Palace Circle Part 19

Petra's friend, the former Annabel Mowbray, was standing near one of the windows with her husband, but Davina did not recognize the vast majority of the other people in the room. "Who is the plain, neat-looking woman sitting on the sofa chatting with Lady Portarlington?" she asked.

The corners of Jerome's eyes crinkled. "That's your mother's bosom chum, Wallis Simpson. Have we to go over and have a word? I like her. She's full of wisecracking vitality."

As they crossed the room toward Wallis, Winnie Portarlington rose to her feet, blew a kiss in Jerome's direction, then walked languidly over to join Annabel.

"There's no need for introductions, Jerome," Wallis said in an attractively rasping voice when they reached her. She turned to Davina, "I've guessed who you are." She flashed a lightning-quick smile. "And I can tell from the way you are dressed that you didn't expect to walk into a c.o.c.ktail party, but your dress is exactly the kind I like: unfussy, yet pretty."

Davina was certain Wallis was sincere for she was wearing a dress unadorned by sequins, bugles, or beads. It was of black crepe de chine and it was tailored to within an inch of its life, its only adornment a square-cut emerald pin. Her hands were large and, perhaps in order not to bring attention to them, her nails were unpolished. Her dark hair, parted in the center and taken back in crimped waves over her ears, was so sleek she might have been Chinese. She didn't look at all as Davina had imagined.

Wallis patted the s.p.a.ce on the sofa vacated by Winnie Portarlington. "Sit down and tell me all about yourself," she said in the tone of a headmistress speaking to a prefect, and then, to Jerome: "Delia may be a divine hostess, but not, apparently, where her daughter is concerned. Davina is still without a drink. Would you get her a c.o.c.ktail, Jerome, please?"

Jerome looked startled. Her mother could be breathtakingly direct, but for sheer bossiness Wallis beat her hands down.

"I'm afraid I don't drink c.o.c.ktails, Mrs. Simpson," she said affably.

"Of course you do. Everybody does-and your mother makes swell c.o.c.ktails. She should. I taught her." Again came the lightning-quick grin that took the sting out of her words. She looked across to Fergus and Aileen who were talking to a beautiful woman Davina didn't at first recognize. Then she realized it was the film actress Merle Oberon.

Wallis took a sip of her highball and said musingly, "Your friend's husband reminds me of the Prince of Wales, Davina. He has the same quiet manner and charm."

It was said with an air of such proprietary knowledge of the Prince that Davina, remembering the gossip her mother had pa.s.sed on with regard to Wallis's relationship with Prince Edward, could think of nothing to say in response. She was saved by Wallis saying, "Even in a cotton dress your friend looks spectacularly lovely. Tell me all about her and her husband. Who are they? Where are they from?"

And as Jerome handed her a very welcome gin fizz, Davina proceeded to tell Wallis all about the pioneering work Fergus and Aileen were doing in London's East End.

SIXTEEN.

The next day, before the three of them left Toynbee Hall for the school where they were scheduled to do inoculations, Fergus said, "Your mother is an exceptional person, Davina." He shifted his heavy doctor's bag from one hand to the other as they walked across the cobbled quadrangle. "Offering Shibden Hall as a holiday home is such a generous gesture, I don't know how Toynbee will ever be able to thank her."

"She doesn't need thanks," Davina said, happy that the Sinclairs' introduction to her mother had turned out so well. "She just doesn't like the thought of Shibden standing empty."

Aileen linked arms with her. "And she was riveted by the idea of a clinic giving free advice to women on contraception. She said she'd never seen a diaphragm and would I show her one."

Davina's eyes nearly popped out of her head.

"Great G.o.d, Aileen!" Fergus said, when he was able to speak. "You didn't do so at her c.o.c.ktail party, did you?"

"No, silly." She giggled. "They aren't something I carry around in my handbag."

As they crossed a busy road to enter a narrow street of tenement buildings, Aileen hugged Davina's arm. "The financial help your mother has promised the clinic is going to make all the difference to how soon it can be opened. I never imagined a viscountess being a Socialist, Davina, but your mother is one. Through and through."

It was, Davina knew, the highest accolade Aileen Sinclair could give.

A day or two later she mentioned Darius, prompted when Aileen commented, "I expect your mother is hoping that you'll meet a nice young man and fall in love during the season."

They were seated at opposite sides of a table, writing up Fergus's barely decipherable medical notes.

Davina put her pen down. "That's the general idea, but I think by now my mother knows it isn't going to happen."

Aileen finished the sentence she was writing and then looked up at her. "Why not?" she asked, curious.

"My mother doesn't know why not-apart from the fact that I never want to live anywhere but Cairo which is certainly not where any of the young men I meet live. But the real reason is that the only person I can ever imagine falling in love with is the son of one of my father's friends."

She had never put her feelings for Darius into words and now she flushed a bright pink.

"But surely that's perfect? What could be better? I can understand your father may well view having spent money on a London season for you as having been a waste of time, but think how pleased he and his friend will be."

Davina shook her head. "No. Darius is Egyptian and he hates the fact that Britain controls Egypt. Nearly all the wealth from the country's cotton crop goes into British pockets, and what doesn't goes into the pockets of a handful of Egyptian landowners. None of it filters down to the peasants who work the land. My father doesn't realize yet just how fiercely anti-British Darius is but when he does, Darius will be the last person in the world he would want me to marry."

"And how does Darius feel? Is he prepared to take on your father?"

Davina's flush turned a fiery red. "We're just friends at the moment, Aileen. We've been friends ever since I was a little girl. And that's how Darius still thinks of me," she added miserably, "as if I'm a little girl."

"Then when you return to Cairo, you'll just have to convince him that you're not. And it may be that he's been holding off changing the nature of the relationship between the two of you because he knows that if he did so, your father would disapprove of it."

It was a view Davina hadn't thought of before and it cheered her. Well aware of how much she was going to miss Aileen when she returned to Cairo, she gave her friend a grateful smile and picked up her pen again.

An hour later she was watching Fergus st.i.tch the scalp of a young boy who had been hit over the head with a gla.s.s bottle by a member of the British Union of Fascists.

It was the kind of incident that was happening daily. As Fergus sent the boy on his way, suitably st.i.tched and bandaged, he said heavily, "This is the result of Mosley emulating Hitler and Mussolini. Fascists always need a scapegoat and, like Hitler, Mosley has chosen the Jews. His anti-Semitism is a political strategy and if we don't want to go down the ugly road Germany is going down, we are going to have to fight it tooth and nail."

He took off his horn-rimmed gla.s.ses. "The irony is," he said, polishing them with a handkerchief, "that if Mosley had stayed in the Labour Party he could have been a force for good; some of his economic ideas with regard to the ending of unemployment were brilliant."

He put his gla.s.ses back on and she didn't tell him that she had met Sir Oswald Mosley in her own home. She was just deeply grateful that such an occasion wouldn't arise again.

The next morning it was Fergus who was being treated for injuries received in a street disturbance. "But what happened?" Aileen asked him, white-faced as she dealt with the cuts and welts he had received.

"Mosley's thugs had set on a couple of Jewish youths. I couldn't stand by and do nothing, Aileen."

"But did you have to get involved in the fighting?" Her hands trembled as she squeezed out the bloodied sponge.

"Yes," he said levelly, "I did. And I'm going to become even more physically involved. There's a British Union rally to be held at Olympia tomorrow evening and there will be a large number of protestors there. I shall join them and give out hundreds of pamphlets. I'm not going to remain pa.s.sive in the face of this kind of racial intimidation, Aileen."

Later, when Davina and Aileen were alone, Aileen said, still pale-faced, "I'm going to go with Fergus tomorrow evening, Davina. If we want to show Sir Oswald Mosley that we don't want a totalitarian state with him as its leader, then we have to oppose him every opportunity there is. Fergus says that if there are enough protestors, Mosley could well begin to lose his credibility."

Not for even one minute did Davina consider not going with her.

What she hadn't realized was just how hard it would be to get into the exhibition hall. Traffic on the main road was at a standstill as a crowd of several thousand pushed and jostled, struggling to get near to the several entrance doors. Mounted police were out in force as were ma.s.sed groups of Blackshirts. Though she and the Sinclairs weren't carrying a placard, scores of other demonstrators were and the Blackshirts descended on them, knocking them to the ground and kicking and punching as they wrested away the signs.

To Davina's disbelief police offered no protection. They simply dragged off the bloodied demonstrators.

"At this rate no hecklers are going to get into the meeting!" Fergus shouted, trying to shield her and Aileen as they pushed and shoved their way forward.

By some miracle they reached an entrance door.

By an even greater miracle they jostled their way through it.

"How many people d'you think are here?" Aileen shouted over the din as she looked around the packed-to-capacity auditorium.

"Thirteen or fourteen thousand," he shouted back to her. "Possibly more."

Everywhere Davina looked there was a sea of flags. The familiar red, white, and blue of Union Jacks, black-and-yellow Fascist flags, and swaying banners carrying the names of all the various London districts of the BUF.

Seating immediately front of the platform had obviously been reserved for family and friends, many of whom, to her horror, she recognized. In sharp contrast to the vast majority of those present, who were clearly working cla.s.s, those in privileged seats were in evening dress. Baba Metcalfe was clearly visible, as was her sister, Irene. There was no sign of Fruity, but clearly visible was the person she still, out of habit, thought of as Aunt Sylvia.

"There's Neil Francis Hawkins," Fergus said suddenly, looking down at the platform. "He's Mosley's second-in-command. And there's John Beckett, a former Labour MP."

A band, made up entirely of Blackshirts, began to play a patriotic march and she dragged her eyes away from Baba and Sylvia, scanning the main body of the hall.

"There's a shocking number of women present," Fergus said. "It isn't something I would have expected."

Aileen agreed with him and Davina could hardly say Mosley's s.e.xual magnetism was such that she wasn't at all surprised at the number of women tensely waiting for him to make his appearance.

The time when he was scheduled to speak came and went. Blackshirts lined the central aisle from the main entrance to the large platform. As they waited for him to stride down the aisle, tension mounted. Mosley's followers launched into a deafening rendering of the BUF anthem. Though Davina couldn't catch all the words she recognized the emotively rousing tune as the n.a.z.i "Horst-Wessel-Lied."

Hearing it in England made the hair at the back of her neck stand on end. Then great arc lamps were switched on, trumpets blasted a fanfare, and Sir Oswald Mosley entered the hall.

Seeing the man she had met in the drawing room of her home swaggering down the huge auditorium to deafening roars of "Hail Mosley!," as if he were a latter-day Messiah, was a surreal experience. He held his arm high in the Fascist salute. A squad of black-uniformed stewards preceded him and he was followed by his personal bodyguards.

The scene was pure Grand Guignol. In black boots, black shirt and breeches, he leaped onto the platform to a storm of cheering.

When at last the noise dropped enough for him to be heard, he thumped the lectern with his fist. "Thousands of our fellow countrymen," he thundered, "have come tonight to hear our case and thousands more have already rallied and joined the Fascist ranks!"

Most of the audience began stamping their feet.

"This movement, represented here tonight, is something new in the political life of our country."

Fergus leaped to his feet. "And we don't need it!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

If Mosley heard, he showed no sign. "It is our intention to challenge the power of the Jews in Britain!"

Other protestors were on their feet now.

Blackshirts began running down the aisle in their general direction. As they did, Mosley finally acknowledged the hecklers.

"Ignore the interruptions!" he roared. "They don't worry me and they needn't worry you!"

The cheers were deafening.

As the Blackshirts reached the protestors nearest to them, instead of escorting them outside the building, they pitched into them with raised arms and fists. Men fell. Blood flew. Chairs were overturned.

Mosley stabbed the air with his fist. "These protests are futile, for what is being represented here goes further than any other movement this land has ever known! This meeting symbolizes how far the Blackshirts have come in the first twenty months of existence. In that time fascism in Great Britain has advanced more rapidly than in any other country in the world."

Fighting had broken out all over the hall. Davina saw a chair leg being wielded. A boot flew through the air, and then a shoe.

Mosley was prowling the platform as he spoke, his aura of s.e.xual power palpable. "And it is not because our people had adopted our views under the lash of economic necessity, as in other lands," he continued. "They joined because they desired a new order in our land, a creed which elevates the nation above the individual."

Davina could bear no more. "Fascism equals. .h.i.tler, equals Mussolini!" she shouted as a fellow woman protestor was grabbed by two Blackshirts and hustled up the nearest aisle toward an exit, her arms twisted behind her.

It took minutes for the chaos to settle down. When it did Aileen shouted urgently, "Where is Fergus, Davina? Where has he gone?"

Davina looked around her, searching for a sight of him. There wasn't any.

"I don't know. But we can't leave our seats to look for him, Aileen. We might never make contact with each other again if we do."

Her stomach muscles taut with anxiety she heard Mosley thunder, "Ma.s.ses of our people have shown in no uncertain way that they are weary of the present order; weary of political parties and of the present parliamentary government-"

Suddenly, a hundred feet above him a voice with an unmistakable Scottish inflection shouted, "Down with fascism!"

Davina's eyes flew upward.

Beside her, Aileen screamed.

Fergus was balanced precariously on an iron girder, and as thousands of people drew in a concerted breath he began raining pamphlets down.

Mosley didn't even pause in his tirade but he had lost everyone's attention.

Arc lamps swung away from the platform and illuminated Fergus. Within minutes half a dozen Blackshirts had reached the girder.

People directly beneath the girder scrambled out of the way.

Aileen, her eyes wide with horror, had both hands pressed to her mouth. Davina was praying harder than she ever had in her life.

"The soldiers who fought in the Great War are weary of the privileged Conservatives," Mosley continued as if nothing untoward was taking place. "Our people are weary of the inertia of socialism. The Labour Party is nothing but a Salvation Army, taking to its heels on the Day of Judgment."

As the Blackshirts reached Fergus, he swung himself up onto an even higher girder and from there onto a platform that disappeared into the shadows of the roof. Within seconds he, too, was out of sight, his pursuers hard on his heels.

"What is wanted is a new creed," Mosley declared with pa.s.sion. "We are fighting for nothing less than a revolution!"

From somewhere came the sound of shattering gla.s.s.

Someone had fallen-and from a great height.

Aileen and Davina didn't hesitate. They began pushing and stumbling past everyone seated between them and the nearest aisle, intent only on reaching Fergus.

Once in the aisle Aileen, with Davina behind her, began to sprint. A fight had broken out ahead of them. A missile intended for one of the Blackshirts. .h.i.t Davina at the side of her head. She felt blood pour down her face and though she tried to stay on her feet, the world spiraled into darkness. With Aileen's screams ringing in her ears, she buckled at the knees, falling senseless amid a forest of booted feet.

SEVENTEEN.