The Viceroy's Daughters (34 page)

Reality intruded with a jolt when the faithful Nevile Henderson next called on Irene.

He is bitterly out of sympathy with the Government's policy with Poland, Rumania and Russia. He thinks Hitler knows well enough we would fight over Danzig and will behave unless he gets convinced that we want to fight him anyhow and that then he might steal a march while he was still ahead in armaments. It pains me how Nevile dares say the occupation of Czechoslovakia was right and that the Czechs are rapidly turning pro-German. He thinks Danzig should go back too. He agrees with me that Winston Churchill in the Govt would convince Hitler we were going to fight against him and he implored the P. M. not to put him in. He does not see the Germans' faults enough. His spectacles are too rosy and it pains me.

On July 16, 1939, Tom held his last and greatest meeting in London. He had managed to hire the enormous new auditorium at Earl's Court and filled it with an audience of more than twenty thousand. Irene attended with Viv, Nick and Lady Mosley, Baba with Mike Wardell. There was the usual panoply of banners and standards of the various fascist “districts,” stewards, rousing pipe-and-drum bands and Tom's solo march down the center aisle in the beam of spotlights to mount the high rostrum. Speaking, as usual, without notes, against the background of an enormous Union Jack, he talked of how the whole of Britain's international trading system, foreign policy and even Britain's various conflicting political parties were “maintained for one reason; and for one reason alone—that the money power of the world may rule the British people and through them may rule mankind.” His audience were in no doubt that it was “international Jewry” to which he was referring.

Even more contentiously, he went on seemingly to defend Hitler:

I am told that Hitler wants the whole world. In other words, I am told that Hitler is mad. What evidence have they got so far that this man, who has taken his country from the dust to the height in some twenty years of struggle—what evidence have they got to show that he has suddenly gone mad? Any man who wants to run the whole of the modern world with all its polyglot population and divers people and interests—such a man is undoubtedly mad and I challenge my opponents to produce one shred of such evidence about that singularly shrewd and lucid intellect whom they venture so glibly to criticize.

Somewhere about this point in the two-hour oration Winston Churchill's son Randolph, sitting with the dancer Tilly Losch directly in front of the Denham party, got up and walked out. For those who stayed, there was a spectacular peroration extolling the splendor and virtues of Britain and its historic past and saying that no true Britons would die “like rats in Polish holes.” It was an extraordinary and hypnotic speech that brought the crowd roaring to its feet—and it said in the clearest possible terms that Britain should not go to the aid of Poland.

Afterward, the family went back to Lady Mosley's flat for supper, where Baba joined them. While they were eating, to their surprise, Diana's brother, Tom Mitford, arrived without warning. At 11:45 Tom Mosley appeared. Then, at 12:15, there was a mass irruption of Mitfords: Diana, who had been giving interviews to German reporters; her mother; her youngest sister, Debo; and a couple of friends. Baba, unable to face her successful rival, left at once.

The hypnotic spell woven by Tom's oratory quickly wore off and Irene seized the chance of what she was increasingly coming to think might be a last foray abroad: a quick trip through the Low Countries and Scandinavia. On her return she heard that Dino Grandi had been recalled to Rome.

This was because on May 22, the “Pact of Steel”—the military alliance between Hitler and Mussolini—had been signed. The last thing the popular Grandi wanted to see was war between his country and England; when ordered by Mussolini to make a speech publicly and uncompromisingly justifying Il Duce's policy, the ambassador at first refused. Then, under threat of being outlawed by his own country, he delivered the words he had been sent. Though only the staffs of the Italian and German embassies were present, Mussolini's son-in-law and Italy's foreign minister, Count Ciano, had already released the text to the Rome newspapers, whence it was picked up by the naturally hostile British press.

The next day Grandi called on Halifax, now foreign secretary, who (according to the count's memoirs) said: “Dear Grandi, don't take it to heart. Everyone understands. All that matters is that you should stay to work with us for peace.” But Halifax's good wishes were of no avail and Grandi received a cable ordering him to leave for Rome forthwith. From Rome the count wrote a “touching” letter to Irene dated August 9; to his adored Baba he wrote elegiacally: “There are moments which mean a whole life. An afternoon at Kew Gardens in early spring. Two children playing at life, hand in hand. Blossoming trees, a golden rain of blossoms everywhere. Your dress, I remember, was designed with blossoms too. Both happy like birds. Was it a mistake not to end our day like birds do? It was.

“And you again, smiling, forgiving, heavenly, lovely and beautiful, on the dark platform of a station, going away forever . . .”

 

That last summer of peace, the Metcalfes had again been asked to stay with the Windsors at La Cröe so that Fruity could recuperate from his hernia operation. He was well aware that the gilded life, with its make-believe royal court, continued as if in a sealed capsule, with dinner parties in the white-and-gold dining room, neighbors like Maxine Elliott curtseying to the duchess, the duke scrutinizing every bill for possible economies while showering the duchess with jewels and furs, and therefore wrote to warn his friend that he would be a bit of a “washout” as a guest. “I am still walking with the aid of a stick . . . then I have to go to bed every night at 10:30. I would have to bring my servant and I would have to ask you and Wallis if you would permit me to wear a soft silk shirt and short coat [dinner jacket] as I just couldn't face dressing up with a stiff collar or shirt etc. In other words your old friend Fruity would be an infernal nuisance and not worth the trouble and would only occupy one of your much-sought-after rooms and give little in return!”

The Windsors were undeterred by Fruity's caveats and the three Metcalfes duly arrived at La Cröe. After Baba and David left at the end of July, Fruity stayed on, fulfilling, as he had done so many years earlier, the duties of a temporary aide-de-camp.

On August 1 he described in a letter to Baba

terrible wailings coming from the woods and first of all thought that one of the little dogs had got a slight go of rabies but after listening intently I heard the bagpipes. At 6
p.m
. some very strange people arrived, evidently some “old time” friends of Wallis's, and the Rogers family. Then H.R.H. appeared, escorting Wallis (I having acted up to this as ADC in waiting, introducing etc). His appearance was magnificent if a little strange considering the tropical heat. He was completely turned out as the Scotch laird about to go stalking— beautiful kilt, swords and all the aids. It staggered
me
a bit and I'm getting used to blows and surprises. Then from the woods rushed what might have been the whole Campbell family, complete with pipes and haggis etc. I was told they were Folk Lore dancers, here to promote better international feeling. Personally, I think that if they got into Germany I wouldn't blame Hitler attacking anyone . . .

 

Over the next three weeks, the Riviera emptied. On August 19, Leslie Hore-Belisha, the war minister, who had been over for cocktails a day or two earlier, flew back to London. Walter Monckton had to cancel the visit to La Cröe that he had planned for the end of August; in London he sought to make arrangements to bring the Windsors home in the event of war. Irene, staying with friends in York, learned that Lord Halifax had gone south from his estate of Garrowby “in acute worry over Danzig.” The arrival of Vivien from Wootton just before dinner struck a further note of gloom: she told her aunt that her father was very worried, as Diana, having recently seen much of Hitler, said he was determined to seize Danzig. Irene was further depressed by the description of the telephone system at Garrowby. “It seems inconceivably incompetent for a Foreign Secretary. A private phone rings in the Tower, which is seldom heard, or Halifax is too bored to go up to it. I gather Chamberlain has no phone at all.”

The crisis escalated at terrifying speed. On August 21 came the news that destroyed the last faint hope of peace: Hitler had concluded a nonaggression pact with the Soviets. All hope of an alliance between Britain, France and Russia vanished and, with his eastern front secured, so did the sole remaining obstacle to Hitler's plans. From now on, war was a matter of days away—although there were still those who refused to believe it. The king had no illusions, leaving Balmoral for London on August 23 for a privy council and visits from his prime minister and foreign secretary. Halifax gave a talk on the radio that evening which Irene found trite and uninspiring.

The countdown began. On August 25 all British nationals still in Berlin and all Germans in England were asked to leave. Passages to America and Canada were fully booked and the admiralty closed the Mediterranean to British shipping. The roads out of London were congested: many were getting away while they could before the evacuation of one and a half million people commenced in a few days' time. The telephone system ground almost to a standstill with the number of calls, which took up to six hours to be put through by the overworked operators. The Emergency Defence Act was rushed through, giving the government the authority it needed to put the country on a war footing, and the acting Socialist leader [Arthur Greenwood] gave Labour's assurance that the House would stand united against aggression. “The peril of war is imminent,” the prime minister told the House, “but I still go on hoping.”

Irene drove to Denham on August 26, to find Nick and Diana there with Tom, who asked her to take his mother, Viv and Nick up to Wootton the following day—he expected air raids to start the moment war broke out. Back in London she packed up her pictures and collection of crosses and sent them down to Denham. The next day her chauffeur drove them all to Wootton, which she thought Diana had furnished very badly (“only one small window in each bay opens so one suffocates”), perhaps because she so resented the sight of Hitler's photograph by Diana's bed. She removed the photographs of Göring and his baby from the sitting-room mantelpiece.

By August 29 the tension was palpable. German troops were massed on the Polish border and the midnight news reported that Nevile Henderson flew back to Berlin after the cabinet meeting and was still with Hitler and Ribbentrop at 11:30
p.m
.

On September 1 Hitler struck, his troops invading Poland at dawn. Britain and France instructed their ambassadors to inform the German government that unless Germany withdrew, their respective countries would be forced to fulfill their obligations to Poland. In Britain the navy, army and air force were mobilized, blackout orders were given and the evacuation of mothers and children from large cities began. Irene learned that a group of six would arrive at nearby Uttoxeter from Birmingham the following day and somehow managed to find and hastily furnish a suitable cottage for them.

On her return to London she learned that James the footman had been called up; after saying goodbye to him, she and the cook covered the hall light and all the passage lights with blue paper to dim them, took out every plug in the drawing room and morning room and decided to live in the dining room with its thick curtains. “I feel that dear Viv is suffering very deeply underneath,” she wrote that night. “It is so cruel that she is facing what I did in 1914—all my world in ashes round me. How can such horror triumph? An unbounded conviction like Hitler's moves mountains. I loathe his photograph by Diana's bed and long to smash it to atoms. I wonder what Tom and Diana are thinking of their hero?”

 

At La Cröe there was nothing to indicate that either Windsor realized the true gravity of the situation. True, the duke had sent a personal telegram to Hitler, followed by one (on August 29) to the king of Italy, asking him to intervene for the preservation of peace. Even when he was told on September I that the Germans had invaded Poland, he still refused to believe that Europe was teetering on the edge of war. “Oh, just another sensational report,” he said impatiently. When, that evening, the duke received a message from the king of Italy telling him that Italy intended to remain neutral, he was jubilant. The duchess was so convinced that the crisis would blow over that she was making arrangements to have the new butler's wife brought out from England.

Fruity was under no illusions. That afternoon, he drove first to Cannes to see the British consul and then to Nice, to visit the travel agent Thomas Cook where, through charm, persuasiveness and the duke's name, he managed to reserve a compartment on the 7:30
a.m
. train to Paris the following morning for seven of the duke's servants, his own valet and a secretary. Apart from the Windsors, only Fruity, the duchess's Swiss lady's maid and a few French servants were left at La Cröe.

On Sunday, September 3, the duke, about to have a swim, was told that the British ambassador was on the telephone from Paris. Ten minutes later he came back. “Great Britain has just declared war on Germany,” he said—and dived into the pool.

The duke's solipsistic approach to a war that might see the end of his country, let alone of millions of lives, finally proved too much even for the loyal Fruity. As he wrote to Baba that momentous Sunday: “Certain people here are quite extraordinary. No one could understand how their minds work. On Friday it had all been settled for a plane to come out early Saturday morning to bring us home etc. At about 1
a.m
. or 2
a.m
. Walter [Monckton] spoke again. The conversation had to be in French which didn't help any as Walter is about as bad as the Master here! It went on in the library. I went on reading my book in the drawing room as I did not think that anything could go wrong.”