Page 153 of The Gathering Storm

When it had been carefully manoeuvred into the back of the Vauxhall, wrapped in blankets for safety and secrecy, Uncle Lennie rounded off the perfect outing by taking Alec to luncheon in the restaurant at Schofield’s, the department store. They had steak with fried potatoes, and after that Alec had a Knickerbocker Glory, which was simply too marvellous for words. Plying the long spoon, through layers of ice cream and fruit, sponge and cream, glutted with sensory pleasure, Alec blurted, ‘This is the best day of my life, Dad!’

He plainly didn’t realise what he had called Lennie, and Lennie didn’t comment. It might never happen again, but it was a token of the feeling between them that Lennie treasured. Young David had never called Mr Murdstone ‘Dad’.

May was a beautiful month in France, and nowhere more beautiful than in the Touraine, with its meadows and trees and winding water. The lavish greenness was almost dazzling: it made James envy the cows for being able to eat that lush grass. It looked so delicious.

He’d thought his first meeting with Charlie Bedaux might be embarrassing, because he had left him so suddenly and not kept in touch, but Charlie did not hold grudges. He met him with the same warm openness as always.

Bedaux’s fortunes had sunk since the aborted visit to the States planned for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. After the German trip, the Nazis had returned to Bedaux his confiscated company, seized in 1933, and unpleasant rumours had circulated in America that he had been given it in return for unspecified services to them. In fact, it had cost him fifty thousand dollars, and the Nazi government seized it back again only six months later, without his ever having had any income from it. But his unpopularity in America was secured, and he was forced to flee to Europe when presented with a tax bill for a quarter of a million dollars. Since then he had been pursuing interests in Turkey, Greece, India, South Africa and other places, trying to recoup his fortunes.

James learned he was just back from doing unspecified business in Germany, and gave him a doubtful look. But Bedaux said, ‘Come on, James, I thought you knew me better than to believe those lies about me. I’m no Nazi sympathiser. I’m on the same side as you. I know about your Kindertransport efforts, by the way – well done!’

‘So what were you doing in Germany?’ James asked.

‘It has to be kept secret – you understand why – but there’s a lot of high-level opposition to Hitler. If he can be brought down before he invades another country … I’ll say no more. How’s my friend Hélène? She was flourishing, when I last saw her, despite the international situation. She’s the sort of person who falls on her feet. I like lucky people – they’re always better company.’

And James, remembering how kind he had been, not just after Tata’s death, but all through their association, allowed himself to sink back into the warm embrace of Charlie’s charm.

‘Tell me,’ Charlie said, ‘what’s Meredith been up to since she left us?’

This conversation was taking place on the occasion of the first delivery to the château: Meredith and Fern were having tea in the drawing-room, and Charlie had invited James outside for a smoke.

It had been, of course, the first question he had asked Meredith, when they’d met at last at Hélène’s. She had looked exactly the same to him as when he had last seen her –beautiful, intelligent, out of his reach. He had not been able to get much of her story that evening, among the other guests and the usual noise of a dinner party, but she had come again the next morning, before Hélène was up, and James had sat with her in a sunny bay window overlooking the street and they had talked for a long time.

In short, she had been at her father’s ranch until November 1938, helping her brothers run the place, feeling unable to leave her mother to their tender mercies: they were outdoorsmen, good people, but short on social graces and even shorter on conversation. But in September two things had happened: her mother, who had been growing frail for some time, died quietly in her sleep; and almost immediately, both her brothers had got married.

‘I was taken completely by surprise,’ she told James. ‘You think you know your own family, don’t you? I had no idea they had any interest in women. I’d never seen them do any courting. But the Cunninghams, who own the next spread to ours, are Scottish-American like us, run cattle and horses the same as us, and they had two daughters and no sons. So it was logic rather than romance.’ She laughed. ‘I’m not sure my brothers even knew until the last minute which one each of them was marrying. Maybe they tossed a coin. I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t even matter. There was a double wedding, two Cunningham females moved into our house, and there it was. Suddenly I wasn’t needed any more. I could have my life back. And I knew I didn’t want to spend it in Wyoming. I knew I was going to go back to Europe, but I didn’t know where. Then I read about the refugee camp in Perpignan.’

In December 1938, half a million Spanish refugees, fleeing the civil war, poured over the Pyrenees in the most terrible winter weather, and into southern France, where the authorities did their best to care for them, but were overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

‘They needed all the help they could get, every volunteer who could be mustered. So I went,’ she said simply. ‘Administration. Just recording their names and trying to reconnect divided families was a huge job. Driving, first aid. Trying to find somewhere for them to go. The USA took thousands, chartered a ship to take them, but it all had to be organised. I stuck at it until April, and then I decided I wanted to see Paris again, while I still could. You know, the rumours of war? And the obvious person to go to in Paris was Hélène. And here I am.’

She clasped her hands between her knees (she was wearing trousers – since Marlene Dietrich it was daring but acceptable, at least in France) and looked pensively out of the window. James admired her profile, wondering whether she remembered that day on the Pont Neuf when she had refused his offer of marriage but had given him permission to court her – surely an indication that she might one day say yes.

‘Why did you never write to me?’ he asked. Until he heard his voice, he hadn’t been sure he was going to, because the obvious, most likely answer, was the most hurtful one, wasn’t it? And he didn’t want to be hurt again. That magical evening, looking down at the river … So much water had passed under the bridge since then.

She turned back from the window and looked at him sadly, and he thought she was going to tell him the horrible truth, that she didn’t care for him, had never cared for him. She would try to do it kindly, let him down gently.

‘Oh, James,’ she said. ‘What would have been the point? I couldn’t leave the ranch. There I was in Wyoming, and there you were in Paris with half a world between us. As far as I knew, I was never going to be able to leave. Or, at least, not for years and years. And by then, your life and mine would have moved so far apart.’ She stopped, looked down at her hands, freed them from between her knees and folded them together. It looked like a casual movement, but he saw her knuckles whiten. ‘For all I knew,’ she said, ‘you were married.’ She looked up at him. ‘Why aren’t you?’

This was not the moment to mention Tata. ‘Why aren’t you?’ he countered.

She gave a dry bark of a laugh. ‘Have I not given you an idea of what life is like on a ranch in Wyoming? Who on earth could I have married? But you, with all the women in Paris no doubt chasing after you?’

‘But they weren’t you,’ he said.

She looked at him with disbelief. ‘Don’t tell me you never looked at another woman after I left.’

He thought the truth – or some of it – was safer: she was an intelligent woman. ‘I didn’t say that. I did look. I even kissed a few.’ She lifted a hand as if to stop him going further. ‘But they weren’t you. I asked you to marry me, don’t you remember?’

‘Boy-and-girl romance,’ she said dismissively. But her expression was not indifferent.

He said, ‘You told me then that I could court you. May I now?’

She laughed shakily. ‘What a nice, old-fashioned English word.’

He unfurled one of her hands from the other and held it in both of his. ‘May I?’ he asked again.

She looked at him and, no, she was not indifferent, but she was afraid. ‘I had no idea when I came here that I would meet you again. It’s almost as if I was never away, we were never apart. But the world is very different now. It’s a bad, dangerous place. Night is coming. It’s dusk already. We have so little time.’