Page 97 of The Gathering Storm

‘The official version is that their divorce was mutual and they remain the best of friends, but I don’t know how she really feels about him. I’m a little worried about how she’ll feel, being at close quarters on set with him.’

Lennie was thinking hard. ‘When is all this likely to come off?’

‘There’s a lot to iron out, but without major snags, first photography ought to start in the spring.’

‘That’s far enough from the break-up for them both to be grown-up about it. And Rose is a professional.’

‘I’ve just been pondering how best to put it to her.’

‘Point out that Dean will be playing the loser, the man she gets to reject. And that he’ll be playing second fiddle to Dick Randolph, while she’s the leading lady.’

‘Good thought. Yes, that’s a positive way to go.’

‘And point out that she could make a very great deal of money.’

Van Kerk laughed. ‘You really think that matters to her?’

‘I never knew an actress it didn’t matter to.’

‘Well, thanks. You’ve given me something to think about.’ He drummed his fingers on the table a moment, thinking, then came back to the present. ‘How is Anthea? Are you two still a couple?’ he asked politely.

‘Hardly that. We like each other’s company. It suits us both to have someone’s arm at parties and premières and so on. We’re friends.’

‘Good friends, is what I heard,’ Van said, twinkling.

‘Who told you that?’

‘Rose. But don’t worry,’ he responded to Lennie’s quick frown. ‘She wasn’t upset. Her attitude was “Good old Uncle Lennie. There’s life in the old dog yet.”’

James was only Charlie’s assistant, but since he opened the post each day, he could not help knowing that there was a great deal of resistance back home to the idea of the Windsors’ tour of Germany. The King and the Foreign Office had both declared it a very bad idea, given international tensions. If the Duke insisted on going, it must be made clear that he had no official status. The ambassador must not meet them on arrival in Berlin, the embassy must not entertain them, there must be no official engagements, and invitations connected with the tour must not be accepted by members of the embassy.

The Duke didn’t blame his brother: it was the Hardinges, Baldwin and the Establishment who were set on humiliating them. ‘They’ve been so bloody to me, why the hell should I do what they want? They’ve denied my wife her rights. And look at the shameful way I’ve been treated ever since I left England in December! When they see how we’re received in Germany, they’ll realise they can’t do without us.’

The Duchess said, ‘They’re small-minded people, with drab little lives. We’ll show them how things ought to be done. Show them a bit of sparkle and glamour.’

‘You’ll show them, darling,’ the Duke said adoringly.

Charlie was unconcerned by the disapproval at home. ‘The Duke’s going to study labour conditions, that’s all. And anything that improves Anglo-German relations can only be a good thing. Nobody wants another war. I’m coaching him on how to further world peace through labour reconciliation.’

‘Um – what does that mean?’ James asked.

‘Labour must be well treated and content if we’re not to see the breakdown of the capitalist system, like in Spain. The Duke’s always been concerned with the lot of the working man. What better leader could you find to head the movement?’

It sounded praiseworthy, but James suspected the Duke’s interest in working conditions was not as fixed as Charlie believed, and that his real purpose in visiting Germany was to give the Duchess a taste of a state visit: he was angry that she’d been cheated of being queen, and wanted her to see some red carpets and guards of honour.

James was also doubtful about the man he was liaising with in Germany, a Dr Robert Ley, head of the Nazi National Labour Front, who impressed him as rather a shady character. Still, Dudley Forwood, who was still the only equerry, told James the Duke believed strongly that the British and German races were of one origin and should always be united, and that mankind was in great danger from the Bolsheviks. ‘And,’ Forwood went on, ‘the Duke says that while he hopes there will never be another war, if there is we must be on the winning side, which means Germany, not France.’

James didn’t really know what to think. All he could do was his job – making sure that the tour went smoothly, and was a credit to Charlie’s organisation.

It started well. On the 11th of October, the train pulled into Friedrichstraße station, and the Duke and Duchess were received by a contingent of top Germans, headed by Dr Ley and a brass band, with a fleet of impressively large Mercedes cars waiting. The embassy was represented only by the Third Secretary, but the Duke and Duchess seemed delighted with the reception nevertheless, and James noted that Dr Ley bowed deeply to the Duchess and called her ‘Your Royal Highness’, which won him the Duke’s approval. The cars took the party to the Kaiserhof Hotel, with an escort of storm troopers. The procession passed through streets lined with a cheering crowd waving flags. They were, James noted, black-and-red Nazi flags, but there was no doubting the enthusiasm of the onlookers.

That evening there was a magnificent banquet attended by the Otto von Bismarcks, the Himmlers, the Goebbelses, Herr Hess and Herr Ribbentrop. Everything glittered, flowers were massed in every corner, an orchestra played softly and, best of all, everyone bowed and curtsied to the royal guests. A thousand press bulbs lit up the night. James had to admit that Ley had come up to scratch.

The rest of the tour went smoothly, with a punishing schedule of visits, starting at eight in the morning each day and finishing at five in the evening. The Duke visited housing projects, hospitals and youth camps, factories, a coal mine, new highways, a veterans’ home, a foundry, a military airport, public gardens, a training school for Hitler Youth, a war museum, sports facilities, a Turkish bath. And in the evenings there were more banquets, exhibitions of folk dancing, dinners with eminent Nazis, a performance of Lohengrin – even a visit to a beer hall. Everywhere they were received rapturously, photographed by press from a dozen countries, wafted seamlessly from Dresden to Nuremberg to Stuttgart to Munich in the glossy limousines. James couldn’t fault the organisation. It was a great success.

The climax was a meeting with the Führer himself, Adolf Hitler, at his mountain home, the Berghof, near Salzburg. He came down the steps to greet them in person, and bowed and kissed the Duchess’s hand, which pleased the Duke. The Duke, Forwood and Hitler then went to the Führer’s study for a private meeting, while the Duchess was given afternoon tea by Rudolf Hess.

On the way back to the car afterwards, James heard the Duke say to the Duchess, ‘We hit it off immediately. I found him thoroughly agreeable. Of course I didn’t allow myself to get into a political discussion, but I could tell we had a lot in common. He only wants a fair deal for his country, and who can argue with that? We mustn’t let scaremongers drive a wedge between us.’

Despite this warm endorsement, James heard later from Forwood that the Duke had been greatly annoyed that Hitler had provided a translator, one Paul Schmidt, even though he, the Duke, spoke flawless German. He had told Hitler that he did not require a translator, and Hitler had replied coldly that the Duke was to speak in English. The interview continued awkwardly in that way, with the hapless Schmidt in the middle, and the Duke saying to him irritably every few minutes, ‘That’s not what I said to the Führer,’ or ‘That’s not what the Führer said to me.’

On the 23rd it was all over, and they took the train back to Paris, where the Duke and Duchess went to their usual suite at the Meurice. James was able to relax at last, and consider the visit. His impression was of everything in Germany being very clean, lots of new roads and buildings, of people seeming to be well-fed and well-dressed, of everything being efficiently organised. There was no glimpse, as you had in London, of slum side-streets and grimy alleys. It was as if the whole country had been washed and dressed in its Sunday best. Of course they had only been shown the bits they were meant to see. Still, it was an achievement, was it not, for the battered and destitute Germany he had read about after the war to have come so far?

But there had been an incident that had bothered him. In Leipzig, they had not been able to stay in the best hotel, but had been taken to one that was definitely inferior. James had questioned Ley, who had said at first only that the original hotel had been closed and was unavailable, but when James pressed him, he told him that the state had closed it, because the owner was Jewish. It was said as though that was sufficient reason.

It troubled him, too, that whereas crowds lining the street in London would be kept in order by ordinary policemen, in Germany it was by armed soldiers. And there had been an awful lot of swastika flags all over the place, hanging from buildings, painted on vehicles, waved by the onlookers. Being English, he was just a little uncomfortable with too much flag-waving. It was not the British way.