The Quality of Mercy Page 21

  ‘But what?’ He sounded irritable as though, once he had made his declaration, she ought to have accepted it without demur.

  ‘But I might be a drag on you. They’ll think I set out to trap you.’

  Frank got up and strode about the room. ‘You didn’t, did you?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t!’ She sounded shocked – even insulted.

  ‘Well then, what does it matter what people say? We love each other. That’s all there is to it. I wish people would stop saying I’m too young.’

  ‘Don’t be cross! I have to think for both of us. If we got married, what would it be like?’ she said seriously. ‘You’d regret it. In a year or two, you’d fall in love with someone else and I’m not sure I could bear that.’

  He came back to sit beside her. ‘Stop telling me I’ll fall in love with someone else or I’ll start believing you. Do you love me?’

  ‘You know I do but I don’t want to ruin your life – our lives! Can you imagine what your father and mother would say if you told them you were going to marry an Indian girl? They would be horrified. You’ve got to marry someone from your own circle who’ll give the Duke an heir . . .’

  ‘My father likes you!’

  ‘He’s very sweet but I can see he views me with suspicion. And rightly so – what would he say if he could hear our conversation?’

  ‘I don’t care what he says,’ Frank said, getting up again to light a cigarette. ‘I’m not marrying to please him but because I love you.’

  ‘How many girls have you said that to?’ Sunita said, watching as Frank blushed. ‘There! You are too honest to deny it. I’m not the first girl you’ve asked to marry you and I won’t be the last.’

  ‘Damn it! Oh sorry, Sunita – I know you hate swearing – but you can’t do it.’ ‘Do what?’ She looked at him, her face pale, her eyes wide with anxiety.

  ‘Drive me away. I may be young but I’m not an idiot. I know what I have in you. I’d be mad to let you go.’ He knelt down beside her, took her hand and stroked it. ‘Yes, all right, I have thought I’ve been in love before but this is different. You ought not to doubt me.’

  ‘Sorry. Am I interrupting something?’

  ‘Oh, Verity, it’s you,’ Frank said, momentarily put out. ‘If you must know, I was asking Sunita to marry me.’

  ‘Golly, what bad timing! I’ll walk about a bit and come back in ten minutes and congratulate you, shall I?’

  ‘I told him he practises on all the girls,’ Sunita said, trying to sound light-hearted.

  ‘Do you, Frank? I wonder if Edward proposes to other women?’

  ‘I’m following your example, Miss Browne,’ Sunita added with forced gaiety. ‘I’ve told him I’m not planning to get married.’

  ‘I’m thinking of changing my mind,’ Verity said coolly.

  ‘You are?’ Frank was amazed and failed to disguise it. ‘Good show! I say, won’t the old boy be flummoxed when Uncle Ned says he’s marrying you and I tell him I’m marrying Sunita!’

  ‘What larks, indeed,’ Verity said acidly. ‘You mean neither of us is suited to joining the famous Mersham clan?’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that!’ He saw with horror how his words might be interpreted.

  ‘We know what you mean,’ Sunita said, coming to his rescue. ‘I think you had better leave us now, Frank, so we can have a girls’ talk. I think I need Miss Browne to advise me.’

  Frank opened his mouth to speak but Verity stopped him. ‘Go!’ she commanded.

  ‘I’m going. I’ll just say this, Verity, I leave my future in your hands and you’d better not let me down!’

  Sunita waved her plaster cast at him threateningly and he left with as much dignity as he could muster.

  12

  Verity and Edward had driven down with Basil to Mersham to go through with Connie and Gerald the preparations to receive the Jewish children who would be housed and cared for there until they could be found families prepared to take them in. To Verity’s surprise, the Duke was whole-heartedly behind the venture. He had felt so useless in the face of so much suffering that it was a positive pleasure to have, at last, something to do – to make a difference, however small, to the dispossessed. It was what his brother would have done had he been alive and the sense of inferiority he had felt after a lifetime in the shadow of the dead hero was made a little easier to bear.

  When they left for Croydon to catch a flight to Zurich Connie had surprised Verity by hugging her almost as if she was apologizing for any unkind thoughts she had harboured.

  Edward had tried to get permission from the authorities in Vienna to accompany the train on its journey through Austria but the Nazis refused. The idea of an English lord witnessing this shabby act of mercy was not one they could contemplate. They also sought to hide what they were doing from the ordinary Viennese. They rightly believed that the solid citizenry of that great city had no wish to be disturbed by scenes of extravagant and often noisy grief. Why should they have to witness distraught parents parting from their children – probably for ever? It wasn’t their fault or, if it was, there was nothing they could do about it and it was better to pretend it wasn’t happening. So it was decreed that the train would leave Vienna at three in the morning and would reach the border about seven o’clock.

  On the Swiss side of the border, Verity and Edward, along with a reception committee of refugee agencies and Swiss welfare bodies, huddled in the cold and talked quietly of the arrangements which had been made to feed and reassure three hundred terrified children – many of whom could not speak a word of French or English. The Swiss and French governments had declined to take any more refugees from Grossdeutschland. The Swiss wanted to preserve their neutrality and the French were unwilling to give the German authorities any excuse for taking action against French passport holders in the new Reich.

  The children were to be whisked to the coast across two countries with the minimum of delay and offloaded on to ferries to take them to their new home. It was a lot to ask of children who had already suffered so much but it had to be done. Verity and Edward chatted with British representatives of the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany and the British Committee for the Jews of Germany about the urgency of the situation. This was to be the first of many trains from Vienna and Berlin and they agreed there would be lessons to be learnt. They would have their work cut out if their escort duty was to be judged a success.

  When the children reached England, two hundred were to go to reception centres – holiday camps in the summer months – where they would be looked after until homes could be found for them. Mersham was to take the remaining hundred and Connie had marshalled the neighbourhood to help look after them. Nothing like this had ever been attempted before and only time would tell if the preparations were adequate. At Verity’s urging, the New Gazette had started a fund for the children and Lord Weaver had personally promised ten thousand pounds.

  The stationmaster informed them that the train had arrived at Feldkirch, the last station inside Austria, and was waiting there – he didn’t know why. An hour passed and still no train appeared. Someone said the train was being searched. Somebody else said it had broken down. Another hour passed before there was a faint sound of wheels on metal track and smoke was seen.

  It was one of the most distressing sights Verity could remember witnessing – and she had seen a few – when, at last, the train came to a halt. The children – aged from five to fifteen – were almost all in tears. Each had a label tied round their neck bearing a number which corresponded to their permit to leave the country. When asked what had caused the delay at the border, one of the older girls said that every child had been made to open the one pathetic suitcase the Viennese authorities had allowed them to take with them and anything new or of any value had been stolen by the border guards. The children had not been given anything to eat or drink and, as the lavatories were already overflowing, many of the smaller children had wet themselves or worse.

  Wit
hout meaning to, the older children – aware of the danger they were in – conveyed to the younger ones their fear of being taken off the train and sent who knew where. The three adults who had been allowed to travel with the children had been made to leave them at the border and return to Vienna. Edward was unable to discover if the Dreisers had been permitted to accompany the train. None of the children seemed to know the names of the adults who had come with them to the border.

  Among the older children, tears quickly turned to smiles when the voluntary workers – mostly Catholic but some Jewish – handed round hot cocoa and sandwiches. The smaller children, bewildered and asking for their parents, were hard to console and clutched the hands of older brothers or sisters with desperate strength while those without anyone at all retreated into their own private misery.

  Verity and Edward – alarmed by what they had taken on – did their best to help sort out the children going to Mersham. They were to board another train bound for Boulogne where they were to take ship for England. All the time, Edward was looking for one particular child and finally found her twisting her plaits with one hand and sucking her thumb with the other. It was Heidi, Joan Miller’s child. But where was Joan?

  Edward looked at his watch. ‘She should have been here hours ago,’ he fretted. ‘I hope she managed to escape from Mandl. I don’t know what we’ll do with the child if she doesn’t come soon.’

  At that moment, a chauffeur-driven car drew up and Joan rushed out, furs flying, her usual icy calm replaced by blind panic. She saw Heidi at once and ran over to pick her up. The child seemed only moderately pleased to see her and Edward heard her ask, ‘Wo ist Papa?’

  Before Joan could answer – though what answer she could have given Edward did not know – a taxi drew up and Mandl appeared beside them.

  ‘Papa!’ cried the little girl in delight as she struggled to release herself from her mother’s embrace.

  ‘Heidi! Komm’mein Mädel!’ Mandl called to her.

  ‘Stay with me. We are not going with your father,’ Joan said, clutching the little girl to her.

  ‘Why can’t I go to Papa?’ demanded the child. ‘I want to be with Papa – not with you.’

  At these words the courage seemed to leave Joan, and Edward thought she might faint. She dropped Heidi who sped off to join her father. He picked her up and cuddled her. As he turned to go, a look of triumph crossed his face. Joan’s expression conveyed to Edward her agony and his heart went out to her. He moved toward her to give her what comfort he could. Mandl noticed him for the first time and said in English, ‘So this was your doing? You thought you could outwit me and steal away my baby? Never!’

  He spoke with such passion Edward finally understood what Joan had meant when she called him possessive.

  ‘Mandl! Let the child go. She ought to be with her mother,’ he replied as calmly as he could.

  ‘With this whore? Diese Hure . . .?’ he answered, nodding contemptuously towards Joan. ‘Never! You are an interfering Schwein and I ought to kill you, but not in front of my little one.’ He stroked Heidi’s head and kissed her. ‘You English – so arrogant, so viel besser . . . It is my comfort that my guns will soon reduce your . . . eitel Selbstzufriedenheit – your smug self-satisfaction will turn to awe and terror at the might of the German nation in arms.’

  Hearing the word gun, Joan seemed suddenly to wake from her trance. She opened her handbag and, for a second, Edward thought she was looking for a cigarette. Instead, he saw she had in her hand a small silver pistol.

  She said as though it were a groan, ‘Mandl, give me back my child.’

  He turned and, as he did so, she shot him. Only, as he was holding the little girl to his chest, the bullet, instead of hitting him, entered the back of Heidi’s head. At first, Mandl did not realize what had happened. The little girl did not cry out but he felt her shudder and then go slack in his arms. As he adjusted his hands to support her head, he felt the warm blood ooze stickily over his fingers and cried out in sheer disbelief. Joan made as if to go to her child but stumbled and fell to the ground. As she put out her hand to break her fall, she dropped the gun. So innocent-looking, more like a toy than something that could kill, it slid across the platform and fell on to the tracks beneath the still-steaming train.

  Three days later Edward and Verity were walking by the river. Mersham was alive with the cries of children enjoying themselves, playing croquet and ping-pong or those secret games the rules of which adults can only guess at. A few lay crumpled on the grass, still shocked and dazed, unable to come to terms with their sudden removal from all that was familiar. However much they tried to comfort them, their English guardians could not explain to the little ones why they had been parted from their mothers and fathers. Verity, who was not very good with children, found herself hugging one little boy, rigid with grief, whispering to him the sweet nothings Adam – her lost German lover – had taught her when they had lain in each other’s arms. She had no idea whether these endearments were appropriate but they seemed to soothe the child.

  ‘I think this has really opened Gerald’s eyes to what Hitlerism means in reality. I’ve heard much less of how Hitler is misunderstood and a peace-lover at heart.’

  ‘Yes,’ Verity agreed, ‘and have you noticed how much he likes having the children here?’

  ‘You think he feels he’s doing something, however small, to right the wrong done to them?’

  ‘Yes, but I think it’s simpler than that. He enjoys having the castle full of young people and all those stiff formal rooms echoing to the sounds of children’s voices.’

  ‘I think you’re right, V. The thing is with Gerald – though I’ll kill you if you quote me – is that he has very little imagination. He understands intellectually what is going on in Germany – he reads The Times – but he can’t grasp the enormity of what is happening to the Jews. Having these children here under his roof brings it home to him – literally.’

  They walked on in companionable silence. When they were out of sight of the castle, Verity put her arm through his.

  ‘Do you blame yourself for what happened to little Heidi?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Edward said roughly. ‘If I hadn’t interfered she would still be alive. I knew in my heart I ought not to have got involved with Joan. She’s trouble.’

  ‘You did your best. You couldn’t have known that Mandl would find out what was going on. He bullied the poor old nanny to tell him. She was the weak link.’

  ‘I know that but . . .’

  ‘But what? If we didn’t try to help people because we were afraid of making matters worse, we would never have got these children out of Vienna.’

  ‘That’s different. You know it is. These children had no future in Nazi Austria. We had to do what we could for them. But Heidi had nothing to fear.’

  ‘Dear Edward! Remember how you chided me? You too have a tendency to blame yourself unreasonably. Your conscience is very tender. It’s one of the things we have in common – at least I’d like to think so but it does make life uncomfortable.’

  ‘We should be uncomfortable. Why should we be comfortable in a world where violent death is the norm?’

  ‘So, if it’s the norm, why do we care when individuals like Georg die violently?’

  ‘We care in order to keep ourselves human. I’ve told you before, V, it’s what I hate about Communism as much as Fascism – the idea that the “common good” is something to which individual men and women have to be sacrificed. Once we label groups of people, we dehumanize them. Surely you can see that?’

  ‘Of course I do but sometimes you have to label people, as you put it. Lloyd George gave the pension to “old people”. To everyone – not just those who deserved it. And every child ought to have enough to eat and a sanitary place to live.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Edward said gruffly.

  Ever since that moment at the Swiss border when Joan Miller had killed her child, he had been sunk in gloom. Fortunately, t
here had been so much to do getting the children across an angry English Channel and then by charabanc to Mersham that he had not, until now, had time to indulge his appetite for self-punishment.

  Verity decided she had to distract him.

  ‘You know, I think I’ve discovered why Peter Gray died. It wasn’t very difficult.’

  ‘You have?’ Edward lifted his head and looked at her with something like interest.

  ‘Yes. It was all in the picture.’

  ‘The one he was painting the day he died?’

  ‘Yes. He’d painted almost the same picture – or at least the same view – time after time in every kind of light, in good weather and bad. So I had to ask myself why. Or rather I asked Reg Harman. He said that, apart from Vera, the only woman he had ever loved was his wife.’

  ‘And she had died soon after they married?’

  ‘Yes, of influenza like so many others.’

  ‘And the view was special because . . . ?’

  ‘It was where they had courted. Betty – his wife – had been born and brought up in the farmhouse at the bottom of Tarn Hill.’

  ‘I remember it. It’s on the Broadlands estate.’

  ‘That’s right. And I discovered’ – she could hardly keep the triumph out of her voice – ‘that Mountbatten was about to knock it down to build new housing for his tenants.’

  ‘I think I see. Gray heard about this and . . .’

  ‘It made him depressed. The perfect view, which summed up everything that had been good in his life, was to be changed, desecrated. He started taking ergot again – I’m only guessing here – to overcome his depression. It made him ill – forgetful . . . worse – it gave him nightmares.’

  ‘Still guessing?’

  ‘No. I tracked down his doctor. He confirmed that Gray was being visited with bad memories of the war – memories he thought he had put behind him – and he feared for his mental health.’

  ‘So you think he committed suicide by taking too much ergot?’