Curtain of Fear (3 page)

The thought that he might be about to achieve through favouritism the promotion which he had earned by merit, but was denied by lack of influence, was another that made Nicholas' conscience squirm. Yet again he had quieted it with the sophistry that the higher his standing in the academic world the greater would be the regard paid to his articles championing the rights of the toiling masses.

In fact, during the past fortnight his mind had taken on an entirely new orientation. Almost unconsciously he had come to
accept that Wendy would bring him not only married bliss but a new life of ease and comfort, and hitherto unhoped-for opportunities to become a more potent force in the political field.

But that morning he had been rudely awakened from this happy dream. She had made it unmistakably clear that their political views were utterly irreconcilable. He could still have her and the ease and comfort, but there was a price to be paid for those things. Not only had his cherished plan of making her his willing helpmate finally gone up in smoke; she was not even prepared to tolerate a continuance of his own activities on their present modest scale.

Despite his very human tendency to find plausible excuses for wandering from the straight and narrow path, Nicholas was at heart a man of great integrity. Desperately as he wanted Wendy for his wife, he knew that he could not have her on those terms.

As the train rumbled into Euston he made up his mind about that. On Monday he must tell her that he meant to adhere to the undertaking he had given his friends to attend the Conference of the resurrected I.L.P. the following weekend. That was, he knew, to risk that she might throw him over there and then, once and for all. That risk had to be taken; but there was at least a hope that she would give him another chance. If she did he would meet her wishes as far as he possibly could in the future, and by treating his political work as a thing apart, do his utmost to prevent it from interfering with their social life; but whatever happened he must continue his self-imposed task of writing and speaking on behalf of the helpless millions who were incapable of writing or speaking for themselves.

At half past six he arrived at the Russell Hotel, and having left his bag in the cloak-room, went through to the cocktail bar, where he had arranged to meet his cousin. Bilto Novák was there at a table in a corner drinking a whisky and soda. He was ten years older than Nicholas, a shade shorter, a little broader in the shoulders, and had a touch of grey above the ears in his red hair; otherwise their physical resemblance was striking. Their faces were the same shape, their eyes the same colour,
and both had the lean cheeks and jutting chin inherited from a common grandfather; so anyone seeing them together would at once have assumed them to be brothers.

That they had seen little of one another in recent years was mainly due to Bilto's long stay in Canada and the United States, and since his return to England the opportunities for them to meet in London had been few and far between. But in the early nineteen-thirties Nicholas had spent several of his summer holidays with Bilto's parents in Prague. He had then been a schoolboy and Bilto a University student, but despite the difference in their ages a strong affection had grown up between them, and the mutual memory of it made them greet one another now with the happy handshake of old intimates.

Asked what he would drink Nicholas chose a gimlet, and Bilto ordered him a double with another whisky for himself. Then, with that directness which was one of Nicholas' characteristics, he asked his cousin the reason for this urgent request to meet him in London. Glancing at the nearby tables, two of which were occupied, Bilto lowered his voice and replied, “It is a private matter so I'd rather not talk about it here. After dinner we'll go up to my room and settle this business there. In the meantime tell me about yourself. How are you liking it at Birmingham?”

Nicholas shrugged. “I've no complaints. I know I'm doing a good job and I think I'm pretty popular with my students—with those who come from the lower income groups, anyway—and one can hardly expect the minority who have capitalist backgrounds to like some of the policies that I advocate in my lectures.”

“Do they allow you a free hand to say what you like?”

“Oh yes. That's one of the good things about England; and the tradition that no one should be penalised for the free expression of his political views is particularly strong in the universities. Of course, I don't go the whole hog, as my bosses would be bound to kick at that; but I'm managing to give a useful grounding in the principles of true Socialism to a number of highly-absorbent young people.”

“What do you imply by the term ‘true Socialism'?” Bilto inquired.

“You ought to know,” Nicholas replied quickly, “since you grounded me in it yourself when I was a kid and you were a student in Prague.”

“It is generally referred to by another name,” Bilto said with a grin.

Nicholas grinned back. “I know; but ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet'; and it's getting the principles of the thing into the heads of the coming generation of intellectuals that counts.”

“Your subject, Political Economy, provides the perfect vehicle for that. But how about your colleagues? Don't they see what you are up to?”

“As I've just implied, it is very much a live-and-let-live world, and quite a lot of the younger ones incline in varying degrees towards the Left. Unless someone monitored all my stuff and that of the others too, they would have difficulty in differentiating between our shades of opinion.”

“Yes, I suppose that's true. Have you any prospects of advancement?”

“Not as things stand at the moment. The Senior Professor who has the most influence over my section is an old crook named Benjamin Salting-Sala. His principal assets are an acquaintance with half the people listed in Debrett and a Rabelaisian humour. He is the sort who goes about pinching the cheeks of the girl students, and gets away with it. God knows why, but they seem to like it, and look on him as a kind of funny uncle.”

“I seem to have heard of him somewhere,” Bilto remarked.

“That is quite probable. His influence is very far-reaching. His opinion is nearly always asked when the question arises of appointing a new Headmaster at one of the Public Schools; and it goes much further than that. It is said that he is even consulted from time to time by members of the Cabinet, on subjects entirely outside his own province.”

Bilto nodded. “It is one of the queer things about the English
that they often take major decisions on the advice of people who have no real qualifications to give it. That is why their foreign policy is so hopelessly unpredictable.”

“Maybe you're right. Anyhow, you can well imagine that a man of Salting-Sala's type has little use for a junior like myself. His patronage is strictly reserved for those who can afford to ask him to dinner and fill him up with Chateau Claret.”

“Still, you're a personable chap, Nicky; so I take it you manage to have quite an enjoyable social life on more modest lines.”

Nicholas' mind was so saturated with thoughts of Wendy that his immediate impulse was to tell. Bilto about her; but he temporarily repressed it and replied, “The various undertakings for furthering the movement we are both interested in are always short of funds, and I feel it is up to me to help as much as I can. That keeps me pretty short, but I know a few interesting people and go out with them for drinks or a snack now and again. I'm having more fun, though, now the tennis season has started again.”

The cousins were both tennis enthusiasts, so while they had another drink they talked of the game, and the prospects of their favourite players in the approaching championship tournament at Wimbledon. Then, after a while, Bilto glanced at the clock and said:

“It's a quarter past seven. Come on; let's go in to dinner.”

Before they were half way through the meal Nicholas could restrain himself no longer, and blurted out, “I'm by no means certain of things yet, but I'm hoping to get married in the fairly near future.” Then he launched into a glowing description of Wendy.

After listening to him for a few minutes, Bilto shot him a swift apprehensive look, and said, “From all you say she sounds a typical bourgeois, and not at all a suitable wife for anyone who thinks as we do. Does this mean that you have succumbed to the flesh-pots and are going over to the enemy, Nicky?”

“Not on your life!” Nicholas declared. “But it is that which makes things still uncertain. Her father is the typical blood-lusting Briton
produced by the Public Schools. He won a D.S.O. as a young Major in the First World War, and served in the second as an Intelligence Officer. If a third broke out to-night he would chuck up his business to-morrow to get back into any sort of uniform—if they'd have him; so it is hardly to be wondered at that the whole family is for all Queen and Country, and regard even futile old Attlee as first cousin to the Devil.”

“I see; and having been a conscientious objector in the last show-down puts you on a pretty bad wicket.”

Nicholas flushed slightly and looked down at his plate. “They don't know about that, and I see no reason why I should make my case worse by telling them. I've let them assume that I spent the war working on a farm because my health was not then up to the standard required by the Services.”

Again Bilto glanced a little apprehensively at him, and asked, “Isn't that putting one foot on the slippery slope?”

“No. I don't regard it in that way. The past is past, and all that really matters is that I should have a clear conscience about the future.”

“Anyhow, I take it that the girl's family are opposed to her marrying you, and that is the fence you have got to get over?”

“No, that's not it. Wendy reckons she can manage her family if we get that far; it is her own attitude that is the real trouble. She has been reasonable enough in agreeing that we should both stick to our own ideas on politics and not argue about them; but she is trying to make it a condition of our marriage that I should put our social engagements before my political obligations. And that I am determined not to do.”

“Good for you, Nicky!” Bilto nodded quickly. “It would be a tragedy if you allowed this young woman to persuade you to throw your hand in. If you keep faith with your convictions you may go far; what is more, if things really go our way, in a few years' time I may be in a position to do something pretty big for you. I've read some of your articles and I think they are absolutely first-class.”

Nicholas beamed with pleasure. “Do you really?”

“I do. So for God's sake don't soften up with this girl of
yours. If you can get her under your thumb, though, and then marry her, that should be all to the good. In the future as we visualise it, everyone will be provided for in accordance with their past or present usefulness to the World State, and no form of currency will be necessary; but as long as things remain as they are, money is not only a necessity but a most potent weapon; so it is up to all of us to get control of as much of it as we can.”

“You wouldn't think it wrong, then, to marry a woman solely for her money?”

“Certainly not, if your intention is to use the bulk of it for the furtherance of the cause; but if it so happens that you want to marry her anyway because you are in love with her, and she is willing to have you, then you're a mighty lucky fellow.”

Bilto took a drink of the second large whisky that he had had with his dinner, sat back, and, after a moment's pause, went on. “As a matter of fact, although I haven't mentioned it before, I am hoping to get married myself. My intended is in no position to bring me any filthy lucre, but as my future prospects happen to be very different from yours, that is immaterial. Like you, though, I have been faced with certain difficulties, and I still dare not count my chickens.”

Nicholas looked across at his cousin with quick interest. “That we should both be in much the same boat at the same time is most intriguing. Do tell me what sort of difficulty you are up against.”

“I think I'm pretty well over it now,” Bilto replied. “All the same it was a very tricky one. My girl—or woman, I suppose I should say, as she has already been married twice—is a Czech, and certain people who have their hooks in her have been making her play a very dangerous game. My problem has been to get them to release her so that we can both settle down to marry with quiet minds. The job was further complicated by the fact that although she is under their thumb, she looks on it as her duty to work for them, so would not willingly give it up. In fact, like your girl, if she were free to choose she might decide to throw me over rather than agree to lead the sort of life I want her to; so in case she felt impelled to sabotage my plans before
the deal went through I haven't even dared to discuss them with her. The only way I could see to work it was to present her with a
fait accompli
. Once she knows that she has definitely been sacked and stands no chance of being re-employed, I am quite certain that she'll marry me; then it won't be long before she realises how darned lucky she is to be out of it, instead of being liable at any time to find herself behind bars.”

“And you reckon you've fixed it?”

“As good as. Very fortunately I was able to dovetail the whole thing with certain other plans of my own. I have good reason to believe that by this time she is already on the right side of the Iron Curtain and out of danger.”

Into Nicholas' mind there floated a vague picture of an attractive widow in the middle thirties who possessed courage and intelligence, and had either been working for the Czech underground or been sent into Czechoslovakia from time to time as a secret agent on behalf of one of the United Nations' espionage bureaux. His memories of Prague were still clear, and for a moment he tried to imagine this woman of Bilto's moving furtively along the darkened streets at night on her dangerous secret business.