The Other Side of Love (20 page)

“Next time you’re in Berlin, if you can drop me a report of what you observe

“It would be an honour, sir.”

“I have no parliamentary sanctions, Aubrey. I can offer you no rewards.”

“That’s the last thing to worry about.”

“Excellent.”

Churchill dropped his unlit well-chewed cigar-stub in an ashtray, then went about sniffing and lighting a fresh one with a ceremonious pleasure that reminded Aubrey of his grandfather. In this case, however, it was not an active old man camouflaging his blindness but a fisherman’s ploy, giving out the line before reeling in the catch. Aubrey, aware of being the fish, felt a sharp hook of curiosity. So Churchill desired more from him than his word-pictures of Berlin. But what?

Churchill took his first appreciative puff.

“Is it possible for you to dine with us myself and a friend, Major Judson Downes?”

So the line was to be stretched out further.

“I’d be delighted, sir.”

IV

A male secretary telephoned with the address in Morpeth Terrace, which turned out to be just off Victoria Street, a block of blood-red brick flats opposite the Roman Catholic cathedral, within walking distance of Parliament and - or so Aubrey would learn shortly two doors down from Morpeth Mansions where Winston Churchill had his London flat. Major Downes, whose dinner-jacket was neatly pinned at the left elbow, introduced himself with the information that Churchill could not join them until after the meal. Aubrey’s ragged smile didn’t hide his disappointment.

His host managed his cutlery in the one-handed American style, he spoke with an American accent, and at first Aubrey assumed him an American. But during dinner the major mentioned that he was Canadian and had lost his arm in 1917 in Flanders, where he

126

had served in the trenches under Churchill. After the war Downes had returned to Canada; and, though he didn’t say as much, it was obvious that he had dug a considerable fortune out of his Manitoba mining venture. Three years ago, in 1935, he had retired, settling in London. He spent many of his weekends at Chartwell, the Churchill home in Kent.

Aubrey ate little. His curiosity had reached a high whining pitch by a quarter to eleven, when Churchill made his appearance. The major excused himself.

Slumping back in the largest of the armchairs, Churchill loosened his black tie and brushed a hand over cigar ash that had fallen on the cummerbund encircling his plump belly.

“Aubrey, I’ve only met you once, but my instincts are first-rate. You’re a quiet diffident man who does what must be done; not the sort to blow your own trumpet or sound off. In other words, completely trustworthy.”

Pleasure warmed Aubrey.

“That’s most kind of you, sir.”

“What I say now is so highly sensitive that it is known only to a few of our group.”

“You have an organization, sir?”

“A small weak one. However, we are sponsored by the highest in the land. Our monarch. King George has a small discretionary fund for secret operations if the kingdom is endangered, and it is His Majesty’s belief that at this hour such is the case.”

Churchill’s formal phraseology rumbled from deep within his slumped chest.

“I’m telling you this to prove my confidence in you.”

“I’m deeply appreciative, but it’s most unnecessary. I’ve already given my word to help.”

“Excellent, excellent. Then, I won’t bApresumptuous if I ask to meet your German cousin.”

*

“Kathe?”

Traulein Kathe Kingsmith, yes.”

Churchill pronounced it the same way Araminta did - Katy.

“But why?”

“Herr Hitler, or so I believe, was delighted with her performance at the Olympic Games.”

“She won a gold medal for Germany,”

Aubrey said warily.

“In the twohundred-metre dash.”

“Through her halfbrother, she is connected to General von Hohenau of their General Staff”

“I won’t let Kathe be involved in your group.”

The interruption startled Churchill.

“What?”

“The reason I published Tarnhelm under another name was to protect the German side of the family. Mr Churchill, I’ll do whatever you ask I’m more than willing - but there’s nothing that would induce me to put Kathe, or any of my German family, in jeopardy.”

127

‘All Europe nay, indeed, all mankind is in jeopardy.”

The grandiloquent words rang with rumbling undertones, as if being orated in some large draughty auditorium. After a brief but searching glance from under his beetled brows, Churchill sat back.

“Your cousin,”

he said in a normal tone,

“has already taken sides. She’s against the Nazi regime.”

“Sir, I can’t understand why you think that,”

Aubrey said. But beneath his dinner-jacket he had gone cold. Schultze, he thought. If Winston Churchill, on this side of the English Channel, with limited resources and inadequate manpower, had uncovered Kathe’s professedly minor errands for Schultze, surely the Gestapo must be aware, too.

“A Jewish refugee informed us that he was helped by an Olympic medallist.”

Churchill exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“A beautiful young lady whose photograph he recalled seeing.”

“God

“There’s no need to sound so tragic. Bluntly, if Fraulein Kingsmith were suspect, she’d be of no use to us. As it is … well, who could be more perfect? Connected to the von Graetzes, close to General von Hohenau. Acquainted with that villainous man.”

Aubrey fingered back his reddish-brown hair. His jaw had hardened to the mule-like obstinacy that Araminta called the Kingsmith clench.

“She’s put herself in enough danger.”

“Why not let the young lady decide for herself? That’s all I’m asking. Will you arrange a meeting when she visits London?”

“She has no plans to come here.”

“Two days ago she applied for a visa.”

“She has? Sir, your network is neither small nor weak.”

“You will be having visitors from both sides of the Atlantic,”

Churchill said.

128

“Darling!”

Araminta, waving, vigorously squirmed her way along the crowded platform at Victoria to engulf Kathe in a cloud of gardenia perfume. Brushing aside Kathe’s effort to thank her for coming to the station, she cried:

“The entire family’s agog! I hear even indulgent New York is against Kingsmith plus Kingsmith. Is it true they sent a you’re-too-young letter?”

“Aunt Rossie did,”

Kathe said.

“Doubtless written on asbestos to douse p sion. The older generation!”

Before this, tears had come to Kathe’s eyes whenever she thought about Rossie’s veiled warning, but Araminta’s amused tolerance made her aunt’s objections seem fustily ridiculous.

“Tell me all. Does he write a million letters? Does he kiss divinely? Oh, Peter, in case you haven’t guessed, this is my notorious cousin, Katy. Katy, this is Peter.”

The young man who had followed Araminta was the Honourable Peter Shawcross-Mortimer, Aubrey’s friend from Oxford who now squired Araminta to parties and balls in the upper reaches of Mayfair. With his chiselled profile, sooty eyelashes and eyebrows, his black hair in need of a barber’s attention, Peter resembled a leading man with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre rather than the scion of an earldom granted in Shakespeare’s days.

“This is a pleasure, Fraulein Kingsmith.”

He enunciated slowly as if she might have difficulty following.

“I feel as though we’ve met. I’ve heard so much about you.”

129

‘Let’s hope Aubrey’s damped down the worst of Araminta’s scandalous rubbish, Mr Shawcross-Mortimer,”

Kathe said, realizing that, though Peter’s eyes were both dark, one was blue, the other brown.

“But you speak perfectly,”

he said, surprised.

“Why not? Uncle Alfred’s as English as treacle,”

Araminta snapped.

“And do see to her trunk or we’ll be here all night.”

As the shortish figure disappeared into the crowd, she shook her head ruefully.

“Poor Peter, I do lead him a merry dance.”

“But he seems so nice. Why be cruel?”

“Oh, don’t be an idiot. Because I adore him. Do you think you and Wyatt’re the world’s only star-crossed lovers?”

A transitory grief drabbed Araminta’s flawless complexion.

“His family’s worse than ours by a long shot - they ignore me. I’m beneath notice. I can just hear them:

“Kingsmith a shopkeeper, don’t you know.” And Peter’s not the sort to tell them to chuck it all.”

Then she drew a breath, and her vivacity flowed back. Linking her arm in Kathe’s, she said:

“How long is this wait?”

“Two and a half more years. At Christmas of 1940 we’ll have the privilege of being engaged.”

“He’s sharing Aubrey’s digs, isn’t he?”

In March, Aubrey had rented a bachelor flat in Shepherd’s Bush.

“Well, what could be simpler? With Aubrey at Kingsmith’s all day, you’ll have every chance to see each other alone.”

Circling a porter, Araminta repeated meaningfully:

“Alone.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Don’t be such an infant. Of course it is. You’re running high temperatures, both of you. There’s only one way to get the fever out of your system. I’ll bet that the physical thing is all either of you want actually. Not that I blame you. He has a look as if he’d be absolutely marvellous in bed.”

“Shh!”

Kathe, blushing furiously, gripped her cousin’s bare rounded arm.

“People are staring.”

“I should hope so. We’re a smashing-looking pair, if I do say so myself - you so fair and demurely virginal, me so vividly, extravagantly sensual. But to get back to you and Wyatt. It’s dotty not to take advantage of Aubrey’s flat.”

Kathe murmured near the red hair.

“Do you and Peter … ?”

“No; but, then, at heart I’m a Kingsmith, a middle-class realist. You, ducky, are a romantic. Wyatt is, too, no matter how he covers it up with that clever sarcasm of his. He has a garden-variety itch for you. But he talks weddings because you look like the damsel with the golden hair from some fairy-tale. And you’re prettying up the same basic urge. Take my tip and go to bed with him this summer. Oh, do stop blushing. We aren’t living in the reign of Queen Vic”

“Look, there’s Mr Shawcross-Mortimer with a porter.”

130

‘Call him Peter. Oh, I nearly forgot. Aubrey’s dropping over to Grandpa’s tonight to welcome you.”

Araminta drew Kathe to a halt.

“Now, mind you, though you ought to sleep together, I agree that marriage is as wrong as wrong can be for you two. In Wyatt’s heart he agrees. Why else do you think he suggested meeting you away from maternal supervision?”

Kathe looked away. After Sigi had brought her home from the Metropol, she had scribbled Wyatt a page about the Gestapo’s prying, then had known her initial impulse was right. Sending such a letter would start a transatlantic battle. She had torn up the page and written about the advantages of London, away from both sets of parents. He had cabled back: England perfect.

The porter piled her baggage in Peter’s Humber. On the way to Porteous’s house in the Bayswater Road, Kathe drowned out Araminta and Peter’s bantering. In exactly a week, she thought, he’ll be here … Anticipation burned through her until her skin glowed like a pink pearl.

It was just after dawn in New York, and Wyatt was driving the big Packard through the quiet streets to the 34th Street docks. Rossie sat at his side.

Humphrey, in the back with the two Mark Cross suitcases, was leaning forward.

“So Katy’s already there,”

he said.

“She should be arriving in London at this minute.”

“Wyatt,”

Rossie said quietly,

“I’m counting on you not to do anything crazy.”

“Is this still on the subject of Kathe?”

If asked.

“We only want what’s best for you,”

sh said.

“Alfred and Clothilde are right.”

“What constitutes right?”

“Watch out for that milk-wagon,”

she said.

“If this is the real thing, it’ll stand the test of time.”

A stop-sign’s arm went up. Wyatt braked. Twisting around to the back seat, he asked:

“Tell me, Dad, how do you stand on time-tests?”

“Alfred’s always been such a stickler,”

Humphrey equivocated.

“He’s set the date. He’ll never alter it for anything less.”

“But say he was presented with a fait accompli’?”

Rossie interjected raggedly:

“Wyatt, you must finish law school.”

“Hey, who said anything about quitting?”

Humphrey leaned forward to pat his wife’s shoulder.

“Rossie, it’s all right. Wyatt won’t do anything silly. And so what if they’re cousins? It doubles our odds of having Olympic champs for grandchildren.”

Wyatt shot a glance at his mother. Rossie was concentrating on an old brick warehouse, so he saw only her smartly waved hair and

131

her new tilted straw hat.

“Wyatt, you might as well know,”

she said.

“I wrote to Katy and explained how impossible it was for you to be married while you’re in school.”

“Terrific,”