"I received this book from participating in FIRST and the Publisher for free in exchange for an honest review."
***Special thanks to Ginger of Harvest House Publishers for sending me a review copy.***
April, 1934
Ashton Park
“There
you go! There you go!”
Lord
Preston threw the ball as far as he could. The three Belgian shepherds raced
after it, yipping with excitement, and vanished among the tall ash trees. The
leaves were fully open after two days of rain followed by two days of sunshine.
“Top
of the morning, m’lord.” Harrison lifted the fedora off his head. “Those three
are hard at it.”
“Good
day, Harrison. They need a strong run. I’ve been absent for weeks and I’m not
sure old Todd Turpin ever gets the fire out of them. Too many parliamentary
sessions tie me down in London. Well, if they catch scent of a hare I shall not
see them again in a fortnight.” He put his hands behind his back. “I have
renamed them, you know.”
Harrison
shifted his staff from one hand to the other. “I’d heard that.”
“Wynken,
Blynken, and Nod. From the American poem.”
“Very
good. How are they responding?”
“Badly.
If at all. But I shall keep it up. Something had to be done to address the
baron’s treachery.”
“Yes,
m’lord.”
“The
dogs and I needed a fresh start.”
“I
expect you did.”
“I
saw him, you know, Harrison. On a newsreel from Berlin. Hopping and stomping in
a black SS uniform with Herr Hitler and his stooges. Ghastly. I thought I knew
the man.”
“A
chance at power changes many a good soul.”
“Is
that what he considers power? I suppose it is power after a fashion. The way a
freak windstorm knocks off chimney pots and tears brick walls to pieces and
hurls trash bins down an alley—raw force, out of control, of no benefit to man
or beast.”
“Have
you heard from Lady Catherine or her husband, the theologian? Are they well?”
Lord
Preston listened a moment to the distant barking of the dogs. “I believe they
have caught the scent of something. No ball ever rolled that far.” He began to
stride into the ash forest. “No, Harrison. Not a word. You might pray about
that, please.”
Across
the English Channel in Germany, Catherine was well aware she was behind in her
letter writing. She had finally finished one to her sister Victoria, who was
living in Africa with her husband Ben and their two sons. Now she felt guilty
she hadn’t sent so much as a note to her mother and father in more than a
month. She pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward her and lifted her fountain
pen.
Dear
Mama and Papa,
You will wonder
at my long silence, and you have, I suppose, fretted a good deal over it. I
apologize. Life has been a mad rush here in Tubingen. But let me set your minds
at rest about your grandchildren—Sean is doing very well indeed at school, and
baby Angelika has never been better.
A
soft knocking sounded at the front door.
Catherine
was seated at the dining room table on the ground floor. Albrecht was upstairs
chatting with Sean and Angelika while he worked on his university lectures for
the next day. She knew she should be the one answering the door, but she
hesitated. It was past nine o’clock and dark, and she was not expecting anyone.
Clutching her pen, she waited.
The
knocking sounded a second time.
“Are
you going to get that?” Her husband’s voice came down the staircase. “Please?”
“Ja, ja, Albrecht,” she
replied. “I was just working on a letter to my parents.”
She
got up and went to the door, continuing to hope the knocking would stop and
whoever it was would walk away. Risking Albrecht’s annoyance, she stood facing
the door but did not open it. The knocking came a third time—soft but rapid.
Certain her husband would call from his office again, she took hold of the door
handle.
“I
have it, Albrecht. You needn’t worry.”
A
smell of rain on pavement rushed in as she swung the door back, surprising her.
She hadn’t noticed any drops against the windowpanes.
“Ja?” she
asked the figure on the sidewalk.
The
man slipped into the house and shut the door behind him.
“Was?” exclaimed
Catherine. “What are you doing? Get out of here!”
The
man took off his hat.
“Baron!”
She didn’t know what to say next. “Of all people I did not expect to see you!”
“Where
is Albrecht?”
“Upstairs.”
“The
children?”
“They’re
with him. He’s working at his morning lectures.”
“There
will be no morning lectures. The Gestapo will arrive here at two in the
morning. You must be well gone by then.”
Cold
air seemed to fill the room, pouring off his trench coat.
“The
Gestapo! Gone where? Where can we go?”
“My
plan is to get you to France or Switzerland. But first we must get you into a
hiding place outside of Tubingen. If they don’t find you here they will go to
all of your friends’ homes. They will go to the university professors. Comb the
city from one end to another. I have a car around back. You have half an hour,
and then you must be in it and we must be gone.”
“We
can’t be ready in half an hour. Angelika is only four. There is so much we must
prepare.”
“Half
an hour. We cannot take the risk they may come earlier.”
“This
is mad. You can’t come raging in here and demand we load our children into a
car with you. Why should we trust you? You betrayed us once.”
“I
saved Albrecht’s life. He would have died in that house with the others.”
“You’re
SS.”
“It’s
just as well I am. Otherwise I would have no idea of the movements of the
police. If you don’t trust me, you will die here just as Albrecht would have
died in that house with the Brotherhood of the Oak. Last time I used a gun on
Albrecht to work my will. If you force my hand I will do so again.” He patted the
pocket of his trench coat. “Get your husband. Get your children. Get what you
need and get in the car.”
Catherine
started up the staircase, her face whitening. She turned her head. “You can say
what you want about the Gestapo. It’s you I don’t trust.”
“I’m
fine with that so long as we drive away from here at ten o’clock.”
“You
could have been followed.”
“I
wasn’t followed.”
“They
could be watching you.”
“Then we’ll all die together.
Will you trust me if that happens?”
Albrecht stood at the head of the
staircase. “What are you doing here?”
“He says the Gestapo are going to
arrest us,” said Catherine.
“Arrest us? Because of my
lectures?”
The baron looked up at him. “Your
lectures. Your protests against the firing of Jewish professors. Your refusal
to join the Nazi Party. Most of all, your books. Oh, yes—they know you are the
author of those anonymous books and pamphlets popping up all over Germany.”
“How do they know that?”
“The SS found the men who do your
printing last night. Smashed the presses. Shot them in the street.”
Albrecht started to say something
and stopped.
“Get what you need, Albrecht.”
The baron’s voice was quiet and flat. “Leave what is superfluous. We have
twenty-five minutes left.”
Two days later
Ashton Park
Tavy received a telegram at the
door and took it to Lord and Lady Preston, who were having tea in the library.
“Where is it from, William?” Lady
Preston asked her husband. “Africa?”
“No, it’s not from Africa. It’s
from Germany.”
“What is it? Is it Catherine? Is
everything all right?”
“The telegram is not from
Catherine. It’s from the baron.”
“The baron! Why on earth would he
write us? He knows how we feel about him!”
LORD
PRESTON
YOUR
DAUGHTER CATHERINE IS SAFE. SO ARE HER CHILDREN. SO IS HER HUSBAND ALBRECHT.
YOU WILL NOT HEAR FROM THEM IN A VERY LONG TIME. BUT THEY ARE NOT PRISONERS AND
THEY HAVE NOT BEEN HARMED.
THE BARON
As Lord Preston was reading the
telegram to his wife in England, small pieces of chocolate were being handed to
Sean and Angelika in a cold, dark cellar in Germany.
“Happy birthday, my son,”
whispered Albrecht. “I had this in my briefcase. You are eleven today.
Blessings.”
Sean took the chocolate but
didn’t eat it. “Thank you, Father.”
Mimicking the mood and actions of
her big brother, Angelika clutched her square of chocolate but didn’t smile or
put it in her mouth.
“Go ahead,” urged Albrecht. “It’s
Swiss.”
“You said we were going there.”
Sean spoke without emotion. “How long will it take?”
“We will stay at this house
today. Tonight we will move again. And the night after that. Never longer than
a day in each house. But each house brings us closer to the Swiss border.”
“So we are going to the chalet in
Pura?”
“Ja.”
“And both of you are staying with
us?”
Albrecht put his arm around
Catherine. “Your mother and I will be with you. Wherever we go, we go as a
family.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am.”
“What if the police find us?”
“The baron has very good friends.
They will not betray us.”
“It’s because of your writing,
isn’t it, Papa?” Again, no tone of accusation, just a question that was a
statement of fact.
“Sean, it is because the Nazis
are what they are.”
Sean put the chocolate in a
pocket in his shirt. “I will eat it once we’ve crossed the border.”
“Very well.”
“Me too.” Angelika placed hers in
a small red leather purse she carried with her everywhere.
“Make sure it doesn’t melt,” said
Catherine. “You wouldn’t want it to melt in a shirt pocket or purse, would you?
Such a waste. And such a mess.”
Sean finally smiled a very small
smile. “I’ll be careful.”
“We’ll all be careful.” Albrecht
put a hand on Sean’s shoulder. “Now each of us must take a nap. We didn’t get a
great deal of sleep last night, and tonight will be no different.”
“How many nights will it be,
Father?” asked Sean. “Ten or twelve?”
“I don’t know. That sounds right,
but we’re still a good ways from the border.”
“But Switzerland is not that
far.”
Albrecht nodded. “No, not so far
from Tubingen. But we must move slowly and carefully because the SS and Gestapo
will be hunting us. They’re aware we have a home in Switzerland. The border
crossings will be closely watched.”
“What if we can’t get into
Switzerland?”
“We’re just as near to France as
we are to Switzerland. If we cannot get to the chalet safely we will cross over
into Alsace-Lorraine and make our way to the English Channel.”
Catherine smiled. “Then you will
see all your cousins, Sean. And Grandmother and Grandfather Danforth too.”
“I would like that.” Sean’s eyes
were large in the darkness of the cellar. “But I will miss Grandfather
Hartmann. And Grandmother Hartmann as well.”
“Of course you will.” Catherine
smoothed back her son’s hair from his forehead. “But the Nazis will not be in
power forever. The German people will come to their senses and reject them.
That will be the time to see Grandmother and Grandfather Hartmann again.”
“How soon?” asked Angelika.
“A year. Or two. No more.”
“I’ll be a big girl then.”
“Ja. But not so big
Grandfather and Grandmother Hartmann can’t fuss over you and give you dolls and
baskets of sweets.”
A smile, bright in the gloom,
darted onto Angelika’s face.
“Now we need to nap.” Albrecht
handed each of them a woolen blanket. “Night is not far off.”
“I’m hungry,” Angelika said.
“There will be food when you wake
up,” promised Catherine, wrapping the blanket around the little girl’s
shoulders. “Or you can eat your chocolate now.”
“I’m saving it for a special
day.”
“All right, you save it for a
special day. Meanwhile, after you have had your nap, there will be a bowl of
noodle soup for you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Very sure. The lady of the house
told me so herself.”
June 5, 1934
The Parliament buildings, Westminster, London
“What’s bothering you? We must do
our part to get things ready for the rally.”
“I’m well aware of that,
Buchanan.” Edward glanced at the traffic moving up and down in front of the Parliament
buildings. “I’ll be ready.”
“The rally at Olympia is in two
days, Danforth. We intend to set London on its ear. Fill the Grand Hall. The
British Union of Fascists is at its peak.”
“I said I’d be ready.”
Buchanan tapped the silver head
of his cane against his leg. “It’s the matter of your sister, isn’t it? Lady
Catherine? I thought the embassy was sorting that out.”
“The embassy has no idea where
Catherine and her family are. They simply vanished without a trace.”
“Mightn’t they have fled? Sir
Oswald asked you to write that Hartmann fellow and get him to stop penning
those anti-Nazi books and pamphlets. They were infuriating fascists in Spain
and Italy and England as well as Germany and Austria.”
“I wrote him. He never
responded.” Edward looked up at the sky as drops of rain fell on the sidewalk.
“They could have been abducted and shot.”
“Yes, well, there’s that.”
Buchanan opened a black umbrella. “You’re not getting cold feet about the
rally, are you? Sir Oswald counts on you creating quite a stir with your
appearance. And your announcement.”
“I don’t have cold feet,
Buchanan. But it will be a shock to my father and mother when their son stands
on a platform with the leader of the British fascists. Not to mention I’ll be
drummed out of the Conservative Party. I’d like to spare them all that with
Catherine missing.”
“They’ll bear up. Especially once
you’re a success. You have everything to gain by going public with your fascist
beliefs. Yes, you’ll have to sit as an independent. But in the next election we’ll
take a majority of the seats. The Daily Mirror and Daily Mail are on
our side, and we have well over 50,000 supporters now. Remember how easily Herr
Hitler got in and took over.”
“He was appointed chancellor. He
never got in by popular vote. I wish we could appoint Sir Oswald like that, but
that’s not the way a British democracy runs.”
“Well, we’ll change all that,
won’t we? You always chafed at the slow and awkward movements of democracy,
didn’t you? Look at Hitler. See what a strong man in power can get done and
done swiftly? Why, Berlin has the Olympics in thirty-six, doesn’t it? All sorts
of buildings are being erected at an absolutely feverish pace. You really must
pop over to Berlin with the lot of us next time and see for yourself. That’s
what we want for the British Empire.”
Edward nodded. “I believe a
strong man at the top would be for the best.” He continued to look out over the
traffic, avoiding eye contact with Buchanan. “But look here, what about the
danger of a riot? What are we prepared to do about those hecklers who follow
Sir Oswald about from speech to speech? All the Jews and Communists? It’s
enough I have to drive penny nails into my mother and father’s coffins while
they’re grieving over Catherine and the grandchildren. Can’t we put on a class
affair? At least give my parents something to take comfort in?”
“You’re worrying far too much for
your own good, Danforth. Get home to your wife and have a glass of port. Have
two. This will be a major rally, comparable to the finest rally in Berlin.
Music, flags, marching, chants—it will be a spectacle. A lot of Jews and Reds
are not going to spoil that for us, believe me. We’ve recruited hundreds more
Blackshirts. They’ll be stationed strategically throughout the Grand Hall and
outside on the grounds as well. One look at them and our enemies will shrink
away. Your parents will open up the morning paper and read about a well-run
show. A nationalist show with a good deal of pride in Britain and Britain’s
future.”
Buchanan lifted his umbrella
sharply, and a black cab pulled over in front of them. “There you are,
Danforth. Enough chitchat. We don’t want too many to take notice of us. Home to
your beautiful wife and that glass of port. We’ll see you at Olympia on
Thursday.”
“Right.” Edward entered the back
of the cab after the driver came out and opened the door. “Thank you for
dropping by Parliament to have a word with me, Buchanan. I hope everything will
come off according to plan.”
“It will. Remain calm.”
“I stand to lose a great deal,”
said Edward.
Buchanan didn’t respond until
after the cab had sped away. “Indeed you do, Danforth.”
“Good evening, my dear.” Edward
came up behind his wife as she was brushing her long black hair and kissed her
on the cheek. “Where are Owen and Colm?”
She smiled and turned around,
slipping her arms about his neck. “At Jeremy and Emma’s with their cousins. The
rectory has quite the biggest yard this part of London.”
Edward kissed her again, this
time on the mouth. “Better than the postage stamp of a yard we have here, in
other words.”
“Don’t be upset. Kipp and
Caroline’s townhouse has a smaller yard than ours, and your father’s new
townhouse is certainly not Ashton Park, is it?”
Edward tossed his top hat on a
sofa and lit a cigarette. “I’m not upset. Just sorry they don’t have the
property to run around in I had when I was a child.”
“Summer is just around the
corner. Then they can play at Dover Sky all they like.”
Edward sank down on the sofa next
to his hat. “Dad’s planning on renovations this summer, Char. I don’t think the
house can be occupied.”
She sat on the sofa with him,
moving his hat onto a small table. “Well, Ashton Park is splendid enough, don’t
you think? They’ll have even more room to run about.”
“So long as they stay away from
the sea cliff.”
“Oh, heavens, Edward, what’s
gotten into you today? You’re fretting like a mother hen. That’s my job, isn’t
it?” She moved so that she was able to get in behind him and began to rub his
shoulders and neck. “You’re tight as a drum.”
He blew out a lungful of smoke
and said nothing.
“Is there a big speech coming up?
Some piece of legislation you need to introduce? A bill to vote on? Is that
what has you wound up like a grandfather clock?”
“I expect.”
“When is this coming to pass?”
“Thursday.”
“Well, then, Friday evening we should
take the boys for a boat ride on the Thames. You know how Owen loves anything
to do with ships. Gets it from you, I imagine, his naval officer father.”
“The war was a long time ago.”
“It doesn’t matter how long ago
it was. You served king and country, and he’s very proud of you. So is Colm. We
all are.”
“King and country, eh?” He drew
in on his cigarette. “My patriotism hasn’t done much for me, has it?”
“What do you mean?” She stopped
rubbing his neck a moment and rested her chin on his shoulder. “You’re an MP
and you’re on the ladder of success in the Conservative Party.”
“Am I? If I were ignored any more
than I am by the Party I’d be as much a pariah as Churchill.”
“Oh, my goodness, you’re quite a
long ways off from anything like that.” She took his jaw in her fingers. “I
thought you liked Winston. You got along famously when your father had him up
to Ashton Park at Christmas.”
“I admire his fight. And his
national pride. But I don’t wish to be banished to the wilderness anytime soon
and join him in solitary confinement.”
“You’re Lord Preston’s son. No
one’s going to do that.”
“Not yet.”
“What do you mean, not yet? Not
ever.” She kissed him lightly on the lips. “You really have got yourself tied
up in knots. I shall have to unravel them.”
He stubbed out his cigarette in
an ashtray. “How will Charlotte Squire do that, I wonder?”
“Oh, I have a tried and true
Lancashire method.”
“Which is?”
“Me. Just me.”
She kissed him with a strength
and passion that pushed him back farther and farther into the sofa. Her blue
eyes glittering, she paused and looked down at his face.
“How’s that?” she asked.
“It’ll do for a start.”
“Will it?”
She placed both hands on his
shoulders and kissed him much longer and with even more vigor. A tear slipped
from the corner of his eye, and she drew back.
“Whatever’s the matter? Have I
hurt you somehow?”
“I want you to be proud of me. I
want you and the boys to be proud of me.”
“My goodness, Edward, we are
proud of you, I’ve told you that. You’re a fine husband and a brilliant father.
No one could ask for more.”
“I dread the day you’re
disappointed with me. I dread it like the grave.”
“Edward. Stop it. That’s never
going to happen. I adore you. Owen and Colm adore you.” She put her arms
tightly around his back and hugged him to herself. “What’s gone wrong, love?
What’s put a knife in your heart? You could never do anything that would turn
the boys or me against you. It’s impossible.”
