Page 65 of The Gathering Storm

Emma was thinking of something Kit had told her that his solicitor Peter Bracey had said to him: that since Wally’s first divorce had taken place in America, on the grounds of desertion, it could be challenged as invalid in England, where adultery was the only accepted ground. ‘That would mean,’ Kit had said, quoting Bracey, ‘that her marriage to Simpson was bigamous. And bigamy is a crime. If anyone thinks to raise that, she could go to prison.’

Kit had also mentioned something Lord Halifax had said when he bumped into him in the lobby of the House: that the Archbishop of Canterbury was deeply distressed that the King did not go to church, and felt that he would have difficulty anointing him at the Coronation. As for his marrying Mrs Simpson, he said no Anglican cleric would carry out the ceremony. He certainly would not.

But Emma kept the thoughts to herself. As Wally said, things had gone too far now.

Basil was reading a report that had come in on the wire from New York, headlined ‘MILLIONAIRES’ FLIGHT OVER NEW ENGLAND’. The operating company of the German airship Hindenburg, the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei, had arranged a special trip on the 9th of October as an advertisement for their transatlantic service. It was a ten-hour cruise for invited influential persons from New Jersey to Boston and back, with champagne and fine food and the inevitable speeches. The airship was luxuriously appointed, and even featured a lightweight aluminium piano. The public rooms included, Basil was amused to read, a smoking lounge, which he thought was rather risky for a vessel filled with combustible hydrogen. Though, he supposed, given that people would smoke, it was probably better to confine it somehow. The smoking lounge, he read, was pressurised to keep out any leaking gas, and was accessed by a single air-lock door behind the bar, so that the steward could check that the passengers coming out weren’t carrying a lit cigarette or pipe.

The Hindenburg, the largest thing ever to fly over the earth, was, of course, a valuable propaganda tool for the German government. The Nazi swastika was prominently displayed on her keel, and she had been flown over the Olympic stadium in Berlin that summer, dropping leaflets praising Nazi achievements.

What interested Basil most was that among the list of passengers, which included millionaires Nelson Rockefeller, M. G. B. Whelpley and Winthrop W. Aldrich – along with top naval officers, generals, government officials, senators, bankers, industrialists and the bosses of three American airlines – he found the name of Lennox Manning, head of Manning’s Radios and former presidential adviser on broadcasting.

‘What’s up?’ said Bob Zennor, who had ambled up behind him eating a Bath bun and looked over to see what Basil was reading. ‘Oh, the “Millionaires’ Flight”. Are you writing it up?’

‘Dickins said just a par, but he hinted there might be an article on the Nazi government background and the propaganda value to the Fascists.’

‘Yes, he’s red hot on Fascists, is our Mr Dickins,’ Zennor said.

Basil tapped the sheet. ‘Interestingly, I know one of the millionaires.’

‘You know a millionaire?’ Zennor said, in mingled awe and doubt.

‘Well, not know him personally, but I’m distantly related to him. Lennox Manning. He’s a sort of cousin of my father’s. Dad’s talked about him, and how he lived at Morland Place during the war – that’s where Dad grew up. I lived there too when I was a nipper. Don’t remember Lennox Manning – I was just a baby – but I’ve heard him talked about.’

‘Morland Place? Where’s that? Is that where your people live?’

Basil grinned. ‘I don’t have “people”. There’s no money in my bit of the family, I promise you. But it is quite a grand place. In Yorkshire. My great-uncle owned it, and my grandmother lived there and sort of ran it for him, so my aunt and uncles all lived there too when they were kids.’ He returned to the report, which contained a lot of effusive detail. ‘Do you think the old man will want the luncheon menu included? Swallow Nest Soup, whatever that is, cold Rhine salmon, tenderloin steak, Chateau Potatoes, beans à la Princesse, Carmen salad, and iced melon.’

‘Not unless you can prove that’s what Fascists eat when they grind the faces of the poor,’ said Zennor. He looked at the back of Basil’s head. ‘You seem a bit struck. You like airships? Particular interest of yours?’

Basil looked up. ‘My father worked on them, on the R100 and the R101. Mostly the 101.’

‘Oh!’ Zennor’s face creased in concern.

The R101 disaster had so shocked the nation that the airship-building programme had ended there and then, never to be revived. His father had often said it was a pity, since airships were more practical for long distances and for heavy freight. Basil knew, because he’d heard his father talking about it, that the Germans had experimented with using helium instead of hydrogen, because it was an inert gas and did not explode or burn. But helium was also heavier than hydrogen and did not provide nearly as much lift. The Germans must have decided they could not achieve sufficient payload with helium to make it commercially viable, because the Hindenburg, and her sister ship the Graf Zeppelin, were both hydrogen-filled.

‘Oh, Dad was all right. Actually, it’s a strange story. He was meant to go on the flight, but he was up a ladder doing a last-minute adjustment before it took off, fell off the ladder and concussed himself. So he was rushed to hospital, and was lying safely in a clean white bed when it came down in flames.’

‘That was a piece of luck,’ Zennor said.

‘Yes,’ said Basil. ‘When I think about it, he’s had a lot of lucky escapes.’

Kit had always been more sympathetic towards Wally than Emma was, but it was Emma who agreed, in response to a frantic telephone call, to go down to Felixstowe for a few days, while Kit said he would rather be boiled in oil.

‘Look at the weather!’ he said, gesturing towards the window. ‘Have you ever been to Felixstowe?’

‘No – have you?’

‘I’ve been to Aldeburgh, so I know what that coast is like. Bleak, bleak, bleak. The North Sea, darling! Unless Goddard’s found a centrally heated palace formerly owned by a rich American, I know just what the house will be like. Cold as a tomb, wind whistling in under the doors and round the window frames, fires that smoke, and damp sheets. No, you can’t ask it of me.’

‘I don’t ask it – Wally does.’

‘Well, someone has to stay at home with the girlies. If you’re really going, take your own bedding with you. And your furs.’

Emma agreed to go down for the weekend on Friday, the 16th of October. Kit bought her a hot-water-bottle as a going-away present, and packed the car with ‘the essentials’ – champagne, smoked salmon and books: The ABC Murders, Jamaica Inn, Eyeless in Gaza, Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Ballet Shoes.

‘I’m only going for a weekend,’ Emma protested. ‘I’ll only need one book.’

He looked horrified. ‘But think how ghastly if you only took one and found you couldn’t get on with it! Wally won’t have any in the house, and as for a handy bookshop – you are going to the ends of the earth, my cherub!’