A stranger to herself, p.21
A Stranger to Herself, page 21
‘You’ve been reading Kim?’ asked Leopold.
Violet nodded. She said, ‘You must have been to so many places. Didn’t you say you’d been to St Petersburg? I’d love to see the Tsar and Tsarina – she’s English, isn’t she?’
Poor little creature, thought Leopold, trying to improve herself, trying to charm him. He had left Paris in a hurry in 1870 as the Prussian army moved in. This was just before Levine-Schreft was founded in Vienna and Leopold was still trading in diamonds between London and Amsterdam for his father. He’d been twenty-one but he remembered sitting on a cart full of sacks at night, heading for the coast, and on the next sack, staring at him composedly, sat a young rat. It was of this bright-eyed little creature Violet reminded him – ready for survival, intelligent, and probably capable of giving a nasty bite if attacked. It was obvious she had not found friends in her female relatives. He looked at his sister-in-law without pleasure. Her face was still unlined, her black dress immaculate, her pearls superb, her hair smooth, black and shining. Tomorrow, she would be in her tweeds, calling on the county neighbours, subscribing to charities. Wasn’t she even now describing a charity ball she was organising on behalf of the London poor? But all this aristocratic life – it mattered to her too much. Violet was the victim. He heard his father’s voice warning, ‘God help the Jew with a short memory.’
‘I shan’t be well enough to come,’ he said and, as Sophie protested, ‘No, I’m better, but my doctor tells me I must not start planning my hundredth birthday party.’
Sophie, who had come to terms with the fact that Leopold had not many years left to him, had been worrying about the way Leopold, major shareholder in the bank, would leave his shares when he died. Although it was not inevitable that the major shareholder would assume overall control of the three banks in London, Paris and Vienna, it was unlikely Leopold would leave the shares to a relative he thought unfit. If he had not already picked his successor, he must be considering it deeply now. He’d not told her anything about his choice of heir. The obvious contenders were her own sons, Laurence and Frederick, or his sister’s children, the Waldstein twins, his brother-in-law, Joshua Schreft in Paris and Joshua’s son, Louis.
Not long after he had gone to bed that evening Sophie took him a tisane, since he had mentioned that he was often troubled by indigestion. Leopold, who was, like a dying king, constantly under pressure to nominate his successor, was blunt. He said, ‘I’ve made no decision. There’s nothing to stop me, as you know, from dividing my shares, leaving no one the major shareholder.’
‘If you divided them equally, Joshua Schreft would take control. He already has over twenty per cent,’ said Sophie.
Her brother-in-law said, ‘Sophie. You must leave this to me. If Samuel were still alive we should be deciding it between us, in the best interests of the bank.’
‘What makes you think I’m not thinking of the bank’s best interests?’
‘My dear,’ he said patiently. ‘You are a mother. Your overriding concern, as is only right and proper, will be the best interests of your sons.’
Sophie, unprepared to accept that the conversation was at an end, said, ‘They tell me Louis Schreft is not interested in women.’ After a small pause she added, ‘He may never marry.’
‘If true, that would not disqualify him,’ said Leopold, understanding that she was pleading for Laurence, who already had a son. ‘You’d agree it is more important that the bank should be capably managed for the next thirty or forty years. We’re bankers, after all, not kings.’
Sophie, having come to plead Laurence’s cause, had an answer now which hinted that his chances might be worse, if anything, than she had thought. After a little more conversation about the prospective arrival of Frederick and Laurence next day and the plans for the weekend, she left the room discontented. Leopold had not revealed all his thoughts to her. He expected war with Germany. He did not think it would be short. He could not risk giving any of his prospective heirs sole control of the bank. Any one of them might be on the losing side, their interests subject to any confiscations or rearrangements the victors would decide. Moreover, any one of them, or more than one, could be killed, leaving their holdings to a wife they had married before the battle, or a small child. Unspoken arrangements about the wise distribution of shares in the family depended on men and women expecting to lead long lives, with time to order their affairs before they died. The old rough and ready arrangements would no longer do, now there was rivalry between young men and the prospect of war between the countries where the banks were based.
Leopold realised, too, that, of the people available to him to help, Frederick and his shadow Henry Sturgess would be by far the most useful in creating a series of watertight testamentary arrangements to ensure the bank’s survival in almost any contingency. Since the new arrangements would mean re-distribution of Leopold’s major shareholding, Frederick, if he were to help his uncle, would have to know his own chance of inheriting everything was completely gone. He would also have to keep the whole thing a secret. But Leopold believed that of all of them Frederick would be the most likely to act whole-heartedly in this business. If the rest of the family knew too soon what was going on they could start actions designed to prevent his plans. And he had no time for delay. He had no idea how long he would live. He rang for a servant, and instructed that his telegrams should be sent as early as possible next day. To Sturgess he telegraphed, ‘Come to Farnley with Mr Frederick today.’ To Frederick simply, ‘Bring Sturgess.’
When they arrived Leopold told his sister-in-law only that there was urgent bank business to deal with. He, Frederick and Sturgess shut themselves in the library during most of Saturday and Sunday, and Monday morning. Laurence did not arrive from London until Sunday, and then took Caroline off immediately after lunch for a visit to neighbours twenty miles away. For his part Leopold scarcely gave his nephew’s new wife, Violet, a thought until Frederick and Sturgess took the train back to London late on Monday morning, carrying with them Leopold’s plans for the Levine-Schreft bank’s future. Sturgess took the papers immediately to Furnival’s, the family solicitors in Gray’s Inn. Leopold’s shares, amounting to sixty-two per cent of the bank, would be divided into six equal parts among his four nephews, and Joshua and Louis Schreft. Since all shares would be the property, basically, of the bank, when any of them died their shares could only be left to each other or to their own children, the vote of a majority of the directors being needed to effect the transfer. The right of these six shareholders to purchase the shares of others was also granted. Sturgess, against the interests of his employer Frederick, questioned the term ‘children’ in Leopold’s dispositions, suggesting Leopold might prefer to allow only male heirs to inherit. Leopold was impressed to notice that Frederick did not become annoyed at a suggestion from his own chief clerk which would disinherit his daughter, of whom, he knew, Frederick was inordinately fond.
‘Women already have the right to their own money and property in Britain,’ Leopold said. ‘My understanding is that they will shortly have the vote here, as they have in New Zealand. I cannot say, for myself, that I have found women more foolish than men. The foolish ones are foolish in a different way, that is all. The chief reason given for refusing women rights over money is that they may be unduly influenced by the men in their lives, but I have seen many men commit acts of folly over women. In this case the ladies’ husbands and sons will have no actual rights. And I trust women, even more than men, to defend their children’s interests.’
As he spoke, all three men must have thought of Sophie Levine’s reaction when she found Laurence would never be the major shareholder in Levine-Schreft, and none of them met each other’s eyes. ‘Perhaps I’d better make sure my daughter Pamela can read a balance sheet before she comes out,’ Frederick said, to break the silence.
‘I hope you’re teaching your wife,’ Leopold said. ‘She seems a most intelligent young woman, as well as an agreeable one.’
Frederick said, ‘Thank you, Uncle.’
‘I can’t imagine why you don’t get yourself a nice, small house somewhere and keep her and the baby all to yourself,’ he remarked.
‘Oh, Mother would be bitterly hurt, I think,’ said Frederick complacently.
Find yourself and your wife a house, or your sweet-faced Violet will make you rue it, Leopold silently told his nephew.
Kate Higgins, May 5th, 1991
That morning I’d had a letter back from Wiltshire from General Levine refusing to see me or give me any information, and concluding, ‘I find your idea of a biography of my Aunt Violet distasteful. I feel that until some more suitable person comes along to undertake the work it would be better to allow her to rest in peace and her actions to speak for themselves.’
He might have been disturbed by the idea of a stranger prying into his aunt’s affairs but I was inclined to think he’d seen Robert Levine or Pamela Christian-Smith, and been warned off. So now on the Levine side I had as opponents Violet’s two children, Robert and Pamela, Pamela’s daughter Anna Schreft and now, Violet’s nephew Jo-Jo Levine. Amongst the collaborators were, possibly, Pamela’s son, Jack Christian-Smith, Violet’s niece Jessica and her parents, and the invaluable Deep Throat, whoever or wherever he or she might be. It seemed the big guns were turned against me.
As if Joseph Levine’s letter hadn’t been enough, by ten I’d had a call from Roger Littlebrown. He’d had a letter of complaint from Robert Levine about my visit to his Aunt Joanna. The doctor in charge had reported to him that the disturbance had caused a worrying deterioration in his patient. Robert Levine told Roger he trusted there would be no repetition of an event which would reflect no credit on a firm for which, hitherto, he had always had considerable respect. The harassment of his aunt, he concluded, served no useful purpose since, unhappily, she was mentally unstable.
‘Roger,’ I said, showing a firmness which surprised me, the doctor knew why I’d gone there and he let me in. I wasn’t brutal to her. What’s more, I believe there’s a reason why Joanna Levine is so potty, and her mother’s in the story somewhere, somehow. Rosie Johnson thinks that. This letter doesn’t prove I’m wrong. It means I’m getting somewhere.’
He was far from sure. He sighed. ‘Okay – but leave Joanna alone in future. I can’t afford to tangle with the Levines. I asked around and discovered Gordon Stone’s living at Rye, by the way.’
‘That’s where Joanna’s bin is,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said consideringly, ‘yes. I suppose that’s a coincidence. Keep in touch. I want to know what’s happening.’
Meanwhile Di had the morning off because there was no work at the print shop. She was cleaning out the spare room while I sat and looked at Leopold Levine’s will. It didn’t mean a lot to me other than that Leopold had a lot of friends: there were individual bequests to fifteen people outside the family, also generous bequests and thanks to his servants. Although he’d left pictures and various objets d’art to the family, astonishingly, all he’d left Violet was his library. Otherwise, Leopold had made sure that after his death no one outside the family could get any shares and that even the family shares couldn’t be passed on without the consent of a board of directors, which consisted entirely of other members of the family. I thought about it while Di gave up cleaning in favour of home improvements; there was a series of loud bangs. I made some coffee and she came in and drank it.
‘Window locks,’ she explained, ‘and a door lock. The break-ins are getting too much round here. Do you realise this building was broken into fifteen times last year? There are only twenty flats. Our luck won’t hold for ever.’ She sounded irritable, not unnaturally, since she was the one installing locks and I was reading a will dated 1914.
‘What do you think of it?’ I said, handing it to her. Di’s father was a lawyer and she hated him, but she’d been brought up on entails, settlements and bequests.
She said, ‘Well, he’s made sure the wives don’t get the shares. Here we are in the spring of 1914, he probably knew there’d be a war, he wouldn’t risk leaving any wealthy young widows, who’d remarry, and take the money out of the family. He’s worked quite hard to make certain no one would be a majority shareholder. He’s still trying to balance the outcome, not knowing who’d win, or who’d live. Still,’ she said, quite surprised, ‘he doesn’t say they have to be male heirs. That would have been quite usual then – still often is now, where big money or estates are involved. So how many of the six legatees were left when the war ended?’
‘Three,’ I told her.
Di put down her cup and went on with her security precautions. The only thing was, she locked the spare room door when she’d finished and she never gave me a key. I didn’t think much about this at the time.
Meanwhile, Andy was stuck in Belize. No one had any news of him other than general news items on TV and radio. As predicted, the elections had produced a left-wing government including many Marxists. The USA thought a Marxist Belize, small though it was, would prove a useful bridgehead for left-wing Latin American governments. A speedy, well-armed right-wing revolution began two days after the elections. The new president, Robertson, was under siege in his own home, the seat of government was encircled so the new government could not be sworn in. Bridges were being blown up, there was a battle for the harbour at Belize City, the airport had been damaged, no one knew to what extent, but there were no flights in or out, phone lines were down, the only reports came by government-controlled radio. The British army was, as usual, peace-keeping. My husband Sam, my son’s father, could be dead, or wounded, hiding under a bar, getting buried, going upriver with government troops in a flat-bottomed boat.
I watched the news with Di that evening. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, digging her fork into some macaroni cheese. ‘The army’s probably okay. As for Andy, he’ll come up smelling of roses, as usual.’
‘You’re so sensitive, Di,’ I snapped.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘it’s Andy. He gets my goat. It’s not just the way he treats you, but there’s something about him that worries me.’
‘What is it?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I just can’t work it out. I wish I could. Perhaps I’m wrong.’
‘I expect so,’ I said, and that was that.
I started looking at a picture from Violet’s book I Affirm, using a magnifying glass.
Di looked over my shoulder. ‘When?’
I said, looking at the group, ‘September 1914, Farnley. They’re already in uniform.’
Against the rhododendrons, or some big-leaved shrubs, sat Sophie Levine, Leopold, in a white suit with a panama hat, leaning back in another chair next to her. On a rug at their feet was Caroline in white, with a sturdy boy of two or three in front of her. He wore a sailor suit and a big khaki officer’s cap, tilted on his small head. Violet, with her arm round a little girl in a calf-length starched dress and white bonnet, smiled maternally at the child, the child staring, it seemed, at the photographer. Beside Caroline stood a tall, fair man in khaki – Laurence. Beside Violet, also in khaki, was Frederick. Laurence was hatless, blond, Frederick had his cap under his arm, was half at attention. It was a classic picture. It said it all.
‘End of long Edwardian summer,’ said Di. ‘I wonder what the rest of her family were doing while Violet sat there typifying things?’
‘I wish I knew what Violet was doing,’ I said. ‘Photographs are misleading. People get photographed to conform to an image of themselves. Here they are, tea-on-the-lawn genre, it doesn’t tell you anything, just that Laurence was a public school hero, Violet and Caroline were spotless young mothers, the older generation grave, kind and wise.’
‘We used to have those, when we were children,’ Di remarked dispassionately. ‘The funny thing is, they were half-true. The acceptable face of our family. My mother used to have them made up as Christmas cards and send them out to people, like a promotional exercise. I mean, all the time Dad was having it off with his secretary, or the manageress of the hotel. The old man looks sick,’ she said at my shoulder, peering through the magnifying glass. ‘And the mother looks thoroughly fed up underneath. Wonder what they really felt?’
Violet Levine, 1914
Violet, in the library, which looked out over the lawn, sat scribbling her novel A Simple Rose on big sheets of thick paper she had ordered from London. Since the spring visit to Farnley House they had again returned to Cavendish Square. The Levines had begun to take her out in public. They had even gone to Ascot, where she had been careful to speak to no one but the family. Her accent and vocabulary were changing to meet the new circumstances and this was noticed, but not praised. Then they packed everything for the summer visit to the country. Violet was not happy about this. She had itchy feet and had tried to get Frederick to take her abroad but he had said that with his Uncle Leopold so ill, and war coming, it was a time for the family to stay together, at home. Perhaps, he said, it might be the last time it would ever be like this again.
Let’s hope so, Violet thought to herself, looking sadly at him, having already decided that as far as she could see the only way for a woman in her position to have any money of her own was to write a book. Her allowance from Frederick was still small. Caroline, she was sure, got more from Laurence. She felt obliged to send money for the family to Allie from time to time, if only to keep them away from her. Although she never received a word of acknowledgment, they never returned the few pounds a week. Violet’s energies were scarcely absorbed by a programme of country walks and visits. Brought up to work, lonely, not accepted by the family or their neighbours, never trained to accept boredom as a discipline, as it seemed the Levines and their neighbours had been, she often felt like screaming into the silences of the quiet country nights, or the deafening pauses at the dinner table.
When, one rainy afternoon, she announced to her mother and sister-in-law she planned to write a book, a novel, they politely agreed it might be a way to pass the time, although she knew they would laugh at her behind her back. At dinner Sophie said, ‘Violet plans to write a book,’ with the aim, she knew, of enlivening a table consisting of Leopold, Laurence and Caroline and their nearest acceptable neighbours, the Lloyd-Fisons.
