‘Berliners have their heads stuck in the sand,’ Renata responded, and made a sour face. ‘How can anyone think that that odious little man has stopped a war?’ she asked in an even lower key, sounding scornful. When Irina was silent, she turned to Sigi. ‘Do you believe he has?’
‘I’m hoping against hope,’ Sigi answered.
Irina looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was eavesdropping on their conversation, saw that they were quite isolated where they stood, then remarked quietly, ‘Hitler might have duped Chamberlain and Daladier, bluffed them into thinking that he wants peace as they do, but he hasn’t convinced me and my mother, or the baron for that matter. Helmut thinks he aims to go against the Western democracies next year.’
Renata said, ‘I suspect your stepfather’s not far from the truth.’
‘I pray that Helmut is wrong.’ Sigmund’s voice was as sombre as the expression on his face.
Renata began to shake her head. ‘I tremble at the thought of the poor Czechoslovakians. When Hitler marched into the Sudetenland last month they were finished.’
‘Please, don’t let’s talk politics tonight,’ Ursula whispered. ‘Not even here in the relative safety of the British Embassy. It makes me nervous.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ Sigmund agreed. ‘It’s a dangerous game anywhere these days.’ Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that the von Wittingens had just arrived, and wanting to bring this conversation to a close, and needing an excuse to speak privately to Irina, he said, ‘Come along, Irina my dear, let’s go over and have a word with Kurt and Arabella, and find ourselves a drop of champagne on the way.’
Irina nodded in consent, and they both excused themselves and sauntered off in the direction of the prince and princess.
Left alone together, Renata faced Ursula, frowning slightly. ‘Are you feeling all right, Ursi?’ she asked, peering at her friend. ‘You look so very pale tonight.’
Ursula was silent for a moment, and then she gave Renata a direct look and, suddenly wanting to unburden herself, she confessed, ‘I live with the most corrosive anxiety, Ren. It’s perfectly awful. So debilitating. And although I try desperately to control myself, I’m filled with terrible apprehension most of the time.’
Renata’s face reflected her sympathy and her understanding. ‘We all feel the same way, and with good reason. We’re in the hands of criminals. Let’s face it, the German Government is being led by a bunch of gangsters.’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Ursula cautioned in a whisper, ‘the Gestapo’s everywhere. Even at this party, I’m sure.’
‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ Renata replied dully, adopting the same whispering tone.
Automatically they both edged further into the corner, and Renata stared at Ursula in dismay and let out a weary sigh. ‘I wonder why we bothered to come here tonight, knowing the place would be seething with them and the SS-and God knows who else?’
‘To be together in a friendly atmosphere at a friendly embassy where there are still a few civilised people left to talk to, and to have a pleasant evening with each other, I do believe,’ Ursula murmured, and squeezed her arm, wanting to reassure her friend.
‘Hello, you two,’ a husky, very cultured, very English voice said, and knowing that it was Arabella von Wittingen standing behind them they swung around and greeted her lovingly.
She was an English aristocrat, the former Lady Arabella Cunningham, and the sister of the Earl of Langley. Tall, slender, and elegant this evening in a bottle-green brocade dinner suit composed of a long skirt and a tailored jacket, Arabella had light-blue eyes and a skin like a peach.
Her manner was insouciant, and her pretty mouth twitched with amusement when she said, ‘I can hardly believe my eyes! A member of the Ambassador’s staff must have gone slightly mad. What an invitation list! Some of the raciest ladies in Berlin are present this evening, not to mention those cuties over there, the ones draped all over the Nazi officers.’ She laughed uproariously. ‘The three of them look as if they’ve just stepped out of Madam Kitty’s front door,’ she continued, referring to the most famous brothel in Berlin. ‘Out of several beds in Madam Kitty’s, I should have said,’ she added as an afterthought, and laughed again.
Renata also laughed. ‘You are wicked.’
Ursula chuckled with them, and exclaimed softly, ‘And you’re as irreverent as ever and brutally honest, but then that’s why we love you, Belle darling.’
Ursula spoke the truth.
These three women did love each other; they had been devoted friends for the past eighteen years. They had met in 1920 when, at the age of sixteen, they were pupils at Roedean, the famous English girls’ school near Brighton. In the two years they had attended the school they had been considered a daunting trio – intelligent, confident, self-assured, independent and, at times, rebellious. The friendship had continued after their schooldays, and Renata and Ursula had gone frequently to stay with Arabella at Langley Castle in Yorkshire, which was the family seat; Arabella had journeyed to Berlin to visit both girls at different times. In 1923 she and Renata were bridesmaids at Ursula’s marriage with Sigmund. After the wedding, Arabella had gone with Renata to stay at the home of her fiancé, Graf Reinhard von Tiegal, at his Schloss on the edge of the forests of the Spree in the Mark Brandenburg, a country area outside Berlin. It was there that she had met Prince Rudolf Kurt von Wittingen, with whom she had fallen in love, and he with her. They had been married a year later, after which Arabella had come to live in Berlin permanently. The three women had drawn closer than ever, and from this day forward were as inseparable as they had been at school in England in their teens.
Their irrepressible laughter broke the tension Ursula and Renata had been experiencing a few moments ago, before Arabella’s arrival. Now Renata motioned to a waiter. ‘Let’s have another glass of champagne,’ she suggested to her closest friends, her expression brightening considerably.
‘That’s a good idea,’ Ursula said, and after helping herself to a flute of the wine, she went on, ‘It’s ages since we’ve had a quiet moment together without our children. Why don’t we go and sit over there and talk for a few minutes.’
‘Splendid thought,’ Arabella said, and Renata agreed with her. They strolled over to a group of chairs arranged in front of a window, where they made themselves comfortable and began to talk about inconsequential things. Each of them wanted desperately to create a sense of normalcy about their lives in these most abnormal times, and they drew comfort from each other, and a feeling of greater security from being together.
They did not move until their husbands came to escort them in to dinner. And later they agreed that for them this short interlude had been the best part of the evening at the British Embassy.
‘I’m glad you told Henrietta we had to leave,’ Theodora Stein said, looking across at her boyfriend Willy Herzog, who stood on the other side of the small foyer, putting on his overcoat. ‘I have to get up early tomorrow.’ She made a face at the thought.
Willy nodded as he reached for his hat. ‘We’ll only get a few hours’ sleep, that’s true, it’s an early start for
