by John Masters
‘And to the other branches we hope to found all over the world,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said impatiently. ‘But in three, four years it’s all going to be running like clockwork – you’ll see to that. Then what are you going to do? Start a harem to keep you busy? Collect stamps?’
‘Play some cricket, perhaps,’ Guy said.
‘Garn!’
‘This is all I want to do,’ he said. ‘I’m happy, and that’s all there is to it. And I’m going to do this right, with everything I have and am.’
She said, almost to herself, ‘Overstretched, and overworked, at twenty, now you want to lie fallow, or just grow hay … need to, probably … doing a good job down among the worms instead of the eagles.’ She spoke up – ‘A time will come when you’ll need to fly higher again, Guy. Don’t fight it. Everyone will be behind you … especially the blokes … By the way, what did General Trenchard say when he sent for you, after you’d resigned your commission?’
Guy said slowly, ‘He said he was accepting my resignation, though he needed me, because he didn’t want any unwilling officers in the RAF … but if the time came when England needed me, he would call me back – “even from my grave”, he said, looking coldly at me from under those great, grey eyebrows. Then he said, “That’s all,” nodded curtly, and I was out.
‘If England needs you,’ she repeated, shivering suddenly.
Billy Bidford was sitting in his suite at the Ritz, reading The Times. It was nearly eleven o’clock in the morning, but Billy had been motor racing in Surrey the day before, and that had been followed by a late party at the Cat & Mouse in Albemarle Street with a Miss Maxine Merlin – her real name – an American film actress on a visit to England; and she had not left him to return to her own room in the same hotel until four o’clock … so he had slept in; and now, wearing a Chinese silk dressing gown of red and gold, was smoking a Turkish cigarette in a long holder, drinking coffee, and eating a croissant. He looked up as Guy entered and said, ‘Coffee? A croissant? … Or I could get you some Nice biscuits. That’s what you used to eat in the air, wasn’t it?’
Guy said, ‘Yes,’ smiling. ‘A croissant will do me fine.’
He sat down opposite Bidford, noticing that the tray had been set for two. Billy poured him coffee and told him to help himself to the pastry. Then he said, ‘I saw that you had resigned your commission. I thought the air force was your dream.’
Guy said, ‘I did think, once, that the air force would be my life. But then, when it was being offered to me on a plate … when first General Sykes and then General Trenchard told me the RAF was mine for the taking, I found I’d lost interest … You haven’t heard what I’m doing?’
Billy shook his head. ‘I don’t read the papers … except the racing pages.’
‘I’m starting an organisation to mend people broken by the war.’
‘Just in Britain?’ Billy said quickly.
‘At the moment. But I want to expand it world-wide … Will you help – with the money, and if you can spare it, time?’
Bidford laughed loudly, throwing back his head and laughing at the high Corinthian swirls of the ceiling plaster.
‘I didn’t know you were a wit, Guy,’ he said at last. ‘Do I have the time? You mean, from racing at Surrey Park? Moving my yacht to Cowes? Flying to Paris for the Longchamps meet? Driving up to Rannoch Moor on August the 11th? … But what the hell can I do for you?’
‘I need money and publicity,’ Guy said. ‘Could you race for us, sometimes? Fly for us? Nobble your friends. Pass the hat round. Be our herald among the idle rich … the people who literally don’t know what to do with their money? Give up a few hours a week for us … and some cash now, if you can spare it?’
Bidford wagged a finger at him – ‘There you go again, Guy. Sarcasm ill becomes you. Yes, I can spare a few quid. How about a million? Or two?’
‘One would help a lot now, when we’re just getting set up.’
‘What are you going to call your organisation?’
‘Don’t know yet. But we’d like you to be a Governor.’
‘Fine. And I’ll do what you say … It’ll make me feel a little better for having come out with a VC and a big reputation, while …’ He didn’t finish the sentence, but emptied his coffee cup, and said, ‘When’s the wedding?’
‘Wednesday week, in Hedlington.’
‘I suppose I ought to be as jealous as hell, but since Flo told me, I’ve had time to think it over. I’m not really the marrying kind. Any woman I marry is going to be very bored. She’ll fall for other men, because she’s lonely, because I neglect her. Flo might have been strong enough to make me realise that I have to share my life … but I didn’t get her, so … good luck. Damn your eyes.’
Guy said, ‘Will you be my best man?’
Billy sat back – ‘You really are the most underrated wit in England … Why not? Yes. An original idea, but you always were an original fellow, weren’t you?’
‘We are being married next Wednesday week,’ Guy said. ‘Nine days from now.’
Maria von Rackow said, ‘I’ll come, if you invite me.’
‘Of course.’
‘I cried all day, and all night, when I got your letter, that you had made up your mind. At first, you were simply a sort of image of Werner … Werner himself, in another body – another eagle. But gradually, as we corresponded, and met, and talked, you became yourself, Guy Rowland … and I fell in love with you, yourself. It was treachery to Werner’s memory, but I couldn’t help it.’
They were in the big living-room of the schloss, terraces sweeping down to stone balustrades, manicured lawns, and beyond, the dark pines of the von Rackow forests, stretching twelve miles to the Elbe. She was standing by the window, Guy at her side, both looking out. Two deer were feeding at a high trough set up near the foot of the main steps. ‘Pakli will not feed them after this week,’ she said. ‘The season begins … Can you stay for a boar hunt on Wednesday?’
He shook his head. ‘A meeting in London … Work in Hedlington. We got Scarrow Hall for 100,000 pounds, thanks to Lord Walstone. It’ll cost us another 45,000 to make the essential alterations, but after that, I want to build afresh if we need more space … a completely modern, automatic dwelling and working place, leaving people free to learn, to create. I don’t think a crippled man’s going to regain his pride by washing dishes or scrubbing floors.’
‘Leave some of your time for us, your friends,’ she said, laying a hand on his elbow – ‘Florinda, even. She will be jealous of it, if you let it come to that.’
Guy nodded, and after a time, said, ‘I’m trying not to let that happen. She’s very much involved … I want to make it a worldwide organisation. After all, it was a World War. I want you to start a German branch. And I want your permission to call it the Von Rackow-Rowland Foundation. I tried to think of another name than my own, but I couldn’t. And it does have value, in raising money – for now at least.’
She turned to him, tears welling up in her grey eyes – ‘Of course … Von Rackow-Rowland. It’ll make a nice monogram, with the F … or perhaps we can leave out the “Foundation”. Then there won’t be any difference in title between British, German, French, Italian, American branches. You just say, “This is Von Rackow-Rowland”.’
‘Good idea … Have you any thoughts about who might lead the French branch?’
‘I would have said Guynemer, before he was killed … Nungesser?’
‘He’s great,’ Guy said. ‘But he’s such a show-off. It was all right in the war, to fly into battle wearing full dress and all your medals – the actual medals, not just the ribbons – but in peacetime that attitude would make us a laughing-stock. I think I’ll approach Daniel Vincent. He was high up, and a really great organiser … perhaps a little cold-blooded, but we’ll see.’
‘Italy?’
‘Gabriele d’Annunzio,’ Guy said, laughing. ‘We’d welcome his support as a national hero. But not as a Governor, or actuall
y associated with us. Baracca? If he’s alive … I’ll talk to the Italian Ambassador … Florinda knows him well.’
‘Ah,’ she sighed. ‘She will be much more useful to you than I could. You chose well, Guy … No, no, please don’t thank me, or I will break down and disgrace myself.’
He stood away from her until she had put away her handkerchief, then said, ‘Come over, for the wedding, Maria. We’re having a meeting of the Board of Governors the next day, at Scarrow Hall. The meeting is at 10 a.m. punctually, to be followed by a buffet lunch served through the courtesy of Lord Walstone.’
‘Good heavens!’ Maria said, summoning a laugh – ‘We will all be poisoned!’
‘I shall have a dog under the table, and we can test the sandwiches on him first.’
‘Well, that’s settled. Now come and see Guy. He’s grown a lot since you saw him in Paris.’
Lady Rowland, Florinda, married two days, no longer the Dowager Marchioness of Jarrow, faced her mother in the little kitchen. It smelled of soapy water, and her mother was working over a washtub, pushing the soiled shirt up and down in the suds. Her face was paler than it ought to be, Florinda thought, and her arms thinner, her neck too. She was overworking, and not eating enough. None of the girls was here to help her today … out on the streets, earning easy money, stealing food, ladies’ handbags, anything. Violet’s baby by old Bob Stratton was over four now, and talking to her dad, Willum, in the front room; while Dad was probably trying to read the newspaper – a day old; they couldn’t afford to buy one, so picked yesterday’s out of some dustbin every morning. Soon Dad too would be going out to work, pushing himself along in his cart, until at the corner outside the Oddfellows’ Hall, one of the others would meet him, and push him to their first stop. The padded gloves he wore were not thick enough. He was growing hard calluses on his knuckles, from pushing himself along the stone pavements.
She said, ‘Mother, why didn’t you come to the wedding?’
‘Couldn’t afford the time,’ her mother said, gesturing towards the pile of laundry behind her. She did not sound angry, Florinda thought, just stating a fact. She went on – ‘Your dad said it was very pretty. He was sorry the colonel … or what they call him now …’
‘Wing Commander,’ Florinda said.
‘That’s it … wasn’t wearing his uniform and medals. Still, you both looked very nice in the paper.’
Florinda said, ‘You know what we’re doing?’
‘Not really. Don’t have the time, and your dad can’t really explain … He says the Wing Commander was telling him at the wedding he’d have a job for him soon.’
Florinda said, ‘And one for you, too, Mum. We’ve bought Scarrow Hall – you know it – and there’s going to be a lot of laundry there. We’ve found out about laundries … big ones that do most of the work automatically. But there has to be someone in charge of it. We want you.’
Her mother stopped her kneading and straightened her back painfully. She said, ‘You are just trying to give me money, Florinda Gorse, and I won’t have it. I won’t beg, and I won’t take any of your money.’
Florinda said heatedly, ‘Now you listen to me, Mother. I lived with Lord Cantley because he was kind to me, and taught me how to live, and about art … and he gave me money, and paintings. Then he went to the war, and was killed. Then I married old Jarrow, because I wanted to live how Cantley had taught me I could. He gave me money and left me money. Then he died, and now I’ve married Guy Rowland. I’m a respectable woman now, whatever you think I was before, and Guy and I are trying to do something for people who were hurt by the war. You’ve been hurt – Dad losing his legs, what the girls and Rupert are doing, because the war made anything seem all right.’
‘What are they doing?’ Mary said, hands on hips, belligerent.
Florinda said, ‘You know, Mum, but you’ve closed your eyes and ears. I don’t know that we can help Violet, but the others … You’ll get a decent salary. A place for you and Dad to live. Work, but not this slavery day in, day out. We can teach Betty something useful – to cook, perhaps … and Rupert, too.’
Her mother was crying now, her reddened hands to her face, the tears pouring down behind them. Florinda couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother cry. She moved round to her and held her by the shoulders, murmuring, ‘Let’s start again, Mum. I need your help, up there … someone to talk to, someone who’ll help me understand what the men, the broken ones, are feeling. Come on, it’s not charity. And whatever it is, it’s honestly come by.’
At length, ‘All right,’ her mother said; and then, ‘I’ve got to get on with this. You let me know when I’m to start. And talk to your Dad. He has to go out in half an hour.’
Guy Rowland wrote quickly in pencil at a deal table, dusty autumn sunlight streaming in over his left shoulder. He was sitting on a kitchen stool in the huge main drawing-room of Scarrow Hall, a plan of the great house beside him, and sheets of paper under his hand, making a general scheme for the allotment of the rooms. The most urgent need was to get the lifts put in at once; otherwise, with crippled men, each floor would be isolated from the others. He wondered whether the lifts could be of a sort that could be operated by the men themselves. The normal type needed an operator, and that could be a job for someone with, say, one leg, or blind, perhaps. But it wasn’t really fulfilling work … he’d have to get the committee to think about that. And very soon, as the orders for the lifts must be placed within a week or two. And who was going to be on the committee which actually ran the place? Perhaps there shouldn’t be a committee, but a Resident Governor – himself, obviously … with heads of departments like, say, the Housekeeper, the Accountant, the Controller, the Groundsman, the Doctor, the … what would you call the fellow in charge of rehabilitation, of the programmes for them …?
He heard footsteps and looked up. The door was open and two men came in, one tall and thin, with a black patch over his left eye, the other a slender Roman Catholic priest of medium height, in his forties, with greying hair. He was wearing the long cassock and wide-brimmed hat that Roman priests seldom wore in England. The tall man said, ‘Wing Commander Rowland?’
Guy stood up – ‘Yes.’ He looked more closely – ‘Haven’t we met? You’re …’
‘Charles Kellaway. We met briefly in ’16 when you visited the battalion on the Somme. I was commanding B Company.’
‘My name’s Caffin,’ the priest said. ‘I had the privilege of being padre to your father’s battalion for over two years.’
They shook hands and Guy, looking round, said, ‘I’d ask you to sit down only there aren’t any chairs in here yet. What can I do for you?’
Kellaway looked at the priest, the priest looked at Kellaway; then said, ‘I’m parish priest of Westport in County Mayo. I saw in the Irish Times about what you and your wife are going to do … and I thought, that is God’s work, if ever anything was. So I came over to London, to see the Captain here, and ask him if he had heard about Von Rackow-Rowland – we’ve been corresponding regularly since the end of the war …’
‘I had heard, of course,’ Kellaway said. ‘And … I felt the same as Father Caffin. I dabble in art, you know … collect a few paintings, first editions, chinoiserie … whatever takes my fancy. It keeps me busy … and surrounded by beauty. That’s important to me.’
‘I don’t know how you survived the trenches, then,’ Guy said, smiling. He remembered his father’s letters had mentioned Kellaway a few times; and Caffin quite a lot. Kellaway was perhaps a fairy, but probably not actively: a dilettante, but … he’d been through the trenches.
Kellaway said, ‘The men were the only thing that enabled me, and plenty of others, to retain our sanity … their spirit … their courage … endurance … their jokes, in the face of unspeakable horror. What can I do?’
‘Do you have any particular skill, or training?’ Guy asked.
Kellaway shook his head – ‘No … I went to Oxford, but nothing specialised … except perhaps books. I’m qu
ite knowledgeable about books, printing, binding, all that.’
Guy thought and said, ‘Could you teach men bookbinding? High-quality work? So that we might start a binding shop and then advertise that we would bind books in leather, gilt, whatever, as gifts or heirlooms …’
Kellaway said, ‘Yes, I think I could do that for you. I studied it for a time when I came down from Balliol. I’d need to refresh myself, but that’s no problem.’
‘Well, give me an idea of what we would need to set up such a programme … what space you need, powers tools, machines, materials …’
‘I would pay for all that myself,’ Kellaway said, ‘And I’d like to run it, say, three days a week.’
‘Good,’ Guy said. He turned to the priest – ‘We won’t be getting many Catholics, Father … just the usual proportion of the population.’
‘Och!’ the priest said, suddenly very Irish in his brogue and intonation – ‘I was a teacher at the seminary at Drogheda for nine years … till I decided I had to go to the war … and sure, I’m a Catholic, but I’m not cut out for saving souls for the Church. I … I just thought, out there in the trenches, when I spoke to the men – Jews, Catholics, Protestants … that I was speaking to Christ on His Cross. It was not I forgiving or helping them. It was them forgiving me, lifting me up … I want to come back to them. Your men here will still be on the Cross.’
Kellaway said, ‘He was the best padre any battalion ever had. Your father told me once he was worth an extra company, or two rum rations.’
Guy laughed, thinking, we’ll have to pay him … not much, but something. Can we afford it? What is he actually going to do? He made up his mind, and said, ‘All right, Father.’
‘Call me “padre”, please. It takes the curse off the word, for the Non-conformists. It’s regimental, not religious.’