The Man From St. Petersburg

ELEVEN

The first tram of the day woke Feliks with its noise. He opened his eyes and watched it go by, striking bright blue sparks from the overhead cable. Dull-eyed men in working clothes sat at its windows, smoking and yawning, on their way to jobs as street cleaners and market porters and road menders.

The sun was low and bright, but Feliks was in the shade of Waterloo Bridge. He lay on the pavement with his head to the wall, wrapped in a blanket of newspapers. On one side of him was a stinking old woman with the red face of a drunkard. She looked fat, but now Feliks could see, between the hem of her dress and the tops of her man’s boots, a few inches of dirty white legs like sticks; and he concluded that her apparent obesity must be due to several layers of clothing. Feliks liked her: last night she had amused all the vagrants by teaching him the vulgar English words for various parts of the body. Feliks had repeated them after her and everyone had laughed.

On his other side was a red-haired boy from Scotland. For him, sleeping in the open was an adventure. He was tough and wiry and cheerful. Looking now at his sleeping face, Feliks saw that he had no morning beard: he was terribly young. What would happen to him when winter came?

There were about thirty of them in a line along the pavement, all lying with their heads to the wall and their feet toward the road, covered with coats or sacks or newspapers. Feliks was the first to stir. He wondered whether any of them had died in the night.

He got up. He ached after a night on the cold street. He walked out from under the bridge into the sunshine. Today he was to meet Charlotte. No doubt he looked and smelled like a tramp. He contemplated washing himself in the Thames, but the river appeared to be dirtier than he was. He went looking for a municipal bathhouse.

He found one on the south side of the river. A notice on the door announced that it would open at nine o’clock. Feliks thought that characteristic of social democratic government: they would build a bathhouse so that working men could keep clean, then open it only when everyone was at work. No doubt they complained that the masses failed to take advantage of the facilities so generously provided.

He found a tea stall near Waterloo station and had breakfast. He was severely tempted by the fried-egg sandwiches but he could not afford one. He had his usual bread and tea and saved the money for a newspaper.

He felt contaminated by his night with the deadbeats. That was ironic, he thought, for in Siberia he had been glad to sleep with pigs for warmth. It was not difficult to understand why he felt differently now: he was to meet his daughter, and she would be fresh and clean, smelling of perfume and dressed in silk, with gloves and a hat and perhaps a parasol to shade her from the sun.

He went into the railway station and bought The Times, then sat on a stone bench outside the bathhouse and read the paper while he waited for the place to open.

The news shocked him to the core.

AUSTRIAN HEIR AND HIS WIFE MURDERED

SHOT IN BOSNIAN TOWN

A STUDENT’S POLITICAL CRIME

BOMB THROWN EARLIER IN THE DAY

THE EMPEROR’S GRIEF

The Austro-Hungarian Heir-Presumptive, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated yesterday morning at Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. The actual assassin is described as a high school student, who fired bullets at his victims with fatal effect from an automatic pistol as they were returning from a reception at the Town Hall.

The outrage was evidently the fruit of a carefully laid plot. On their way to the Town Hall the Archduke and his Consort had narrowly escaped death. An individual, described as a compositor from Trebinje, a garrison town in the extreme south of Herzegovina, had thrown a bomb at their motor car. Few details of this first outrage have been received. It is stated that the Archduke warded off the bomb with his arm, and that it exploded behind the car, injuring the occupants of the second carriage.

The author of the second outrage is stated to be a native of Grahovo, in Bosnia. No information as to his race or creed is yet forthcoming. It is presumed that he belongs to the Serb or Orthodox section of the Bosnian population.

Both criminals were immediately arrested, and were with difficulty saved from being lynched.

While this tragedy was being enacted in the Bosnian capital, the aged Emperor Francis Joseph was on his way from Vienna to his summer residence at Ischl. He had an enthusiastic send-off from his subjects in Vienna and an even more enthusiastic reception on reaching Ischl.

Feliks was stunned. He was delighted that another useless aristocratic parasite had been destroyed, another blow struck against tyranny; and he felt ashamed that a schoolboy had been able to kill the heir to the Austrian throne while he, Feliks, had failed repeatedly to kill a Russian prince. But what occupied his mind most was the change in the world political picture that must surely follow. The Austrians, with the Germans backing them, would take their revenge on Serbia. The Russians would protest. Would the Russians mobilize their army? If they were confident of British support, they probably would. Russian mobilization would mean German mobilization; and once the Germans had mobilized no one could stop their generals from going to war.

Feliks painstakingly deciphered the tortured English of the other reports, on the same page, to do with the assassination. There were stories headlined OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE CRIME, AUSTRIAN EMPEROR AND THE NEWS, TRAGEDY OF A ROYAL HOUSE, and SCENE OF THE MURDER (From Our Special Correspondent). There was a good deal of nonsense about how shocked and horrified and grieved everyone was, plus repeated assertions that there was no cause for undue alarm, and that tragic though it was, the murder would make no real difference to Europe-sentiments which Feliks had already come to recognize as being characteristic of The Times, which would have described the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as strong rulers who could do nothing but good for the stability of the international situation.

So far there was no talk of Austrian reprisals, but it would come, Feliks was sure. And then-

Then there would be war.

There was no real reason for Russia to go to war, Feliks thought angrily. The same applied to England. It was France and Germany that were belligerent: the French had been wanting since 1871 to win back their lost territories of Alsace and Lorraine, and the German generals felt that Germany would be a second-class power until she began to throw her weight about.

What might stop Russia from going to war? A quarrel with her allies. What would cause a quarrel between Russia and England? The killing of Orlov.

If the assassination in Sarajevo could start a war, another assassination in London could stop a war.

And Charlotte could find Orlov.

Wearily, Feliks contemplated afresh the dilemma that had haunted him for the last forty-eight hours. Was anything changed by the murder of the Archduke? Did that give him the right to take advantage of a young girl?

It was almost time for the bathhouse to open. A small crowd of women carrying bundles of washing gathered around the door. Feliks folded his newspaper and stood up.

He knew that he would use her. He had not resolved the dilemma-he had simply decided what to do. His whole life seemed to lead up to the murder of Orlov. There was a momentum in his progress toward that goal, and he could not be deflected, even by the knowledge that his life had been founded on a mistake.

Poor Charlotte.

The doors opened, and Feliks went into the bathhouse to wash.

Charlotte had it all planned. Lunch was at one o’clock when the Waldens had no guests. By two-thirty Mama would be in her room, lying down. Charlotte would be able to sneak out of the house in time to meet Feliks at three. She would spend an hour with him. By four-thirty she would be at home in the morning room, washed and changed and demurely ready to pour tea and receive callers with Mama.

It was not to be. At midday Mama ruined the whole plan by saying: “Oh, I forgot to tell you-we’re lunching with the Duchess of Middlesex at her house in Grosvenor Square.”

“Oh, dear,” Charlotte said. “I really don’t feel like a luncheon party.”

“Don’t be silly-you’ll have a lovely time.”

I said the wrong thing, Charlotte thought immediately. I should have said I’ve got a splitting headache and I can’t possibly go. I was too halfhearted. I could have lied if I’d known in advance but I can’t do it on the spur of the moment. She tried again. “I’m sorry, Mama. I don’t want to go.”

“You’re coming, and no nonsense,” Mama said. “I want the Duchess to get to know you-she really is most useful. And the Marquis of Chalfont will be there.”

Luncheon parties generally started at one-thirty and went on past three. I might be home by three-thirty, so I could get to the National Gallery by four, Charlotte thought; but by then he will have given up and gone away, and besides, even if he is still waiting, I would have to leave him almost immediately in order to be home for tea. She wanted to talk to him about the assassination: she was eager to hear his views. She did not want to have lunch with the old Duchess and-

“Who is the Marquis of Chalfont?”

“You know, Freddie. He’s charming, don’t you think?”

“Oh, him. Charming? I haven’t noticed.” I could write a note, address it to that place in Camden Town, and leave it on the hall table on my way out for the footman to post; but Feliks doesn’t actually live at that address, and anyway he wouldn’t get the note before three o’clock.

Mama said: “Well, notice him today. I fancy you may have bewitched him.”

“Who?”

“Freddie. Charlotte, you really must pay a little attention to a young man when he pays attention to you.”

So that was why she was so keen on this lunch party. “Oh, Mama, don’t be silly-”

“What’s silly about it?” Mama said in an exasperated voice.

“I’ve hardly spoken three sentences to him.”

“Then it’s not your conversation that has bewitched him.”

“Please!”

“All right, I won’t tease. Go and change. Put on that cream dress with the brown lace-it suits your coloring.”

Charlotte gave in, and went up to her room. I suppose I should be flattered about Freddie, she thought as she took off her dress. Why can’t I get interested in any of these young men? Maybe I’m just not ready for all that yet. At the moment there’s too much else to occupy my mind. At breakfast Papa said there would be a war, because of the shooting of the Archduke. But girls aren’t supposed to be too interested in that sort of thing. The summit of my ambition should be to get engaged before the end of my first season-that’s what Belinda is thinking about. But not all girls are like Belinda-remember the suffragettes.

She got dressed and went downstairs. She sat and made idle conversation while Mama drank a glass of sherry; then they went to Grosvenor Square.

The Duchess was an overweight woman in her sixties: she made Charlotte think of an old wooden ship rotting beneath a new coat of paint. The lunch was a real hen party. If this were a play, Charlotte thought, there would be a wild-eyed poet, a discreet Cabinet Minister, a cultured Jewish banker, a Crown Prince, and at least one remarkably beautiful woman. In fact, the only men present, apart from Freddie, were a nephew of the Duchess and a Conservative M.P. Each of the women was introduced as the wife of so-and-so. If I ever get married, Charlotte thought, I shall insist on being introduced as myself, not as somebody’s wife.

Of course it was difficult for the Duchess to have interesting parties because so many people were banned from her table: all Liberals, all Jews, anybody in trade, anybody who was on the stage, all divorcées, and all of the many people who had at one time or another offended against the Duchess’s idea of what was the done thing. It made for a dull circle of friends.

The Duchess’s favorite topic of conversation was the question of what was ruining the country. The main candidates were subversion (by Lloyd George and Churchill), vulgarity (Diaghilev and the Post-impressionists), and supertax (one shilling and threepence in the pound).

Today, however, the ruin of England took second place to the death of the Archduke. The Conservative M.P. explained at somewhat tedious length why there would be no war. The wife of a South American ambassador said in a little-girlish tone which infuriated Charlotte: “What I don’t understand is why these Nihilists want to throw bombs and shoot people.”

The Duchess had the answer to that. Her doctor had explained to her that all suffragettes had a nervous ailment known to medical science as hysteria; and in her view the revolutionists suffered from the male equivalent of this disease.

Charlotte, who had read The Times from cover to cover that morning, said: “On the other hand, perhaps the Serbs simply don’t want to be ruled by Austria.” Mama gave her a black look and everyone else glanced at her for a moment as if she were quite mad and then ignored what she had said.

Freddie was sitting next to her. His round face always seemed to gleam slightly. He spoke to her in a low voice. “I say, you do say the most outrageous things.”

“What was outrageous about it?” Charlotte demanded.

“Well, I mean to say, anyone would think you approved of people shooting Archdukes.”

“I think if the Austrians tried to take over England, you would shoot Archdukes, wouldn’t you?”

“You’re priceless,” Freddie said.

Charlotte turned away from him. She was beginning to feel as if she had lost her voice: nobody seemed to hear anything she said. It made her very cross.

Meanwhile the Duchess was getting into her stride. The lower classes were idle, she said; and Charlotte thought: You who have never done a day’s work in your life! Why, the Duchess said, she understood that nowadays each workman had a lad to carry his tools around: surely a man could carry his own tools, she said as a footman held out for her a silver salver of boiled potatoes. Beginning her third glass of sweet wine, she said that they drank so much beer in the middle of the day that they were incapable of working in the afternoon. People today wanted to be mollycoddled, she said as three footmen and two maids cleared away the third course and served the fourth; it was no business of the government’s to provide Poor Relief and medical insurance and pensions. Poverty would encourage the lower orders to be thrifty, and that was a virtue, she said at the end of a meal which would have fed a working-class family of ten for a fortnight. People must be self-reliant, she said as the butler helped her rise from the table and walk into the drawing room.

By this time Charlotte was boiling with suppressed rage. Who could blame revolutionists for shooting people like the Duchess?

Freddie handed her a cup of coffee and said: “She’s a marvelous old warhorse, isn’t she?”

Charlotte said: “I think she’s the nastiest old woman I’ve ever met.”

Freddie’s round face became furtive and he said: “Hush!”

At least, Charlotte thought, no one could say I’m encouraging him.

A carriage clock on the mantel struck three with a tinkling chime. Charlotte felt as if she were in jail. Feliks was now waiting for her on the steps of the National Gallery. She had to get out of the Duchess’s house. She thought: What am I doing here when I could be with someone who talks sense?

The Conservative M.P. said: “I must get back to the House.” His wife stood up to go with him. Charlotte saw her way out.

She approached the wife and spoke quietly. “I have a slight headache,” she said. “May I come with you? You must pass my house on the way to Westminster.”

“Certainly, Lady Charlotte,” said the wife.

Mama was talking to the Duchess. Charlotte interrupted them and repeated the headache story. “I know Mama would like to stay a little longer, so I’m going with Mrs. Shakespeare. Thank you for a lovely lunch, your grace.”

The Duchess nodded regally.

I managed that rather well, Charlotte thought as she walked out into the hall and down the stairs.

She gave her address to the Shakespeares’ coachman and added: “There’s no need to drive into the courtyard-just stop outside.”

On the way, Mrs. Shakespeare advised her to take a spoonful of laudanum for the headache.

The coachman did as he had been told, and at three-twenty Charlotte was standing on the pavement outside her home, watching the coach drive off. Instead of going into the house she headed for Trafalgar Square.

She arrived just after three-thirty and ran up the steps of the National Gallery. She could not see Feliks. He’s gone, she thought, after all that. Then he emerged from behind one of the massive pillars, as if he had been lying in wait, and she was so pleased to see him she could have kissed him.

“I’m sorry to have made you wait about,” she said as she shook his hand. “I got involved in a dreadful luncheon party.”

“It doesn’t matter, now that you’re here.” He was smiling, but uneasily, like-Charlotte thought-someone saying hello to a dentist before having a tooth pulled.

They went inside. Charlotte loved the cool, hushed museum, with its glass domes and marble pillars, gray floors and beige walls, and the paintings shouting out color and beauty and passion. “At least my parents taught me to look at pictures,” she said.

He turned his sad dark eyes on her. “There’s going to be a war.”

Of all the people who had spoken of that possibility today, only Feliks and Papa had seemed to be moved by it. “Papa said the same thing. But I don’t understand why.”

“France and Germany both think they stand to gain a lot by war. Austria, Russia and England may get sucked in.”

They walked on. Feliks did not seem to be interested in the paintings. Charlotte said: “Why are you so concerned? Shall you have to fight?”

“I’m too old. But I think of all the millions of innocent Russian boys, straight off the farm, who will be crippled or blinded or killed in a cause they don’t understand and wouldn’t care about if they did.”

Charlotte had always thought of war as a matter of men killing one another, but Feliks saw it as men being killed by war. As usual, he showed her things in a new light. She said: “I never looked at it that way.”

“The Earl of Walden never looked at it that way either. That’s why he will let it happen.”

“I’m sure Papa wouldn’t let it happen if he could help-”

“You’re wrong,” Feliks interrupted. “He is making it happen.”

Charlotte frowned, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“That’s why Prince Orlov is here.”

Her puzzlement deepened. “How do you know about Aleks?”

“I know more about it than you do. The police have spies among the anarchists, but the anarchists have spies among the police spies. We find things out. Walden and Orlov are negotiating a treaty, the effect of which will be to drag Russia into the war on the British side.”

Charlotte was about to protest that Papa would not do such a thing; then she realized that Feliks was right. It explained some of the remarks passed between Papa and Aleks while Aleks was staying at the house, and it explained why Papa was shocking his friends by consorting with Liberals like Churchill.

She said: “Why would he do that?”

“I’m afraid he doesn’t care how many Russian peasants die so long as England dominates Europe.”

Yes, of course, Papa would see it in those terms, she thought. “It’s awful,” she said. “Why don’t you tell people? Expose the whole thing-shout it from the rooftops!”

“Who would listen?”

“Wouldn’t they listen in Russia?”

“They will if we can find a dramatic way of bringing the thing to their notice.”

“Such as?”

Feliks looked at her. “Such as kidnapping Prince Orlov.”

It was so outrageous that she laughed, then stopped abruptly. It crossed her mind that he might be playing a game, pretending in order to make a point; then she looked at his face and knew that he was deadly serious. For the first time she wondered whether he was perfectly sane. “You don’t mean that,” she said incredulously.

He smiled awkwardly. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

She knew he was not. She shook her head. “You’re the sanest man I ever met.”

“Then sit down, and I’ll explain it to you.”

She allowed herself to be led to a seat.

“The Czar already distrusts the English, because they let political refugees like me come to England. If one of us were to kidnap his favorite nephew there would be a real quarrel-and then they could not be sure of each other’s help in a war. And when the Russian people learn what Orlov was trying to do to them, they will be so angry that the Czar will not be able to make them go to war anyway. Do you see?”

Charlotte watched his face as he talked. He was quiet, reasonable and only a little tense. There was no mad light of fanaticism in his eye. Everything he said made sense, but it was like the logic of a fairy tale-one thing followed from another, but it seemed to be a story about a different world, not the world she lived in.

“I do see,” she said, “but you can’t kidnap Aleks; he’s such a nice man.”

“That nice man will lead a million other nice men to their deaths if he’s allowed to. This is real, Charlotte, not like the battles in these paintings of gods and horses. Walden and Orlov are discussing war-men cutting each other open with swords, boys getting their legs blown off by cannonballs, people bleeding and dying in muddy fields, screaming in pain with no one to help them. This is what Walden and Orlov are trying to arrange. Half the misery in the world is caused by nice young men like Orlov who think they have the right to organize wars between nations.”

She was struck by a frightening thought. “You’ve already tried once to kidnap him.”

He nodded. “In the park. You were in the carriage. It went wrong.”

“Oh, my word.” She felt sickened and depressed.

He took her hand. “You know I’m right, don’t you?”

It seemed to her that he was right. His world was the real world: she was the one who lived in a fairy tale. In fairyland the debutantes in white were presented to the King and Queen, and the Prince went to war, and the Earl was kind to his servants who all loved him, and the Duchess was a dignified old lady, and there was no such thing as sexual intercourse. In the real world Annie’s baby was born dead because Mama let Annie go without a reference, and a thirteen-year-old mother was condemned to death because she had let her baby die, and people slept on the streets because they had no homes, and there were baby farms, and the Duchess was a vicious old harridan, and a grinning man in a tweed suit punched Charlotte in the stomach outside Buckingham Palace.

“I know you’re right,” she said to Feliks.

“That’s very important,” he said. “You hold the key to the whole thing.”

“Me? Oh, no!”

“I need your help.”

“No, please don’t say that!”

“You see, I can’t find Orlov.”

It’s not fair, she thought; it has all happened too quickly. She felt miserable and trapped. She wanted to help Feliks, and she could see how important it was, but Aleks was her cousin, and he had been a guest in her house-how could she betray him?

“Will you help me?” Feliks said.

“I don’t know where Aleks is,” she said evasively.

“But you could find out.”

“Yes.”

“Will you?”

She sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Charlotte, you must.”

“There’s no must about it!” she flared. “Everyone tells me what I must do-I thought you had more respect for me!”

He looked crestfallen. “I wish I didn’t have to ask you.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’ll think about it.”

He opened his mouth to protest, and she put a finger to his lips to silence him. “You’ll have to be satisfied with that,” she said.

At seven-thirty Walden went out in the Lanchester, wearing evening dress and a silk hat. He was using the motor car all the time, now: in an emergency it would be faster and more maneuverable than a carriage. Pritchard sat in the driving seat with a revolver holstered beneath his jacket. Civilized life seemed to have come to an end. They drove to the back entrance of Number Ten Downing Street. The Cabinet had met that afternoon to discuss the deal Walden had worked out with Aleks. Now Walden was to hear whether or not they had approved it.

He was shown into the small dining room. Churchill was already there with Asquith, the Prime Minister. They were leaning on the sideboard drinking sherry. Walden shook hands with Asquith.

“How do you do, Prime Minister.”

“Good of you to come, Lord Walden.”

Asquith had silver hair and a clean-shaven face. There were traces of humor in the wrinkles around his eyes, but his mouth was small, thin-lipped and stubborn-looking, and he had a broad, square chin. Walden thought there was in his voice a trace of Yorkshire accent which had survived the City of London School and Balliol College, Oxford. He had an unusually large head, which was said to contain a brain of machinelike precision; but then, Walden thought, people always credit prime ministers with more brains than they’ve got.

Asquith said: “I’m afraid the Cabinet would not approve your proposal.”

Walden’s heart sank. To conceal his disappointment he adopted a brisk manner. “Why not?”

“The opposition came mainly from Lloyd George.”

Walden looked at Churchill and raised his eyebrows.

Churchill nodded. “You probably thought, like everyone else, that L.G. and I vote alike on every issue. Now you know otherwise.”

“What’s his objection?”

“Matter of principle,” Churchill answered. “He says we’re passing the Balkans around like a box of chocolates: help yourself, choose your favorite flavor, Thrace, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Serbia. Small countries have their rights, he says. That’s what comes of having a Welshman in the Cabinet. A Welshman and a solicitor, too; I don’t know which is worse.”

His levity irritated Walden. This is his project as much as mine, he thought: why isn’t the man as dismayed as I am?

They sat down to dinner. The meal was served by one butler. Asquith ate sparingly. Churchill drank too much, Walden thought. Walden was gloomy, mentally damning Lloyd George with every mouthful.

At the end of the first course Asquith said: “We must have this treaty, you know. There will be a war between France and Germany sooner or later; and if the Russians stay out of it, Germany will conquer Europe. We can’t have that.”

Walden asked: “What must be done to change Lloyd George’s mind?”

Asquith smiled thinly. “If I had a pound note for every time that question has been asked I’d be a rich man.”

The butler served a quail to each man and poured claret. Churchill said: “We must come up with a modified proposal which will meet L.G.’s objection.”

Churchill’s casual tone infuriated Walden. “You know perfectly well it’s not that simple,” he snapped.

“No indeed,” Asquith said mildly. “Still, we must try. Thrace to be an independent country under Russian protection, something like that.”

“I’ve spent the past month beating them down,” Walden said wearily.

“Still, the murder of poor old Francis Ferdinand changes the complexion of things,” Asquith said. “Now that Austria is getting aggressive in the Balkans again, the Russians need more than ever that toehold in the area, which, in principle, we’re trying to give them.”

Walden set aside his disappointment and began to think constructively. After a moment he said: “What about Constantinople?”

“What do you mean?”

“Suppose we offered Constantinople to the Russians-would Lloyd George object to that?”

“He might say it was like giving Cardiff to the Irish Republicans,” Churchill said.

Walden ignored him and looked at Asquith.

Asquith put down his knife and fork. “Well. Now that he has made his principled stand, he may be keen to show how reasonable he can be when offered a compromise. I think he may buy it. Will it be enough for the Russians?”

Walden was not sure, but he was buoyed by his new idea. Impulsively he said: “If you can sell it to Lloyd George, I can sell it to Orlov.”

“Splendid!” said Asquith. “Now, then, what about this anarchist?”

Walden’s optimism was punctured. “They’re doing everything possible to protect Aleks, but still it’s damned worrying.”

“I thought Basil Thomson was a good man.”

“Excellent,” Walden said. “But I’m afraid Feliks might be even better.”

Churchill said: “I don’t think we should let the fellow frighten us-”

“I am frightened, gentlemen,” Walden interrupted. “Three times Feliks has slipped through our grasp: the last time we had thirty policemen to arrest him. I don’t see how he can get at Aleks now, but the fact that I can’t see a way doesn’t mean that he can’t see a way. And we know what will happen if Aleks is killed: our alliance with Russia will fall through. Feliks is the most dangerous man in England.”

Asquith nodded, his expression somber. “If you’re less than perfectly satisfied with the protection Orlov is getting, please contact me directly.”

“Thank you.”

The butler offered Walden a cigar, but he sensed that he was finished here. “Life must go on,” he said, “and I must go to a crush at Mrs. Glenville’s. I’ll smoke my cigar there.”

“Don’t tell them where you had dinner,” Churchill said with a smile.

“I wouldn’t dare-they’d never speak to me again.” Walden finished his port and stood up.

“When will you put the new proposal to Orlov?” Asquith asked.

“I’ll motor to Norfolk first thing in the morning.”

“Splendid.”

The butler brought Walden’s hat and gloves, and he took his leave.

Pritchard was standing at the garden gate, chatting to the policeman on duty. “Back to the house,” Walden told him.

He had been rather rash, he reflected as they drove. He had promised to secure Aleks’s consent to the Constantinople plan, but he was not sure how. It was worrying. He began to rehearse the words he would use tomorrow.

He was home before he had made any progress. “We’ll need the car again in a few minutes, Pritchard.”

“Very good, my lord.”

Walden entered the house and went upstairs to wash his hands. On the landing he met Charlotte. “Is Mama getting ready?” he said.

“Yes, she’ll be a few minutes. How goes your politicking?”

“Slowly.”

“Why have you suddenly got involved in all that sort of thing again?”

He smiled. “In a nutshell: to stop Germany conquering Europe. But don’t you worry your pretty little head-”

“I shan’t worry. But where on earth have you hidden Cousin Aleks?”

He hesitated. There was no harm in her knowing; yet, once she knew, she would be capable of accidentally letting the secret out. Better for her to be left in the dark. He said: “If anyone asks you, say you don’t know.” He smiled and went on up to his room.

There were times when the charm of English life wore thin for Lydia.

Usually she liked crushes. Several hundred people would gather at someone’s home to do nothing whatsoever. There was no dancing, no formal meal, no cards. You shook hands with the hostess, took a glass of champagne, and wandered around some great house chatting to your friends and admiring people’s clothes. Today she was struck by the pointlessness of the whole thing. Her discontent took the form of nostalgia for Russia. There, she felt, the beauties would surely be more ravishing, the intellectuals less polite, the conversations deeper, the evening air not so balmy and soporific. In truth she was too worried-about Stephen, about Feliks and about Charlotte-to enjoy socializing.

She ascended the broad staircase with Stephen on one side of her and Charlotte on the other. Her diamond necklace was admired by Mrs. Glenville. They moved on. Stephen peeled off to talk to one of his cronies in the Lords: Lydia heard the words “Amendment Bill” and listened no more. They moved through the crowd, smiling and saying hello. Lydia kept thinking: What am I doing here?

Charlotte said: “By the way, Mama, where has Aleks gone?”

“I don’t know, dear,” Lydia said absently. “Ask your father. Good evening, Freddie.”

Freddie was interested in Charlotte, not Lydia. “I’ve been thinking about what you said at lunch,” he said. “I’ve decided that the difference is, we’re English.”

Lydia left them to it. In my day, she thought, political discussions were decidedly not the way to win a man; but perhaps things have changed. It begins to look as if Freddie will be interested in whatever Charlotte wants to talk about. I wonder if he will propose to her. Oh, Lord, what a relief that would be.

In the first of the reception rooms, where a string quartet played inaudibly, she met her sister-in-law, Clarissa. They talked about their daughters, and Lydia was secretly comforted to learn that Clarissa was terribly worried about Belinda.

“I don’t mind her buying those ultrafashionable clothes and showing her ankles, and I shouldn’t mind her smoking cigarettes if only she were a little more discreet about it,” Clarissa said. “But she goes to the most dreadful places to listen to nigger bands playing jazz music, and last week she went to a boxing match!”

“What about her chaperone?”

Clarissa sighed. “I’ve said she can go out without a chaperone if she’s with girls we know. Now I realize that was a mistake. I suppose Charlotte is always chaperoned.”

“In theory, yes,” Lydia said. “But she’s frightfully disobedient. Once she sneaked out and went to a suffragette meeting.” Lydia was not prepared to tell Clarissa the whole disgraceful truth: “a suffragette meeting” did not sound quite as bad as “a demonstration.” She added: “Charlotte is interested in the most unladylike things, such as politics. I don’t know where she gets her ideas.”

“Oh, I feel the same,” Clarissa said. “Belinda was always brought up with the very best of music, and good society, and wholesome books and a strict governess… so naturally one wonders where on earth she got her taste for vulgarity. The worst of it is, I can’t make her realize that I am worried for her happiness, not my own.”

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear you say that!” Lydia said. “It’s just how I feel. Charlotte seems to think there’s something false or silly about our protecting her.” She sighed. “We must marry them off quickly, before they come to any harm.”

“Absolutely! Is anyone interested in Charlotte?”

“Freddie Chalfont.”

“Ah, yes, I’d heard that.”

“He even seems to be prepared to talk politics to her. But I’m afraid she’s not awfully interested in him. What about Belinda?”

“The opposite problem. She likes them all.”

“Oh, dear!” Lydia laughed, and moved on, feeling better. In some ways Clarissa, as a stepmother, had a more difficult task than Lydia. I suppose I have much to be thankful for, she thought.

The Duchess of Middlesex was in the next room. Most people stayed on their feet at a crush, but the Duchess, characteristically, sat down and let people come to her. Lydia approached her just as Lady Gay-Stephens was moving away.

“I gather Charlotte is quite recovered from her headache,” the Duchess said.

“Yes, indeed; it’s kind of you to inquire.”

“Oh, I wasn’t inquiring,” the Duchess said. “My nephew saw her in the National Gallery at four o’clock.”

The National Gallery! What in Heaven’s name was she doing there? She had sneaked out again! But Lydia was not going to let the Duchess know that Charlotte had been misbehaving. “She has always been fond of art,” she improvised.

“She was with a man,” the Duchess said. “Freddie Chalfont must have a rival.”

The little minx! Lydia concealed her fury. “Indeed,” she said, forcing a smile.

“Who is he?”

“Just one of their set,” Lydia said desperately.

“Oh, no,” said the Duchess with a malicious smile. “He was about forty, and wearing a tweed cap.”

“A tweed cap!” Lydia was being humiliated and she knew it, but she hardly cared. Who could the man be? What was Charlotte thinking of? Her reputation-

“They were holding hands,” the Duchess added, and she smiled broadly, showing rotten teeth.

Lydia could no longer pretend that everything was all right. “Oh, my God,” she said. “What has the child got into now?”

The Duchess said: “In my day the chaperone system was found effective in preventing this sort of thing.”

Lydia was suddenly very angry at the pleasure the Duchess was taking in this catastrophe. “That was a hundred years ago,” she snapped. She walked away. A tweed cap! Holding hands! Forty years old! It was too appalling to be contemplated. The cap meant he was working-class, the age meant he was a lecher, and the hand-holding implied that matters had already gone far, perhaps too far. What can I do, she thought helplessly, if the child goes out of the house without my knowledge? Oh, Charlotte, Charlotte, you don’t know what you’re doing to yourself!

“What was the boxing match like?” Charlotte asked Belinda.

“In a horrid sort of way it was terribly exciting,” Belinda said. “These two enormous men wearing nothing but their shorts, standing there trying to beat each other to death.”

Charlotte did not see how that could be exciting. “It sounds dreadful.”

“I got so worked up”-Belinda lowered her voice-“that I almost let Peter Go Too Far.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Afterward, in the cab on the way home. I let him… kiss me, and so on.”

“What’s and so on?”

Belinda whispered: “He kissed my bosom.”

“Oh!” Charlotte frowned. “Was it nice?”

“Heavenly!”

“Well, well.” Charlotte tried to picture Freddie kissing her bosom, and somehow she knew it would not be heavenly.

Mama walked past and said: “We’re leaving, Charlotte.”

Belinda said: “She looks cross.”

Charlotte shrugged. “Nothing unusual in that.”

“We’re going to a coon show afterward-why don’t you come with us?”

“What’s a coon show?”

“Jazz. It’s wonderful music.”

“Mama wouldn’t let me.”

“Your mama is so old-fashioned.”

“You’re telling me! I’d better go.”

“Bye.”

Charlotte went down the stairs and got her wrap from the cloakroom. She felt as if two people were inhabiting her skin, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. One of them smiled and made polite conversation and talked to Belinda about girlish matters; the other thought about kidnapping and treachery, and asked sly questions in an innocent tone of voice.

Without waiting for her parents she went outside and said to the footman: “The Earl of Walden’s car.”

A couple of minutes later the Lanchester pulled up at the curb. It was a warm evening, and Pritchard had the hood down. He got out of the car and held the door for Charlotte.

She said: “Pritchard, where is Prince Orlov?”

“It’s supposed to be a secret, my lady.”

“You can tell me.”

“I’d rather you asked your papa, m’lady.”

It was no good. She could not bully these servants who had known her as a baby. She gave up, and said: “You’d better go into the hall and tell them I’m waiting in the car.”

“Very good, m’lady.”

Charlotte sat back on the leather seat. She had asked the three people who might have known where Aleks was, and none of them would tell her. They did not trust her to keep the secret, and the maddening thing was that they were of course quite right. She still had not decided whether to help Feliks, however. Now, if she could not get the information he wanted, perhaps she would not have to make the agonizing decision. What a relief that would be.

She had arranged to meet Feliks the day after tomorrow, same place, same time. What would he say when she turned up empty-handed? Would he despise her for failing? No, he was not like that. He would be terribly disappointed. Perhaps he would be able to think of another way to find out where Aleks was. She could not wait to see him again. He was so interesting, and she learned so much from him, that the rest of her life seemed unbearably dull without him. Even the anxiety of this great dilemma into which he had thrown her was better than the boredom of choosing dresses for yet another day of empty social routine.

Papa and Mama got into the car and Pritchard drove off. Papa said: “What’s the matter, Lydia? You look rather upset.”

Mama looked at Charlotte. “What were you doing in the National Gallery this afternoon?”

Charlotte’s heart missed a beat. She had been found out. Someone had spied on her. Now there would be trouble. Her hands started to shake and she held them together in her lap. “I was looking at pictures.”

“You were with a man.”

Papa said: “Oh, no. Charlotte, what is all this?”

“He’s just somebody I met,” Charlotte said. “You wouldn’t approve of him.”

“Of course we wouldn’t approve!” Mama said. “He was wearing a tweed cap!”

Papa said: “A tweed cap! Who the devil is he?”

“He’s a terribly interesting man, and he understands things-”

“And he holds your hand!” Mama interrupted.

Papa said sadly: “Charlotte, how vulgar! In the National Gallery!”

“There’s no romance,” Charlotte said. “You’ve nothing to fear.”

“Nothing to fear?” Mama said with a brittle laugh. “That evil old Duchess knows all about it, and she’ll tell everyone.”

Papa said: “How could you do this to your mama?”

Charlotte could not speak. She was close to tears. She thought: I did nothing wrong, just held a conversation with someone who talks sense! How can they be so-so brutish? I hate them!

Papa said: “You’d better tell me who he is. I expect he can be paid off.”

Charlotte shouted: “I should think he’s one of the few people in the world who can’t!”

“I suppose he’s some Radical,” Mama said. “No doubt it is he who has been filling your head with foolishness about suffragism. He probably wears sandals and eats potatoes with the skins on.” She lost her temper. “He probably believes in Free Love! If you have-”

“No. I haven’t,” Charlotte said. “I told you, there’s no romance.” A tear rolled down her nose. “I’m not the romantic type.”

“I don’t believe you for a minute,” Papa said disgustedly. “Nor will anyone else. Whether you realize it or not, this episode is a social catastrophe for all of us.”

“We’d better put her in a convent!” Mama said hysterically, and she began to cry.

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” Papa said.

Mama shook her head. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry to be so shrill, but I just get so worried…”

“However, she can’t stay in London, after this.”

“Certainly not.”

The car pulled into the courtyard of their house. Mama dried her eyes so that the servants would not see her upset. Charlotte thought: And so they will stop me from seeing Feliks, and send me away, and lock me up. I wish now I had promised to help him, instead of hesitating and saying I would think about it. At least then he would know I’m on his side. Well, they won’t win. I shan’t live the life they have mapped out for me. I shan’t marry Freddie and become Lady Chalfont and raise fat, complacent children. They can’t keep me locked away forever. As soon as I’m twenty-one I’ll go and work for Mrs. Pankhurst, and read books about anarchism, and start a rest home for unmarried mothers, and if I ever have children I will never, never tell them lies.

They went into the house. Papa said: “Come into the drawing room.”

Pritchard followed them in. “Would you like some sandwiches, my lord?”

“Not just now. Leave us alone for a while, would you, Pritchard?”

Pritchard went out.

Papa made a brandy-and-soda and sipped it. “Think again, Charlotte,” he said. “Will you tell us who this man is?”

She wanted to say: He’s an anarchist who is trying to prevent your starting a war! But she merely shook her head.

“Then you must see,” he said almost gently, “that we can’t possibly trust you.”

You could have, once, she thought bitterly, but not anymore.

Papa spoke to Mama. “She’ll just have to go to the country for a month; it’s the only way to keep her out of trouble. Then, after the Cowes Regatta, she can come to Scotland for the shooting.” He sighed. “Perhaps she’ll be more manageable by next season.”

Mama said: “We’ll send her to Walden Hall, then.”

Charlotte thought: They’re talking about me as if I weren’t here.

Papa said: “I’m driving down to Norfolk in the morning, to see Aleks again. I’ll take her with me.”

Charlotte was stunned.

Aleks was at Walden Hall.

I never even thought of that!

Now I know!

“She’d better go up and pack,” Mama said.

Charlotte stood up and went out, keeping her face down so that they should not see the light of triumph in her eyes.