Mad About the Boy? (14 page)

‘She's got engaged,' said Haldean with a grin.

‘Good Lord.' He stopped with the roll in his hand. ‘Who to? That boy of Jane Moorcroft's? That's been on the cards for some time. What's he called now? He got the DSO. Nice lad. Stanton. Arthur Stanton.'

Haldean shook his head. ‘No, ‘fraid not. That didn't come off. No, it's Smith-Fennimore, the racing driver.'

‘Him, eh?'

‘I didn't know you knew him,' said Haldean.

‘Oh, yes,' said Archie Wilde, finishing the last of his soup. ‘I don't know him well, but I know him. Mind you, I don't mix with the speed crowd. I can never see the damn point of tearing round a race track. After all, however fast you go, you only end up where you started from. That bank of his seems pretty sound, though. All I know about his private life is that he has a very expensive mistress who I've seen him out and about with. She says she's a connection of the Romanovs. Aren't they all!' He laughed. ‘For heaven's sake, don't look so shocked, boy.'

‘I'm not shocked,' said Haldean, piqued. ‘It's just that . . . well, you know. It'd be rotten for Belle if he's got someone else. Still, I daresay he'll give her up if he's going to get married.'

‘If he's got any sense he will.' Wilde turned in his seat to summon the waiter. ‘Did you want boiled potatoes with your pudding, Jack? If it worries you, you'd better tackle him about it. It's not something I'd like to ask Philip to do, but you should be able to manage. It's a pity Gregory's not around as it's more a brother's job, but you're close enough.'

‘Tackle Smith-Fennimore?' Haldean shifted unhappily. ‘I suppose I've got to, haven't I?'

The Countess Drubetskaya might, thought Malcolm Smith-Fennimore, be apparently giving him the benefit of her whole-hearted attention, but he was willing to bet that what she was actually thinking of was the dark blue jewellery case he had placed on the table. He looked dispassionately at the beautiful woman in front of him. Whatever had he seen in her? She
was
beautiful and intensely sophisticated. Those were the qualities which had first attracted him. Now she seemed artificial and slightly overdone.

Compared to Isabelle . . . He stopped. He didn't want to compare Isabelle to anyone, especially to this hothouse flower. It wasn't just her looks, although Isabelle's looks thrilled him. All the women he'd ever known were beautiful enough. That was, in a way, taken for granted. But Isabelle . . . He could talk to Isabelle properly. She was interested in him, not merely the things he could give her. He'd never told anyone that story about Jimmy Chilton. She'd understood. The only fly in the ointment was Stanton. Stanton was in love with Isabelle. Everyone had expected Isabelle to marry Stanton. He'd heard the Robiceux girls yesterday, discussing it.
What a catch! Yes, but will it last? I honestly thought she'd marry Arthur. Maybe she will in the end. She thinks the world of him
. . . It would be fine. Everything was going to be fine. He'd make it work. Yes, it'd work all right.

He'd never trusted a woman before. He'd never – this was a shocking thing to admit – known any love he hadn't had to pay for. In a way it was inevitable; Oxford, the navy, the bank, the track . . . all men. That was how it was. Men were friends, women were desirable, expensive commodities. But it didn't have to be like that. He wanted, with a stomach-churning intensity, to love someone who would love – really love – him in return. And why the blazes shouldn't he? The clerks at the bank, the stewards at the club, the mechanics at the track; they were married. They didn't spell love with a pound sign for an L. He was tired of ‘arrangements'. He wanted to say, openly, honestly, ‘This is my wife . . . This is Isabelle, my wife . . .' Isabelle. It was going to work.

The Countess was still talking. He sighed inwardly, trying to cut off the drone of words. He wanted to carry on thinking about Isabelle. Well, if he was going to make the break, he'd better get on with it. He hoped there wouldn't be too much of a scene. The Countess thrived on them. He'd found that exciting at first. He smiled, cynically. The jewels should ease his passing.

He held out the case towards her. ‘I called at Garrard's before coming here. These are for you.' He saw the greed in her face.

The Countess stopped in mid-sentence and took the case eagerly, her eyes widening as she saw the diamond necklace and ear-rings nestling on the dark blue velvet inside the box. ‘But Malcolm, they are exquisite!'

‘They are to say goodbye,' he said, rather more abruptly than he had intended.

She looked up, her attention momentarily diverted. ‘But why is this, Malcolm?'

The accent on ‘Malcolm' intrigued him no longer. ‘Because I am going to get married.'

She threw up her hands and laughed. ‘Married! Not you,
chéri
. No, wait. It is that little English Miss with the so-proper Mama and Papa we saw at the Savoy? You will be bored within the week.'

Her black eyes sparkled and he had a sudden, vivid picture of her as she had been that night at the Savoy, the night he had met Isabelle. He had ushered her into the Delage Salamanca and she had reclined back, her face framed by her white fur stole, the silver fittings and the silk braided cushions of the Salamanca surrounding her as if by right. He tried to imagine the Countess at the wheel of the Bentley while he instructed her in the gentle art of driving. The picture was so incongruous that he nearly laughed out loud. He would sell the Delage now; it wouldn't suit Isabelle and he had no further use for it.

The Countess whirled on him angrily. ‘You find me funny? Yes?'

‘No, no,' he apologized. ‘Something just struck me, that's all. I think I'd better be going.' She was gearing up for a fight, another orgy of throbbing, insincere emotion.

‘I throw these diamonds back at you.' She carefully didn't suit action to words. ‘You think you can go? You will leave me? Alone?'

He'd had enough of this. ‘Well, there's always the others.' He knew perfectly well that he wasn't the only man the Countess saw, but she had no idea he'd guessed.

‘Others? What others, Malcolm?'

‘Well, there's that asinine young idiot, Fraylingham, for instance, and your fat Italian friend.' That should take the wind out of her sails.

It did. ‘But they are no fun,' she protested, in a lightning change of mood, her white teeth parting in a smile. ‘And the Italian snores!'

The crisis had passed. He bent over her hand and kissed it. ‘Goodbye, my dear. Thank you.'

Vargen Yashin, well dressed, well fed but very far from well contented, strolled into Soho Square, turned down Sutton Row and into Lacey Street. He was thinking about Victor, Lord Lyvenden. He had walked back from the Café Royal because he wanted time to think. What he had heard there made him want to think very carefully indeed.

The Café Royal had been a good choice. The personality he had so carefully built up fitted into that artistic, bohemian atmosphere. It was fashionable, too. The right people went there. He made no secret of his Bolshevik sympathies. He could, when called upon, talk mournfully of life under the Tsars. And society, London society, or certain sections of it at least, loved it. They flirted with Communism as embodied by Yashin. He was a Good Bloke, Not Bad For A Russian, a Decent Sort. And as for his politics, what did you expect? You should hear his stories . . . I tell you, there's a lot more to this Communism business than you think, You can't believe what you read in the papers. That's just propaganda. Listen to Yashin; he'll tell you what it's really like. Of course he's nothing
official
. And there London society was wrong.

For Vargen Yashin was the head of the English section of the Third International and if Yusif Dolokhov, his chief and leading light of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party – Yashin winced slightly at the name – found out how close Yashin's section had come to wrecking his plans for a revolution in England, he could look forward to a firing squad at the best. If it wasn't preceded by painful hours in a cellar, he'd be lucky.

For Lyvenden had been visited at Hesperus. Lyvenden had been badly frightened at Hesperus. And if Lyvenden turned awkward or if Lyvenden said too much . . . Yashin sighed. Lord Lyvenden's visitor – he had recognized the description – was Youri Gerasimov. His lip curled. It was typical of Gerasimov to try and frighten Lyvenden into speeding things up. Then – for he knew Gerasimov's mind as clearly as he knew his own – Gerasimov would be hailed in triumph, he, Yashin, would be deposed and Gerasimov would be the new leader. Fool! Great, blundering fool! He had no idea of the people he would be dealing with. They had to be coaxed, cajoled, fed a mixture of flattery, self-interest and ideals. Once the revolution had been won was the time for education by terror. He looked forward to teaching these innocents that particular lesson. Yashin bit his lip thoughtfully. The revolution: the English – his English – took it as a joke. ‘After the revolution' was a joke. That suited his purpose, but it annoyed him, all the same. Even the most earnest of his English followers seemed to have no idea of what actually happened after a revolution. They honestly thought it would be sweetness, happiness and light. But people had to be educated. They never dreamed it could really happen. Yashin suspected that if they ever thought it could, they would be horrified. In spite of all the Central Committee had announced about spreading revolution abroad, they persisted in believing it could never happen here. Yashin shook his head. It could. But if Dolokhov ever found out that Gerasimov, a man supposed to be under his control, had threatened his plans, then he, Yashin, would pay the price.

Gerasimov was doubtless feeling very pleased with himself. He'd got a couple of little nuggets of information on his visit to Hesperus, which he would look forward to using. Yashin smiled in anticipation. He would enjoy dealing with Gerasimov.

He paused by the entrance to the Paradise Club. It was his club and he was proud of it. His name wasn't on any deed or document, of course, but it was his all the same. Gerasimov would never have been able to think of a place like this. A magnet for the wealthy who enjoyed a frisson of real life (real life!) with their drinking and dancing.
I know a most wonderful place in Soho.
He'd heard it said lots of times.
It's just too thrilling.
A wonderful place meant excitement; it meant mixing with carefully cultivated guests like Belayaev, whose pictures had shocked half of fashionable London whilst baffling the other half. It meant the tantalizing prospect of seeing a real fight. Only two nights ago Konstantine had given Savchuk a black eye. The Paradise Club smelt of kippers, had a dance floor like gravel and sold wine they'd throw back in any West End restaurant. These things added up to real life. For some of these fools a wonderful place meant a few words in the right ear which produced enough white powder to make the Paradise Club live up to its name.

But no one at all guessed that the real purpose of the club was to hide an attic room from which he could carry out his plans. Looking for somewhere secret, the likes of Gerasimov would never have dreamt of the Paradise Club. It was too open, too loud in its support for the new Soviet state. And that was precisely why Yashin had carefully made it so. He knew how the English mind worked. The Paradise Club? Nothing really goes on there, old boy. We know all about the Paradise Club. He gave a very thin smile. Even in the eyes of the English authorities, the Paradise Club was known and discounted. The real power, they cleverly told each other, must lie elsewhere.

Vargen Yashin went into the cloakroom and up the small staircase leading from the back, along the bare and filthy corridor, and entered the attic overlooking Clarkson's Rents.

There was a meeting in progress. Yashin's heart sank as he looked at them. There were eight men in the room and all of them, even the native English and Scots, looked exactly what they were; rough, uneducated, mindless slum dwellers and peasants who thought violence was the answer to all questions. Not one of them was subtle enough to see that violence had to be used sparingly and correctly. Not one of them realized that fear was the best weapon of all. And none of them had a hope of moving, as he did, between the world of the rich and gullible to the world of the avaricious and dispossessed, adding them together and making the answer to the sum equal power.

Tanswell, a small, underfed, red-headed Cockney with a bandage round his head, was holding forth. He lit another cigarette, adding to the pall of smoke that sat over the room like a rain cloud. ‘A waste of bleeding time,' he was saying. He looked up anxiously, then relaxed. ‘Oh, it's you, boss. I was just making my report, if you can call it that. That march today. Well, I ask you, where did it get us?
Really
get us, I mean? A lot of smashed windows and a couple of dented coppers. I tell you, as I've told you before, we need money. If I had a thousand quid I could have the Pool of London banged up so tight no bugger could move. What's the point of pouring money into Ireland? We need it here. Here's the heart of the bleeding British Empire. This is where it'll hurt them.'

Gerasimov, at the head of the table, smiled smugly. ‘Money, eh?'

Yashin cut in. ‘Money, Gerasimov. Money which, by your stupidity, you have imperilled.' He pulled off his gloves. ‘You are in the wrong place, by the way. That is my seat. Move.'

Gerasimov thought about it, then, with a sulky insolence, moved.

‘Very good. Youri Gerasimov, you acted without orders. You were clever, yes? You found out who a certain person was and where a certain person was and paid him a visit. He did not enjoy that visit. I am unhappy that he was troubled. You found out other things as well which I do not wish you to know.' Gerasimov, he was glad to see, was beginning to look frightened. He would enjoy spinning this out, but regretfully decided against it. His authority had been questioned recently. There were a couple of these . . . these
peasants
who thought they would make a better leader. Let them watch.