Half a Crown Read online

  I passed her her hairbrush, silver-backed with her initials engraved, a present from her father when she turned eighteen. “You’re just saying that to be shocking. It’s your mother makes me sick. She said I was ‘not quite.’ ” I tried to say it lightly, but my voice let me down.

  “That’s ghastly. To Lady B.?” Betsy asked, dragging the brush through her hair much too hard.

  I nodded. “Just now. I’d finished studying for the time being and I was coming down the stairs in search of tea and I overheard them.”

  “She was probably trying to make sure Sir Alan didn’t fall for you instead of me,” Betsy said.

  “Oh Bets— Elizabeth!” I said. “That’s ridiculous. As if he’d look at me when I’m nobody, and about to be an undergraduette too. And anyway, he has a beard!”

  “I believe it doesn’t impede one’s sex life,” Betsy said, and we both giggled. “Do my necklace up?”

  She ran her hands through the little silver box on her dressing table and fished out a thin gold chain hung with a half circle of seed pearls. I lifted her hair and fastened the clasp. It sat nicely on her skin above the neckline of the dress. “That’s pretty,” I said. “Where did you get it?”

  “My aunt Patsy gave it to me. It was hers when she came out, and she felt it brought her luck. It’s a funny length, but I like it.” She straightened it. “Do you want something?”

  “I’d better not; I can’t trust your mother not to say something if I borrow your jewelry. Besides, there’s this ribbon.” I smoothed it again.

  “I’m sure your uncle will give you something of your own soon now,” Betsy said. “I expect that’s what he’s going to do when he takes you out on Thursday, take you to Cartier and let you choose.”

  “I don’t think he has any idea I ought to have something. He has no wife, no daughters of his own, no sister even. I can’t really tell him. He’s been so good to me already, paying for all this nonsense, and for Oxford too,” I said. “But I’m sure that’s not what we’ll be doing on Thursday. That’s our annual date to go down to Kent to look at the primroses, in memory of my father.”

  Betsy hugged me. “I’d forgotten,” she said. “Well, you’re welcome to anything of mine any time, whenever Mummy isn’t looking. Come on. We’d better go down, or they’ll be sending out search parties.”

  We went down to the drawing room together. There was a much better than normal selection of tea, several kinds of sandwiches, and a whole plate of cream cakes from Gunter’s, as well as the usual fruitcake and digestive biscuits. I took an eclair and a cup of tea and retreated towards the wing chair by the window. Sir Alan was on the sofa by his mother, and Mr. Maynard on the other wing chair. “Cross fire,” Betsy mouthed, as she cut me off from the wing chair, leaving me the place that had clearly been left for her, at the other end of the sofa. I sat there and sipped my tea. No matter how hard I tried, I thought, these people would never truly accept me. If they did, if I managed to fool some of them for a little while, someone who knew, like Mrs. Maynard, would be sure to tell them that I wasn’t “quite.” This was why I wanted to go to Oxford. Even in the little glimpse I’d had of it so far, I could tell that standards were different; intellectual attainments still mattered more there than who your parents were.

  But “not quite” had stung. I might want to turn my back on this world, I didn’t want to be rejected by it as not good enough. I’d made so much effort already, worrying about clothes and hair and jewelry. It was just over a week until we made our debut, and then there would be a round of balls and parties over the summer. April, May, June, July, August, September. Then, in October, I could begin my real life. Six months.

  The silence in the drawing room now everyone had settled was a little uncomfortable. I leaned towards Sir Alan. “So, Sir Alan, Betsy tells me you’re a fascist?” I said.

  “Betsy’s too kind,” Sir Alan replied. “And you, Miss Royston, are you fond of fascism?”

  “Oh yes, I think it’s the most terrific fun,” I said.

  Mrs. Maynard winced a little and exchanged a sympathetic glance with Lady Bellingham. The thing was that fascism, while all very well in its place, was in Mrs. Maynard’s eyes something to look down on just the tiniest bit, as being very useful of course, and something that did very well for keeping Them in place, but was actually not quite . . . After all, it was open to everyone, except Jews of course.

  My reply seemed to please Sir Alan, who nodded and smiled. “Fun, yes, absolutely. Have you ever been to an Ironsides rally?” he asked.

  In fact I had, when I was very young. It had been a march through Camden Town, where I lived then, and my father had taken me. I remembered the uniforms and the bands, the fireworks and the tremendous spirit of fellowship. “No,” I said, regretfully. “I never have. Only on television.”

  “Not the place for a young lady, perhaps, Alan,” Lady Bellingham said, carefully, her hands fluttering in her lap.

  “Nonsense, Mother,” her son corrected her robustly. “Certainly not the thing unescorted, but if Miss Royston and Miss Maynard would like to join me, I could see that they had a good time without being near any trouble. You hear much more about trouble than you see these days; the Jews and communists don’t try to break up our marches anymore, the Watch have cracked down on them too hard. It’s been years since there was any trouble of that kind. There’s a torchlit march to Marble Arch tomorrow night, what do you say, ladies?”

  Mrs. Maynard was looking like a pug with a stomachache. “I’m not sure it would be quite . . . ,” she said, looking at her husband, who was staring at the faded pattern on the rug as if it interested him extremely.

  I hadn’t quite made up my mind how far I wanted to push this, but Betsy, for all her saying fascism made her sick, decided for me. “We’d love to, Sir Alan,” she said, shooting a burning look at her mother.

  “Oh yes,” I agreed, following her lead. “We’d love to. I’ve always wanted to see a torchlit parade close up.”

  “As long as it’s quite safe, of course,” Betsy added.

  “Quite safe these days,” Sir Alan reassured everyone, turning around the drawing room with a smile that made him look more than ever like a pirate.

  So that’s why we were right there when the riot happened.

  2

  Watch Commander Carmichael glared down at the logistical nightmare on his desk. He quite understood that there had to be a peace conference for what the Germans were calling the “Twenty Year War,” but he couldn’t understand why anyone thought it was a good idea to hold it in London. All these heads of state and foreign ministers, all these meetings, all these security services with their own ideas who would need to be treated carefully, while the actual security for the whole event fell heavily onto the shoulders of Carmichael and the Watch. He looked up with relief when Lieutenant-Commander Jacobson came in, a parcel neatly wrapped in plastic in his hand.

  “Sergeant Evans was on his way to bring you this, and I intercepted it on my way,” he said, putting the parcel on the corner of Carmichael’s desk.

  “Just some books,” Carmichael said, not reaching for the parcel. He had sent Evans down to Hatchards to pick up anything new on Byzantium, in the hope it would be some consolation for Jack. Jack was unhappy, as usual, because Carmichael didn’t have enough time to spend with him and because they never got to do anything together. Jack was especially unhappy because he wanted a holiday in Greece or Turkey, to see his precious Byzantine remnants for himself. Carmichael had been forced to say he couldn’t get away until September at the earliest, and then had offered him Italy, which was safer, and possible. Jack had objected that they had been to Italy before. To Carmichael it was all the same—sunshine, Mediterranean food, dusty ruins, rough wine, olive trees. Only Jack cared which ruins they were. Carmichael sometimes thought they lived in different worlds. In his world, there was an insurrection going on in Greece and the Turks had done an awful lot worse than sacking Byzantium since.

  “I do
n’t want to interrupt, but there are a few things,” Jacobson said.

  “I’m glad to be interrupted. I’m working on the blasted conference, and I can’t see how to do it without more men—and that’s with calling in the Met. And the Met are being irritating, as usual. Close the door and sit down.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jacobson said, and turned to the door. It was a heavy oak door, like all the doors in the Watchtower, designed to swing on a touch and not to let sound escape. Like many things about the Watch, they were designed to intimidate but had more than one use. Once you were safely inside, you knew nobody outside the room could listen.

  “Irish consignment get off all right?” Carmichael asked, once the door was safely shut.

  “Like clockwork,” Jacobson assured him, sitting down on the other side of the desk. “Biggest one yet, and not a ripple.”

  Carmichael smiled with relief. “Every time I worry—”

  “Oh, the Irish will do anything to stick it to the Brits,” Jacobson said. “Anything up to and including accepting our unwanted Jews, anti-Semitic though they might otherwise be. And we have the transport down to a routine by now. But it’s going to be a damn sight harder when the Gravesend facility gets finished.”

  “I kept saying that it wasn’t economic for us to have our own death camp, which is an argument that usually gets their attention, but the Prime Minister himself was insistent that we needed it. He winced at the word though, kept saying prison for intransigents and facility.” Carmichael sighed. “I don’t know how we’re going to get around it.”

  “Do you think Normanby’s envisioning an increase?” Jacobson asked, looking worried. “A general roundup, like in 1955?”

  Carmichael shook his head. “He’d be bound to mention that to me, and when I saw him on Friday it was nothing but the conference. He didn’t even mention the Gravesend facility until I brought it up. They couldn’t do a roundup without us. We’d have warning, like before, for what good it did. I think it suits him to have the good quiet Jews right there as targets. It keeps everyone a little bit afraid. Same as having me on television. He knows it increases the numbers of people taking potshots at me, and he doesn’t care. He wants people scared. He doesn’t even have to bother making things illegal if people are voluntarily not doing things because they know the Watch wouldn’t like it, and the Watch is watching.” Carmichael’s voice rose in vicious imitation of the advertisement as he parroted the slogan. “If he’s expecting an increase in deportees I think it’s the strikers and marchers he’s aiming it at.”

  “It won’t be deportations though; they’ll have to call it something else when we have our own facility.”

  Carmichael observed the distress in every line of his subordinate’s expression and hastened to reassure him. “You’re safe, anyway, Jacobson. You’re useful to them because they think they have something on you. And your family—”

  “My family are safe in Newfoundland with impeccable papers, except my wife, who just won’t go,” Jacobson said, quickly. “No, that’s not what I’m worried about. It’s just—how many Jews have been massacred now, in Europe? How many are left? And in a way, they’re all my people. Oh, we get some away—”

  “It would be a lot worse if not for us. We get a lot away. Twenty percent this year.” Carmichael did not want to mention 1955 again, did not even want to think of it. He dreamed about it, sometimes.

  “Twenty percent of those innocents we arrested in this country we managed to save. They weren’t all Jews.”

  “They were all innocent,” Carmichael said, vehemently. “We do as much as we can without risking being found out—because if we are, that’s the end of it, you know that; it would be as bad as it is on the Continent. The Inner Watch does as much as it safely can, and we’re increasing that all the time. Now that document issue is in your division instead of Ogilvie’s, we can increase what we’re doing there. We do have to keep being careful about who we recruit. We can’t slip up there or we can lose everything. And it’s such a lot to ask. Not everyone is prepared to live with death in their mouth.” Carmichael touched the side of his jaw where his false tooth was concealed.

  Jacobson reflexively touched his own cheek. “It all feels so futile in the face of—”

  Jacobson fell silent as the door swung open and Carmichael’s other Lieutenant-Commander, Ogilvie, came in. Carmichael didn’t like Ogilvie. He never had, though over the years he had learned to appreciate his efficiency. He was gleaming this morning; his balding head seemed to shine, his teeth flashed, and the effect was set off by a thin gold stripe in his tie. “Good morning Chief, Jacobson,” he said. “Heard the news?”

  Carmichael knew from experience that nothing could repress Ogilvie. Nevertheless, he replied with the morning’s Times headline, “ ‘Factory Owners Gun Down Strikers in Alabama’?”

  Jacobson choked, but Ogilvie sailed over it as Carmichael had known he would, with another flash of his teeth. “No, that the Duke of Windsor wants to come to the conference,” he said, taking up a position leaning on the wood paneling at the side of the door.

  “Edward the Eighth?” Jacobson said, twisting in his chair to look at Ogilvie. “He can’t!”

  “I don’t think the terms of his abdication actually included exile,” Carmichael said, slowly. “Certainly he hasn’t been back to Britain since, though. Why does he want to come now?”

  “He wants to come to the conference because he feels he has something to contribute to the peace of the world, or so he apparently says,” Ogilvie said. “He, or rather his minder, equerry, or whatever, Captain Hickmott, contacted the Home Office, the HO contacted us, and the flunky they spoke to had the sense to kick it up to me. I got on the blower to them, and so now I’m kicking it up to you, sir.” He stepped forward and handed Carmichael a piece of paper with Captain Hickmott’s name and number written neatly.

  “What did the HO say?” Carmichael asked, waving Ogilvie to the other chair.

  “Said they wanted to know about the security aspects of it before making a political decision,” Ogilvie said, pulling the chair closer to the desk. “Don’t want to get caught with a hot potato, if you ask me.”

  Carmichael sighed and looked down at the drifts of papers. “It was going to be a nightmare anyway. Adding one spoilt Royal Duke won’t make much difference from a security point of view. It’s the political side they need to think about, bringing him back, how people are going to react. The abdication is still an emotional issue for a lot of people.”

  “He shouldn’t get any special security, or special attention either. You can’t pack in being king because you’re sick of the responsibility and then expect everyone to treat you just the same,” Jacobson said, with a vindictiveness that surprised Carmichael.

  “Hark the herald angels sing, Mrs. Simpson’s pinched our king!” Ogilvie put in, musically.

  Carmichael remembered that being sung in his school in 1936, the year Edward VIII had, astonishingly, preferred to marry an American divorcée to being King of England. Wallis Simpson was twice-divorced, older than the King, and not even pretty. “He isn’t planning to bring her, is he?”

  Ogilvie shrugged. “Don’t know, sir. Captain Hickmott didn’t mention her. But the conference starts next week, so they’d need a pretty quick answer.”

  Wallis? Carmichael wrote on the paper Ogilvie had given him.

  “Anyone asked the Palace how they feel?”

  “Not so far as I know, sir,” Ogilvie said.

  “Well, your instinct to kick it upstairs seems sound, and I’m going to do the same. I’ll speak to the Duke of Hampshire about it today, and if necessary get him to talk to the Palace,” Carmichael said, making another note and underlining it. “Anything else? Anything else important?”

  “No, sir,” Jacobson said, getting to his feet. “I’ll get on if that’s all right with you.”

  “Thanks again for bringing up my parcel,” Carmichael said, as Jacobson slipped out. “Ogilvie?”

  “Cou
ple more things on the conference front. Thought you might like to know that the Spanish security people have joined the Eye-Ties and the Gestapo in poking around London already.” Ogilvie rolled his eyes. “They came in on the regular airship from Rome yesterday. I had a meeting with their top fellow last night. The Japs are arriving today, so no doubt we’ll have them underfoot as well. Fortunately, everyone else seems happy to trust us or doesn’t have much choice about trusting the Jerries.” He laughed heartily, and didn’t seem to notice that Carmichael didn’t join him. “The Frogs aren’t sending anyone except a few guards with Marshal Desjardins, and the same with the other Continental states, King of Denmark and so on. I suppose they’re right thinking that there are enough Gestapo around to look after the pack of them.”

  On Carmichael’s desk sat three black telephones, heavy with authority, one of them half buried in the drifts. He put out a hand to the nearest of them, then thought better of it and looked back at Ogilvie. “You’re doing well with all this,” he said. “Here’s another job. After the state opening of the conference—the procession and all that—it’s just a case of getting everyone from their embassies and hotels to St. James’s every day. The top people won’t be staying the whole course. Franco, Hitler, and so on, they’ll stay a few days and party, then come back to sign the treaty when it’s all settled. I expect the Japanese will stay, as it’s such a long way for them. I’ve been working on that regular conference security, but I’d like to delegate the procession to you. Make plans that’ll let the people out to cheer and wave flags but prevent assassins from being among them.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ogilvie said, beaming. “Can I alter the route, if necessary?”

  “Do what you need to. Set up as many checkpoints as you like. Cooperate with the foreign security people if you can, while keeping a discreet eye on them. Talk to the FO about precedence, they’ve hammered something out. I’ve got a list here.” Carmichael fished on his desk and came up with it. “Here you are. The Queen goes first, then Herr Hitler, then Mr. Normanby, then the Japanese; after that it gets complicated.”