The Rich Are Different (109 page)

[2]

I thought
about it for a long time and later, much later when the hall clock had chimed midnight and I was still moving restlessly around the house my mind closed upon the decision and I knew there was no turning back. I had stopped weeping hours ago and was calm. I felt I could see everything so clearly, past, present and future, and as they fused within me I saw truths which I had never allowed myself to face before and ideals which I had once thought were dead but which I now knew could live again and give my decision meaning.

I thought first of Mallingham. Even if I could somehow save it from Cornelius what would happen to it in the brave new world of the Pax Americana which Cornelius had forecast with such relish? War always brought huge social upheavals; I could remember the post-war world of the early twenties too well not to know what kind of a future awaited a Europe which was once more in ruins. There would be poverty, unemployment and a widespread desire to share whatever wealth remained from the war. The socialist party if not the communist party would then surely come into its own and we would see the levelling, the crusade against inherited wealth, the rejection of the aristocracy, the indifference if not outright hostility towards the large country houses which survived. The conservative I had become found this prospect deeply disturbing, but the socialist I had been long ago accepted the prospect with resignation. England’s grandeur had been built in the previous centuries by the sweated labour of millions to be enjoyed by a fortunate few, but in the twentieth century those millions would inevitably demand their equality. And what would happen to Mallingham then? Would it be requisitioned by the state, torn down and replaced with new bungalows for the proletariat? Or perhaps converted into flats? Or a hotel? I saw clearly that if neither Cornelius nor the Germans destroyed Mallingham the English of the future almost certainly would. Everything changed; nothing was forever. Mallingham had come to the end of its long and splendid life and it was my task, as the last Slade who would ever care for the house, to see that it died not ingloriously but with dignity and honour.

Having thought of Mallingham I thought of myself. I knew there could be no compromise with Cornelius. But even if Cornelius had never existed could I have returned to the all-consuming task of earning a second fortune in order to keep Mallingham safe from the ravages of a changed social order? I could make the money; I had proved that to myself long ago. But I had proved too that in sacrificing my time and talents to the pursuit of money I had seen little of my children, still less of Mallingham and nothing whatsoever of the ideals which I had come to believe in with all my mother’s passion. I had been so terrified of the circumstances of my mother’s death that I had spent years backing away from her idealism but, as I had told Steve, I now saw her struggle differently. When her cause was stripped of its rhetoric and wiped clean of its emotional sexual divisiveness I saw she
had been fighting not just for the right to vote but for justice, for equality before the law, for the concepts which Pericles had championed twenty-five hundred years ago and which applied neither to one sex nor the other but to all mankind. I wanted not to worship at the altar of Mammon for the rest of my life but to work for those ideals of democracy; I wanted not to sacrifice myself endlessly for Mallingham but to fulfil myself by leading a life which would benefit others; and last I wanted my children not to grow up regarding me as a money-hungry stranger who would sell her soul for a house but as a comfortingly familiar figure who possessed ideals which knew no compromise and a romance which no cynicism could destroy.

I thought of Steve’s dying words. ‘Mallingham’s like the bank, Dinah, not real, not flesh and blood.’

Steve had known the truth at the end.

I heard Alan’s voice – Paul’s voice – saying decisively: ‘The pursuit of money for money’s sake is morally indefensible and ideologically obscene.’

Paul might once have said those words, but when I had known him he had been too deeply enmeshed in his moral quicksands to struggle free. He had lost his struggle with corruption and that was why he had left me at Mallingham before Alan was born. But I was not lost, not yet. I had been as deeply enmeshed as he had ever been in the pursuit of wealth and power, but I was being given the chance to pull myself free of those quicksands, just as he had been given the chance when he had met me. He had let the chance pass by and in the end his decision had destroyed him. But I could still take my chance and I was going to take it. I would take it and survive.

Let Cornelius keep his wealth and power! Let him live with the gods he had chosen for himself! But I was going to show him before our paths parted for ever that he was powerless against me, and that no wealth on earth could buy him the revenge he sought.

I was going to win. I knew that now. I was on the road to victory and nothing could turn me back.

My knowledge transformed me, and as I watched the dawn break over Mallingham Broad I began to plan with exhilaration how my great victory over Cornelius would be waged and won.

[3]

The fire would have to look like an accident, of course. I did not want to risk a possible charge of arson by destroying a house that wasn’t legally mine. However, Cornelius would know the fire was no accident; that was the glory of the scheme. He would know it but he would never be able to prove it, and for the rest of his life he would live with the knowledge that although he owned some charred acres in Norfolk he had never, and would never, own any part of me.

I am unsure when I remembered Alan’s wireless with its dangerous flex. It must have been at some point during breakfast because when I had finished my coffee – I could still eat nothing – I went to his room and found
the wireless on the table. Tucked in the coiled flex was a note which read: ‘Mother – don’t forget, please!’

Yet I had forgotten. It was almost as if I had known I was going to need the wireless, but of course I couldn’t have known.

I plugged in the flex and waited. After ten minutes I could smell the burning as the flex began to smoulder. Turning off the wireless immediately I unplugged it again, destroyed Alan’s note and took the wireless to my upstairs sitting-room.

Then I went downstairs to talk to Nanny and Mrs Oakes.

‘I think it would be better if you took George away to the West Country now that the Germans are almost at the French Coast,’ I said briskly to Nanny. ‘Lady Harriet has already offered to lend me her cottage at Croyde Bay and I’ll telephone her now to make sure it’s still available. Can you be ready by two, do you think? I can drive you to Norwich to get the London train …’

And to Mrs Oakes I said gently: ‘I’ve decided to close Mallingham for a while and send George and Nanny to Devon. Would you and Mr Oakes mind terribly if you went to Mary a little earlier than usual this year? I can see you on to the Yarmouth train this afternoon.’

Fortunately the parlourmaid and the housemaids were all local women so I simply paid them a month’s wages and said I would continue to pay them while the house was closed. I was between cooks at the time so I had no other staff to worry about.

Then I spoke to George.

‘Georgie, you’re going to have a lovely holiday by the sea. I won’t be able to come with you at first but I’ll join you and Nanny later.’

‘Can I take my jabberwocky?’

‘Yes, of course, darling.’

‘And a lollipop for the train?’

‘Definitely a lollipop.’

He was satisfied. I kissed the top of his dark head, and finally waved him goodbye as his train drew out of Norwich station soon after twelve.

I was alone at Mallingham by the end of the afternoon.

I started to pack the things I would need for my visit to London. I thought it would be best if I went through the motions of going to meet Cornelius even though I had no intention of presenting myself at Lincoln’s Inn; it would look better afterwards if there was an inquiry. I decided I would stay at Harriet’s house, plead illness and at the last moment cancel the appointment. Later when Cornelius was declaring his patience was exhausted I would write him a note to say I was still considering his offer and he would storm off to Mallingham to find nothing but ashes. The Hall was secluded and some way from the village. Someone would eventually be certain to see the house burning but with luck no one would know when the fire had started and I would have an alibi of sorts.

I wanted to pack every one of my photographs but I knew that would be unwise for if investigators found I had salvaged my most precious
possessions they would naturally be suspicious. But I took my favourite photographs of Paul and Steve and put them in my suitcase.

It was a long night. I slept a little but most of the time I was wandering around from room to room. Sometimes I wondered if I were sleep-walking because my dreams seemed to blend with reality until I was no longer sure what was truth and what was fantasy. The walls of time seemed to have disappeared. I was with Paul and Steve – how odd it was to see them both together at Mallingham! – but other people were there too, my father and his father and strangers whom I did not recognize. But they all knew me and they were so proud of me, I could see their smiles, and when the dawn came, the last dawn Mallingham would ever see, I was in the courtyard by the medieval walls of the hall and Godfrey Slade was riding off to the Crusade to fight for his beliefs against the vast power of the Saracen. I tried to talk to him but he spoke a language I did not understand, and although I knew I could communicate with him in Latin the Latin words were beyond my grasp. And then Paul was there again, quoting the love poetry of Catullus, and above us the sky was so brilliantly blue that I could only marvel: what a wonderful summer!

But as I stared at the sky I heard the drone of a German plane and knew it was the summer of destruction, the sun-drenched days of 1940 when we stood in the dark on the very edge of the world.

The past fell away. I was at Mallingham on Monday, the twenty-seventh of May, 1940 and the hour of my victory was at hand.

I backed my car out of the stables and put my suitcase in the boot. I had just enough petrol left to get me to the nearest station.

As I walked back into the house the phone rang.

‘Dinah?’ I heard the tension in his voice at once.

‘Geoffrey! What is it?’

‘Haven’t you heard the news?’

‘I haven’t had the wireless on for hours. What’s happened?’

‘Just before seven o’clock last night they sent out word that Operation Dynamo was to commence. I’ve only just found out myself. It must mean that they’re evacuating the British army from the French coast.’

Earlier in the year the government had foreseen that private boats might be needed to supplement the Navy in certain circumstances, and on May the fourteenth during the B.B.C.’s nine o’clock news the owners of vessels of thirty feet and upwards were requested to provide details of their craft. My yacht was smaller than thirty feet so I had not registered it with the Small Vessel Pool, but Geoffrey and I had discussed the possibility of using it just the same. We both had friends who had registered their boats.

‘Word’s going around that they now want anything that can float,’ Geoffrey was saying. ‘I’ve just spoken to a client in Dover and he says the whole south-east’s humming. Apparently Ramsgate’s the port to make for. That’s where the small boats are being assembled, fuelled and dispatched.’

‘Where’s the army?’

‘God knows. Of
course there’s nothing in the papers or on the wireless – everything’s top secret.’

‘If the boats are assembling at Ramsgate, the target must be somewhere between Calais and Dunkirk.’ I tried to think. ‘I can get the yacht ready in an hour, I think. How soon can you be here?’

‘I can leave straight away, but Dinah, go over your supplies now so that I can bring anything we need from Norwich. Have you got a pencil and paper? All right, let’s make a list.’

We talked for ten minutes until we were sure we had forgotten nothing, and after I had replaced the receiver I paused to amend my plans. Little amendment was necessary. What pleased me most was that I now had a cast-iron excuse for cancelling my appointment with Cornelius without arousing his suspicions, and an even better story if I was later summoned to give evidence at an inquiry. I could say that in my haste to rush off to France I had forgotten to turn off the wireless. Nothing could have been more plausible.

Before I began to prepare the boat I telephoned Harriet again. We had spoken the previous day to arrange for George and Nanny to stay the night with her before they set off for her Devon cottage, and now I asked if she would telephone Cornelius’ solicitors to inform them I had unexpectedly been drawn into a top-secret war manoeuvre.

‘Operation Dynamo!’ Harriet was appalled but calm. ‘For God’s sake take care of yourself, Di. Good luck. I’ll pray for you,’ she added most unexpectedly, for she was an atheist.

‘Well, I wouldn’t say no to a prayer or two,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

I rang off and glanced at my watch. I had little time and there was still plenty to do. Moving through the house I opened all the doors to allow the fire to travel quickly, and up in the sitting-room I pulled the sofa close to the wireless so that the fire would brush the upholstery. Then I laid a casual trail of newspapers from the sofa to the tall wicker wastepaper basket which I placed beneath the curtains. I had decided it was best to start the fire upstairs because the thatch would catch fire sooner.

Geoffrey arrived at noon. I was dressed in my sailing clothes, my trousers and a heavy jersey.

‘What’s your car doing outside?’ he demanded. ‘Were you going anywhere?’

‘To London, but I’ve cancelled my plans.’ I wondered whether to put the car away again. What would be the natural thing to do? Yes, I would definitely put it away. I wondered if the stables would catch fire and thought they probably would for the roof was also thatched and sparks would be carried on the wind. After I had put the car away I quickly opened my suitcase, whipped out the two photographs and shoved them inside my jersey.