Джеймс Хилтон - Time And Time Again

So he said now, pricking the bubble as he saw it expand: ‘I wouldn’t count on them letting you make any speech. If you’ve done nothing but write a few stupid letters they’ll probably never even bring you to trial. You’re just the small fish that gets into the net with the big fish, but they can’t let you out till they’ve hauled in the catch.’

Havelock didn’t like that. ‘I don’t know that I’m such a small fish.’

‘Oh, come now, it’s a bit late in life for you to make history— even as a traitor. Don’t imagine you’re a Colonel Lynch or a Roger Casement.’

‘That’s not very civil, Charles.’

‘What do you expect from me—congratulations?’

‘Of course I know you don’t agree with my views.’

‘I not only don’t agree with them, but if I knew any real evidence that you were seriously mixed up with the Germans I’d hand you over to the authorities myself. But of course I know you’re relatively harmless.’

‘Charles, that’s not a nice thing to say.’

‘Well, aren’t you?’ And with a sort of impish derision Charles continued: ‘For instance, there’s all this talk of Germans landing by parachute. Supposing one of them did, on your front lawn, what would you do? Not what would you say—or write—but what would you DO?’

Havelock pondered a moment, then his eyes lit feverishly. ‘You know what? I think I’d telephone the police and have them send old Daggett. That fellow’s been so officious lately about blackout curtains it would teach him a lesson. I’ll bet he’d run if he even SAW a German!’

Charles was handicapped by his sense of humour at a moment like this, however serious he knew the matter to be; but he forced himself to clear up one detail that still puzzled. ‘How was it,’ he asked, ‘that you had the name and address of a German spy in Roumania?’

‘Professor Fontanescu? I didn’t know he was a German spy. I just asked him to forward a letter through the German Legation there. Mere courtesy, after all. He was the man you asked me to write to about the Red-necked Phalarope. Don’t you remember?’

Charles remembered. He had met the Professor once at a Bucharest reception, and learning he was an ornithologist had thought it might interest his father to be put in touch with a brother enthusiast. That was all.

‘You know, Charles,’ Havelock continued reproachfully, ‘if this fellow was a German spy, you really ought to have warned me. You were on the spot out there… Isn’t it the sort of thing you diplomatic people should have been aware of?’

It certainly was; but they hadn’t.

Charles went to see Gosford the next day and reported the conversation, adding lamely: ‘You may find it hard to believe, especially about Professor Fontanescu and the Red-necked Phalarope, and I daresay there’s not likely to be any corroboration except from my father himself—and even he might not be in a mood to give it.’

Gosford was cool. ‘This isn’t much of a time for having moods.’

‘I know that very well.’

‘Or even for believing things that are hard to believe. Sir Havelock, after all, had a legal training—he must have known that to communicate with the enemy in wartime by ANY method would constitute an offence.’

‘I agree that he must have known.’

‘Yet what you tell me now seems—almost—as if you were trying to establish some degree of innocence?’

Charles paused unhappily, then nodded. ‘Yes, that’s so. Some degree of innocence. It’s curious you should have used the phrase. Some degree of wickedness, but also some degree of innocence. That’s my father all over.’

‘I don’t think it can really affect the situation much.’

‘Probably not. Which is why I’ve written a letter of resignation. Here it is… for use if and when.’ Charles placed it on the desk. It was in an unsealed envelope and he paused in case Gosford wanted to read it. When there was no move to do so, Charles continued: ‘That’s about all, except one thing —the result of some thought during a rather sleepless night… It seems to me my father oughtn’t to be at a place like Beeching nowadays. Not only because of parachutists. He’s talked as well as written foolish things —there’s quite a bit of local feeling against him. I think he’d be better off in or near London where he can be—not exactly under my surveillance, because I suppose I’ll have some kind of work to do somewhere —but at least I can keep a more frequent eye on him than in the country… I don’t know how far it can help matters, but it might… and perhaps, if I’m lucky, it will…’

Charles spoke the last words with difficulty. He had been hoping the letter of resignation would be refused, but Gosford had already put it in his pocket without reading it. Now Gosford got up as if to signify that there was nothing else to be discussed, no promise he could ask for or give, nothing more to do but let events take their course. All he said was: ‘I assure you, Anderson, there are times when I feel tempted to resign myself.’

Charles did not think the remark either sincere or sensible, but a few days later when Gosford died suddenly of a heart attack, he remembered it. By that time the letter of resignation must have been passed to higher levels —unless, through deliberation or neglect, Gosford had kept it in his desk. In the latter event it would be there for his successor to handle. Yet his successor, when in due course he met and talked with Charles, did not mention it; so Charles didn’t either. And in the meantime there came for him an official transfer to the Foreign Office.

Charles stayed in London, waiting for something he thought might happen at any time. It was like picking steps across a snow slope under cliffs that at any moment could dislodge an avalanche. The simile pleased him with its memories of happier days and its assurance of belonging still to at least one kind of an élite. He found a flat in Kensington, not far from his own in Chelsea, and established his father there with Cobb to look after him. None of the other Beeching servants wanted to come to London and Charles did not blame them. But Cobb was devoted to the old man, and Havelock undoubtedly returned an emotion of some sort. Since he was apt to treat his friends with far less consideration than most of them would a butler, it could well be said that he treated Cobb like a friend.

Charles told his father the reason for the move, and met with no objections. The fact that the government could think of him as a potential threat to national security seemed only to gratify Havelock’s ego, and much as he disliked the attitude Charles was glad of it as an aid to making the transition easier.

Meanwhile Jane and Gerald stayed in Cheshire, where Charles joined them whenever he could, but this was not very often or regularly. There was pressure of business at the Office, and most evenings he worked late.

Early in the new year, 1940, Havelock was approached by a man who wanted to buy Beeching. Charles took him for a business man of some kind, and assumed that the rather high price he offered was either folly or the measure of his anxiety to move his family out of the likely area of air-raids. Neither Havelock nor Charles would entertain the idea at first; then all at once it began to seem attractive. Beeching was run down; it needed extensive repairs that could not be made till the war was over; the upkeep was wasteful, war work and enlistments had taken most of the staff, and there were tax considerations that made a sale more advantageous than it might ever be again. So Havelock sold Beeching. A few months later Charles learned that government engineers were laying out a huge airfield that took in most of the land, with the house left standing but derelict just beyond the end of a runway; but he could never discover exactly how much profit had been made on the resale.