The Russians marched into Poland on the very day of Florence’s party. Luke was stunned by this practical demonstration of Russo-German solidarity.
‘Herr Hitler told me himself that his life’s work was to lead a crusade against Bolshevism.’
‘Then you ought to have smelt a rat at once,’ said Sophia unkindly.
‘But he was so earnest about it. He said over and over again that Bolshevism was the greatest force for evil the world has ever known.’
‘Of course I don’t want to say I told you so, darling, but there’s never been a pin to put between the Communists and the Nazis. The Communists torture you to death if you’re not a worker, and the Nazis torture you to death if you’re not a German. If you are they look at your nose first. Aristocrats are inclined to prefer Nazis while Jews prefer Bolshies. An old bourgeois like yourself, Luke, should keep your fingers out of both their pies.’
Luke must have been quite distracted. He did not even protest, as he usually did, when Sophia called him a bourgeois, that the Garfields were an old Saxon family dating back to before the Conquest. Which, as Sophia would very justly observe, did not affect the matter one way or another.
‘And let me tell you,’ she went on, ‘if you continue to believe everything those foreigners in Germany said to you, you are in for some very nasty shocks, old boy. They have told a lot of people a lot of things not strictly speaking true, and most of us are beginning to get wise. The day they said they would never use gas against civilians every First Aid Post in London let down its gas-proof flaps, and we have all stifled ever since.’
Poor Luke passed his hand over his smooth, white forehead and looked sad. Sophia was sorry that she had been so beastly to him, and said, ‘Darling, are you excited for your party tonight?’
‘I am not a baby to be excited for a party. It will, I hope, be interesting. Mr Egg appears to have seen the President.’
So Rudolph was right, and Luke was getting bored with the Brotherhood. She wondered whether it was a religion which took a great hold on people, and whether it would leave the poor fellow with an uneasy conscience for the rest of his life.
Brothers and Sisters now began flocking into the house. They all looked very much alike and might easily, had there not been a hundred of them, have been brothers and sisters indeed. The girls were all dressed in simple little tub frocks with a bastard Tyrolean flavour, they wore no hats or stockings, and quite a lot of grimy toes poked their way out of sandals. They were sunburnt, their foreheads were wrinkled, and their hair and lips were very thin. The young men, of whom there were quantities, appeared at first sight to be extremely well dressed, but their suits were too broad at the shoulder, too slim in the hips, and not made of quite the very best stuff – in fact, they would not stand up to close examination. They answered to names like Heth for Heatherley, Ken for Kennerley, and Win for Winthrop, and spoke with Hollywood accents. They were sunburnt, and when you first looked at them, immensely handsome, like the suits. Their eyes and teeth were blue. The cosmopolitan element in this party was not in evidence, and Sophia thought Florence must have meant Americans from every country in Europe, until she heard a gabble of foreign languages. She concluded that the Brotherhood, like Hollywood, places its own stamp on all nationalities, as it certainly confers a particular type of looks, of clothes, and that ‘If this is pleasure give me pain’ expression which is permanently on all the faces of its adherents. There was not one soul in uniform.
Rudolph, however, when he arrived to take Sophia down to Kew was resplendent in the full fig of the Wessex Guards.
‘I kept it secret for a surprise for you,’ he said; ‘wait till you see my coat, though, lined with scarlet.’
‘Well, you do look pretty,’ said Sophia approvingly. Before the war, she had often thought of seeing him in uniform for the first time, and had supposed that she would cry. Now she simply felt delighted. Indeed Rudolph, unusually well shaved, looked handsome and soldierly, an example, she felt, to the brothers. War psychology, so incomprehensible during peace time, already had her in its grip.
Florence introduced Mr Egg to them. ‘Heatherley, this is Sophia Garfield. Rudolph, this is Heatherley.’ Brotherhood manners were like that. ‘Sophia, you must wait a moment while Heth tells us what the President said to him. He’s just going to now.’ She got up on a chair and clapped her hands. ‘Silence everybody, please. Heatherley is going to tell us what the President said about Moral Rearmament.’
Silence fell at once, and all faces were turned towards Heatherley who was scrambling on to the chair.
‘Well, folks,’ he said impressively, ‘I went to see the President.’ Pause. ‘We were alone together, just the three of us, you understand. The President is a busy man.’ Pause. ‘Well, he said to me.’ An impressive pause. Heatherley looked all round the room, and finally continued, ‘He said “I think Moral Rearmament is a very very fine idea.”’
There was a prolonged and reverent silence, broken by Florence who said, ‘I always think it is so important to hear the exact words when a man like that makes a statement like that. Thank you, Heth; personally I shall treasure this little scene.’
The Gogothskys were already at Vocal Lodge when Sophia and Rudolph arrived. Olga, greatly to Sophia’s delight, for she made a mental collection of Olga’s clothes, was wearing a snood. A bit of it came round and fastened under her chin like a beard and she looked, as no doubt she felt, very Slav. The Prince,
