A Season of Secrets (56 page)

‘And now?’

‘And now she isn’t.’

Their eyes continued to hold, both of them aware it was the frankest, most truthful conversation they’d ever had.

‘I will provide the necessary financial guarantee for Judith,’ he said, ‘of course I will, but I have to warn you, Zephiniah, that even though I will put things in hand
immediately, her application for admission to Britain will take some time. Thousands of Jews – German and Austrian – are fighting for admission to Britain. There will be a yearly quota,
though I don’t know what it is. There will also be different types of entry visas, some of which will be looked on more favourably than others. In Vienna there could well be a long wait for a
document approving her departure, and other types of obstructions – obstructions that we in Britain can’t begin to imagine.’

‘You’ll put things in hand immediately, though? This afternoon?’

Her frantic concern on behalf of the daughter she had never met was so unexpected that he said with a surge of affection for her, ‘Of course I will. I’m leaving for Whitehall
straight away. Will you write to Judith, or shall I?’

‘I will.’ There was no hesitation in her voice. ‘I will, because I want to.’

With Gilbert pausing only long enough to pick up a homburg and a pair of pigskin gloves, they walked together out of the house. On the pavement he flagged down a taxi and, before he stepped into
it and she walked the short distance out of Mount Street and down Park Lane to the Dorchester, Zephiniah said emotionally, ‘Thank you, Gilbert. I knew, despite the hurt I’ve caused you,
that you would help her.’

Before he could respond the taxi door had slammed behind him and she was walking away, a handkerchief to her nose – or was it to her eyes? He couldn’t tell, but as he asked the
cabbie to take him to the Home Office, he was filled with the extraordinary realization that, out of the fiasco of their marriage, affection and friendship had finally been born.

Once at the Home Office, his own ministerial position ensured that he waited barely ten minutes before being shown into the office of Sir Samuel Hoare, the Home Secretary.

‘Fenton, my dear chap!’ Samuel Hoare rose, tall and thin from behind a massive Biedermeier desk, to greet him. ‘I hope you’re not here with news from the House
that’s going to keep me awake all night?’

‘I’m not here on official business at all – so I hope you are going to forgive me. I’m here to request a favour.’

They shook hands. Gilbert had known Samuel Hoare for nearly twenty years. Like himself, he was a man who had held more than one Cabinet post and they had always enjoyed a cordial
relationship.

He sat down, saying, ‘My estranged wife’s daughter, Judith Zimmermann, is a doctor in Vienna. She’s Jewish. I have all her details with me. Date of birth – she was born
in Vienna – address, et cetera. Needless to say, she needs to emigrate from Austria as soon as possible. I, of course, will vouch for the fact that Miss Zimmermann will not be a financial
liability to this country, once she arrives in it. I realize her application will have to go through the normal channels, but would appreciate any tips on how this can best be done in the shortest
possible time.’

Samuel Hoare looked startled. Gilbert didn’t blame him for being so. It wasn’t every day that a peer and a fellow Cabinet minister announced he was – at least until his divorce
became final – the stepfather of a Jewish girl seeking to flee the terror of Hitler’s Reich.

Keeping his curiosity concerning the circumstances of Judith Zimmermann’s birth to himself only with the greatest difficulty, he said, ‘The sponsorship aspect will be plain sailing.
Visas are a little trickier.’

‘Why? She’s a doctor.’

‘And therein lies the problem.’

It was Gilbert’s turn to look startled.

Samuel Hoare took off rimless spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. ‘The number of immigration applications from German and Austrian Jews is
astronomical. It’s impossible to accept every application, and there is a weeding-out process. Different categories of applicants are granted different visas – and many more visas are
granted to certain categories than they are to other categories.’

‘But Judith is a professional person.’

‘And professional bodies in Britain – doctors, architects, lawyers, et cetera – have no desire to see a huge tide of people, those as qualified as themselves, coming into this
country, flooding their own professions and damaging work opportunities. To avoid this, the number of visas being issued to professional Jews – unless they are particularly distinguished
– is lower than the number of visas being issued to, for instance, agricultural workers or domestic servants.’

‘Then let her be issued with a domestic-service visa. Anything to get her out of Austria and into Britain before she finds herself in a concentration camp!’

Samuel Hoare flinched, unused to being brought face-to-face with the painful realities he usually only dealt with on paper.

‘As I assume you will want to keep this letter, I’ll have my secretary transcribe a copy of it. I’m sure everything will work out for the best, Fenton.’

Gilbert said his goodbyes, hoping fervently that in this case everything would, indeed, work out for the best. Things certainly weren’t doing so where Thea, Olivia and Violet were
concerned.

In the short taxi ride back to Mount Street he gave free rein to his deep anxieties about each one of his daughters. He’d heard nothing from Thea for more than three months, at which point
she had still been in Madrid, driving an ambulance. It had been even longer since some kind of contact had been maintained by being able to read Hal’s despatches in the
Evening News.
All Thea’s last letter had said was that Hal no longer had any means of filing news reports and that he had headed back north, towards Barcelona, as a fighting member in a unit of the nth
International Brigade.

Olivia’s position in Berlin was almost as much of a nightmare for him. Thanks to Roz, he knew now of Olivia and Dieter’s change of heart where Hitler’s Third Reich was
concerned – and for that he was profoundly grateful. The knowledge that Roz had brought him of Dieter’s involvement with those seeking to rid Germany of Hitler had, however, filled him
with fear for his safety, and for Olivia’s.

As for Violet . . . Words failed him when he thought of Violet having become an intimate of men like Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring. Never had he believed he would have become grateful
that Blanche was no longer alive, but when he thought of how devastated she would have been by Violet’s lifestyle, he found himself thanking God she was no longer beside him to witness
it.

It was evening by the time he walked, heavy-hearted, up the shallow steps of his Mount Street home and let himself in. The first thing he became aware of was that his butler hadn’t hurried
into the hall to greet him and relieve him of his hat and gloves.

The second thing he became aware of was that there was a huddled figure on the bottom tread of the central staircase, where no huddled figure should have been.

He stepped forward and, as he did so, Thea lifted her head. She was agonizingly thin and looked tired unto death. ‘Papa?’ she said, as if she couldn’t believe he was real.

Gilbert, who was having just as much difficulty in believing he was awake and not dreaming, closed the distance between them in swift strides. ‘Thea, my darling girl!’ He dropped to
his knees beside her. ‘Why didn’t you let me know you were on your way back to England? Are you ill, Thea? Are you hurt?’

She shook her head and, as he put his arms around her, holding her close, thanking God for her safe return, she said in a cracked, broken voice, ‘Hal’s dead, Papa. He’s dead,
and I was with him and I couldn’t save him.’ And then she started sobbing; sobbing as if she was never, ever going to stop.

DECEMBER 1938

It was the first week of December and Gilbert was walking down Pall Mall in the direction of Trafalgar Square. He’d just come from a meeting with the prime minister, a
meeting that had filled him with nothing but despair. Neville Chamberlain was a man who yearned for peace in Europe and was prepared to go to any lengths – as long as they were not
confrontational – to achieve it.

In September, with Hitler shouting that the Sudetenland was the last territorial demand he would make, Chamberlain had flown to Munich. He had come back carrying an agreement signed by himself,
Hitler, Mussolini and the French prime minister Monsieur Daladier, that in exchange for the largely German-speaking Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia being incorporated into the Third Reich, there
would be no aggression by Germany where the rest of Czechoslovakia was concerned. On his arrival back in Britain, Chamberlain had waved the agreement victoriously, declaring that he had secured
‘Peace in our time’.

Gilbert, and the political friends who thought like him – Winston Churchill, Duff Cooper, Anthony Eden – were certain he had done no such thing. Chamberlain, though, as had been
clear from the meeting Gilbert that was just coming from, was still naively convinced that Hitler’s word could be trusted.

Gilbert was just approaching the Renaissance palace facade of the Travellers Club when he saw Max Bradley walking towards it from the other direction. They came to an awkward halt in front of
each other at the foot of the club’s steps.

Gilbert had neither seen nor spoken to Max since the time Max and Rozalind had split up, shortly before Max announced he was to be a contender in the 1936 presidential election.

It was Max who breached the awkwardness first. ‘It’s good to see you, Gilbert. You’re looking well.’

It was a lie. Gilbert’s handsome, strong-boned face looked positively haggard. Considering the perilous state of relations between Britain and Germany, Max wasn’t surprised. Then he
thought of Violet in Berlin, and of his responsibility for her being there. He thought of Gilbert believing her to be a Nazi-lover, in every sense of the word, and experienced such a burning attack
of conscience that he knew he was going to have to put Gilbert in the picture.

‘I’m staying here,’ he said, indicating the club with a nod of his head. ‘How about we have a drink?’

‘That’s fine by me.’ Gilbert, curious as to what it was that had brought Max to London, walked with him into the familiar opulence of the club’s entrance hall.

Instead of going into the bar, Max led the way into the Outer Morning Room, a large drawing room where a certain amount of privacy could usually be guaranteed. They sat in leather button-back
chairs close to a window looking out over the street.

‘It’s been a while, Max,’ Gilbert said after Max had asked an attentive member of staff for two Glenfiddich single malts. ‘A little over five years, I think.’

‘And a lot has happened since then,’ Max responded, adding drily, ‘For one thing, I’m not President of the United States.’

‘Indeed, no.’ Gilbert chuckled and the little ice left to be broken did so. ‘And I am not prime minister.’

Max, wanting to bring up the subject of Violet and not sure of the best way of going about it, said, with one leg crossed over the other, ‘So give me an update on Fenton family matters,
Gilbert.’

For a long moment Gilbert didn’t respond. His family matters were so dire there hadn’t been one male friend he’d felt able to unburden himself to. Max, however, was different,
for Max knew all the family – including Carrie – and that put him in a position no one else was in.

He said at last, ‘The good news – the only good news – is that Thea is home. She went with Hal to Spain in the summer of ’36. For well over a year he sent despatches on
the war back to his paper, the
Evening News.
Then the despatches stopped and by the early months of this year he was south of Barcelona, fighting with a unit of the nth International
Brigade. Thea was in intermittent contact with him, driving ambulances for the Red Cross.’

He paused as the waiter served them their drinks.

‘And Hal?’ Max prompted, fearing the worst. ‘Is he back in London, too?’

‘No,’ Gilbert said bleakly. ‘He’s dead. He and Thea were together at the time. They ran into a street fracas and he was shot in front of her.’

Max’s jaw tightened. ‘Where is Thea now? London or Gorton?’

‘Gorton – she wanted to be near Carrie.’ Gilbert took a swallow of his single malt and then said, ‘But it’s Violet who is of most concern to me, Max. You’ll
know from the gossip columns that she left Hollywood for the Babelsberg studios in Berlin four years ago. And you no doubt also know the kind of company she is keeping there. There’s been
enough “Government minister’s daughter continues to date both Goebbels and Göring
”
headlines in the British press. How I’ve kept my position within the Cabinet
is nothing short of a miracle.’

He put his drink down and leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees, his grief over Violet so deep it was almost beyond bearing.

‘She was such an adorable child, Max. So affectionate, so full of fun. Always reckless, and heedless of any consequences her actions might bring, of course. But I could never have
envisaged . . . never ever imagined that she would form friendships with men such as these.’