The Dower House (22 page)

Reluctantly she had to admit that she could hardly have expressed it more trenchantly herself; more elegantly, certainly. ‘Talking of understanding one another,' she said, ‘you know those heavy teak frames your grandfather made for the windows overlooking the back lawn at Monkswood?'

‘Willard Johnson?' Angela asked. ‘
The
Willard Johnson?'

‘The one and only, lady. Try one of these egg-and-caviar smörgåsar? They're almost gone.'

‘Thank you, yes. I'm Angela Worth, by the way – a friend of Felix.'

‘Lucky guy!' He handed her the open sandwich on a waxed cardboard plate with a
GI
stamp.

She took a bite and made appreciative noises. Then she said, ‘That lady who was here just now . . .'

‘My wife? Yeah – she got some kind of migraine, which she never—'

‘I think not,' Angela said quietly.

The smile left his face. ‘Tell me.'

She leaned forward. ‘Did she work in Germany in the war?'

After a pause he said, ‘Listen lady – we've all passed a lot of water under the bridge since then – as Sam Goldwyn said. So why don't we—'

‘No! I worked in Germany, too. For Goebbels' propaganda ministry. I was recording engineer on a film they made in a certain office? A very
high
office of a very important architect? And there was only one woman there – on that floor, anyway, a beautiful Danish—'

‘OK, Miss Worth. That's a hit. A home run.' He turned and gazed up at their kitchen window. ‘Migraine!' He gave a brief, dry laugh. ‘No wonder she bolted.'

‘Well, you can tell her I had absolutely no intention to speak of it with her, except in private if the chance came. I am not so unsensitive. Unsensible?'

‘Either, I think. Or both. I doubt she'd want to talk about those days, anyway.' He sized her up. ‘I guess you had to be a party member to work in that outfit?'

Angela had not intended to answer as she did, but when she found the words on the tip of her tongue she did nothing to prevent them. ‘I was a communist – working secretly inside the Nazi party. And communist I still am.'

His eyes dwelled coolly in hers an uncomfortably long time. ‘You know,' he said at last, ‘I reckon that if I had been born a German, living in Germany back then, I just might have become a secret communist myself. Did the Gestapo ever catch you?'

She stretched her arm until a few digits of her prisoner-tattoo showed.

He smiled at last. ‘Well, you're personally welcome here today, Miss Worth, despite your politics – they'd play better
that
side of the lawn.'

She turned and saw Nicole, who was doling out small pieces of French bread on each of which she was spreading some sort of pâté.

‘That's right,' Willard said. ‘You're very quick. You'd be welcome on that side all right. Her name's Nicole Palmer, châtelaine of the apartment behind her and a fellow commie – but she's also the finest cook you or I are ever likely to meet. And in these dark days we can forgive her almost anything for that. You really ought to go across and try that pâté.'

As Angela thanked him again and turned to go, he added, laughing, ‘Tell her you were a Nazi party member . . . and
then
add that you were also an undercover communist. I'd just
love
to see her face!'

Faith said, ‘Don't stray too far, Mister Wellington. There's someone I'd like you to meet.' And she slipped away to find Corvo. But Corvo proved reluctant to leave his friend Julian with a young woman from the
GLP
office, who was obviously taken with him.

‘She might not realize about him,' he complained as she dragged him away, ‘and he might forget himself, too. I suspect he can tack to port
and
starboard. Do I shock you, young lady?'

‘Not in the least, Corvo – may I call you Corvo? I have many friends who are queers.'

‘Really?' He took her arm and stepped out. ‘Call me whatever you like, darling – but do call! Miss . . . ?'

‘Bullen-ffitch. But Faith will do. I'm going to introduce you to the man who lords it over the
BBC
's junior branch at Ally Pally, so you—'

‘Television?' He wrinkled his nose and slowed down again. ‘I saw it before the war – quite ghastly. Must I?'

‘I think so. There's still space on the ground floor – and from there you can only go in one direction, you know.'

He still dragged his heels but now it was in a more thoughtful mood.

‘I think you should challenge him from the start,' she said. ‘Ask him a challenging question. He's a man of forthright opinions.'

‘Black and white, eh? Well, it suits the medium – which is what I don't like about it, the lack of subtlety.'

‘I think he'll respond well to a challenge.' She all but nudged him in the back as they joined the listening circle around the great man.

‘I'm Corvo,' he said, offering his hand. ‘Tell me – what are you people going to do for the arts?'

‘Dear fellow!' Wellington beamed at him. ‘
You
tell
me
! And if we like it, we'll do it.'

Corvo was taken aback. He had expected a torrent of plans and wishful thinking from the man – something that would let him find a small niche for himself. Instead, he, who had never thought of television as having the remotest connection with serious art, was being forced to extemporize.

Faith, seeing him about to flounder, inclined her head toward the Dower House behind them.

‘Stately homes,' he said. ‘Yes, of course. The military are starting to hand them all back now. I
personally
know scores of places . . . written them up for
Country Life
– including the Dower House here, indeed. You could do a splendid series of documentaries on restoring them, reviving the gardens, getting the treasures back out of storage . . .'

‘And,' Faith added, ‘apart from being a feast for the eye – which is surely another definition of television? – it would also be an elegant reminder of the things we fought for in the war.'

‘Fought for the stately homes of England?' Bob Ambrose picked up the fag-end of the conversation as he approached them. ‘I'd have signed on as a conshie if I'd o' known that. You're the boss of television, right?'

Reluctantly, Faith introduced them.

‘What I want to know is are you going to put your cameras actually on the racecourses and football pitches and cricket grounds . . . places like that?'

‘Live broadcasting, we call it. Yes, indeed, young man, we certainly shall. We're working on all the systems now. And the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, of course. There are a few technical problems still to solve about getting the signal back to the studio – but we'll master them before too long.' He turned back to Corvo. ‘Mister Ambrose here has voiced an objection to your sort of programme that would find quite a bit of support at the
BBC
, I fear.'

Felix joined the group.

‘Ah! Mister Breit!' Wellington welcomed him and pointed to Faith. ‘I'm talking with your agent here – as you see.'

‘Pay no attention to Mister Bob Ambrose and his prejudices.' Faith distracted Wellington to allow Felix time to adjust to the news. ‘He'd simply adore to sit in front of his television set, shouting insults at poor Corvo as he shows us around the glories of Blenheim or Hatfield House or Castle Howard. Besides, Corvo's tour wouldn't be all interiors. There are our glorious landscape gardens, too. His programme would combine the English love of gardening with gloating over antiques and the lure of inaccessible places, to say nothing of fantasies of wealth and noble birth. It has everything to make the Ambroses of this world cancel their pub-crawl and stay home to watch.' She winked at Bob, hoping he'd have the sense to shut up.

Wellington looked her shrewdly up and down. ‘Yes,' he said at last. ‘You are very persuasive, Miss Bullen-ffitch. One begins to see
all sorts
of possibilities.'

‘You were talking to Wolf Fogel, the publisher, earlier,' she said. ‘He's produced dozens of books with a British heritage theme. Did he mention them to you?'

He shook his head. ‘He told me about this encyclopedia of modern art and Mister Breit.'

‘Oh! He should have mentioned the heritage books, too. I'll go and get him.' She smiled at Felix, who pretended to shoot her with his finger.

As she turned to go Wellington asked, ‘Are you by any chance this Mister Fogel's agent, too?'

‘You could say that.'

‘Who
is
she?' he asked Corvo after she'd gone.

Felix said, ‘I think she's using us – all of us – to find the answer to that very question.'

Evening was drawing on into night. Marianne, having recovered from her ‘migraine', had put together a final plate of smörgåsar – home-made cheese and off-points anchovies, this time. She took a small selection of them over to Nicole's table and left them with a smile – which Nicole did not return. Later she saw Tony offering them around. He brought the plate back to her with a rueful smile. ‘Give it time,' he murmured.

Alexander Griffith, one of the architects who did occasional work for the gravel company, approached her. ‘I hear your father's a steel maker,' he said. ‘Does he know any wheezes for getting round import controls? This damn socialist government is so dead set on building council houses for the masses that we in the private-building business can hardly get a bag of nails.'

Angela rose from her seat and, drawing a deep breath, started toward her.

May Prentice put Sam and his younger sister, Hannah, to bed – knowing very well they'd fall asleep with their heads on the window sill – and went to look for Arthur, to remind him it was his turn to stoke the boiler. She went down bravely enough though she hated the musty dark of those subterranean corridors and cubbyholes. She was sure they were all overrun with ghosts – which was why she went on tiptoe. Which, in turn, was how she came to hear the unmistakeable sounds of a man and a woman rising to the climax of an act that would have been singularly inappropriate, not to say impossible, for a pair of ghosts.

‘Eve! Oh Eve!' the man cried in a loud, hoarse whisper.

As she backed off she heard Eve say, ‘Hurry up! This coal is bloody uncomfortable.'

She found her husband washing the coke dust from his hands. ‘It's going to burn a ton before the night is out,' he said. ‘We'll never afford it for the whole house – unless we can cut down half a forest somewhere.'

She told him what she'd just heard.

‘I believe you, pet,' he replied. ‘He'd shag anything in knickers, would our Adam.'

‘Oh dear! D'you think we did the right thing – coming to live here?'

‘It's going to be what we used to call a bomber's moon,' Angela said.

‘I remember,' Marianne replied. ‘Let me show you round the place before the light completely goes. Or is that something Felix was looking forward to doing?'

‘Oh . . . never mind him.'

‘I'll just tell my husband, so. He worries – because of . . .' She patted her stomach and turned toward Willard, who was now clearing up at their buffet table.

But Angela did not move. ‘When is it due?'

‘Not long now. Sooner than we calculated.'

‘Your first?'

Marianne darted her a look of surprise. ‘Yes!'

‘In the war . . . so many things happened. Anyway, I told your husband I was in that film crew for the Speer propaganda film – and, of course, noticed you. Nothing about meeting you after that.'

‘You didn't mention . . . you know – the party?'

‘I said you were Danish but he didn't correct me.'

‘He wouldn't see any reason to, but that's good. You said nothing about the party?'

‘I told him
I
was a member – and that I was—'

‘But why?' Marianne cried.

‘To see his reaction – which
was
a surprise. He said that if he'd been a German, in Germany, during the war, he'd probably have been a secret communist, too – a communist inside the Nazi party.'

For a moment Marianne could only stare. ‘That can I hardly believe,' she said at last. ‘Just so? He said that, just so?'

‘Honey?' Willard, who had been watching them closely, called out.

‘I must go. He's calling. Shall you come too? Please?'

Angela followed her some way behind.

‘Old times, eh?' Willard said.

‘Hardly.' Marianne laughed briefly. ‘I was a fool to run away. Just panic. You know she's a friend to Felix?'

‘So she said.'

‘She's asked me to show her around the place. Can you manage here? Shall I ask Sally to help?'

‘She's gone hunting for Adam. If I were her, I'd go loaded for bear. Sure I can manage here. Off you go!'

Marianne linked arms with Angela and steered her around the end of the Wilsons' annexe and into the narrow lane that led into the back yard. ‘D'you want to talk in German?'

‘Never!'

‘OK, OK! I have to say I got a shock to see you. Never I thought you would have survived.'

‘Felix and Miss Bullen-ffitch have told me about Nicole Palmer – you and Nicole . . .'

Marianne halted and hung her head theatrically. ‘Too many people know. It's not good. It's not good.'

‘Are you now wishing I
didn't
survive?'

‘No!' She hugged Angela's arm to her. ‘No – I'm absolutely delighted. I started to make an inquiry – after the liberation – except I didn't know your real name. And then I thought it might stir trouble for you if you had survived – me asking for a communist who was also an ex-
SS
officer . . . if you hadn't told them . . .'