The Intrigues of Jennie Lee Page 12

  Mosley came to his conclusion. He had succeeded, at least for the moment. There were no longer any sober-minded supporters of Ramsay MacDonald to be found in the pavilion.

  “We are a party with our eyes on the stars, but let us also remember that our feet are planted firmly in the earth, on muddy soil, where men are suffering and looking at us with eyes of questioning and anguish saying, ‘Lift us up from the mud! Give us remedies here and now!’” He paused. “Today, we may not have the majority, but at worst we will go down fighting for the things we believe in. This movement will refuse to die like an old woman in bed. We’ll go down like men on the field—a better fate, and in politics, one with a more certain hope of resurrection.”

  Mosley stepped back from the microphone as a signal that he was now finished, and the cheering could begin. Once allowed, it came forth. It was not polite applause or the satisfied roar of the crowd on a football pitch after a home-side goal. It was the release of emotions no Englishman would ever admit to having, a sort of superlative combination of faith and resentment, untethered from lifetimes of understatement and refusal to take one’s self very seriously. It was almost as if they were foreigners—Frenchmen, or even Germans, stoked to a frenzy by an orator’s unconcern about the dangers of a mob.

  Jennie looked about her. Would these stolid middle-aged men, stout in their three-piece tweed suits and flat caps, run amok? Where would they direct the emotions Mosley had fired? Would they begin to rip the chairs from the floor, charge the rostrum, carry Mosley from the hall on their shoulders? She looked at Ellen Wilkinson, carried away as much as the rest, standing next to her, taller by inches now as she stood erect and waved a hand in the air. Seeing Jennie’s surprise at her display, Ellen sheepishly brought down the arm, shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

  “Worth staying round to see?”

  Jennie nodded. “Quite a show.”

  * * *

  A quarter of an hour later the conference chairwoman came to the podium and announced the vote. A million or so for Mosley’s motion. These were the blocks of votes held by people who were in the hall, who’d listened. Jennie quickly computed that Mosley had taken every one of the votes they had to give. A roar rose from the floor as others made the same calculation. Then it subsided as the realisation dawned that it would not be enough. The Trade Unions’ block votes had not been there to be moved. These votes would remain with MacDonald. The speaker rapped her gavel.

  “A million two hundred fifty-one thousand against. Motion defeated.”

  But only just. This political drama would not after all be a one-act play. Everyone present now recognised that MacDonald might yet turn out to be the protagonist of a Pyrrhic tragedy. The vote had been too close. The party was moving towards a perhaps inevitable rendezvous with Tom Mosley. That, at any rate, was the shared consensus among the emotionally drained men and women reluctantly drifting out of the pavilion into the night.

  * * *

  Early Thursday morning, Jennie was on the quay, waiting for a train to Liverpool and on to London. Glancing at the newsagent’s kiosk, she saw the headline in the Manchester Guardian, “Luke-Warm Vote of Confidence/British Hitler/Continental View of Sir O. Mosley.” British Hitler? Whatever does that mean? Herr Hitler’s National Socialist party, she knew, had come second in the German parliamentary voting the previous month, winning a hundred seats with almost twenty per cent of the vote. She bought a copy of the paper, sat down and scanned the article. It began with MacDonald’s speech but then took up another thread:

  ...one should note the re-emergence of Sir Oswald Mosley. It was, like all his set speeches, beautifully delivered and with that touch of demagogy which he adds to the effectiveness of his most popular orations. When he sat down he had an ovation and had obviously influenced many votes. We cannot resist transcribing the comments of an acute continental observer at the conference, that in Sir Oswald Mosley British Labour may yet find its Hitler. The parallel is not so absurd as it sounds, for in some respects at least the resemblance might be found between the crude aspirations of the “Nazis” and the new Socialist Imperialism. Subordinating Parliamentary institutions to its own imperative needs, to which Sir Oswald Mosley is drifting...

  Damned nonsense. Jennie stopped reading and dropped the paper to the pavement at her feet.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The week without Frank, watching him, sometimes just yards away and yet out of reach, had been more difficult than Jennie expected. Seeing him across a floor or a street, his wife clutching his arm, watching mere acquaintances freely seeking his company: casually saluting him, making small talk, smiling at him, shaking their heads or nodding in conversation she couldn’t hear. Seeing all these people who meant so much less to him than she did, drove her to a frustration she could not hide. She would turn and make for the pier to be alone in a chill wind. You had a month with Frank. Now let him alone for a few days.

  Jennie had consoled herself that at the end of the endless week she would have time alone with him. Sir Charles Trevelyan had invited her and Frank to spend the weekend following the conference at his grand country house, Wallington Hall, in the Northumberland countryside. His own dalliance with Jennie behind him, Charlie Trevelyan had taken a paternal interest in her. He admired Frank a great deal, thought him well matched with Jennie, and was happy to make it easy and agreeable for them to spend time together.

  But then, at the Llandudno guesthouse that last evening, with the final mail delivery of the day, came the note in Charlie’s hand. It warned her off the weekend at Wallington Hall. Frank’s wife had suddenly insisted on accompanying her husband to Northumbria. Had Dorothy found out about Jennie? She’d certainly been a fixture on his arm for all the days of the conference. But that Jennie had credited that to Dorothy Wise’s Labour Party activism. Discovery of her husband’s affair would be different, not just vexatious but dangerous.

  Jennie would have to change her ticket to the north for one to London.

  * * *

  Loneliness in London was a temptress. Twice in two days, Jennie found herself walking past Victoria Station, knowing full well her destination was Mosley’s flat on Ebury Street. Just going to pass on the Duchess’s message? She tried on the thought and laughed it away. Doing this to punish Frank for not being here? She wanted this to be the reason. He deserved punishment for taking Dorothy to Wallington Hall. Jennie wanted the emotional high ground. But she knew that wasn’t the reason she was skulking round this part of London, either. The carnal motive driving her along was palpable. Telling Mosley about her meeting with the Duchess would be a prologue, a pretext.

  Each time she came within a hundred feet of the narrow white stucco two-storey building, she noticed a brace of men milling about on the pavement, one with a newspaper photographer’s camera. She turned around, walked away, back towards Victoria, and both times found a cinema to distract her. Two double features in two days was too much and she woke on Monday with what felt like a hangover. All Quiet on the Western Front had been a cure for the crowd’s surge of militancy at end of Mosley’s speech. But the new Greta Garbo, Anna Christie, cast Jennie down. It was film about a woman with a shameful secret redeemed by love. Garbo’s haunted look stayed with her, troubling when it shouldn’t have. Unlike Ibsen’s character, Jennie’s secrets were not freighted with either guilt or shame, only dangers.

  The distraction of the films ended, her mood had become bleak again almost immediately after the house lights rose and the national anthem played. Resentment and self-pity brewed. She decided on the long walk from the cinema at Victoria Station back to her flat in Bloomsbury. It was not raining or even very cold and the walk would kill time.

  Striding along, she tried to challenge the mood. Come off it, Jennie. You’ve got what you want, don’t you? Frank on your terms, not his. It’s you stopping him from divorce, isn’t it? Momentarily she brightened. Then the question came. So, why are you orbiting Ebury Street? More than once she had tried pretending to herself tha
t it was politics, just politics, driving her to carry the message from the palace. Her mind’s eye saw through this. Don’t fool yourself, dearie. It’s not a bit of revenge against Frank either. You want to see the desire in Mosley’s eyes, to feel your power over his lust. It’s nothing to do with love. That’s why you can hide it from Frank. Isn’t that right, Jennie?

  You’ve got two things to hide from Frank and that’s the problem, isn’t it? One thing he wouldn’t understand—Mosley’s brute allure. The other—the message from the Duke of York—he’d understand too well. It was the very sort of thing she needed desperately to talk through with Frank. But she could not, not without compromising him, as she had already been.

  There’d never been anything since they’d met they hadn’t been able to work through together. Walking along, she conjured a post-coital languor, turning their political lives and thoughts inside out, looking at them from every angle, comparing notes and trying to make sense of events. Frank and Jennie didn’t need to agree on everything. In fact they often didn’t. But everything had been in the open between them, even her freedom, at least in the abstract. And Frank didn’t even try to pry.

  But this business with the Palace Jennie felt her throat constrict a gulp. You can’t talk about it with Frank, ever. Suddenly she was relieved he wasn’t in London, wasn’t with her. The long walk had carried her to a conclusion. She had to see Mosley and she’d never tell Frank. If he knew, before or after she did it—carry the Duke’s message—Frank would be complicit in a constitutional breach that could ruin him along with her. If he advised her not to, and she rejected his counsel, there’d be a gulf between them perhaps too wide to bridge. And then would his sense of honour demand he take the matter to the Speaker of the House of Commons? Would he, could he, ruin the only thing Jennie really cared for besides him—her own political life?

  Jennie heard herself argue, It’s so inconsequential a breach of the constitution. Who really cared if the second in line to the throne had a favourable view of Mosley’s politics and told him so? Then she heard Frank’s quiet voice. That’s not the point, is it? It’s the principle of the thing, rather. Despite herself, she would have to agree. If anyone else had done it, the Bolshie in Jennie would have carried the matter right to the Speaker’s chair. And now she was conniving at royal interference without a qualm.

  She crossed through Russell Square, nearly home. Her walk and the debate in her head came to their ends. You’ll pass the Duke’s message on because you have to. Because you believe in Mosley! She was still enough of a Marxian to accept that the ends justify the means. There may be a line somewhere you won’t cross, but this isn’t it! That’s why you’ll see Mosley before Frank gets back to town. So he can’t stop you. She had decided, and so calmly pulled out her latchkey, entered her flat and without taking off her coat reached for the telephone.

  * * *

  After just two rings, Tom Mosley answered with the number, “Abby 8156.”

  “Is that you, Mosley?” She had to keep it business-like, she knew. “Jennie Lee here.”

  “How nice to hear from you.” Mosley was emollient.

  She had to steel herself to continue. “I need to see you.”

  Immediately she realised this was the wrong thing to say.

  “I’m so pleased.” Jennie tried to interrupt but he didn’t even take a breath before continuing. “Why not drop round here? I can arrange to be alone.”

  How to make herself clear? “It’s not that, Mosley.”

  He sighed audibly. “It’s Tom, dear.”

  “It’s business, it’s important and it’s confidential. There are reporters skulking round the Ebury Street flat.”

  “Right you are.” He cleared his throat and his tone became slightly formal. “Very well, where shall we meet?” Then the mischievous tone returned. “Your place?”

  “No.” Jennie tired to sound emphatic. “And Westminster is no good either.” She thought for a moment. “Meet me at the National Portrait Gallery at 2 tomorrow afternoon. In front of the picture of William IV.”

  “Why him?”

  “I’ll explain when we meet.”

  * * *

  Mosley was standing at the stipulated location, contemplating the portrait of Queen Victoria’s immediate predecessor, when Jennie entered.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting.” She spoke quietly, looking in both directions to ensure no one was close. “I was watching from across the pavement, at the Edith Cavell memorial, to be sure you weren’t followed.”

  “I think I shook off the press.”

  She looked him up and down. He was elegant even in anonymity. “Yes, but you’re damned hard to miss.”

  “Well, Jennie…”

  Quietly but firmly she interrupted him. “No names.” She looked up at the portrait. “I was taught that William IV was the last monarch who actually meddled in politics.”

  “Yes, I recall. Tried to dismiss Melbourne even though he had a parliamentary majority.”

  “Succeeded, I think,” Jennie observed.

  “Well, what’s that got to do with us?”

  “Someone in the palace wants you to know that they support your actions in the Labour Party. They asked me to tell you.”

  Mosley was silent, digesting the meaning of her words.

  Then he spoke. “And they asked you, an anonymous back bencher, to deliver this message?” Jennie said nothing, wondering if he would press her for more information.

  “I suppose you shan’t tell me who my well-wisher is?”

  “I fear I must, having passed on his message. It’s the Duke of York.”

  He nodded. “Yes, well, better to have his good wishes than the wastrel’s.”

  There was no need to explain. Jennie knew this was a reference to the Prince of Wales.

  Then Mosley spoke in a tone of bemusement. “I wonder if it matters?”

  Jennie decided that having spent a penny she was in for a pound.

  “I rather think it might. The King wants to be shot of the wastrel. Doesn’t think the Prince of Wales even wants the job of being king. He’s grooming the Duke to succeed.”

  Mosley nodded. “I see the connection to William the IV now. I applaud your historical grip—” He was about to add her name when her touch on his arm reminded him not to. “So, what am I to do with this slightly dangerous knowledge?”

  “I am glad you recognise its threat. Could be used to destroy both our political careers... if it gets out.”

  “Unless we denounce it immediately as rank interference with parliamentary democracy.” Mosley looked at her hard.

  “Really, I don’t think it rises to that level, do you?”

  “Perhaps not.” He thought a minute, then spoke. “I don’t suppose the Duke of York is in regular communication with Jennie Lee, most junior, most left-wing, most republican“—he paused and shot her a look; Jennie nodded in assent—”member of the House of Commons.” She caught a hint of menace in the sarcasm. “How did you come by this message?”

  Jennie calculated. She’d have to answer; she was already in too deep not to.

  “Duchess of York. Known her since we were girls in Scotland. I used to visit Glamis Castle in the war. Long story. I won’t bore you.”

  “Anyone else know?”

  She shook her head, recalling the two occasions on which others had noticed her receive post from the palace. Both times she’d managed to fob them off.

  “Don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

  Instead of answering Mosley looked at her intently and then asked, “So, no one knows? Not even Frank Wise?”

  She shook her head mutely. Then she asked herself, if Mosley knows about us who else does? Frank’s wife? Is that why Dorothy wouldn’t let him go to Charlie Trevelyan’s place in Northumberland alone?

  She wanted to ask how he knew about her and Frank. But Mosley made a point of turning to contemplate that rather bad portrait of William IV. He began stroking his moustache, evidently deep in thought, f
eet so close together that he swayed slightly. Jennie was about to break into his thoughts to ask about Frank again, when he turned back to her with a self-satisfied smile and a knowing look in his eye. He nodded at the portrait.

  “He had ten bastards, that one, and no legitimate children at all.” You’ve probably had a few yourself, Tom Mosley. “It’s how Victoria became queen,” he continued. “Couldn’t happen anymore.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “Illegitimacy’s not much of a stain anymore.” He went on, apparently giving voice to an errant thought. “Ramsay MacDonald was born out of wedlock and look where he wound up.” Mosley turned to her. “But the taint is still strong in your part of Scotland. Those Irish Papists and the Presbyterian scolds...a bastard couldn’t win in Glasgow, not even Ramsay MacDonald’s bastard.”

  Jennie could not suppress a spurt of laughter. The image of MacDonald in bed with a woman that came into her head was simultaneously revolting and ridiculous, rather like picturing one’s parents in the act of sexual congress.

  Tom Mosley momentarily joined her laughter. Then he regained a measure of decorum.

  “Thank you, thank you for conveying the message, Jennie. You can rely on me to keep it secret. Not in either of our interests to have it known, is it?” Then he walked quickly off.

  Jennie felt his sudden departure like a tight coil sprung. The relief spreading through her body made her aware of how much tension she’d been under. She had been steeling herself to resist an invitation to continue their rendezvous in a less public location, his place or even hers. She’d played a dozen mental tricks, to deflect and distract herself from the rising urge to consent to what he was sure to offer, even digging fingernails into the palms of her hands buried in the overcoat pocket, reminding her she had to refuse him. But it hadn’t been necessary after all. He’d been all business. His manner had not after all turned to seduction. Now taking a breath, she went down the creaking stairs, out into the gloom of Charing Cross Road and walked back towards Bloomsbury.