Authors: David Roberts
Larry Harbin was by no means a typical American tourist. At first glance he might have been taken for an academic or a lawyer, and indeed he had a law degree from Harvard, but
he was in fact a businessman and financier. He had been born in Baltimore of a wealthy family and was now in his mid-fifties. He had made his own fortune investing in China and Japan but he had
travelled the length and breadth of Europe – he could speak French and German fluently. His wealth and influence with President Roosevelt – they had met and become friends at Harvard
– had given him access to most of Europe’s political leaders and he despised them all, with the possible exception of the German Chancellor. He was not himself a politician and had no
wish to be one. He liked to say back home he owned half a dozen senators and as many congressmen and that was enough politics for him. However, Roosevelt trusted his judgement particularly when it
came to European politics on which the President was not well informed.
Harbin was impressed with the way Hitler had transformed Germany’s economy and given its people self-respect even if it had been at the expense of the Jews and the Communists. He was by
instinct and nurture anti-Semitic and his hatred of the trade unions in the United States had made him virulently anti-Communist. He despised French politicians whom he had found to be more corrupt
even than the Chinese and he had no faith in England – which was how he always spoke of Britain – being able to win a war against Germany – a war which he considered inevitable.
He strongly believed that the United States should keep out of European affairs and had persuaded the President to his view of the hopelessness of Europe.
In his personal habits he was an ascetic. He neither smoked nor drank alcohol. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles which he had a habit of pushing up the bridge of his nose, which was thin and
beak-like, whenever he gave an opinion. His suits were made in Savile Row, his only extravagance, and his American accent was so slight as to be hardly noticeable. He was unmarried and had
absolutely no sense of humour.
He let slip he owned an oil well in Texas, not in any attempt to impress but to make a point. ‘In my view, Leo,’ Harbin said in his rather prissy voice, ‘your great empire is
defenceless unless you guys can assert control over your source of oil – Persia, Iraq. If those places prove indefensible, as I guess they will, then you’re lost.’
‘So you think there will be war in Europe?’ Scannon asked.
‘I most surely do. In the next few months your friend Mr Hitler will declare a glorious union between the Reich and Austria –
Zusammenschluss
, – they call it.
You’ve read
Mein Kampf
, haven’t you, Leo?’
‘I confess I haven’t yet, though the Führer signed a copy for me in Berlin.’
‘Well, read it. It’s all there. On the very first page he declares German-Austria must return to the great German motherland and, as I hear it, the British have said they won’t
interfere. Lord Halifax told me himself he sees it as a legitimate aspiration of the German people to be at one again.’
Edward was shocked. ‘Is that really true, Leo? We would do nothing to prevent Germany swallowing up Austria?’
Scannon nodded. ‘In practical terms, what
could
we do?’
‘It’s natural justice,’ Hepple-Keen said. ‘We won’t go to war about the union of two peoples who share a language and a culture – a
voluntary union. If the union happens, in my view it will be an expression of true democracy.’
‘Maybe you won’t go to war when Herr Hitler walks into Austria, sir, nor when he walks into Czechoslovakia or Poland, but there will be time a when the Reichsführer will walk
into France and then you will have to fight and, without wishing to give offence, gentlemen, you’re going to lose.’
There was a stunned silence after Harbin had finished speaking. A cold shiver ran down Edward’s spine. He didn’t like Harbin. There was something bloodless about him but he could not
deny the man saw clearly and his vision was by no means comfortable. Edward remembered how his mother had called these shivers ‘someone walking over my grave’. The American had
expressed Edward’s own views on what would happen if Britain did not stand up to Hitler, but hearing Harbin spell out the future in so menacing a way was like finding death itself at the
dinner table. And Harbin hadn’t quite finished. He was determined they should hear the truth even if they did not like it. ‘Where I come from,’ he went on, ‘we have enough
oil to mobilize an army or two but, I have to tell you, there is no way the American people would do that except to defend their own frontiers.’
Scannon said, ‘That’s what President Wilson said in the last war but in the end you had to come and help sort out the mess.’
‘And we learned our lesson,’ Harbin said flatly.
Edward noted with interest that the American was hardly eating anything but merely messing his sole about with his fork. On what oil did this man run, he wondered. If Harbin was voicing the
President’s own views, it was a bleak lookout for England.
The Hepple-Keens were, in their way, just as curious as Mr Larry Harbin. Lady Hepple-Keen – Daphne – was placed next to Edward and sat almost silent during the first two courses. He
tried valiantly to find a subject on which she felt strongly enough to express a view but to no effect. She seemed not to like her husband, which Edward thought perfectly reasonable as he put the
man down for a bullying cad after being in his presence less than five minutes. She was uninterested in her husband’s career and, to judge from her monosyllabic replies to his questions,
thoroughly disliked his politics. She was scared of him, Edward decided, and he felt a surge of sympathy for her. She had just lapsed into what he thought might be terminal silence when she
suddenly mentioned a child and, to Edward’s relief, she now became almost voluble. She had three children, she told him. Little James was only eight and her ‘precious little
angel’, a boy of ten and a girl of eleven who worried her mother sick by refusing to talk. Edward hardly dared guess what the child might be trying to deny by remaining silent. He saw
Hepple-Keen looking at him strangely. He was clearly far from pleased to see his wife spilling out family secrets to a complete stranger.
Dinner drew painfully to a close. It had been a dreary affair and Edward was heartily glad when Scannon declared it at an end. Instead of the ladies withdrawing to leave their menfolk to talk
politics and smut over the port, Scannon suggested a tour of the house and Edward for one was happy to accede. Molly, too, seemed enthusiastic though she had stayed in the house several times
before and knew it well. She grasped Edward by the arm and the rest followed more or less reluctantly. Scannon said, ‘We’ll go first to the long gallery. My father bought a lot of
pictures when the house was being planned and he wanted to show them off. The architect suggested a long room like those you see sometimes in Elizabethan houses. They were used by the ladies as
places in which to exercise in bad weather. My father thought it was a good idea to provide exercise for the mind and the body in one room so he hung the pictures on the wall and had some weights,
a vaulting horse and a climbing frame fitted. As far as I know, he never used any of them and he certainly never looked at his pictures.’
They climbed the heavy, ugly staircase stopping now and again to look at a claymore or crossed swords attached to the wall. ‘Family heirlooms?’ Edward queried.
‘Not at all,’ Scannon said breezily. ‘My father was the first of his line to make any money and he didn’t see why he had to wait several generations to have a family
history. It was much easier to buy it ready made, so to speak.’
‘I see. So these portraits . . . ’ he was referring to paintings of colourfully dressed gentlemen and ladies of bygone ages on the staircase, ‘aren’t anything to do with
you?’
‘Only in so far as my father adopted them. I believe most of them came from a house or castle in Fife that was being broken up at the time my father was building this place.’
The long gallery, when they reached it, proved gloomy and ill lit. There were wall brackets but the electric light was feeble and it was almost impossible to make out the pictures despite their
huge size. It was apparent that Scannon’s father wanted value for money when he was buying paintings and purchased art by the square yard. Relinquishing Molly’s arm, Edward peered at
one particular picture which seemed to show several semi-naked ladies around a pool or lake. A strangely muscled man was watching them from behind a bush. Edward wanted to laugh.
‘The Judgement of Paris, I believe,’ Scannon said, ‘by Rossetti or one of those Pre-Raphaelites. My father held the view that art had to do with the classical world. I remember
once admiring a picture of card players by Caravaggio and he was indignant. How could card players, however well depicted, be art, he said to me.’ He hesitated and then said a little
guiltily, ‘I hope you don’t think I am making fun of my pater. In fact, I admired him greatly. He was one of a family of thirteen and grew up in poverty in Birmingham. By sheer grit and
hard work he became rich and, by the time he was twenty, he was supporting the rest of his family. He had no education but was determined I would have what he had not. He wanted me to be an English
gentleman so he sent me to Harrow. He refused to let me anywhere near the family business, so I grew up utterly useless. I had no option but to enter the House of Commons. I was not fit for
anything else, and,’ he added, ‘it made my father happy.’
‘He must have been very proud,’ Hepple-Keen said.
‘I think he was,’ Scannon said meditatively.
‘When did he die?’ Molly asked.
‘Ten years ago, but my mother is still alive. I thought we might visit her if that wouldn’t be a bore.’
Everyone indicated that they would be only too delighted and Edward was curious. Somehow, Scannon was one of those men you did not think of as having a mother. They stopped on the floor below
the gallery and Scannon knocked on a huge mock-gothic door. A voice – quite a young-sounding voice – called on them to come in. They entered – not a room – but a suite of
rooms and were greeted by a plain woman – in her mid-thirties, Edward guessed – with heavy spectacles and her hair in a bun on the back of her head. The word spinster might have been
coined for her.
‘This is Miss Ruth Conway who is good enough to look after my mother for me. Since her stroke she has had to have someone with her all the time.’
‘You were there at tea-time when I arrived,’ Edward said, recognizing her as the rather severe-looking woman presiding over the teapot to whom he had not been introduced.
‘I was, Lord Edward,’ she agreed. ‘I help out when I can. But come and see Mrs Scannon. I’m afraid it’s not one of her good days.’
Rather reluctantly, the party trooped past Miss Conway and entered a bedroom the size of a ballroom. A massive four-poster bed dominated the room and the heavy brocaded canopy, no doubt
extracted from some ancient house fallen upon hard times, was moth-eaten and dirty-looking. An old lady lay in the bed supported by pillows. A Pekinese dog was curled up beside her.
‘Mother,’ Scannon said gently, ‘I have brought some people to see you.’
With a gesture Edward was always to remember and which did much to mitigate his dislike of the man, Scannon took out his silk handkerchief and wiped away the spittle from her mouth. Then he sat
on the edge of the bed and lifted her papery hand in his, as gently as if he were holding a moth, and kissed it.
There was no response from the recumbent figure and after a minute Scannon stood aside and ushered his guests nearer her bed as though to receive the old woman’s blessing. There was
something absurd and yet touching in this display of his mother for inspection by strangers. Edward was sure Scannon meant it for the best. Perhaps what he saw was not this wreck of a human being
but a woman he had loved and could remember in her prime. None of the visitors were able to think of anything to say. It was clear the old woman was unable to speak or even move her head and it was
profoundly embarrassing for those grouped around her bed. She looked straight ahead of her, a thin dribble of spittle leaking down her chin despite her son’s mopping. It was with considerable
relief that they left the room to Ruth Conway and her charge.
‘She’s tired today,’ Scannon remarked, as if it explained everything.
‘It must be difficult for Miss Conway,’ Edward ventured.
‘In what way?’
‘I mean being alone with your mother all day,’ he stammered, not wishing to sound unsympathetic.
‘She likes it,’ Scannon said firmly. ‘She has a day off in the week when a girl comes in from the village, but she has nowhere to go.’
How unutterably sad, Edward thought. He found himself thinking of Verity Browne, the absolute opposite of poor Miss Conway, and he suddenly wished he was with her now instead of in this gloomy
house with all these people in whom he had no interest whatsoever and whose politics he detested. He caught Dannie’s eye at that moment and a slight shiver of guilt or of anticipation –
he hardly knew which – ran up his spine.
Gratefully, the little party found themselves once again in the hall but they were not yet to be released. ‘We have dungeons here,’ Scannon said. ‘Not really dungeons,’
he added seeing Daphne Hepple-Keen go white. ‘There’s a games room – a billiard table, ping-pong, that sort of thing.’
‘Do you know, I think I’ll turn in,’ Lord Benyon said, and Inna looked at him gratefully.
‘I’m rather tired, too,’ Lady Hepple-Keen began timidly.
‘Nonsense, my dear. Do buck up, Daphne. You can watch me beat Lord Edward at billiards before going to bed. What about you, Carstairs?’
‘I’m game. A hundred up, Corinth?’
Daphne looked beseechingly at Edward who said, ‘It
is
rather late – how about tomorrow?’
Dannie said, ‘I’m going to bed but you boys do what you want.’
Harbin said, rather unexpectedly, ‘Sure, count me in, though I warn you, Leo, I haven’t played in years.’