Lady Clementine

by Marie Benedict

  “Miss Hozier, I’ve been sent to invite you for a drive around the estate,” Sunny called out, covering for his dear friend and cousin. “Winston has been unavoidably detained. Work, you know.” My face must have registered my disbelief, but Sunny plowed ahead. “He was hoping you could meet him at one o’clock instead. He should be finished with his work by then, and it’s a better time to view the roses in any event.”

  The gulf between how I wanted to react and how I should react widened. Although I felt humiliated, I was a guest of the esteemed man standing before me, and I cared deeply for the one still asleep. I decided to answer cordially but to make my expectations clear. “That would be lovely. But may I presume that I will see Winston in the great hall precisely at one?”

  Sunny stared me directly in the eyes in a look that seemed like appreciation. With an emphatic nod, he said, “I can promise you that.”

  When I descended the grand marble staircase adjacent to the great hall at one minute past one o’clock, Winston was waiting, his face bearing that sheepish expression I’d anticipated hours before. As I approached him, I summoned up my full five feet seven inches, making me the slightest bit taller than Winston. I wanted him to understand that I expected respect and consideration from him.

  He clasped my hands in his, saying, “I feel I am always apologizing to you.”

  “Occasionally, you do so when there is no need,” I answered, wanting him to understand with my emphasis on occasionally that this was not one of those times.

  “Yet my behavior requires that I make amends,” he half announced, half asked.

  “Yes,” I said, pausing to let him await my verdict. “But I forgive you.”

  His sigh of relief was audible. “Shall we venture out to the gardens?”

  I smiled to indicate the incident was behind us, and we walked to the rear of the palace and exited through a nondescript door leading to a rolling hill. My hand in the crook of his arm, we stepped out into the golden light of the summer afternoon. As we strolled down its expanse toward a well-delineated path, Winston shared a bit about the creation of the Blenheim Palace and its grounds, which were given by Queen Anne to the First Duke of Marlborough in 1704 for leading the English victory over the French.

  “Family lore has it that, at the invitation of the Fourth Duke of Marlborough, the landscape architect Capability Brown signed on to the job of fashioning the park at Blenheim in 1763, fully expecting the project to last only a couple of years. He stayed for ten.”

  “Capability? What a name.”

  “Poor chap. His actual name was Lancelot, although I can’t figure why choosing to be called Capability was any better.”

  I laughed, a hearty outburst that Nellie and Bill often told me was a guffaw. Mother loathed my laugh and often cautioned me to stifle it in public. But Winston laughed along with me, and I sensed that he actually enjoyed my rather indelicate roar.

  He continued. “By the time poor Capability had finished”—we start giggling again at the reference to Capability, and once he gains his composure, Winston continues—“he’d planted thousands of trees, making a veritable forest that seems perfectly natural but is actually an artful contrivance. With clever use of dams, he also constructed the Great Lake that you can see to your right and the Grand Cascade, one of the most exquisite waterfalls I’ve ever seen. We must explore that another day.”

  “That would be marvelous. The grounds are breathtaking, Winston,” I said with a squeeze of his arm. “And they are in remarkable shape given that they were created in the 1700s.”

  “Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “you can credit Sunny with the restoration of the Blenheim grounds. They were in sorry shape until he got his hands upon them.”

  With Consuelo’s money, I thought to myself. I’d heard rumors, of course, about the unraveling of Sunny’s marriage to the American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt, who’d married Sunny in 1895 at the insistence of her mother. Neither had particularly cared for the other, and by 1906, the demise of their bond was inevitable. But while the newspapers published catty reports about their separation, Sunny seemed an affable fellow to me, and Winston simply adored him.

  We ambled down the path in comfortable silence. Winston pointed out an area of the lake where he’d caught his first fish with his beloved Nanny Everest helping him. Although Blenheim belonged to Sunny, not Winston, his attachment to the property was unmistakable. His personal history was intertwined with the estate. He had been born in the house, after all.

  No house held such hold on me. From time to time, an aspect of one house or another might remind me of one of our London rentals or the townhouse in Dieppe we inhabited for nearly a year. But these were houses, not homes, temporary residences to be discarded when Mother wanted to sojourn. Or when a new relationship required a change of scenery.

  A shock of fuchsia and crimson appeared as we rounded a bend in the path. I released my hand from Winston’s arm and walked over to a rosebush robust with full blooms. Leaning down to inhale the powerful, fragrant scent, I felt Winston’s arm slide around my corseted waist, and I shivered with pleasure. He had never touched me anywhere but my hand and arm, unless we were dancing. And then, of course, it was in full view of society.

  Standing, I turned to face him. His cheeks were flushed, more so than when we were walking. “Clem, Clem—” he stammered, a habit that surfaced when he was nervous.

  Without warning, without even a shadow cast by darkening clouds, a crack of thunder sounded. We both looked up. A formidable black mass had formed to the north and was threatening to blanket the sky.

  He grabbed my hand. “We best move quickly back to the house. These summer storms can be fierce.”

  Hand in hand, we started walking briskly toward Blenheim on the path we’d meandered down only moments before. What had Winston been about to say? He’d seemed on the brink of something momentous, judging from the flush of his cheeks and the stutter of my name. Was it possible that he’d planned on discussing his intention? Surely it is too soon for a proposal, I thought. We had only known each other for five months, a courtship of the written words of letters interspersed with several visits, always in the company of others and often interrupted by trips, mine to Germany and his to locations much farther afield, demanded by work.

  The rain trickled down gently from the clouds at first and then became a torrent. We ran down the path until Winston tugged my hand and we veered toward a small structure. I realized that it was a little Greek temple, with four Ionic columns holding aloft a triangular pediment. There was a marble bench within, and Winston motioned for me to sit upon it.

  “The Temple of Diana,” he explained with a swooping hand gesture around the interior of the small structure, decorated with stone plaques depicting the goddess, as he sat down next to me. “I understand it was built as a folly in the late eighteenth century as a nod to the Roman goddess of the moon, the hunt, and, and”—his stammer took hold briefly before he blurted out—“chastity.”

  Winston handed me a handkerchief, and we giggled as we wiped our faces dry. The rain pelted the temple’s roof, and we relaxed in the shelter of its walls. The temple afforded a fine view of the Great Lake through the trees, but rather than commenting, I stayed silent. I hoped Winston would return to his earlier, interrupted topic.

  A spider crawled across the leaf-strewn temple floor, and I focused on its nonlinear path as a means of calming my nerves. Through my peripheral vision, I noted that Winston’s cheeks were flushed again, but I resolved to keep quiet and wait for him to speak first.

  Finally, he cleared his throat. “Clementine.”

  I glanced up from the floor and met his gaze. “Yes,” I said with a warm smile and encouraging nod.

  “Since I was a young boy, I’ve had the unerring sense that my future and that of Great Britain were inextricably intertwined. That I’d be called upon to help our country in
terrible times.” His cheeks turned a deeper red. “You probably think I’m harboring some grandiose delusion and want to run for the hills.”

  I hastened to reassure him, careful not to reveal my disappointment at what surely couldn’t be a prelude to a proposal. “Not at all, Winston. I admire your commitment to our country.” I barely allowed myself to think what a thrill it would be, if we ever did marry, to engage in this great endeavor with him. I deeply desired the purposefulness of a traditional, stable marriage to this man, so different from the emptiness of Mother’s bohemian life with its constant changes in locale, finances, and attention due to the vagaries of her ever-varying roster of relationships. Not to mention how meaningful life with Winston would be compared to the other gentlemen to whom I’d been engaged.

  The red of his cheeks faded, returning to its usual fairness. “Oh, Clementine, I’m so relieved you understand. I hope you also understand my need to have a strong, noble woman at my side,” he said with an expectant gaze at me.

  He seemed to be awaiting a response, but I couldn’t fathom what to say. I’d guessed that he was building to some sort of proclamation; I’d even dared to hope he might propose. But declaring a need for a “strong, noble woman” was hardly tantamount to asking for one’s hand. Still, I didn’t want to discourage him should a proposal be hidden in there somewhere, so I gave him another encouraging nod and waited silently.

  He cleared his throat again and began speaking. “I have grown very fond of you over these past months. More than that, much more. I daresay I’ve fallen quite in love with you, Clementine.” He paused, then with eyes shimmering, asked, “Might you feel the same way?”

  He had finally uttered the words I’d been longing to hear. I examined this man, over a decade my senior and an important, if controversial, member of Parliament, and saw the sensitive person who lay beneath the blunderbuss of his exterior, one who understood and shared my sense of being different. In that moment, I knew with utter certainty that I could make a life with him. It would not be an easy life—no, it would be one of striving and ambition—but it could be an important and purposeful one.

  “I do, Winston,” I answered, sensing my own cheeks blush with a surge of emotion. Throughout my two prior failed engagements, I had never once professed my love for those gentlemen, as I’d never felt a surge of emotion for either one. What I felt for Winston was utterly different and much more powerful.

  “Oh, Clementine, you cannot know how happy that makes me.” He enveloped my hands in his and took a deep breath. “I know our courtship has been brief, but I wonder if you’d do me the honor of becoming my wife. It will not be an ordinary marriage, but it will be a very great one.”

  Without breaking his intense gaze, I answered without hesitation. “I will become your wife, Winston Churchill.”

  Chapter Four

  September 12, 1908

  London, England

  The bells of St. Margaret’s chime a soft melody that matches the gentle beauty of the sixteenth-century, white Portland stone church nestled between Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. The music soothes my nerves until the jarring, masculine clang of the bell of Big Ben begins to sound out the hour. The noise drowns out St. Margaret’s subtle song, and for a moment, I am lost in the cacophony of the competing bells and their lingering reverberations. And then, it is suddenly, unexpectedly quiet, and a strange pause hangs in the air.

  “It’s time, Clemmie,” Bill whispers.

  I look over at my little brother, resplendent in his naval uniform, the only man I’d ever want to walk me down the aisle, even if my alleged father had still been alive, as I’d hardly known him in life. The tall, composed gentleman sitting beside me is hardly recognizable from the young boy, always the last of the Hozier siblings to trail in Mother’s wake as we moved back and forth between England and France. While Mother sought freedom from societal restraint and creditors as we journeyed from place to place, we siblings hunted for stability and order in each new home. Bill finally found it in the navy, and I wonder whether I will finally find it today, with Winston.

  My brother is correct, of course. The bells have finished pealing, and we must step out of the carriage through the throngs of people, photographers, and journalists gathered around St. Margaret’s. All this attention, which began with our wedding announcement, was terribly unwanted initially. At first, I worried that the attention would be of an unsavory sort, highlighting the differences between our family and other aristocratic families. Differences in funds. Differences in servants. Differences in neighborhoods and homes. Differences in fathers. Differences in mothers. I’d been terrified as to what a close and watchful eye might divulge on close scrutiny. But as the days passed and the articles and pictures grew in number, I began to realize that the general public saw me through an entirely different lens than the one through which my peers looked. To the world at large, I was beautiful and aristocratic, stemming from a long and ancient line of nobles. No one seemed aware that I’d once lived in an apartment above a fishmonger in Dieppe or that my true paternity had long been in question. The journalists and people standing outside St. Margaret’s only want to catch a glimpse of the bride on what has been hailed as the biggest wedding of the year. But in this moment, that bride seems to be someone other than me, and I find myself unable to move.

  “Clemmie, did you hear me?” Bill says, a bit louder.

  Slowly, as if I’m peering at him through a haze, I nod.

  “All right, then. I’ll climb out first, and then I’ll turn back to help you step out of the carriage.” He shoots me his winningest smile as he opens the carriage door. “Can’t have the beautiful bride stumbling in front of all these cameras, can we?”

  The gentle ribbing is meant to cajole me out of my frozen state. But his quip preys upon an actual fear, and I almost swat Bill as if he were still a small boy. Instead, I reach for his arm as I alight from the carriage, squinting into the sunlight of the early autumn afternoon and the bright flashes of countless cameras.

  Once I land on the steady, cobblestoned ground facing the entryway to St. Margaret’s, I glance to my right to ensure my bridesmaids have disembarked from their carriages as well. Relief flows through me when I see the smiling face of Nellie. I doubt I could face a single minute of today without Nellie and Bill by my side.

  Behind Nellie stand my four other bridesmaids—Winston’s cousin Clare Frewen, my cousins Venetia Stanley and Madeline Whyte, and my dear friend Horatia Seymour, whose father had been Prime Minister William Gladstone’s private secretary. In their gowns of amber satin, black hats wrapped in roses and camellias, and bouquets of pink roses, the girls look like identical parts of a whole.

  My stomach lurches at the sight of my cousin Venetia. I adore Venetia, but her presence reminds me of the drama surrounding her best friend, Violet Asquith, the twenty-one-year-old daughter of Winston’s superior, the new Liberal prime minister Herbert Henry Asquith. In the year before Winston and I met, Winston had befriended Violet, who became enthralled with Winston’s intellect and political savvy. Two days before our wedding, Violet, who grew hysterical at the news of our engagement and sent a letter to Venetia excoriating me, wandered off at dusk on a path that bordered a cliff with a sixty-foot drop near Slains Castle, which the Asquiths had rented for their summer holiday. When she failed to reappear by nightfall, her father organized a search party of houseguests, servants, and villagers for his missing daughter. After four hours of hunting on the moonless night, Violet was found uninjured on a flat stretch of lawn near the castle, ready with an explanation of how she’d slipped and fallen unconscious on the sharp, cliffside rocks. Since news of this incident reached London, society has been aflutter with speculation as to whether Violet’s “fall” constituted a suicide attempt, an accident, or an intentional ploy. Regardless, the presence of Violet looms at our wedding, which, I believe, was her aim all along.

  Nellie
breaks away from the bridesmaids’ ranks and walks to my side. I assume she’s seen the troubled expression on my face and believe she’s about to give me a reassuring hug and wish me well. Instead, she reaches up toward my tulle veil and coronet of orange blossoms to adjust them. She gives me a small kiss on my cheek, just as “Lead Us, Heavenly Father, Lead Us” begins to play on St. Margaret’s organ. It is my cue.

  Clutching my white tuberoses almost as firmly as I clutch Bill’s arm, he and I walk through the doors of St. Margaret’s. Every pew in the vast church, bedecked in white flowers as I’d requested, is packed to capacity with guests. When Winston had set our wedding for a month from our engagement, I’d half thought he had insisted on the date—a time when many aristocrats and members of Parliament were traditionally away on holiday—so his naysayers, still smarting from his political party change, wouldn’t have the chance to snub the invitation outright. From the crowd in St. Margaret’s, however, few seem to have declined. All that matters to me is that Violet has refused the invitation. I didn’t think I could keep a steady gait down the long aisle with her jealous, angry eyes upon me.

  As I step into the nave, the guests crane their necks and face us. I try to keep my gaze fixed on the stained-glass window behind the gilt alter at the church’s east end—such a masterpiece—as Bill and I progress down the long aisle. We pass the first of the many white Gothic arches lining the aisle without incident until I recognize the esteemed chancellor of the exchequer, David Lloyd George, in the crowd. I hesitate.

  “Breathe, Clemmie, breathe,” Bill whispers in my ear.

  When my breathing doesn’t deepen and my step doesn’t quicken, he whispers again, in an approximation of our grandmother’s slight Scottish lilt, “If you don’t, I’ll box your ears.”

  His words are so unexpected and inappropriate, I begin to giggle. My shoulders begin to quake in the familiar beginnings of an enormous guffaw, but before it escapes, Bill pinches my arm. “Don’t you dare, Clemmie,” he whispers.