The FitzOsbornes in Exile (28 page)

15th February 1939

Barcelona has been taken by the Fascists, and it looks as though Madrid will be the next to fall. And Hitler has just given a speech demanding back all the former German colonies around the world—although Chamberlain, the Arch Appeaser, claims that “it is not the speech of a man preparing to throw Europe into another crisis.”

However! Wondrous, amazing news has arrived this afternoon at Milford Park! At least, it’s
potentially
wondrous and amazing. I think.

Toby was out flying with Anthony at the time. Henry was upstairs arguing with Miss Bullock, Aunt Charlotte was off visiting the Bosworths, and Veronica and I were sitting about the library feeling bored and useless. Our Montmaray campaign seemed to have reached an impasse. I was wondering aloud whether I ought to write an article about Montmaray—I was sure Daniel would publish it in his newspaper if I sent it to him. But what would that achieve? His two thousand or so subscribers were already passionately anti-Nazi, so I wasn’t going to change their opinion, and besides, the sort of people who read
The Evolutionary Socialist
each week were not the sort of people who had any influence in the British government—or any other government, for that matter. Veronica was half seriously considering writing to Mr. Gandhi for some advice on nonviolent protest methods when Simon ran in, brandishing some papers at us.

“What is it?” said Veronica. “Oh, you’ve found another long-lost bank account. What a surprise.
Why
our family continues to pay Mr. Grenville’s firm to look after our affairs when the records are in such chaos is quite beyond—”

“Look!” cried Simon breathlessly. “Look at where the money is going!”

“Switzerland,” I said, reading over Veronica’s shoulder. “So? Lots of people have Swiss bank accounts, don’t they?”

He took a deep breath. “This account was set up in 1920, in order to send a fixed annual amount, raised from coal royalties, directly to a bank account in—”

“Geneva!” cried Veronica. “No! It can’t be, not to—”

“The League of Nations! Look, I just found this letter from the League acknowledging the first payment. We must have been invited to join, way back in 1920, and we’ve been paying dues all this time!”

“But … but that’s impossible,” said Veronica faintly, staring at the letter. “If Montmaray were a member of the League of Nations, we’d be in their official papers … They’d have voted to allow us to join.”

“How do you know they didn’t?” he demanded. “We’d need to look at the minutes of their early meetings. It would hardly have been at the top of the agenda, would it? They must have had a thousand more important things to—”

“But the League’s an international bureaucracy!” she protested. “Full of professional administrators—and how could they fail to notice a huge sum of money being handed over to them each year?”

“Not a
huge
sum, not compared to all the money other countries pay,” he said. “Perhaps they saw that it came from London and assumed it was part of Britain’s contribution? Or they thought it was a donation from some English philanthropist, and it went straight into general revenue? And as Montmaray hadn’t contributed any staff to the League, didn’t send any representatives to the first Assembly meetings—”

“But
why
didn’t we? Why didn’t we
know
about this?” said Veronica.

Simon huffed impatiently. “Well! Look at how things were in Montmaray after the Great War, with the King being—”

“Insane,” said Veronica, nodding. “And Aunt Charlotte probably authorized Mr. Grenville to sign any official papers that arrived at his office. You know how she thinks it’s unladylike to take any interest in finances or government matters.”

“The League of Nations has been accepting our money all this time,” said Simon. “I can prove it!”

“They’ll
have
to listen to us now,” said Veronica, her voice catching his excitement. “Whether we’re an official member or not—and perhaps we really
are
!”

She gazed up at Simon, her eyes shining.

“Simon,” she said, “I could
kiss
you!”

“Please don’t,” he said hastily.

Well,
I
certainly wouldn’t have minded kissing him, but I restricted myself to a heartfelt “Well done, Simon!” He put his arm around my shoulders and beamed down at me.

“Wait till Toby gets back,” he said. “Wait till we tell him!”

Veronica had already snatched up a pencil and some paper. “Firstly, we need to write to the League of Nations, asking them to check their records—”

“And requesting a hearing at the Court of International Justice,” said Simon.

“Wait—perhaps take it directly to the Council itself?” said Veronica, scribbling away. “Isn’t that what Abyssinia did when Italy invaded it?”

“We’ll need independent witness statements, though,” mused Simon.

“Those pilots who took photographs of the airstrip and the German ships at Montmaray. We’ll have to get in contact with the Colonel—”

“But it’ll be argued that Montmaray is German property, that it was sold to them,” said Simon, running his hand through his hair. “That’s the official view of the British government. What we
need
is proof that the Germans bombed the island in 1937—we need evidence of their violent attack.”

“There’s plenty of evidence!” said Veronica. “All of us are eyewitnesses.”

“It won’t be enough,” said Simon, shaking his head. “We need—”

“Otto Rahn,” I said.

They both looked at me.

“Herr Rahn will help us,” I said. “He told me how sorry he was about what Gebhardt had done. He tried to warn us before he left the island. Herr Rahn’s not a Nazi, not a proper one. He would
never
have agreed to them bombing our library.”

Veronica looked down at her list. “Write to Otto Rahn,” she said at last. “In … Berlin, wasn’t it? Is he at one of the universities? Or perhaps we can get in contact with him via the Ahnenerbe, if he still works for them. I’ll get Daniel to translate our letter into German—”

Bother. There’s the car. Aunt Charlotte’s back.

17th March 1939

Here we are, back at Montmaray House, deep in preparation for yet another Season. Aunt Charlotte’s demeanor is that of a war-weary general, facing the enemy across the trenches for the third and (she hopes) decisive battle.

“I see the Mosley girl is making her debut,” she says grimly, peering at the gossip columns of
The Times
as though they were military dispatches. “His
first
wife’s daughter, of course. Well, the girl’s pretty enough, I suppose, and she’s inherited her mother’s jewels. But she hasn’t
your
looks, Veronica—and that reminds me, I must have Barnes get all my jewelry out of the bank.
All
of it this time, including the emeralds. Sophia, you’ll need a turquoise ball gown to display them to their best advantage—please see to it. You may have the car this afternoon … Oh, not another Kennedy girl being presented at Court! How many more of them
are
there?”

I have to say that, while I understand Aunt Charlotte’s increasing desperation to get us married off, I have more important matters on my mind than finding the right shade of silk to match the Montmaray emeralds. As predicted by everyone but Mr. Chamberlain, Hitler’s forces marched into Prague two days ago. Czechoslovakia is now entirely under Nazi control. The Munich agreement, “peace for our time,” is dead. Hitler’s promises have been shown to be worthless. The next major move, according to Veronica, will involve Poland. She and Simon had an argument about whether Germany would invade some city in Lithuania first, but I’m not quite sure where it is, or why the Germans care so much about it. In other depressing news, the Spanish war is all but over, the British government having formally recognized Franco as the new leader of Spain three weeks ago …

Oh good, Aunt Charlotte’s gone off to the hairdresser’s. Except Simon’s just walked in, looking grave. Oh dear, what’s happened
now
?

An hour later.

“Listen, everyone,” Simon began. “Toby, stop staring out the window and come over here. We need to talk. Things are looking very bad, war could be declared at any time. I think we need to consider if …” He took a deep breath. “Well, if we’d all be better off becoming British subjects.” He raised his hand to cut off Veronica, who’d already started to speak. “I
know
we’re Montmaravians, Veronica, and we always will be. But right now, Montmaray is officially German territory, and if Britain declared war on Germany tomorrow, we’d be classified as enemy aliens. We could be imprisoned or deported. I suppose we could explain we were refugees, but then we’d be officially stateless. The sensible thing would be for us to apply to become naturalized citizens of this country, right away.”

“And we might need to be British subjects to join the armed forces,” said Toby, looking unnaturally serious. “I mean, I will. And you, Simon, if you join up—”

“There might not be any choice about joining up, they’re already debating conscription in Parliament,” said Veronica. “But, anyway—”

“Which reminds me,” interrupted Simon. “Sorry, Veronica—but, Toby, you need to speak to your aunt about your plans. She has no idea what you’re doing—actually, neither do I. Are you planning to join the Royal Air Force? Or were you thinking of the Auxiliary Air Force? Either way, they’ll ask you for proof that you’re a British subject.”

“Actually, I’m not sure they will,” said Toby thoughtfully. “I mean, if there’s a war, they won’t really care, will they, as long as we’re all fighting against the same enemy? Although … what happened in the last war, Veronica? What about all those Montmaravian men who fought in France with the British?”

“They fought under the Montmaravian flag, of course,” she said. “But—”

“The problem is,” said Simon, frowning, “that the Home Office is making it very difficult to become a British citizen now, with all these refugees starting to flood in from the Continent. Henry might just scrape in, as she’s under sixteen and her aunt, her legal guardian, is British through marriage. But that doesn’t help
us
. We weren’t born in the British Empire, our fathers weren’t born in the British Empire, none of
us
is married to a British subject—”

“Unless there’s something you’re not telling us about Daniel, Veronica,” put in Toby.

“It
is
possible for the British monarch to grant us the rights of British citizens,” continued Simon, “as a royal prerogative, but it seems unlikely he’d do so. Not after Henry’s debacle at Buckingham Palace.”

Veronica cleared her throat. “If I could
possibly
be allowed to speak for one moment? Thank you so much. As I was
trying
to say, I doubt there’ll be any difficulties
if
we decide we want to be British citizens.”

Simon gave her an exasperated look. “Veronica, I’ve just finished explaining that we don’t meet any of the conditions allowing us to become—”

Veronica sighed. “Oh, Simon,” she said, “all those hours spent poring over law books, and yet you’ve forgotten the Sophia Naturalization Act of 1705.”

“The what?”

“Don’t you recall the Electress Sophia of Hanover?” Veronica asked.

“Who?” said Toby.

“Sophie,
you
remember her,” said Veronica.

“Um,” I said. “Didn’t her son become King George the First?”

“Exactly,” said Veronica. (Of course, the only reason I remembered her is that we share a name.) “The Electress Sophia was heir to the British throne, but she hadn’t been born here. So an Act of Parliament in 1705 naturalized her
and all her Protestant descendants
as British subjects.”

“Are you saying … ?”

“That the FitzOsbornes are direct descendants of the Electress Sophia of Hanover, yes,” said Veronica. “Therefore, we are eligible to become naturalized British subjects.”

“Are you
sure
we’re descended from her?” asked Toby.

“Of course I’m sure,” said Veronica. “Her youngest grandchild married our great-great—”

“Yes, all right,” said Toby quickly. “We believe you.”

“That’s all very well for you three,” said Simon. “But my surname is Chester, not FitzOsborne, and there’s no proof I’m descended from—”

“Do try not to be so idiotic,” Veronica said impatiently. “We know perfectly well who your father is. You’re just as much a FitzOsborne as I am.”

We all stared at her. Simon opened his mouth, then closed it again, turning rather pink.

“I didn’t say I was
happy
about it,” she added rather defensively. “And, anyway, this is all beside the point! Becoming a British subject would mean giving up everything—renouncing our titles, swearing allegiance to the British crown, all of it! I haven’t any intention of pretending to be British just because there might be a war starting!”

“I agree,” I said, but I was too busy taking down notes to say much more.

“Yes, you’re quite right, both of you,” said Toby. “Simon?”

“I … well … of course, I don’t want to be British!” he spluttered, still in shock over Veronica’s acknowledgment of him as one of the family. “But … but we still have to think about what we’re going to
do
if Britain declares war on Germany!”

“Why don’t
we
declare war on Germany?” suggested Toby. “Right now? We’ve certainly got reason to.”

“We are
not
declaring war,” said Veronica forcefully. “Not until we have no other option, till we’ve exhausted every diplomatic means. We are going to present our case to the League of Nations, the way any civilized nation would.”

“Well, it’d help if we had a stronger case,” said Simon, having finally pulled himself together. “I mean, we still don’t have any independent witnesses—”

At that moment, the footman entered the breakfast room with the post (I think we were all rather glad about the interruption, the conversation had become so intense). He placed a large envelope in front of Veronica.

“Who’s that from?” said Toby, peering over. “The British
Furriers’
Association? Why are you corresponding with them?”

“Oh, it’s Daniel, incognito,” she said, slitting the envelope open with her butter knife. “On account of him being banned from this household in any shape or form. I think he uses old envelopes from his father’s office.”

“You didn’t hear that, Bert,” said Toby to the footman.

“Of course not, sir,” the footman said, with the barest hint of a smirk. “Shall I bring in some more toast, sir?”

“No thanks. You can clear away now—”

“Otto Rahn’s written back!” cried Veronica. “Daniel’s translated his letter!” She scanned the page as we all leaned in eagerly. “Rahn’s resigned from the SS! And he’s written another book,
Lucifer’s Courtiers
—gosh, it sounds even more bizarre than his first book—”

“Never mind about his books!” said Simon. “What does he say about providing a statement against Gebhardt?”

“He says that he will. He says … Oh. He must have had a falling-out with his superior officers in the SS. He was sent as a guard to some concentration camp, and he says what he saw there … Hmm. He’s opposed to war, to the way Germany’s preparing for war. He doesn’t approve of Hitler. Then there’s an enormous paragraph about establishing a New Order of Pure Ones and working towards Universal Peace … Sophie, he especially asks to be remembered to you.”

I took the page from Veronica and read it. “He sounds very sad. ‘This new nation of Germany is no place for a man such as I.’ ”

“I just wish he’d sent his
statement
with this letter,” said Simon after the page was handed on to him. “The League of Nations is asking for all our documentation as soon as possible.”

“It sounds as though he’s already started writing it,” I said.

“But he wanted to send us this note first. There, didn’t I
say
he wasn’t a proper Nazi?”

And they all agreed I was very wise, and henceforth, they would always pay close attention to me. Not really. Still, it is very good news to hear how supportive Herr Rahn is. And when the League of Nations sees all our documents, reads what Herr Rahn has to say, they’ll have to help us.
Surely
they will.