Lady Clementine

by Marie Benedict

  As president of the Board of Trade, Winston had succeeded David Lloyd George, both in title and purpose. Winston and I were in full accord that Lloyd George’s Liberal welfare programs should be continued. We reviewed plans to improve working conditions and provide labor exchanges and pensions for workers, and when Winston protested that the only way to fund these programs was to tax luxuries and land to the detriment of his aristocratic friends and family members, I encouraged him to stay true to his convictions. We agreed that everyone must pay their share.

  Our only note of political dissension on these long Sussex evenings stemmed from the impact that the suffragettes’ recent campaigns had on Winston’s public support for the women’s vote. Their militant actions, spurred on by the Women’s Social and Political Union, included the smashing of government and shop windows, burning of homes, assault of governmental figures, and even bombing of public buildings. While I did not condone the suffragettes’ activities, my support for the women’s vote did not waver, and Winston worried that he disappointed me in this regard. I understood that, in his mind, a support for the suffragettes was a support for their tactics, so I extricated a promise to reconsider the women’s vote when they had backed down from their current maneuvers.

  But when I returned full-time to London with Diana and the nanny in the autumn, the long stretches when Winston was traveling or doing the work of Parliament seemed interminable. I was left alone with the tasks of finalizing our new home on Eccleston Square while fending off Jennie’s interference and minding Diana alongside the nanny or Goonie, who’d recently had a little boy, and I felt simultaneously overwhelmed with my responsibilities and isolated from Winston and the hub of political work. Finally, I understood Mother’s need to keep her children at bay, even to maintain a separate house for us and our governess, nearby but distinctly apart. I began to wonder why no one had told me that the maternal state didn’t come naturally to all women. Not that I didn’t love Diana. I did, but the actual caretaking of the infant left me empty. When Winston finally summoned me for a specific role in helping with his Parliamentary reelection in early November, it felt like a reprieve.

  * * *

  Before I disembark from the train, Winston tugs on my hand from behind. The stiff navy skirt of my traveling suit rustles against the floor, and I turn toward my husband’s familiar half smile. He pulls me close for a private kiss, whispering, “This trip is the first time we’ve been truly alone since Italy.” I giggle at his reference to the fact that I became pregnant during our Italian honeymoon, and thus, we were three by the time we returned to England.

  I breathe into his neck. “How I long to return.”

  “If only important affairs did not require our attention,” he answers. While his voice contains a note of wistfulness, I know that he actually thrives on “important affairs” and longs to always be in the center of the nation’s activities. “But since they do, I am honored to have you at my side. You will be a great help, Cat, in securing the votes. It will be the first of our political triumphs.”

  Hand in hand, we step off the train onto the platform of the Bristol Temple Meads railway station. The interior of the station bears none of the stately Tudor beauty of its exterior, which we had spotted as our train arrived. The busy station, which held fifteen tracks, eight of which serviced passengers, pulsates with people hurrying to and fro. From across the throngs, a group of men waves to us.

  “Ah, look there. They must be the representatives from the Anchor Society, here to take us to Colston Hall,” Winston speculates. We weave through the crowd toward the constituents who will transport us to the auditorium for Winston’s speech and my first public talk, for which I’d prepared extensively. A general election in the upcoming months means that Winston’s parliamentary seat is in jeopardy, and he plans to unveil me as part of his campaign at this event. I am to bolster not only his parliamentarian claim but also the plans of Lloyd George’s government, particularly the much-disputed People’s Budget.

  I nod, and together, we walk toward the gentlemen. With my hand looped through Winston’s arm, I feel proud to be at his side and part of the important work of the nation. Imagine, I think, caught short for a moment. My husband, summoned by kings and kaisers alike for his advice, seeks my counsel and relies upon me in his campaigning and policy making. I worry less and less about Violet’s claim on his attention, even when she sidles up to him at social occasions, as it is me—not her—he turns to for guidance.

  Winston and the men exchange introductions, and after a conversational lull, I say, “I have tremendous respect for the work your society undertakes to assist the poor and elderly in the Bristol area.”

  Winston nods approvingly, but the men appear surprised. Is it the words I’ve chosen or the simple fact that I spoke? Political wives are seldom seen and rarely heard. The ones I’ve encountered seem to cultivate invisibility, preferring the company of their social peers to the political creatures with whom their husbands work. But I long for a more substantial part than my predecessors and contemporaries have modeled, and Winston encourages me—no, he demands—that I assume a significant mantle, no matter how unusual.

  What sort of political spouse will I become after today’s launch? As I muse on the possibilities while the men talk logistics, I see a young woman striding purposefully across the platform. Dressed in the suffragette uniform of white shirtwaist, tie, and black skirt—an outfit I once sported myself while at Berkhamsted and working as a French tutor—she does not seem headed toward a particular train but toward us. She has some kind of long, sinuous object in her right hand.

  What on earth is she doing? Surely she doesn’t mean to approach us but is rushing to catch a train. Surely all this talk about suffragettes and their threats is making me on edge. Fear courses through me, but I do not want to appear a typical female hysteric. After all, the men do not seem flustered. They don’t even seem to notice the woman, for that matter.

  Before I can draw Winston’s attention to the woman, she hurls herself toward him. As she releases the object in her hand into the air, her words ring out, “This is for women everywhere!”

  Only then do I realize that the object in her hand is a whip. Snapping it into the air, the woman brandishes it expertly, unleashing it at Winston’s chest. As she brings it back to strike him again, he stumbles backward.

  Will no one help? A crowd gathers, but no one races to assist Winston. The men from the Anchor Society do not move, except for the gaping of their mouths. Shock initially renders me immobile as well, but then I see that the woman—undoubtedly a suffragette—is driving Winston back on the platform, toward the path of an oncoming train. And I realize that if I do not intervene, my husband could stumble onto the tracks and be crushed by the train’s force.

  Instinct takes over. I leap over a pile of luggage heaped next to me, and I insert myself between Winston and the woman. The tip of the whip, the popper, lands on the floor of the platform instead of upon Winston’s flesh. The commotion unbalances him further, and the moment he begins to fall back onto the train tracks, I grab the lapel of his coat and pull him to safety.

  We hold one another as the train rushes past us, its wind blowing free the loose strands of my coiffure. When I look into Winston’s pale-blue eyes, I see that he is staring at me in wonder. “You saved me, Clemmie.”

  As I hold my husband in a grateful embrace, I see my future with Winston unspool before me. Perhaps this rescue is not meant to be my last. My husband’s discerning eye perceives all but the threats standing right in front of him, and it seems that I may have to serve as the sentinel of his personal landscape and the gatekeeper of our shared ideals and our marriage.

  Chapter Seven

  June 22, 1911

  London, England

  A lone slip of paper lifts in the breeze and floats gently down onto my lap. I turn my attention from the passing crowds and study the red-edged item in my
white-gloved hand. Glancing at the lettering, both typeset and handwritten, I realize that the wind caught hold of someone’s hard-won Home Office pass, which allows the bearer special admittance to one of the fifty coveted viewing grandstands, this one near Admiralty Arch. Poor soul, I think. Instead of a bird’s-eye view of the parade, this person will be jostling among the throngs of Londoners assembled to witness the coronation procession.

  I look up from the ticket and back at the crowds, kept at bay by a fence of round-hatted policemen armed with bayonets. Every sort of Londoner stands behind their barrier, all hoping to catch a glimpse of King George V and Queen Mary in the Gold State Coach, a gilded confection of a carriage that has driven every British king to his coronation since the 1760s. The people have patiently watched two lengthy, separate processions—fourteen carriages for foreign royal families and five state landaus for the British royal family, each separated by horse-mounted commanders, Yeomen of the Guard, and Royal Horse Guards—before the third procession containing officers of state, our procession, even arrived. These stalwart and patriotic Londoners will have to bide their time a little longer and watch us until the twenty-fifth and final carriage appears.

  As the new home secretary, the youngest to hold the nation’s most important cabinet role governing the nation’s affairs in a hundred years, Winston rides in an open-top carriage with me at his side. We progress down the thoroughfares of London, driven by two resplendent coachman and pulled by two impeccably groomed chestnut-haired horses, toward the great towers of the west door of Westminster Abbey where the coronation will take place. The open top affords us a view of thousands of eager Britons and they of us.

  Even though we have been riding along this route for nearly an hour, I suddenly feel the eyes of the people upon me. The very notion of riding in the coronation procession makes me giddy, if a bit overwhelmed, and I squeeze my husband’s hand. He smiles at me, delighted to have gifted this experience to me. When I agreed to marry Winston, I knew I’d pledged myself to an ambitious man on the rise, but I had not realized the heights for which he’d strive—and attain. Pride surges through me as I gaze at the people, many of whom have suffered as a result of the rapid industrial growth our nation experienced in the past century, thinking of the important work Winston is doing for them. With my encouragement, he has secured safety standards and proper working conditions for laborers and proposed health and unemployment insurance legislation. I like to think that my insistence that we see John Galsworthy’s play Justice nudged him toward greater social reforms than he might have sought otherwise. If only the suffragette issue could be solved as readily, we would be in perfect alignment.

  The wind stirs again, rustling the plumes on my large hat. As I grasp onto the brim, Winston reaches up to secure his own cumbersome bicorn hat. After the air calms, I smooth the skirt of my pale-blue silk gown, trimmed with silver thread, and assess the state of Winston’s rarely worn Royal Navy uniform, in which he looks both handsome and uncomfortable. We cannot let a single crease or muss mark our appearance on this crucial day.

  How marvelous we look, I think. Yet the majesty of the day belies the reality of my daily life. To think, not three hours ago, I was in our Eccleston Square house nursing our new baby, little Randolph, or the Chumbolly as Winston and I like to call him, my hair a tumble and my gown half on. Little Diana was screaming for Nanny but had to make do with a pat on the head, because the lack of servants meant that the nanny filled many roles, one of several reasons why our nannies never stayed long. Diana had taken to calling them simply the generic Nanny. I’d given little thought to money when I agreed to marry Winston; I knew his fortunes to be greater than those upon which I’d depended in my youth, and of course, he had his connection to the Marlboroughs and Blenheim Palace, so I did not fret. Only after our wedding did I learn that Winston’s noble blood carries a steady stream of connections but not funds and that, as keeper of the home, I am expected to run an upper-class home befitting the home secretary on middle-class finances. We keep ourselves afloat—but barely—on the books and articles that Winston writes to supplement our income, as neither of us has the family money that most of Winston’s peers enjoy.

  My body begins to shake with suppressed laughter. The chasm between my state in the early hours and the grandness of my appearance now is so vast, no one would believe it, especially those who have seen me giving speeches at Winston’s side and on his behalf at political occasions. But I must not allow the undignified guffaw to escape, and I think on any number of somber topics as means of distraction.

  “Whatever is it, Clemmie?” Winston whispers.

  “Nothing, dearest. Nerves making an inappropriate appearance, I suppose.”

  His voice louder and sterner, he reminds me again, “Clementine, much depends on today. I am relying on you.”

  His scolding tone infuriates me, as does his use of my formal name. I am not his child. Does he really think that I will disappoint him? Has he forgotten how hard I’ve prepared these past three years to work alongside him? Throughout my two pregnancies and confinements, I’ve continued to study the stack of political tomes and daily newspapers that he assembled to fill in the patchy education I had before attending Berkhamsted. During the freer periods in between, I’ve chiseled away at my natural reticence—my sometimes crippling nervousness, in fact—by honing my speaking skills, first campaigning for Winston and later meeting with labor groups on his Liberal endeavors. All this while entertaining in the manner expected of the president of the Board of Trade and later the home secretary, serving the expensive Pol Roger champagne for which Winston has a penchant, no matter the strain on my tight budget, on half the income promised for these roles and a dwindling stream of royalties from Winston’s books. I have smoothed his way over our dinner table countless times when his bluntness offended, and I have forged cordial connections that will serve him well. The long-faced, narrow-eyed Violet, who I now know from personal experience lacks finesse and bears a prickly manner, could never have achieved what I have in such a brief time, if ever. I’ve done everything in my power to create the home life of his dreams and to become the political partner of both of our dreams, and all that while bearing him two children and recovering quickly from those births.

  How dare he underestimate me!

  Anger flares within me only rarely, but when it does, it surges suddenly and almost uncontrollably. Even though I’m cognizant of the eyes of thousands, angry words begin to form on my lips.

  Watching my face, Winston realizes his misstep and quickly reaches for my hand. “Forgive me, Cat. I know you know what today entails. What your part entails.” His voice, usually so unwavering and strong, is subdued. He knows he has overstepped.

  But I see that his remorse hasn’t caused him to lose his command of language. He knows that the use of my pet name will soften me. I want to cling to my indignation, but we serve much grander objectives today. Still, I will not reward his harshness by using an endearment; he will get no Pug in return. “I am glad to hear it, Winston. Please do not doubt me again.”

  He winces at my words and the use of his formal name. While Winston appears overly confident and sometimes contentious in public, in private, he craves adoration and unconditional warmth. The absence of parental affection in his youth has left a hollow within him, in constant need of filling. But I cannot begrudge him this, as I suppose I am the same and demand the same from him.

  I turn away from his beseeching stare and watch as our carriage approaches Westminster Abbey, where the coronation will take place. We draw up to the annex, designed specifically for the event to match the abbey’s architecture. Along with the members of the royal family and other dignitaries, we step out of the carriage under the annex’s protective archway, away from the eyes of the crowds.

  Pairs of notable guests queue before us, awaiting their turn to enter the abbey. A distinctive profile catches my attention, and I take the opportunity to
study the unaware Violet, who attends the coronation as her father’s guest. Wearing a gown in a shade evocative of her name, her wavy, nut-brown hair is swept back into a surprisingly becoming style, far more fetching that her usual dour low chignon. As if she can feel my eyes upon her, she pivots toward me with a glare. I suppress my anger over her ongoing efforts to foist herself upon my husband and choose instead to nod pleasantly in her direction. I will never allow myself to appear ruffled by her presence in public.

  I look away from her toward the guests, trying to ascertain which might be the French dignitaries with whom Winston wants me to speak. Recently, despite the domestic nature of his position, his focus has turned away from the home front, where Britain has existed in a long period of untroubled plenty, to the international scene. Tensions flared this spring between France and Germany when France, which had a treaty with Germany recognizing France’s predominant interest in Morocco, deployed troops into the country’s interior to Agadir, where there was a rebellion, and in response, Germany raised the specter of warfare unless it received territorial compensation. While Winston had long been concerned about Germany’s rise and its imperial tendencies, this recent aggressiveness alarmed him, and he worried that the Triple Entente, a three-way alliance between France, Britain, and Russia, might not be protective enough in the face of German expansionism. Any connections we could forge with key French players could prove indispensable in bolstering that relationship, he believed, and he wanted me to put my excellent French to good use today.

  The unexpected appearance of Lady St. Helier in the distance distracts me from my task. How long it’s been since I saw my old benefactress, I think, and how much has changed from the days when she sponsored me in society. As if she hears my thoughts, she turns in my direction and gives me a self-satisfied smile, as if she’s pleased with her handiwork, and we exchange pleasantries and news.