up a box of matches and start a bloody good fire?’
‘And burn your house down in the process?’
‘Perhaps you are right,’ he muttered, unconvinced. ‘But the Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka is prowling through the corridors of the Kremlin even as we speak. What the hell’s he up to? Lost his way in the dark, has he?’
‘He’s just come from Berlin. Our intelligence suggests it’s possible he’s in Moscow preparing the ground.’
‘For what?’
‘For a declaration of war.’
‘Against whom?’
‘Why…Russia, I mean.’
‘Then let it be war! War! War!’ he shouted histrionically, to the alarm of the following group. Then he shook his head. ‘But once again your optimistic American intelligence has got it utterly wrong.’
‘How can you be certain?’
‘Because intelligence needs to be dipped in a bucket of common sense before it’s laid on the table. And common sense suggests the Japanese haven’t gone to Moscow with bunches of flowers in their hands in order to declare war, any more than they arrived in China with fixed bayonets for the purpose of setting up a wood-whittling business.’
‘You don’t think much of American Intelligence, then?’
‘They got it half right. There will be war. And not all the optimists in America will be able to stop it,’ the old man growled, before stomping off in the direction of the house.
Sawyers sat with Héloise at the long central table in the kitchen polishing silver, while Mrs Landemare prepared lunch.
‘But I do not understand,’ Héloise protested.
‘Yer too young to understand such things,’ Sawyers responded.
‘Oh, you don’t ’alf talk a lot of tommy-rot at times, Mr Sawyers,’ Mrs Landemare said, peering into a bubbling pot.
‘How so?’
‘The girl needs to know these things, otherwise she’s going to be dropping breakfast trays from here until the gates of Heaven.’
‘Well, she’s your relative…’
‘My hubby’s relative.’
‘Your responsibility, then,’ Sawyers said, reaching for a fresh buffing rag.
Mrs Landemare’s face came up from the pot, her ruddy cheeks and remarkably broad forehead covered in little droplets of steam. Sawyers was opting out. Typical man.
‘It’s war what does it mostly,’ Mrs Landemare began, turning to Héloise, ‘although it goes on just as much when there ain’t any war, I suppose.’ Her awkwardness was stretching almost to the point of contradiction. ‘It’s just that…Well, you haven’t got no mother and father, poor thing, so it’s not surprising this is all a bit new. So, how can I put it?’ She sipped from a ladle, then threw a little more salt in the pot. ‘Great country houses are like little worlds all of their own. The ladies and gentlemen get dropped at the door, and for the time that they’re here the rules of the outside world get put to one side. So Mr C wanders around without a towel at times. Don’t mean nothing by it, it’s just his way. So you make a bit of noise when you get near his bathroom, just so he knows you’re coming.’
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