A Grave Man

by David Roberts

  Verity was not sure she had quite meant all this when she had spoken about malnutrition.

  ‘I don’t think . . .’ she began, but Montillo interrupted her, his eyes blazing.

  ‘We must be like the Spartans and rear an elite breed. The best children should be taken from their mothers when they are six or seven and brought up in a special school – hardened and prepared for . . .’

  ‘That’s all very fine, Dominic,’ Virginia stopped him calmly but firmly. ‘When you men are drinking your port you can put the world to rights but now I am sure Emily and Verity want to go to their rooms and rest before dressing for dinner.’

  Preceded by the butler, Lampton, and Virginia, they processed back into the hall and up a flight of stairs. Verity heard a strange mewing sound as she reached the landing. Virginia noticed her hesitate. ‘That’s Mah-Jongg. Come and see him. Lampton, take Mrs Cardew to her room. Emily already knows Jonggy, don’t you?’

  ‘Indeed I do, Ginny.’ It was clear from the way she said it that Mrs Cardew was not one of the animal’s admirers.

  Virginia led Verity past the remains of the fourteenth-century windows and down a corridor to the lemur’s quarters. They consisted of a large glass-fronted cage with a private upstairs section reached by a ladder in which the animal could sleep out of public view.

  ‘I read about Mah-Jongg in Country Life,’ Verity said. ‘Did you bring him back with you from South America?’

  ‘No. Simon bought him for me at Harrods,’ Virginia replied, not seeming to think there was anything odd in this. ‘Isn’t he lovely? Jonggy, Jonggy, Jonggy . . .’ she called, tapping the glass.

  ‘How does he get his exercise?’ Verity inquired.

  ‘We let him run about the house.’

  Verity was startled. Swifts Hill was even more rum than she had imagined. She had nothing against animals – she badly missed not having a dog – but she did not know if she relished the idea of being surprised by a lemur as she dressed for dinner or climbed into her bed at night.

  After further endearments – Virginia certainly seemed to love her strange pet – she took Verity to her room. ‘Here we are,’ she said, throwing open the door with a dramatic flourish. ‘I do hope you will be comfortable. It’s called the Venetian Room. We are over there.’ She gestured vaguely across to the other side of the gallery.

  Verity entered one of the most lavish bedrooms she had ever seen. ‘It’s wonderful!’ she exclaimed. Round the walls were intricately designed panels which Virginia said had come from a Venetian palazzo. She pulled at a glass handle on one of the panels and Verity found herself looking into a huge walk-in cupboard. Another panel, embellished with false book spines, proved to be the door to the bathroom. It was more like an Italian tomb than a bathroom, panelled in what looked like marble but was in fact, Virginia said, Vitrolite. The bath itself was on a raised dais and behind it, in an alcove, the goddess Psyche stood resplendent and aloof.

  ‘Simon brought her home from Naples,’ Virginia said airily. ‘I have another god in my bathroom. Don’t you love her?’

  ‘I have never seen anything like it. It’s too grand for me but I’ll pretend I’m a principessa! May I have a bath now?’

  ‘Of course! I made sure, when Simon built this house, that we could all have baths at the same time and the water would always be hot.’

  ‘Even Mersham Castle, which is the grandest place I have ever stayed, only has one bath between three bedrooms and the water is never hot. Oh, Ginny, to have a bathroom for one’s personal use without having to go out of one’s room – this is bliss!’

  Virginia looked pleased. ‘It doesn’t go against your political beliefs, Crumbles?’

  ‘I am sorry about all that, downstairs. I don’t know what came over me but Sir Simon is such a good listener.’

  ‘I can see he has fallen for you. If he’s bored by a woman – and he almost always is – he does not trouble to hide it. And just call him Simon. He thinks he’s a democrat and hates being “sirred”. I’ll leave you now, Crumbles. Dinner at eight but we meet in the drawing-room at seven thirty for cocktails. You’ll hear the gong.’

  As Virginia left the room, Verity said, ‘Ginny, would you mind not calling me Crumbles? I don’t want to be more of a laughing stock than I am already.’

  ‘Of course! I’m sorry, I forgot. But you are not a laughing stock. Dominic seems to want to impress you, and Simon, who usually can’t stand my friends – well, as I said, I have never seen him so fascinated.’

  When the door had closed Verity kicked off her shoes, threw herself down on the bed and whistled. This was some house! She thought she knew how the rich lived but Swifts Hill was a modern palace. She turned over and saw there was a telephone beside her bed. The only other time she had found a telephone by her bed was aboard the Queen Mary. Mersham Castle had only three telephones and the Duke would have had apoplexy if anyone had suggested putting one in his bedroom, let alone in the guest rooms. She wanted to call someone and the only person she could think of was Edward. There was a little notice telling her how to make a call and she soon found herself talking to the operator and placing a trunk call to London. It rang and rang until she remembered Edward was at Chartwell. She replaced the receiver disconsolately. It was no fun living in luxury if you had no one to discuss it with. She got up and turned on the bathtaps, which seemed to be gold-plated, and dropped bath salts from a coloured bottle into the steaming water. She had a hunch that Edward might wrinkle his beaky nose and call Swifts Hill vulgar but to hell with that, she loved it.

  The Lagonda overtook the little black Austin and surged ahead with an arrogance and grace which did much to ease Edward’s heart. Like Hamlet, he simply could not make up his mind. He was almost certain that Mr Churchill was going to offer him some sort of job which would make him responsible for his personal safety. He admired Churchill and when he was with him found his warmth and intelligence hard to resist. More importantly, he was convinced that Churchill was the only politician capable of leading the country if war came and the storm clouds were already visible on the horizon. The German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, was calling for lebensraum – living room – which appeared to mean colonies, and it was clearly only a matter of time before Germany united with Austria. Churchill had many enemies and if someone were to assassinate him – by no means an impossibility – Edward would blame himself if he had shirked the task of preventing it. On the other hand, Sir Robert Vansittart, the administrative head of the Foreign Office, had asked him to run a secret department keeping track of arms shipments and arms dealers. It was an important job and it was flattering to be offered it. If he did it well might he not be offered even more responsibility?

  And yet, when it came down to it, neither option really attracted him. He knew his weaknesses: he was restless to a fault, impatient and easily bored. To be tied to a desk would be purgatory. To be tied to a man – even as fascinating a man as Churchill – might be as bad. As he took a corner at speed, almost blowing a bicyclist off his bike, he thought it might be more worthwhile to count his blessings – something his nanny had made him do when he was a child and fell into one of his sulks. The chief blessing was unquestionable: Verity was safe in England and not risking life and limb in Spain or on some other battlefield. He thought back to their love-making the previous day and, unconsciously, a grin lit up his face, sending deep creases from the corners of his mouth to his eyes. He let out a whoop and pressed his foot on the accelerator. If he was sure of only one thing it was that he loved Verity. He thought of her affectionately as a bantam – all flying feathers, fighting her corner and never surrendering. A Communist, a journalist and a woman who regarded bourgeois conventions such as marriage with suspicion and sometimes scorn. She never bored him.

  Blessing number two was, of course, that he was wealthy enough to go his own way. He could perfectly well sit in his rooms in Albany and vegetate without having to worry about paying the bills, but he never even considered doing that. He wond
ered about giving up England and going to America or, better still, one of those countries on Europe’s borders. He fancied he would not be bored in Czechoslovakia or Poland. As he swung into the Chartwell drive he remained undecided on all but one point: he would not accept a position with Mr Churchill which would effectively clip his wings.

  Such was the cunning of the old man – Churchill was sixty-two – that he greeted Edward as an old friend and not as a dependant. He took him into his study and talked, as only he could talk, about his ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, whose biography he was writing, about the new Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, and the ‘jackal’ Mussolini. He condemned the Government’s craven acceptance of Italy’s ‘victories’ in Abyssinia.

  ‘I admit that in 1922 I had hopes that Mussolini might become a force for good in the world. Italy seemed ungovernable when he came to power. Look at it now,’ he chuckled. ‘It is said even the trains run on time.’

  ‘What happened to change your mind?’ Edward asked.

  ‘I saw the violence with which he disposed of his enemies and his stupid pursuit of military glory. Dictators always need an external threat if they are to unite their people. Mussolini had to invent one. He promised them a new Roman Empire. What a shoddy thing it turned out to be.’

  ‘But you admired his patriotism?’

  ‘Patriotism is a dangerous sword which twists in the hand and often wounds the man who wields it but, I have to say, one may dislike Mussolini and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we would find an equally indomitable champion to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.’

  Churchill flattered Edward by taking him into his confidence and confessing his own weakness. ‘You see, my boy, I had hoped Neville would offer me a place in the cabinet if only to shut me up, but I thank God he has not. I would have accepted an offer if it had been made and regretted it ever after. I would have done what I could to influence him in his dealings with the dictators but I fear I would only have compromised myself. I must remain free to warn and chivvy the Government without being tarred by their policy of appeasing the bullies that swagger across our world making life intolerable for so many thousands.’ He turned on Edward his most solemn face. ‘My sources tell me of a new so-called “labour camp” in Germany, even more horrible than the ones we already know of. It’s at a place called Buchenwald near Weimar.’

  He was interrupted by the butler, who announced a visitor.

  ‘Leonard! How good to see you,’ Churchill beamed, taking the visitor by the arm and guiding him into the room. ‘I don’t think you know Lord Edward Corinth? Lord Edward, this is Professor Blacker. He is a scientist attached to the War Office and of course he ought not to be talking to a reprobate like me,’ he added gleefully.

  Blacker was a short, balding man of about forty with spectacles and a small military moustache. He glanced at Edward keenly. ‘That is your Lagonda in the drive, Lord Edward?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I thought as much. You passed me at great speed on the road.’

  ‘I do apologize, sir. My only defence is to say that the Lagonda has a will of its own. I hope my recklessness did not frighten you.’

  The Professor, with a bad-tempered twist to his mouth, snorted derisively.

  Churchill quickly broke in. ‘I have asked Lord Edward to join us because he has done some excellent undercover work for the Foreign Office while remaining quite detached from the department. You can trust him absolutely.’

  ‘If you say so,’ the Professor said, sounding unconvinced. ‘Please be aware, Lord Edward, that what I have to say must on no account be repeated to anyone else. More than my career depends on you being secret.’

  ‘You can count on it, Professor. You may not think it to look at me but I am accustomed to keeping secrets.’ Edward wondered what this self-important little man had to say that was so significant.

  ‘Very well then.’ Blacker appeared satisfied. ‘Mr Churchill is aware that I have wrestled with my conscience before coming here to talk to him.’ He spoke with a slight Scottish accent – Glaswegian, Edward thought.

  ‘I appreciate it, Leonard, and I can assure you that neither I nor Lord Edward will repeat a word of what you have to tell us.’

  Blacker seemed to relax and sat himself down on the sofa beside Edward. Churchill paced about the room before coming to rest by the lectern he himself had designed and at which he wrote his books.

  ‘No, thank you,’ Blacker said brusquely when Churchill offered him a drink. ‘I am a teetotaller. My father took a wee dram here and a wee dram there so that by the end of the day he hardly knew whether he was on his head or his heels. I took the pledge on my sixteenth birthday and I have never touched a drop since though I confess, just lately, I have been sorely tempted.’

  Edward guiltily replaced his whisky glass on the table beside him.

  ‘And I gather you cannot stay for luncheon, Leonard?’

  ‘No, I must be back at my desk by three o’clock for a meeting with the Minister.’

  ‘It’s very good of you to come,’ Churchill said, sounding subdued by this display of the Calvinist work ethic. ‘Perhaps we should get straight down to business.’

  ‘Indeed, sir.’ Blacker seemed to hesitate and then, visibly bracing himself, began to unburden himself. ‘If you will bear with me I shall begin with a little history. I assure you it is relevant. At the beginning of the century a German physician and socialist thinker by the name of Alfred Ploetz settled in Spring-field, Massachusetts. He started a medical practice and began to breed chickens. He graduated to studying genealogy and human breeding. He coined the term rassenhygiene – racial hygiene. The name was changed soon after to eugenics, which somehow sounded less threatening. At the same time, quite independently, a German social theorist by the name of Alfred Jost was developing his theory that the state had an inherent right to kill the unfit and useless. He wrote an influential pamphlet entitled The Right to Death.’

  ‘How chilling!’ Churchill broke in. ‘I have read something of this. The basic premise is, as I understand it, that the race should be purified and degenerates eliminated. Of course, who decides who is degenerate is crucial. If I understand rightly, Leonard, this is the so-called science which the Nazis have adopted with such enthusiasm.’

  ‘The Nazis have, as you say, adopted this repellent philosophy to justify their persecution of the Jews. I have also had shocking reports that they are carrying out hideous experiments on the disabled and the mentally handicapped in their efforts to “purify” the race.’

  Edward was deeply shocked. ‘I simply cannot believe what you say, Professor. I have long recognized that the Nazis are gangsters but surely . . .’

  ‘I only tell you what I have been told but my sources are reliable,’ Blacker said grimly.

  ‘At least we . . .’ Edward began but was interrupted by Churchill.

  ‘I wish our hands were clean, Lord Edward, but I very much fear they may not be. Tell him, Leonard.’

  ‘In America,’ Blacker continued remorselessly, ‘the same ideas were developed independently without anyone taking them seriously. A key figure is an American – a zoologist by the name of Charles Davenport. He grew up in Brooklyn Heights and suffered under a tyrannical father imbued with an exaggerated respect for God’s word as passed down to us in the Bible. As a young man he made a reputation of sorts as director of the Brooklyn Institute of Art and Science’s biological laboratory on Long Island. At a place called Cold Spring Harbor on the coast he further developed his studies of what became known as eugenics. He became obsessed with race and came to the conclusion that Nordic types were far superior to southern peoples such as the Spanish, Italians and, in particular, people with black skins.’

  ‘I have read about this kind of thing,’ Edward said. ‘These are the sort of madmen who gave Hitler the idea of the Aryan master race. I recall the fuss there was in Germany when Jesse Owens won four gold meda
ls at the Olympic Games. Hitler was furious to see a black American beat his Nordic heroes and stormed out of the stadium.’

  ‘Precisely. Davenport developed the idea that each racial type possesses not only its own physical characteristics but also moral and intellectual ones which are not visible to the naked eye. These are passed down from generation to generation. The Germans, according to Davenport, are thrifty, intelligent and honest while the southern peoples are lazy, feckless and . . . well, you get the idea.’

  ‘So why is Davenport important? Surely he’s just another madman?’ Edward inquired.

  ‘That would be true if he had not had the luck or the cleverness to get the backing of the Carnegie Institution. He persuaded it to fund a Biological Experiment Station at Cold Spring Harbor “to investigate the method of evolution”. Davenport made it quite clear he would be studying ways of purifying America’s racial stock. He hoped to develop a race of super-Nordics and keep out what he called the “cheaper races”.’

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ Edward interjected, ‘but, surely, that was all before the war. The Americans aren’t still funding such research?’

  ‘I am afraid they are. Davenport’s ugly eugenic visions attracted Andrew Carnegie who flung money at him, as did John D. Rockefeller and the Ford Foundation. All of which gave Davenport not just the wherewithal to continue his “experiments” but a degree of respectability. He explained that America needed to “purge its blood” and “eliminate” the “feeble-minded”, the poor, the crippled and the criminal. He offered up his theories as the “solution to America’s negro problem”.’ Grimly, the Professor added, ‘You won’t be surprised to learn that he found much support, particularly in the Southern States. By the time America joined the war in 1918 several states had legalized eugenic sterilization. Before the war, German and American scientists worked closely together to refine eugenics into a “respectable” science. Schools were being taught eugenics illustrated with doctored photographs purporting to show children how to recognize “inferior” races. They invented the word “moron” to describe human beings regarded as being of subhuman intelligence. This led to further so-called scientific tests. By 1913 even the President, Teddy Roosevelt, was saying that “society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind”.’