A Season of Secrets (47 page)

He wanted to take her in his arms so badly it was a physical pain.

Once again he looked down at his watch. The meal was coming to a close, but after it there would be coffee in the drawing room and, if his previous weekend at the Fort was anything to go by,
cards for those who wanted to play followed by late-night dancing to records.

He smiled at something Princess Marina had said to him, mentally calculating that it would be another three hours at least before he and Thea would at last be alone. Somehow he would get through
the evening and, when he had, when he and Thea were again in each other’s arms, he would ask her – for the third time – if she would marry him, his reasoning being that there
could be no better place for another shot at a proposal than a royal residence.

Having come to such a major decision, he felt almost buoyant.

The moment was fleeting.

‘Let me,’ his host said, rising eagerly to his feet, ‘play a little tune on the bagpipes that I composed myself.’

NOVEMBER 1935

‘And so I th-thought, what better place for the weekend than G-Gorton Hall.’

Gilbert was at Mount Street, and the person he had answered the telephone to was the Duke of York.

‘This summer’s Jubilee celebrations have quite taken it out of Elizabeth and she is v-very under the weather,’ Bertie continued. ‘She’s always wanted to visit
Gorton and so I thought we would propose ourselves this coming weekend. No need for f-fancy arrangements, old chap. No other guests, you know. Just a quiet weekend
en famille.
Elizabeth is
so fond of your girls.’

Gilbert said goodbye to him, his mind racing. The first difficulty was that he was in London, not Yorkshire, and Parliament was sitting. Other difficulties came thick and fast. Zephiniah was in
Aix-les-Bains. Thea was in London, thank God, but Olivia was in Berlin. And Violet . . . Usually quite imperturbable, Gilbert ran a hand distractedly through his hair. Violet could be anywhere, but
was most likely in Berlin. Wherever she was, the chances of his contacting her were so remote as to be negligible.

There was one thing he could accomplish immediately and that was to notify his household staff at Gorton that the Duke and Duchess of York would be staying over the weekend, as would the
family.

He picked up the telephone receiver again and began making phone calls. It was a time-consuming task. Gorton could only be reached via three different telephone exchanges and, when he finally
spoke to Mrs Huntley, Gorton’s latest housekeeper – under Zephiniah’s reign few members of the domestic staff stayed at Gorton for long – she sounded anything but confident
at the prospect of having the house ready at such short notice for royal guests.

Next he tried to contact Zephiniah. If a telephone connection to Yorkshire had been time-consuming, the connection to Aix-les-Bains was a nightmare. When he finally got through to the hotel that
he understood Zephiniah to be staying at, it was to discover she wasn’t a guest there. He severed the connection, tight-lipped.

That his marriage had deteriorated to the point where he didn’t even know his wife’s whereabouts was a matter of deep shame to him – shame because he cared so little about
where she was and who her companions were, when she was out of the country. He had married her as a young fool of a boy might have married: out of lust, not love. Whether she had ever loved him was
something he very much doubted.

The sham that his marriage had become wasn’t something that could be paraded in front of the Yorks, and it wouldn’t be, for he had no intention of denying Zephiniah the heady
pleasure she would take in finally having royal guests beneath Gorton’s roof.

Pausing only long enough to pour himself a stiff whiskey, he embarked on the long drawn-out process of contacting International Enquiries and obtaining the telephone numbers of
all the hotels in Aix-les-Bains; then he embarked on the even longer process of telephoning them.

When he eventually tracked her down, Zephiniah went through the pretence of being apologetic that she hadn’t let him know she’d changed hotels. He cut her short, saying merely,
‘The Yorks have proposed themselves for this coming weekend. I’m assuming you will be with me at Gorton to greet them.’

‘Good God! Whyever . . . ? But of course I’ll be there! But who else are we going to be able to invite at such short notice? Would the Baldwins, d’you think? Or the
Coopers?’

‘Bertie has expressly asked that the weekend is family only. Elizabeth is what he describes as being “under the weather”. She wants rest, not entertainment.’

Despite her elation at finally having royalty beneath her roof, Zephiniah couldn’t help being waspish. ‘Then he’s certainly chosen the right place for her,’ was the last
thing he heard her say before their connection, through no fault of either of them, was abruptly severed.

‘How exciting!’ Olivia said when, over a lot of static, he told her that Bertie and Elizabeth were to be guests at Gorton that weekend.
‘
We’ll
both be there, Papa
.
It’s so helpful to Dieter’s career to be able to converse with members of our royal family on casual, intimate terms. Dieter’s friend, Ulrich von
Ribbentrop, will be delighted. He’s to take over as Germany’s ambassador to Great Britain in a few months’ time.’ A little giggle of happy anticipation came over the line.
‘With luck, Dieter will eventually step into his shoes.’

With very mixed feelings Gilbert gave her his love and said goodbye. Ribbentrop was a businessman who often visited London and Gilbert had met him a couple of times, though only at large
functions where he’d done no more than exchange a few polite words with him. Unlike most of the men who found favour with the Führer, Ribbentrop was a sophisticated man with excellent
English and Gilbert was aware that Hitler had made a good choice. Ribbentrop would fit seamlessly into British high-society circles – and always, of course, with his ear to the ground.

That his son-in-law would also have his ear to the ground was something he was also painfully aware of. Anything beneficial obtained by Hitler’s rise to power as German’s leader
– the reduction of unemployment, the curbing of communism – had long since been overshadowed by his obvious determination to plunge the world into another war. Only a day ago the
Führer had declared that all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five were to be called up as army reservists and, in typical crackpot fashion, that non-belief in Nazism was now to be
grounds for divorce.

In the many private conversations Gilbert had had with his son-in-law, Dieter had clung fiercely to his belief that over and above the anti-Semitic laws that had been brought into place –
and which Dieter believed were not of any real importance – Hitler’s greatness was in the way he was making Germans proud to be German again.

In the early days of their conversations Gilbert had been able to sympathize with Dieter’s resentment at the Versailles Treaty. What he wasn’t able to sympathize with was the way in
which Hitler was defiantly breaking it. He had broken the clause about non-rearmament, increasing the size of his armed forces and creating an air force. Defensively Dieter had stressed that in all
of Hitler’s speeches he proclaimed a desire for peace and spoke of the folly of war. Gilbert, a good judge of men, had believed Dieter sincere in his opinion that Hitler wasn’t a
warmonger, but he didn’t share it, and it grieved him that not only Dieter, but Olivia too, should be so blind.

He poured himself another whiskey, reassured by the knowledge that Dieter was unlikely to overhear anything from Bertie and Elizabeth that it would be better he didn’t. Neither of the
Yorks was political. The weekend was going to be exactly as Bertie wished it to be. A jolly, friendly, unpretentious, restful weekend
en famille
– or at least it would be, if he could
rustle up enough members of his family.

‘How sensible of Bertie to think of Gorton as a restful weekend haven,’ Thea said, when she came home from her stint at the East End club for boys that she helped
to run. She pulled a hat damp with rain from off her turbulent hair. ‘However, I’m afraid I won’t be part of the Fenton welcome party. Not if Olivia and Dieter are to be
there.’

Her response was exactly as Gilbert had feared it would be. Taking a deep breath, he said, ‘I know there are great divisions between you and Olivia politically, but for my sake, just for
three days, would you both try and forget them? From what Bertie said, Elizabeth is particularly looking forward to meeting up with the two of you again. She would also like to meet up with Violet,
but I don’t even know which country she is in. One minute it’s America, the next it’s Germany.’

Thea shrugged herself out of her coat. ‘My advice is not even to try and locate her. Violet is too racy for the Yorks, and as she’s so brain-dead as to be spending time in Nazi
Germany when she doesn’t need to, then I’ve no desire to see her – not now and not at any time in the future.’

Wearily Gilbert pinched the top of his nose and then said sombrely, ‘This isn’t how a family is supposed to be, Thea. If your mother could see you three girls now, all at odds with
each other, it would break her heart.’

‘If we are at odds with each other, Papa, it isn’t my fault. If Olivia hadn’t married a German – or, having married one, had kept a mind of her own – then
we’d get along perfectly well together. I can’t say the same for Violet.’ She was about to say that Violet was absolutely impossible, and then saw the deep unhappiness written in
every line of her father’s face.

She checked herself, aware of how much more the deep divide between herself and Olivia meant to him than it did to her, and of how painful it must be to him that Violet travelled between Germany
and America and yet so seldom spent time with him – or with anyone else in the family. It wasn’t as if he even had the comfort of a happy relationship with Zephiniah. The family life
that meant so much to him, and that they had all enjoyed when her mother was alive, was nothing but a much-loved memory. His hopes of re-creating it with Zephiniah had failed and now, when he
needed a show of support from her, she was letting him down badly.

Overcome with remorse, she slid her arm through his and hugged it. ‘Sorry, Papa. I didn’t mean to upset you. Of course I can be civil to the family’s two Nazis for three days.
I’ll even be civil to Zephiniah.’ She paused, adding as an afterthought, ‘Have you contacted her? She is going to be at Gorton, isn’t she?’

‘Yes.’ He patted her hand, knowing how hard it always was for her to go back on any decision she had taken, and grateful for the effort she was making. ‘It’s a shame
Rozalind is still in Spain. I believe both Bertie and Elizabeth took to her when she had her photographic session with them.’

‘She shouldn’t still be there. Did you see the piece Hal wrote about the civil disturbances taking place in Madrid and Granada? If she stays much longer she’s going to find
herself there as a war photographer – and, unlike the war we seem to be heading towards, Spain’s war will be a civil war, the most hideous kind of war of all.’

Three days later, travelling by train with Thea to Yorkshire, Gilbert had plenty of time to ponder the depressing political situation in Europe. Earlier in the year, and in
defiance of the League of Nations, Italy had invaded Abyssinia. Spain was in deep crisis and, like Thea, he could foresee the military’s determination to overthrow the government ending in
disaster. Germany, of course, was the chief anxiety. Baldwin believed that appeasement and the League of Nations would contain Hitler. Gilbert gravely doubted it, and had frankly told the prime
minister that if Mussolini had got away with riding roughshod over the League, then there was little possibility of Hitler taking any notice of it.

As the train neared Darlington he put all thoughts of fascist dictators and would-be dictators to the back of his mind. The weekend ahead was going to be a relaxing one full of jollity –
how could it not be, if Elizabeth was to be there – and, because of the Yorks’ presence, there would, for once, be family harmony.

Zephiniah would be so full of triumph that she would be virtually exploding with it. Olivia would be her usual lovely self, totally oblivious to why her acceptance of the political situation in
Germany should be such a cause of concern to anyone. Thea had vowed not to bring up the subject of Germany with either Olivia or Dieter and, having arranged by telephone to meet up with Carrie on
the Sunday afternoon, was looking forward to the weekend, instead of viewing it as a duty that had to be undergone.

The thought of how much he, too, would have liked to be meeting up with Carrie overwhelmed him and he was still thinking of her as they changed trains at Darlington for a connection to
Richmond.

At Richmond his chauffeured Rolls was waiting to meet them.

‘Lady Fenton arrived yesterday, and Count and Countess von Starhemberg arrived an hour or so after her,’ his chauffeur said in answer to his immediate query.

Gilbert stepped into the car and leaned back against the grey leather upholstery with a sigh of satisfaction. Without Violet and Rozalind they would be a very small family group, but that
couldn’t be helped. What was important was that Zephiniah, Olivia and Dieter were already at Gorton.