort Belvedere which made him furious. To think that a man who behaved in that way and surrounded himself with such worthless
people was now his king! However, he could discover nothing which shed further light on what he was still convinced was murder. He also investigated, as far as he dared, Leo Scannon’s friends and associates. He didn’t want it to get back to Scannon, or indeed to Joe Weaver, that he had been asking questions about him and his set so he was careful merely to sound curious rather than suspicious. The man knew ‘everyone’ and, from behind their hands, ‘everyone’ seemed pleased to gossip about his ‘underground life’. There was no question he had some undesirable acquaintances. A ‘grisly crew’ as he termed them when Fenton brought him his whisky on Friday night. He valued Fenton’s intelligence and had no hesitation in going over with him what he had found out but he had to confess that, when all was noted and accounted for, there was nothing tangible to add to what he had known or at least suspected when he began his inquiries.

  Fenton had made a few inquiries himself. He had talked the murder over with Pickering but the butler had been unable or unwilling to tell him anything of interest. ‘He hinted, my lord, that there was some mystery about old Mrs Scannon’s companion, Miss Conway, but, when I tried to make him talk about it, he clammed up on me.’

  ‘Hmm, interesting, but I don’t see how anything to do with Ruth Conway could relate to Mrs Harkness.’

  It was a frustrating business and Edward found that when Sunday dawned he was glad to have something else to think about.

  It was a perfect day. The sun shone and London looked almost foreign – as though a respectable married lady was displaying herself like a street walker. As the Lagonda weaved through the crowds near the Tower, Edward remarked that it might be a public holiday – Derby Day for instance – but he was wrong. The mood of the crowd, though outwardly good-natured, was purposeful and even stern. The Lagonda attracted curious and sometimes hostile stares and Verity, unusually quiet, said suddenly, ‘I’m beginning to wish we had walked or gone on a tram like everyone else. I’m not sure this car makes quite the right impression.’