Half a Crown (20 page)

“Would it be all right if I answered that, Mr. Bannon?” Tibs asked, giving the cameras time to come back to him. “We in Her Majesty’s Government also have some concern about the ethics of sending our criminals off to work camps on the Continent. The idea of prison camps seemed a much more humane idea than hanging, or even life imprisonment, and when the Reich first offered to let us use their facilities we jumped at the chance. We inherited prisons that were unsanitary and overcrowded, and once someone had become an offender they were able to contribute nothing more to society. In the camps they work until they die. But as the Duke of “Windsor has suggested, there was something a little un-English in shipping them off overseas. This was always intended to be a temporary solution. So we have been building our own facility, at Gravesend in Kent, which will be finished by the end of this year, which we expect to be able to meet all our needs, and to be just as efficient as any other such camp.”

Tibs beamed. Bannon and the Duke of Windsor looked rather taken aback. “So we’ll have our own concentration camp?” Bannon asked.

“That’s right. We invented them, you know, in the Boer War.”

“Well, well,” Bannon said. “That was something of a bombshell. And speaking of bombs, General Nakajima, do you really expect the Atomic Bomb to keep the peace? So far it seems to have devastated Russia.”

“Parts of the former USSR will glow in the dark for many years to come,” General Nakajima agreed. “But now that the bomb has been used, it’ll never need to be used again. The threat is enough. Nobody would be foolish enough to risk annihilation by going to war with a nation that has it, and very soon all nations will have it. We’re entering the era of Total Peace, as I said before.”

“But for now, only the Third Reich have it,” Bannon said.

“You’re wrong there, Mr. Bannon,” the General said. “Imperial
Japan has it, and I’d be surprised if the Great British Empire doesn’t have it too. Isn’t that so, Duke?”

Tibs, appealed to, blinked. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that,” he said. “Classified information.”

“No, you’re making a mistake there,” the General said, leaning back in his chair comfortably. “The thing with the Atomic Bomb is to be perfectly open about having it, so that everyone knows what they’re dealing with. Now say just for example that we wanted to capture Singapore, or Hong Kong. If we know you have the bomb, why then we might well hold back in case you dropped it on Tokyo. Likewise if you wanted Shanghai or Manila, you wouldn’t just snap it up if you knew we could take out London.”

“There could still be wars between smaller powers,” Bannon ventured.

“There certainly could, until they all develop their own atomic program,” Nakajima said, smiling. “And there could be wars between the greater powers and the smaller powers, just as long as spheres of influence were clearly understood so that nobody accidentally trod on the toes of one of the other great powers. That’s one of the things I expect we’re going to be talking about at this peace conference, spheres of influence. That’s one of the reasons it’s so important, and why the Emperor has sent his son so we can make binding agreements. That’s probably the most important thing we’re going to be discussing after settling the borders. For instance, how would Great Britain feel if we were interested in, say, Hawaii? Or San Francisco? The East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere trades a great deal with the west coast of the USA. The United States have been at war with us and with you in the last generation. We both beat them, but let them survive. They’re weak. President Yolen can’t keep proper control. Maybe it’s time to carve them up between us, as Russia is being carved between us and the Reich. Or maybe not. That’s the kind of thing we’re going to be discussing.” He beamed.

Bannon turned to the Duke of Windsor. “Your Highness, you’re here for the peace conference too; do you feel the same way?”

“I know that Britain has always been great, and always will be great. The way she rules the waves may change, new technologies arise—we don’t still use the weapons of Drake’s day, and new weapons always mean new tactics. But we will always rule the waves. When I was a baby, a photograph was taken of Queen Victoria, who was my great-grandmother, holding me in her arms. On either side of the chair stood my father and my grandfather, the future George V and Edward VII. That picture represented four generations of England’s monarchs. We’ve been here a long time, and we’ve been great for a long time, and we’ll carry on being great. The world has been devastated by war, but we’ve stood firm. Now we may be entering a new era, as the General here says. I don’t know. But I do agree with him on one thing. The world needs strong leaders. Too often great countries wither away because they’re led by women and weaklings. Compromises get made. That must never happen to us. Britain must stay strong, must remain Britain, must keep her place in the world.”

“Well, this has all been very interesting, and it’s about time to wrap up now,” Bannon said, with a rapid glance at the clock and the gesticulating director. “Thank you everyone, you’ve given us all a great deal to think about. I don’t know if we really are entering a new era, but I’ll be here again next Sunday with another selection of guests, so that’s all from
This Week,
until next week.”

The red lights on the cameras went off, and so did the brightest of the overhead lights, leaving the room seeming almost dark. Bannon mopped his face. “We haven’t had as many revelations as that on the show for some time,” he said. “Thank you, everybody.”

Mrs. Maynard was sleepy, so she wasn’t at all reluctant to leave the ball. She looked down her nose at me as we got into the car, but I was used to that. When we got home, Nanny helped us undress, then Betsy and I talked half the night. What we decided was that I couldn’t keep on saying no without Sir Alan believing it, but that it had probably already gone far enough to stop him being able to propose to Betsy. She was delighted. I, on the other hand, was confused. I didn’t want to marry him for the triumph of it, or even to be a lady, but I was thrilled he’d proposed, that I’d had the possibility of all of that. I would have fallen asleep in Betsy’s room, which I had plenty of times before, but she shooed me out because of her arm. Even in my own bed I slept badly. I kept waking out of complicated dreams in which one of us was getting married, or being crushed in the riot, and sometimes both at once, walking up the aisle and slipping and being trampled and “Here Comes the Bride” turning to the pretty song the British Power man had sung.

I woke ridiculously late. They usually let us sleep in on days after balls, only waking us if there was a luncheon party. I got up slowly, yawning, and smiled at my little vase of primroses as I pulled on my nylons. I was much too late for breakfast, and as I buckled my watch on I realized I was only just in time for lunch. I rushed downstairs
and took my place at the table. Betsy wasn’t there. Mr. Maynard grunted, and Mrs. Maynard glared at me. I wasn’t aware of having done anything extra awful, so I ate my lunch quietly—roast lamb and mint sauce, since it was Sunday. “How’s Betsy?” I asked over the apple crumble and custard. “I haven’t seen her this morning.”

“She’s still sleeping,” Mrs. Maynard said.

“We both missed church then,” I said, thinking that I had worked out what was making her so unreasonably cross. “We’ll have to go to evensong.”

“There’s a very nice sung evensong at St. Luke’s,” Mr. Maynard said. “I might stroll down with you myself before dinner.”

Mrs. Maynard did not stop glaring, and Sunday morning church wasn’t obligatory in London anyway, not for people like us, so it couldn’t have been that. I found out what I’d done when we moved into the drawing room for coffee. Another enormous bouquet had arrived for me from Sir Alan—and on a Sunday! This one consisted entirely of roses. He did have the good sense to have made them mixed colors, to make the message slightly less unsubtle, but even so it was an unmistakable declaration. The card, which I knew Mrs. Maynard would have seen already, read “To my dear Cinderella, after the ball. I am waiting with your slipper. —Alan.” She glared at me while I read it.

“Did Sir Alan send Betsy more flowers too?” I asked.

“A posy of anemones,” Mrs. Maynard said. That was far more the usual kind of floral tribute.

I wasn’t going to sit there and be glared at all afternoon, so I went back to my room and sprawled on the bed to read. I couldn’t settle to any of my serious books for Oxford, so I reread Alice Davey’s
Beau Homme Sans Merci.
Betsy came in just as I was getting to the part with the wild drive through the night to the Kentucky border. I put it down with hardly a pang and got up to hug her. “I think I don’t have to draw him off anymore,” I said. “He’s
sent me a huge thing of roses and you a little posy, and your mother is fuming.”

“She also wants to know where my pearls are,” Betsy said. “Nanny told her they were missing.”

“Do you want mine, quickly?” I asked, going over to the little Cartier box where I was still keeping them.

“She might know the difference if she was already suspicious, and Nanny certainly would. I told her I lost them in the riot, that they were in my pocket and fell out, and she’s scolded me for that and for the Sir Alan thing. She accused me of not making a push for him and letting you grab him under my nose.”

“Well, you didn’t make a push,” I said. “You knew it would upset her.”

“It’s just so uncomfortable when she is upset…,” she said.

We went to evensong at St. Luke’s with Mr. Maynard, who talked on the way back about the singing and about other church choirs he had heard. We dressed for dinner. I chose a subdued mauve dress with a scalloped hem. At dinner I tried to keep the choir subject going, asking Mr. Maynard about choirs in school and at Cambridge—he was a Trinity man—but although we did our best, it was anything but a sparkling conversation. Mrs. Maynard glared at me throughout, and Betsy looked as if she might be about to burst into tears.

After dinner, I decided to have it out with Mrs. Maynard. She couldn’t hurt me the way she could hurt Betsy—after all, she wasn’t my mother. The thought of my own mother, with, according to Aunt Ciss, improbably hennaed hair and painted fingernails, and probably at that moment pulling pints while swapping vulgar stories with her customers, was unexpectedly cheering.

“Mrs. Maynard, have I done something to displease you?” I began. “I couldn’t help noticing your disapproving glances.”

Mr. Maynard cleared his throat meaningfully.

“Nothing significant, I suppose,” Mrs. Maynard said, still glaring, but now at my roses. “I did speak to you about our hopes for Sir Alan in this very room, but it must have slipped your mind in the excitement….”

In this very room, on these very chintz chairs with their lace antimacassars, witnessed by these very flowers, I thought. “I think you have misunderstood,” I said.

Mrs. Maynard turned to Mr. Maynard with a dramatic gesture. “We know you’re to be Lady Bellingham,” he said, embarrassed. “I was at my club this morning and the news was all over.” He looked awkwardly at his wife. “I should like to congratulate you on such a splendid match. Sir Alan is a friend and a business associate of mine. And you, of course, being such a close friend of Betsy’s and with Mrs. Maynard bringing you out, are almost like another daughter to us.”

Mrs. Maynard continued to glare. Betsy was smiling to herself.

“I am not engaged to Sir Alan,” I said. “He proposed and I declined.”

“Now that’s not very likely,” Mrs. Maynard burst out.

“Nevertheless, it is the case,” I said.

“You’ll change your mind,” Mr. Maynard said, in a fatherly tone. “Sir Alan is very confident.”

“I don’t know how you could do this to Betsy!” Mrs. Maynard said.

“Theresa!” Mr. Maynard reproved his wife. “There was no understanding between Betsy and Sir Alan.”

“I didn’t like him,” Betsy said.

At that moment, just as both of her parents were drawing breath to speak, Goldfarb knocked and glided in with the salver. “Some members of the constabulary to see Mr. Maynard and Miss Royston,” he said.

I was relieved at the interruption but I couldn’t think what they
could possibly want with me on a Sunday evening. It wasn’t Uncle Carmichael’s style to send Watchmen around on his personal errands.

“Send them in,” Mr. Maynard said, his eyes flicking to me and then away.

There were three of them, all in uniform; the horrible redhead from Paddington and two others. The redhead’s gaze rested on me for a moment, before briefly looking over Betsy and Mrs. Maynard. I felt suddenly quite sick to my stomach, and my throat spasmed. I hadn’t thought about the man from Paddington at all; I’d quite deliberately avoided thinking about him ever since I’d been able to get away. “Mr. Maynard, Miss Royston, we believe you might be able to help us in our inquiries. Would you accompany us to the police station?”

“Is this really necessary?” Mr. Maynard asked. There was something strained about his voice, usually so assured. “Can’t we answer whatever questions you have here?”

“It would be more convenient if you accompanied us,” the redhead said.

I guessed that my ace card had been trumped this time, but I played it anyway. “My uncle, Commander Carmichael of the Watch, will be sure to take a close interest,” I said.

“Oh, we know that,” the redhead said, and grinned at the older of his two companions.

“We’re taking a close interest in him, too,” the other man said.

“Commander Carmichael…?” Mr. Maynard asked, as if he didn’t believe what he’d just heard.

The policemen didn’t reply, just smiled to themselves.

“Are you arresting us?” Mr. Maynard asked. Mrs. Maynard gave a little gasp. I could just see Betsy out of the corner of my eye sitting as still as a statue, with her hands folded as they had been before the policemen came in. “Do you have a warrant?”

“I don’t need a warrant to arrest you under the Defence of the Realm Act,” the redhead said. “I’ll arrest you if you insist, but if you accompany us voluntarily and satisfy us as to your answers then that won’t be necessary. Miss Royston is, of course, still technically in custody.”