Abdication A Novel

Chapter TWENTY-ONE





Julian had got himself into a muddle. He had been sitting on a bench in Hyde Park for a good half hour wondering how to make some order of his life. It was late on a Friday morning and he was grateful that there were so few people about. Nearby a small number of bowler-hatted men were reading newspapers and preparing to eat their lunch, their grease-proofed sandwiches lying unwrapped in little packages on their laps, as the pages of the Financial Times flapped in the wind. A few yards away on another bench a large woman in a fur coat sat with her back to him deep in conversation with a distinguished-looking man. Every now and then the woman would stop talking and reprimand the restless terrier at her feet with a fierce little jerk of the lead.

Julian turned away from the pair in an effort to concentrate on his own thoughts as he vacillated between deciding on one course of action and then another. His tendency towards consistent inconsistency both infuriated and exhausted him.

Julian had only seen Lottie once since her return from Berlin and Rupert not at all. Julian was sharing a flat near the law courts with a gregarious fellow graduate and had diffidently resumed something of his old social round of dances and dinners and weekend parties. After long bibulous evenings in the Mirabelle and the Café Royal when he had come home disgusted with himself for his continued association with the vacuous Bullingdon crowd. He had intended to be definitive about ending his relationship with Lottie but although he had intimated to May that it was over, the truth was he hadn’t actually got round to telling Lottie. At a recent Mayfair ball finding himself, as usual, bored by the same old people, the same old music and same old chat, he had even kissed her. He had been drunk, he told himself, by way of excuse, and discovered that any lingering feelings of physical desire had entirely evaporated. In fact, after giving way to Lottie’s strange vinegary-smelling skin and her scarlet-painted lips he felt as if he had swallowed a mouthful of stale beer. He was glad she had decided to go and stay with her grandmother for a few days in Cornwall. He could do with a bit of time to think.

He had not planned to fall in love with May. She was the most unsuitable person for a girlfriend. And up until the moment they had plunged together into the river at Cuckmere Haven and had floated out to sea he had been determined to live a less anarchic, more exacting, and impressively responsible existence. But in the presence of the slender body in the water beside him, and the dark hair swept back from that lovely face with her wide grey eyes looking at him from the swell of the waves, he was confronted with the clarity he had so long sought. As he had walked up the beach with her towards the hut all his apprehension about what was about to happen had magically disappeared. If there was a skill involved in the act of love, he had been eager that they discover it for the first time together. And during that first afternoon, by the sea, in the small hut at Cuckmere, Julian had barely been aware of time or place, certain only of one thing: that life was, in that moment, perfect.

And yet, away from the hut, and from May’s embrace, the reality of day-to-day life nudged its way into his conscience. Reverberating memories of the violence at Cable Street reinforced his conviction that he was living in a country at odds with itself, riddled with selfishness, hypocrisy, prejudice, double standards and secrets. Last week he had received another card from Peter Grimshaw, the professor he and May had met in Wigan, urging Julian to join him and his friend Eric in fighting the cause in Spain. Julian was tempted to go. And yet. And there he went again! Dithering, procrastinating. For one thing his law term began in a matter of weeks, he argued with himself, and for another he found himself increasingly loathe to travel to a country, fanciful as it sounded, in which he would not be breathing the same air as May.

The strengthening wind was beginning to deter Hyde Park’s lunchtime visitors from delaying any longer, and newspapers were folded with the finality that preceded a return to the office. Julian adjusted his striped scarf, pulling it up high around his neck and tucking the ends tightly beneath the collar of his coat. The large woman and her gentleman companion continued to sit absorbed in animated conversation on the bench a little way along the path. The small dog was lying obediently at their feet. Julian’s thoughts turned to his mother. She was unwell. The doctors had initially told him it might be tuberculosis but until they could be certain they had advised Julian not to say anything to worry her. He had spent a difficult evening in her flat a week earlier when Mrs. Richardson had taken advantage of his presence to observe what a selfish young man he had become.

“Instead of looking after your old mother when she needs you, you tell me you are still thinking of taking off for Spain. You don’t even know this boy … Paul did you say his name was? And what about that other one? Eric something? Flair? Blurr? What sort of families do they both come from? Not ones I have ever heard of, I’m sure.”

As a consequence of that dinner and a sign of tentative guilt, Julian had consulted an expensive chest specialist from Guy’s Hospital, whose son had been his contemporary at Magdalen. Julian had always been careful with his money and was glad he had saved a sufficient sum from his benefactor’s allowance to pay for this medical advice.

“I understand your mother is widowed,” the specialist had said sympathetically to Julian on the telephone after examining Mrs. Richardson in his Harley Street rooms, an encounter for which she had worn her best hat and diamond pin.

“I am told on excellent authority that it is very like one in the possession of the Duchess of York,” she told Julian afterwards, while appearing vague about the diagnosis of her illness.

“We only have our parents for such a short precious time, don’t we?” the specialist had said to Julian. “But do we make the most of it while they are here? That is what I ask myself sometimes and that is exactly what I would advise you to do, Mr. Richardson. Your mother is not at all well, I am afraid. She has cancer of the lung, which I assess to be inoperable.”

Julian remained ambivalent about this news. He was not certain if it was his duty to care for a woman he did not love even if she was responsible for giving him life. He could, at least for the short term, pay for her medical needs. And the recent conversation with her, or more accurately her latest lecture, had left him feeling unusually defenceless. Perhaps his mother had a point. Apart from the temptations of London, here he was, enjoying the benefits of his Oxford education, the luxuries of Cuckmere, and ever-deeper feelings for May, while responding with a half promise to Peter that he might come out to join the communists in Spain. Was he simply trying to impress his left-wing Beaumont Street heroes with those plans? Should he stay near May and look after his mother, or should he reassess his life by leaving the country? Or was there a halfway measure in all this? He did not know. At times he despaired of himself.

He had brought a copy of Jude the Obscure to the park but the wind was whipping round him and it felt too cold to settle down and read. Pulling his afghan collar even more tightly round his neck he stood up to leave. He planned to call in at Heywood Hill, the new bookshop in Mayfair that one of the Beaumont Street crowd had recommended for the most interesting and up-to-the-minute political titles. He would have to hurry there if he was to arrive in time for the birthday luncheon of an old university acquaintance, a Bullingdon Club member who had been born with half the silver of Mayfair wedged in his mouth.

Just then he heard a “whooee,” and tilting and swaying towards him came the unwieldy hulk of Miss Evangeline Nettlefold, being pulled from one side of the path to the other by a small dog of deceptive strength. Plumping herself down on the bench, Evangeline patted the seat beside her and, still swaying a little, clamped a hand firmly on Julian’s knee for balance. He tried not to flinch as he felt her kiss dampen his cheek.

“My, am I surprised to see you on such a blowy day! This is Loafer, Slipper’s puppy. You know? Wallis’s dog. Wallis had to go to Suffolk. On business. They were so busy at the Fort so I said I would take care of Loafer while she was away. I chose the name. You know? Like the new shoe everyone is talking about?” Ignoring Julian’s bemused expression, she rattled on. “Wallis was amused to think that a slipper would give birth to a loafer! But to tell you the truth, I think Loafer is a little unhinged and he is driving me a little crazy.”

And as Julian looked more closely at Evangeline she did indeed look a little crazed. Her hair (Oh yes, a wig, he suddenly remembered) was in a state of unusual disarray—a little hat with a veil was propped precariously on the top of her head, her cheeks were aflame, and her brow simmered with perspiration.

“You look very hot in that coat,” Julian said.

“Oh well, I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone,” she explained.

“But didn’t I notice you sitting over there with a gentleman just a few moments ago?” Julian asked her.

The cheeks flamed anew. “Oh yes, well, that was just an acquaintance of mine. I hardly know him.”

She is not telling the truth, Julian thought to himself. She was certainly more than just “acquainted” with the man with whom she had been in such deep conversation and who looked decidedly familiar from the newspapers, even though Julian could not quite pinpoint his identity. But out loud Julian said, “How strange that you should ‘run into’ two people you barely know in one morning!”

Evangeline looked startled and stood up quickly. “Yes, well, I must be getting on and leave you to your book.”

And without another word she set off on her uneven path, a tall, hunched-over figure led on by the little dog. Julian watched her as she rolled away into the distance. Every so often she would give the animal’s lead a vicious little tug, which, had it been any stronger, might have broken the poor animal’s neck.


There had been a sudden burst of rain, and as Julian reached the elegant Georgian house that faced onto Piccadilly, he was aware of water seeping through the collar of his coat and onto his neck. He rang the bell twice. He had rushed from the park, regretting that the conversation with Evangeline had delayed him and prevented him from making the detour to the bookshop. As the butler opened the door he caught Julian checking his watch.

“Not the last to arrive, by any means, sir,” he assured him. “Must be the weather, sir,” he continued in the deferential manner that all the best servants adopted to ensure the upper classes never felt themselves to be in the wrong.

The dining room was on the first floor, facing the street. Julian helped himself to a glass of champagne from a tray, and went over to join the other members of the lunch party who were standing at the open window.

He was surprised to see Lottie, swinging her elegant legs, sitting on the high window seat next to Rupert. Why wasn’t she in the country?

“Hallo, Julian, you didn’t think I would miss a good party did you?” Her carefree tone was at odds with the apprehensive expression on her face.

Julian managed a smile.

“Hallo, old chap,” Rupert said. “Good of you to prize yourself away from all those lectures to join us! And how is the world of the legal wizard?”

“The law term hasn’t begun yet,” Julian replied quickly. “But you made it safely back from Berlin in the Talbot then I see?”

“Ran like the wind, it did.” Rupert replied confidently, but looking strangely sheepish.

“So sorry your mother isn’t getting any better,” Julian said.

“Thanks, old chap. I must remind Bettina that we should go down and see Mama soon. Awfully difficult to know what to say to someone who doesn’t even know us. And that sister of mine is so busy playing games with a new German soldier friend she met at a party for the new German ambassador. She says he’s going to take her to Berlin to show her the sights! Anyway, have you been down to Cuckmere recently?”

Julian murmured that he had, not wanting to admit that he went to see Joan (and everyone else at Cuckmere) every week, and more recently every couple of days. He kept to himself the disapproval felt by the Cuckmere staff, who had not seen either of Lady Joan’s children for a good couple of months.

Julian turned his attention to the noise coming from the direction of Piccadilly Circus. As the sound of chanting grew louder, the first of several hundred brown flat caps appeared in the street below the window, looking like a field full of flattened molehills, their blue and white banners plainly visible, rising above the caps. Two of the men were carrying a coffin-size container beneath the protection of several battered umbrellas. Another was holding the lead of a Labrador. The dog was moving as slowly as the men.

“It must be the ship builders from the North with their petition for Downing Street,” a member of the lunch party called out from inside the chandelier-hung room.

“Yes, that’s right,” confirmed another, leaning precariously far out of the window to get a better view of the street. “I can see that redheaded MP Ellen Wilkinson,” he added. “Apparently she has marched with them all for miles. She cannot be more than five foot tall.”

Julian was silent. The sight of the slow steps of the Jarrow marchers, who had been on their feet for over three weeks, was one of a desperateness that he had not encountered since his visit to Wigan over six months ago. He had read about the march in the newspapers of course and barely a day had gone by since last April without him thinking of the men standing on those street corners, looking forward to nightfall when another day without work or pay would be over. Further north eight men in ten were said to be unemployed, and since business at Palmers’ shipyard on the Tyne had dried up, the figure was sometimes even higher. But these men who had arrived in the heart of London, just a few feet from where Julian held a brimming glassful of champagne, were passing through one of the richest, most privileged areas in the country. Oh yes, he thought, cynicism washing over him. Most onlookers agreed they were witnessing dignity, pride and courage. But the point was what was anyone, what was he, doing about it?

Slamming his glass down hard on the table beside him he heard it crack. He turned away from the window, tripping over a well-known member of the peerage, who was lying at full stretch in an armchair, blowing smoke rings from a cigar and managing to yawn at the same time.

Lottie looked up from her position on Rupert’s knee.

“You off then?” she had obviously drunk a good deal of champagne and did not bother to disguise the truth of her relationship with Julian’s erstwhile university roommate. “Off to find the backseat of a Rolls-Royce, I expect,” she added, with unmistakable bitterness. Julian did not answer her. Coatless, he dashed out into the street, banging the front door hard behind him before the surprised butler could reach it. An hour later, after he had signed up at the Holborn headquarters to become a card-carrying member of the Labour Party, he made his way back down Piccadilly feeling disturbed. Skirting the back wall of the gardens of Buckingham Palace, he headed for Victoria railway station. Barely pausing to think what he was doing, he bought a ticket to Polegate and an hour later walked through the gates of Cuckmere Park just as the light was fading. Mr. Hooch was putting the Talbot away in the garage and waved in greeting.

“Good afternoon, sir. Nice to see you. Come to pay a surprise visit to her ladyship, have you, sir?”

The Cuckmere kitchen staff’s united approval of Mr. Julian had not abated both for his loyalty to Lady Joan and for his still unspoken but obvious attachment to young May.

“Yes, that’s right, Hooch. I came to find a bit of peace and sanity if you really want to know!” Julian told him, suddenly overcome by a need to tell the truth to the older man. “Is anyone about?” Julian asked.

Mr. Hooch was not innocent of what lay behind the question. “Sir Philip has gone to his study and I am just this moment back from collecting Miss May from the station. You must have walked along the back lane or we would have passed you on the road. You’ll find her in the kitchen, I expect. I’ll tell Sir Philip you are here.”

The kitchen door was empty but Julian knew where May lived. He found Mrs. Cage’s front door unlocked. May was crouching in the hallway beside a cupboard sniffing a paintbrush. She started when she saw Julian.

“You! Sorry! You gave me such a shock! A lovely shock, though,” she whispered. And laying the brush on top of the paint pot, she closed the cupboard and put her finger up to touch his lips.

“Can we go inside the cupboard?” he whispered back, grinning at her with a mixture of delight and puzzlement and catching her finger and kissing it. “And you can tell me why you are suddenly so interested in paint.”

“Oak Street, you silly,” she said quietly.

“Oh yes, of course,” he replied. May had not been the only one to see the letters on the Greenfelds’ door in Bethnal Green on the evening of Joshua’s birth. Both Nat and Simon had been safely upstairs with the new baby when May had beckoned to Julian to join her outside and with the help of a wet cloth and some turpentine the two of them had managed to remove the evidence before any of the inhabitants at number 52 had seen it.

Without another word, May motioned Julian to follow her up to her room, taking his hand as they climbed the stairs. A small and silent figure was lying facedown on May’s bed. Florence was shaking all over, rigid to May’s gentle touch. On the floor beside her was a small picture frame. May picked it up. Together she and Julian looked at the full-length photograph. A young unsmiling man of about twenty years old, Julian’s age, looked back at them. His hair was greased and smoothed away from his face. Julian recognised the uniform at once. The knee-length socks, lederhosen and beige-brown shirt with epaulettes identified him at once as a member of the Hitler Youth.

“Florence. Speak to me,” May said as she sat down on the bed beside the child. Her red-gold plaits hung down the back of her checked shirt. But as May tried to turn her over, Florence stood up without looking at her and ran from the room. Julian and May looked at one another. Julian came over to the other side of the bed. Putting both arms round May’s waist he kissed her so hard that she had to lean right into him to still her sudden dizziness.

“That felt like a good-bye rather than a hallo kiss,” she said eventually. “It felt like a final and never-to-be forgotten kiss. Will you do it again? Just so I can be certain it isn’t the last one?”

“I would like to kiss you all day, darling May. A thousand times a day,” Julian said, sounding a little wistful. “But Philip knows I am here so I better go and say hallo.”

Julian found Philip in the drawing room. The older man was pleased to see Julian and was half-surprised that he was alone. He was aware of the attraction between the two young people and if Joan had been there they would have discussed the implications, good and not so good, of a potential romance between a member of his staff and a friend of their son. On the face of it the situation was most unorthodox. And yet Philip could not help thinking that Joan would approve. Her regard for Julian—his loyalty, his intelligence, his efforts to do the right thing, and all this despite his complicated and in some ways tragic background—had developed in her a real affection for the young man. On his part, Philip found May, despite her inexperience of life and her very young age, to be a woman of admirable, even remarkable, substance.

Philip was not in a good frame of mind. He had been irritated to learn on his arrival at Cuckmere that Mrs. Cage had taken to her bed. According to Cooky she had “come over all queer” when she had returned from London about three weeks ago and the rest of the staff had barely seen her since. Meals had been taken over to her house in the village and housekeeping instructions had been delivered from her bedroom. Apparently Florence had been rather down in the dumps as well and according to Hooch had been most withdrawn on journeys to and from school. Hooch had read her any number of Kipling stories whenever he had had a free moment, but the words had been lost on her and even the suggestion of ice cream in October had failed to do the trick.

Joan would certainly have taken the trouble to discover why the child was suffering. But at the moment Philip could not afford the time to look after the personal problems between Mrs. Cage and her daughter when there was so much else to preoccupy him.

The romance between the king and Mrs. Simpson was no longer simply a matter for speculation in the smart dining rooms of Belgravia and the Home Counties. Things had moved far beyond the boundaries of high society and the situation was changing by the day. The day after the decree nisi had been awarded in the Ipswich court in October, America’s most prestigious broadsheet the New York Times had begun its leader with the words, “From Mayfair’s most exclusive drawing rooms to Whitechapel’s most plebeian pubs one question was on everybody’s lips.” Several paragraphs had been devoted to speculating on “the question,” stopping just short of stating what was becoming increasingly obvious.

Philip gestured for Julian to sit down. “How good to see you, Julian. Help yourself to a drink,” he said, gesturing towards the whisky decanter. “How did you find Joan today?” Philip asked.

“Forgive me, sir, but I arrived too late to get to the hospital. I have had rather a strange day. The hunger march from Jarrow reached London and the sight of it has turned me upside down a bit.”

“I know what you mean,” Philip replied with a sigh. “The whole world seems upside-down to me at the moment too.”

“Are you able to tell me about your side of things at all?” Julian asked tentatively. He was anxious not to pry too deeply.

“Yes. Matter of fact, I trust you enough to tell you, on the proviso that all I say is kept within the confines of these walls.”

Philip knew he was taking a risk in speaking, but sooner or later the whole story was going to be out in the open. He had wondered on several occasions how much speculation there had been among his own staff after the unfortunate visit from Sir Oswald. The prime minister himself had originally suggested that it might be a good idea to invite him for a private talk, as Mosley seemed genuinely concerned about the catastrophe into which the besotted king was heading. Philip had agreed with the utmost reluctance to welcoming such a man to his house for a discussion about the best way forward and it had taken all his powers of persuasion to make Joan relent.

But after that meeting and many subsequent meetings of a similar nature in various private rooms around London, neither Philip nor Mosley nor innumerable other powerful men had been able to convince the king to change his mind. And now the king’s intransigence over his intention to marry Mrs. Simpson had reached a crisis point. Indeed, Philip himself had an air of resignation about him.

“I will try and put you in the picture. Perhaps I should begin by saying that there are some things the British public will never accept and Queen Wallis, a twice-divorced American (with two former husbands still living!) is one of them. I fear it is already too late to make the king see reason, even if there had once been a time for that, which I doubt. He is obsessed with the woman and I suspect his mind was made up to marry her as much as a year ago. I doubt even Mrs. Simpson herself was aware of his decision at that stage. People think it is all her fault but I feel the opposite. In fact, she has not only told the king’s legal friend, and latterly my colleague, Walter Monckton, but also the prime minister, that she has been trying to call the whole thing off for several weeks. However the king is as stubborn about listening even to her as he is weak in what the American papers are calling ‘matters of the heart.’ And I am afraid Alex Hardinge’s plain speaking has cost him the king’s confidence. By advising the king that the newspapers will not hold their silence for much longer, a devoted private secretary has been sent into some sort of purdah.”

Philip paused. He wondered if he was saying too much.

“Some people can see the funny side of it all,” Philip continued in a lighter voice. “For example, the Duchess of Devonshire suggested at dinner the other night that a new post of ‘master of the mistress’ might be created for Mr. Simpson. More worryingly, Lady Colefax says she has it on firsthand authority that the king has threatened to slit his throat if Mrs. Simpson leaves him. Anyway, we have reached a stage where there are four options. Firstly the king gives Mrs. Simpson up, which does not look at all likely. Secondly, the king marries Mrs. Simpson and she becomes queen, an option ruled out by the Church on account of her two divorces. Then there is the suggestion that the Church and Parliament, and not forgetting the dominions, might accept Mrs. Simpson as the sovereign’s wife, but not as his crowned queen, as has been tried at various times throughout our history. Baldwin and the majority of the House, barring the old maverick Churchill of course; Oswald Mosley; and the king’s holiday companion, Duff Cooper, have already indicated they would not give their support to such a plan, although I fear the king continues to think this may indeed be a solution. And of course the final and most drastic choice would be for the king to renounce the throne.”

“Abdicate?” Julian asked, the word zipping into the air like a firework.

“Yes. It is true. There is the option of an abdication. But that would be a last resort,” Philip added hastily. “I don’t think it will come to that. There are so many arguments against it and the king is not unaware of them. For a start he knows the country loves him and would never forgive him if he abandoned them. And for another thing, it is uncertain where he would go. The king is not a man who would take easily to permanent exile.”

Philip was suddenly furious at the king’s wilful selfishness. “The whole thing is the most hell of a mess,” he snapped. “The man is behaving as if no one in the world matters except him.” Clearly exasperated, Philip went over to the whisky decanter and refilled his glass.

“Do me a favour and dine with me tonight?” he asked Julian. “I can find my own company both exhausting and lonely.”


May had remained in her bedroom, writing in her blue notebook. After half an hour Florence returned looking pale and very serious.

“Do you want to talk to me about the photograph?” May asked her.

Florence nodded.

“And do you want to talk to me about the paint?”

A second nod. As Florence sat down on the bed beside May a few feathers escaped from the silky quilt and floated up into the air.

“It’s a secret though,” Florence began, sounding anxious and looking at May in the face for the first time that day.

“Of course,” May replied. “I promise.”

“You really promise not to say anything?”

May nodded.

“Well,” Florence began, her eyes now looking down onto the bed. “That person. The one in the picture?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he isn’t my brother. Not properly anyway, just half properly.” And gathering confidence, she continued. “Actually, I’ve never even met him. He’s called Carl and Mum says he belongs to her other life when she was married to a German. She says that was a long time ago and I don’t need to know about it. It was when she was living in Germany. And that husband died ages before I was born. Carl’s uncle and aunt agreed that Carl could live with them when Mum came back to England.”

For a moment Florence’s voice shook. A storm of tears that had evaporated earlier had left behind an intermittent shudder. Florence moved further up the bed and May could smell the sweetness of her breath, like a meadow in early summer.

“Is your father in Germany too?” May asked gently.

“No, he met Mum when she came back to England. My dad was in the army and Mum was an army wife, she says, but Dad died of pneumonia when I was only one. And after Dad died Mum came to work here.”

“So both your mum’s husbands have died? That is so sad for her.”

Florence looked up at May, grateful for her sympathy. “Yes. Sometimes Mum is very sad but she always says at least she has me with her, even if the others aren’t here anymore. That’s why I try and do the things she wants, like the painting.”

A small hand crept across the eiderdown and put itself quietly into May’s own hand. For a few moments they sat there silently, side by side, hands joined, as Florence wavered between loyalty to her mother and a wish to confide long-held secrets.

“Promise you won’t say anything when I tell you that Carl told Mum how to do the letter painting?”

Once more May gave her word.

“Well, he said I should do it too. He said Mum should teach me about the Jews taking over everything and ruining people’s businesses. And he wrote her a letter about doing the painting. They do that over there in Germany.”

“Is that why you didn’t want to go on holiday to Pagham?” May asked.

“Yes. We had to go last year and afterwards all of us children said we didn’t want to paint on the doors anymore. I don’t think Mum would have made me do it on my own but Carl and the other women in the camp at Pagham encouraged her. They said it was easier for children to do it as they could run away more quickly than the grown-ups. I told Mum I didn’t want to but she said it was for England, not for Germany, and that I was English, wasn’t I?”

A second shudder rippled through Florence and May felt the effect of it through their joined hands.

“I didn’t mean to do it to Nat and Sarah and you. I didn’t even know I was on your street till you came out and found us. We were only in that part of London because lots of Jewish people live there. I was trying to tell all the others that we should stop doing it, I knew it was wrong,” Florence spoke calmly now, as if what she was saying was an unarguable fact.

May drew Florence closer. An image of Sarah with Joshua in her arms flashed into May’s mind.

“Florence, what you did was very, very wrong. If I ask you, and you agree never to paint on doors again, will your mother be angry with you?”

“I expect so, but I don’t care. I am going to tell Mum that I don’t want to do it again. If she makes me I will tell her that I will never speak to her again. Ever.”

And Florence got up from the bed and just as she had on their first-ever meeting, kissed May on the cheek.

“I never told Mum about Vera and Lady Myrtle, you know.”

May smiled at her. “I knew you wouldn’t.”

“Will you keep Mum’s secret?” Florence asked. “For me?”

“Yes. I promise,” May said as she watched Florence skip out of the room.


The following morning Mr. Hooch came to find May having breakfast in the kitchen and handed her an envelope.

“Mr. Julian must have left this in the garage before the taxi came to get him.”

Inside the envelope was one sheet of Cuckmere Park–headed writing paper.



Saturday 31 October 1936



Darling May,

I am sorry to leave without saying goodbye but if I had delayed my departure this morning by speaking to you, I might have changed my mind and not gone at all.

I am catching the boat to France today and then taking the train to Paris to meet Peter. From there we will probably travel on to Spain and meet up with his friend Eric. I am going to Spain because I think, well, I hope it is the right thing to do.

I don’t know how long I will be away, perhaps a good while, but I will get a message to you to tell you I have arrived safely.

Look after Joan, won’t you? You know I think of her as a mother. And give Florence a kiss from me.

I am going to miss you more than you know.



With love from

Julian



May read the letter twice and the final two sentences three times. After a moment or two she realised Mr. Hooch was still standing in the corner of the kitchen.

“I am going back to Polegate now to collect Miss Nettlefold from the ten o’clock from Victoria. Would you like to come with me? I would welcome the company,” he said.

Mr. Hooch did not have to explain an invitation that May knew was kindness of the best sort. But she declined the offer and went to her desk intending to immerse herself in her work, the certainties of life unravelling around her. She remembered how as a child at home in Barbados she would sometimes wake in a panic in the middle of the night, fearful that she had built her sandcastle too close to the shoreline, and that in the morning she would find it had melted clean away in the waves. Just as the foundation stones of the pavements around Oak Street had been forcibly uprooted in the East End only a month ago, so the way of life and the friendships that she had begun to trust in over the last ten months no longer seemed so secure.

Sir Philip was waiting for her in the study.

“I have got to go to London tomorrow for a meeting at Downing Street with the prime minister, Sunday or no Sunday. Things are truly coming to a head. Can you get Lord Beaverbrook on the telephone for me right away?”

Half an hour later the sound of the dogs barking in the big hall confirmed that Miss Nettlefold had arrived but May did not actually see her until she spotted the fur-clad figure, outside on the lawn with Loafer. May watched the pair of them through the window. Loafer was limping along behind his temporary mistress with the gait of an animal dragging itself through life. May turned back to her desk where the telephone was ringing for what seemed like the dozenth time in as many minutes.

At teatime Miss Nettelfold came looking for May. The small study felt dreadfully cramped as the large woman eased her abundant form past the desk and sat down, her overtight skirt revealing fleshy knees that merged together as one.

“Have you left Loafer outside?” May asked. “Because I know Sir Philip wouldn’t mind if she came in here for a moment.”

But Loafer was having a snooze on the bed upstairs, Miss Nettlefold explained, and did not wish to be disturbed. In fact, Miss Nettlefold had been asked to return the dog to the Fort in a couple of days’ time and May was to drive them both there. And she and May were to spend the day together tomorrow as well, Miss Nettlefold announced with a theatrical clap of her hands. The day of the wireless recording with Sir John Reith, about which Miss Nettlefold had confided to May some weeks ago, had almost arrived. Miss Nettlefold had some appointments in the morning in Mayfair and was expected at the recording studio in Crystal Palace in the south of London by noon. May nodded, trying not to think about Julian’s letter and to share in Miss Nettlefold’s excitement. Miss Nettlefold was certainly in a very ebullient mood.

“Things have been going well for me, May, I am delighted to report. Some people choose to reject one in life, but I have found that another door always opens, especially when you are least expecting it!” And off she went, praising the British and especially the Scottish, whom she had recently discovered to be among the most loyal of friends. “Loyalty, May, that’s the quality I put at the top of the tree. That’s why I like you, May.” And with a generous smile she wanted to hear how May was doing. “How is that nice young brother of yours? Going to go far that Sam, I know it. Trust me. Oh, and by the way Hooch tells me Julian Richardson has gone off to Spain.”

“Yes,” May replied. “He left rather suddenly this morning.”

“Well. Forgive me May if I use an English phrase when I say ‘a jolly good riddance’ to him. Now, don’t think I hadn’t noticed you developing a certain, shall we say ‘interest’ in him, although personally I can’t think what anyone could ever see in glasses and albino hair. And there’s more to life than swimming, believe me. Interested in everything and nothing he is. Never could make his mind up, dithering about all over the place, in politics and in friends. Poor Lottie. No wonder she decided she would be better off with Rupert. Anyway, perhaps the sights in Spain will knock some sense into young Mr. Richardson.” She pronounced the word “young” with contempt.

May turned back to her typewriter. Tears blurred the typed words in front of her but she managed to mumble what sounded like an agreement before Miss Nettlefold went to see if tea had yet arrived in the drawing room.