The Quality of Mercy by David Roberts

but this time, feeling rather guilty, she bought one of Coco Chanel’s classic black dresses and though she had hitherto never worn scent, was persuaded into buying Chanel No. 5. Its soft, flowery, almost powdery scent was voluptuous and made her feel alluring. She also bought an irresistible pair of Daniel Green evening shoes – ivory silk satin with rhinestone buckles, open-toed and with heels to give her some of the height she lacked.
    Verity had dined with Lord Weaver on several occasions but this particular evening was one she would always remember. As the butler showed her into the drawing-room she stopped short in surprise and consternation. Winston Churchill was talking to her host in the slurred, almost melancholy growl that was already familiar to her and many thousands of others who had heard his wireless broadcasts or attended the public meetings he addressed. Here was her bête noire – the man she held to be the enemy of the working class. The man who had broken the General Strike, who had praised Mussolini and who had repeatedly attacked the Communist Party as nothing more than Stalin’s cat’s paw.
    As Weaver turned to greet her, Verity almost gave way to her strong desire to make a run for it. Then she noticed the wicked gleam in the newspaper proprietor’s eye. He wanted to see how she would comport herself. He had a reputation for enjoying bringing together at his table inveterate enemies – ‘to see what would happen’, he had once told her – and he must have known from what Edward had told him that she considered Churchill to be an enemy of everything she held sacred.
    Silently she shook Churchill’s hand and, unable to do anything else, tried to smile as he said how much he had looked forward to meeting her. ‘Lord Edward tells me that you find my views objectionable, Miss Browne. I do hope we discover that we have some opinions in common. I particularly admired your reports from Vienna. I confess I shed a tear for Kurt von Schuschnigg. I was informed today that he has been incarcerated in one of those damnable Nazi gaols.’
    Verity was surprised into speech. ‘I had not heard that but, as you know, I was deported immediately after Hitler entered Vienna. There’s no news, is there, Joe, of when I will be allowed back?’
    ‘Soon, I hope,’ was all Weaver could say.
    Verity’s surprise at his guests was increased when she was introduced to Unity Mitford, a large blonde with bad teeth and an expression – permanent, she thought – of resentment tinged with frustration. Verity had met her sister Jessica, an active Communist, but she knew Unity was of a quite different persuasion. She was obsessed with Hitler, whom she had first met in 1933, and Jessica had told her that she had made up her mind to become Hitler’s lover. Jessica had also confided to Verity that she believed her sister to be mad. Unity was a cousin of Mrs Churchill’s, which was something of an embarrassment to Churchill.
    Still reeling from shock at being thrust into such company, she was reassured to see she had an ally of sorts in another guest, the young American art critic, Stuart Rose, whom she knew to be a Communist sympathizer, if not a Communist. Weaver seemed suddenly aware of the combustible nature of the party and, perhaps wondering if he had gone too far in bringing enemies together, signalled to the butler to announce that dinner was served.
    During the soup and well into the fish course, Verity was able to talk to Lady Weaver about trivialities but then, inevitably, the conversation turned to what was happening in Austria.
    Unity started by telling what she considered an amusing story. She had joined the Council of Emergency Service which had been formed to train women to take over men’s jobs in the event of war. Its chairman was Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan, Professor of Botany at London University.
    ‘I was told to present myself to Dame Helen,’ Unity said in her rather high voice. ‘She said she had