Lady Clementine

by Marie Benedict

  I turn to my cousin and ask, “What on earth are you talking about?”

  She sniffs. “All this campaigning and political speech making. It is unseemly, Clemmie. Not womanly at all.”

  I am shocked and offended. How dare she!

  “That’s rich coming from you, Venetia. You are hardly the arbiter of seemliness these days, are you?”

  She blushes, shooting a glance at Nellie. Does she really think Nellie is unaware of her relationship with Prime Minister Asquith? Half of Parliament knows that he pens her letters three times a day, even during critical meetings.

  “At least no one sees me stumping for candidates. That’s a man’s job, Clemmie. An elected official’s job. The last time I checked, no one elected you to office, and you are not a man.”

  Does Venetia think I will take her barbs without retaliation? Enough with tiptoeing around her illicit relationship. “That’s interesting, Venetia. The last time I checked, you are not even married to an elected official, and yet the prime minister shares confidential state secrets with you in his love letters as he seeks your advice.”

  Nellie looks shocked. I guess she was oblivious to Venetia’s very public affair with the prime minister after all.

  “Henry calls me his guiding light, you know,” Venetia says, her cheeks reddening. “And it’s a relationship of the mind.”

  “No pet name will ever make up for the fact that your Henry—the prime minister—is a married man.”

  “I know your feelings on that score. You are such a prig, Clementine. Henry and Margot don’t even sleep together anymore. You are the only one in our set who wouldn’t consider having an extramarital relationship of any sort, even an emotional one. You and your prudish husband.”

  “And I have no intention that either one of us will engage in such licentious behavior. You can go tell that to your precious Henry and your best friend, Violet.”

  A mirthless laugh escapes from Venetia’s thin lips. “Oh, no one can rein in Violet. But you have no need to fear her wiles, Clemmie. Your precious Winston is besotted with you.”

  I cannot bear to be in Venetia’s presence a moment longer. Rising from my chair, I reach for my purse and say, “As it should be, and as I am with him.”

  Chapter Ten

  March 28, 1912

  London, England

  I will not allow this convalescence to act as a bridle. Four weeks of ordered bed rest has forced me from Winston’s side, back into the isolation of home and the screaming voices of Diana and Randolph, the latter relentless in his tantrums. No speeches, no meetings, and no social occasions, the doctor insisted, and so has Winston. Winston has sallied forth alone, or so he says.

  Had the stress of the trip to Belfast caused the miscarriage and subsequent illness that confines me to this bedroom? Certainly, Nellie attributes my maladies to Belfast. The idea bothers me, but I would not change my decision to accompany Winston even with the benefit of hindsight.

  While my unorthodox participation in Winston’s admiralty duties raised the eyebrows not only of Venetia but also of many society ladies, the trip to Belfast sounded the alarm for my sister and sister-in-law, Goonie. Belfast, Nellie pronounced, is dangerous and far beyond wifely duty, and Goonie agreed. I knew they were correct, but they did not understand the myopic vision of my husband and his need of my guidance, particularly since rioting had been threatened over Winston’s Belfast visit.

  Unrest had been brewing in Ireland over home rule proposals that the country should self-govern but only under the oversight of England. The Liberal government leaders wanted Winston, in his capacity of Liberal member of Parliament, not lord admiral, to visit Belfast to speak in favor of home rule. We arrived in Belfast after a peaceful ferry ride on the Stranraer and Larne line. After stopping at the Grand Central Hotel for a lunch of local fish, we stepped briefly into the pelting rain before reentering our waiting car. As we proceeded down Royal Avenue, I pulled my fur-trimmed black cocoon coat tightly around me, and we gave each other a small smile of relief. Perhaps the worry about rioting and unionist protests, with its attendant police and army presence, had been for naught.

  But when we drove closer to the Celtic football grounds where Winston was to deliver his speech, the car stopped. The street became immobilized, not with cars and carriages, but with people. A roar emerged from the crowd when they identified the vehicle holding us—their intended target.

  Hands thrust through the openings in the windows, and hateful faces pressed up against the glass. The car began to vibrate as objects were thrown at it, and we felt it shake and rock as the crowds lunged against us. The front of the vehicle lifted off the ground, and our driver started to yell. Terror coursed through my body, and I wanted to scream myself. But I met Winston’s eyes, and I knew we needed to maintain a strong, unflappable presence.

  “Please remove your hands from the car, sir,” I said loudly but respectfully, meeting the eyes of the shipyard worker hurling obscenities at Winston on the other side of my window.

  He squinted his eyes, seeming to see me for the first time. “There’s a woman in the car,” he cried out to the men surrounding our car. The rocking ceased, and the throngs surrounding the car dispersed. Afterward, we went directly to the Celtic football grounds and gave our speeches as if nothing untoward had transpired, but inwardly, I was shaking. Only later did I overhear Lord Pirrie, our host, mention the unfortunate event to Winston, whispering that if I had not faced the angry crowd with such firm but graceful insistence, he believed our car would have been upended, causing us grave harm.

  * * *

  A knock sounds at the door, and the distinctive tap reveals it to be Winston. I smooth my hair, spread out my silk embroidered robe, pinch my cheeks to elicit a healthy pinkness, and open the book that has been sitting on my lap. It will not do to appear inactive. Only six days remain on bed rest, and I am determined to reenter the fray immediately thereafter.

  “Come in.”

  Winston, dressed in formal attire, peers through the crack. “Clemmie, how are you, my dearest?”

  Why is he wearing evening clothes? I keep the social calendar, and I don’t recall an event tonight. Perhaps he plans to stop by the club for some cards. “Quite well, Pug. Do sit down.”

  He perches on the very edge of my bed, as if I’m suffering from a contagious illness rather than vague womanly troubles brought about by my miscarriage.

  Giving me a half smile, he pronounces, “The color has returned to your cheeks, Cat. I think you are on the mend.”

  “Oh, I hope so, Winston. I hate to abandon you.”

  “Not to worry, Kitten. Mr. Pug can take care of himself…although he is always happiest and most successful when his Cat is purring at his side.”

  His words comfort me. Leaning back into my bolster of pillows, I ask, “Are you off to the Other Club?” When Winston and his dear friend F. E. Smith were blackballed from the Club due to their perceived audaciousness and, in Winston’s case, his defection to the Liberal Party, they formed their own club, the Other Club. They now count Lloyd George, twenty-four members of Parliament, and a diverse mix of distinguished society men as members.

  “No, not tonight. F. E. isn’t available.” He looks sheepish, and I note that he has not answered my question directly.

  “Where are you off to, then, dressed so beautifully?”

  “The Asquiths.”

  If he is dressed in evening clothes and headed to the Asquiths, I know what that means. Violet.

  Fury roils within me. How can he spend the evening at the Asquiths when I am imprisoned in my bed? He knows how I feel about this, and he promised me that I’d always be at his side at social occasions with Violet. There is nothing I can do about her surprise appearances at work events. I grow quiet, unwilling to allow my anger to bubble forth. But my silence speaks volumes.

  “Cat, you have no reason to w
orry.”

  “It isn’t you I mistrust.”

  “But my prime minister has summoned me.”

  “Not for work, Winston.”

  “Work requires rapport, and that rapport can only be formed upon a solid hospitable foundation of shared experiences outside of work.”

  “Stay with me. Wait to socialize with the Asquiths until I am well enough to join you.”

  “Clemmie, you know I cannot. I am expected.”

  My life with Winston contains many necessary separations and absences to which I have become accustomed. But this feels different, as if I’m being purposely left behind. He kisses me on the cheek, slowly closing the door behind him. I am left alone with a toxic mixture of anger and upset.

  Within a few moments, I hear tapping on the door again, and hoping it might be an apologetic Winston, I wipe my tears away. But instead, Nanny peeks into my bedroom. I nod, and she brings Diana and Randolph to my side for a good-night kiss. Randolph is blissfully quiet for once, and I inhale their clean, warm skin.

  But the children do not settle me. Images of Winston and Violet alone at Downing Street, while the prime minister busies himself with stolen moments with another guest, Venetia, torment me. Violet will agree with all of Winston’s mixed views of suffrage among other things, leaving a hole into which she can insinuate herself.

  On my nightstand sits a copy of the Times, folded to an article that I’d planned on discussing with Winston tonight, the offensive letter by eminent bacteriologist Sir Almroth Wright in which he argues that women should not be allowed to vote or to play a role in politics because of our alleged psychological and physical deficiencies. But if Winston insists on attending to the Asquiths, leaving me alone with my thoughts on this topic, then I will take my conversation to those who will listen. He will be forced to take notice of me. I may be hindered, but I will not be silenced.

  Chapter Eleven

  March 30, 1912

  London, England

  The newspaper sits between us like a third person at the table. I smooth my celadon-green gown and sip the steaming tea, my calm exterior belying my interior. My stomach churns in anticipation of Winston’s reaction. He has yet to reveal a single feeling, not even about my decision to abandon bed rest five days before the doctor’s orders.

  He sips at his afternoon port while studying the whist cards. We have assumed this relaxed posture at our games table in an almost studied indifference to the folded copy of the Times sitting at the table’s center for nearly half an hour. I assume he’s read the paper, as it’s his daily habit to review it cover to cover before leaving for Parliament. And even if, for some odd reason, he deviated from his ritual, certainly his fellow members of Parliament read it.

  He clears his throat and finishes his drink. Here it comes, I think.

  “You know you needn’t have written an editorial to the Times to get my attention, my kitten,” he says, keeping his eyes fixed on the cards. His tone is a perfect modulation of serenity, yet I sense another note in his voice. Do I hear a hint of anger? Or is it amusement? I say a silent prayer for the latter, but I don’t soften my posture.

  “Oh?” I ask, the picture of innocence, as I play my hand.

  “Of course not.” He places his cards on the table and reaches for my free hand.

  “These days, one wonders,” I answer, allowing my fingers to rest on his hand but not clasping back. And I do not meet his eyes.

  “I know this illness has been hard on you, and I admit that I should not have gone to the Asquiths without you. But you have no cause to harbor any suspicions. My heart belongs to you utterly, and I will never love anyone but you.” He lifts my fingertips to his lips and kisses them one by one. “Of that, you can be certain.”

  “Oh, my dear Pug, thank you for your reassurances. Sometimes, the formidable family history of infidelity—on both sides—lodges itself in my consciousness.”

  “You have nothing to fear with me, Cat.”

  Relief softens through my rigid, anxious limbs, and I am glad my missive has been received and understood. That I cannot tolerate infidelity, either physical or emotional. Winston now knows, if he did not before, that I will do my utmost to serve by his side and run our home—using sleights of hand to hide our financial state—but I will not permit him to scamper off at another woman’s bidding when I am laid low. Even if that woman’s father is the prime minister.

  “Your piece caused quite the furor in Parliament.”

  I feel my eyebrow arch quizzically, and this expression prompts him to continue.

  “Oh yes, Clemmie. You really know how to grab the reader from the opening lines.” He relinquishes my hand and reaches for the newspaper. “I mean, it was sheer genius to reframe the question that Sir Almroth Wright poses in his preposterous article—changing it from whether women should be given the vote to whether women should exist at all due to their many deficiencies, the ones Sir Almroth Wright alleges should prevent them from voting. It really lays bare the ridiculousness of his argument.”

  He chuckles, and I laugh along with him. Then he recites the opening lines of my Times salvo, and they sound ironic and powerful—not strident, as I’d worried they might seem. I wonder if the members of Parliament took the rest of the piece well.

  He continues reciting from the article. Laughter escaping from him, he reads aloud from the section in which I pretend that—given the litany of faults and instabilities Sir Almroth Wright attributes to women—we should extrapolate from Wright’s contentions and just eliminate women altogether.

  A loud guffaw escapes from my lips, startling Winston. Had I really written that? How bold of me, I think. It hadn’t seemed quite so audacious while I was drafting the piece, but then I’d been fueled by fury.

  “Oh, Clemmie, the next bit is positively withering,” Winston comments with undisguised glee and then reads aloud again, this time from the section in which I posit the question as to whether we could perpetuate the human race without women since—according to Sir Almroth Wright—women are fatally flawed. “Brilliantly scathing, Clemmie. The PM thinks so too.”

  “He does?” I am shocked. Asquith does not show even a smidgen of sympathy for women’s rights or suffrage, and I thought Winston would suffer at his hands when he learned—as everyone undoubtedly would—that the article’s anonymous author “CSC” was indeed the wife of his very own admiralty lord. “I wouldn’t have thought his view of suffrage extended so far.”

  “You don’t have to be a suffragist to know that this Sir Almroth Wright fellow is a bloody fool and he is deserving of a dressing-down.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Asquith went even further though, Cat. He insinuated that it was the best piece he’s read on the issues surrounding women for quite some time.”

  “Did he indeed?”

  “Oh yes. Not that it changed his position on women’s suffrage, of course.”

  “Did he know I was the author?”

  “Once I told him,” he says with a mischievous gleam in his eye. I see now that Winston waited for the prime minister’s reaction, then dropped his bit of news upon him.

  I feel my cheeks flush, and I am suffused with pleasure. My piece, written in a fit of pique, had had an even farther-reaching impact than I’d intended. Perhaps if the prime minister finally stamps his seal of approval upon me, Violet will be forced to follow suit and abandon her overtures to Winston, once and for all. And not only Winston—but Violet—will understand that I am not to be underestimated.

  Chapter Twelve

  May 12 and 18, 1913

  HMS Enchantress and Athens, Greece

  From my vantage point on the deck, I watch as what seems like the entire 196-man crew carries our guests’ trunks onto the Enchantress. Had we really brought all these bags on the trains from London to Venice? It seems impossible that they would have fit on the t
rain cars, but they must have. After all, the ladies among our guests have kept to the social convention of changing dresses four times a day throughout our time in Venice, and I swear there hasn’t been a single repeat in their attire.

  Shielding my eyes against the bright Venetian sky, I study the crew members’ routes to the various staterooms. I’m so engrossed that I jump when I feel an arm snake around my waist, loosely corseted due to the heat. I turn to see Winston, dapper in his dark-blue lord admiral uniform, complete with white deck shoes and binoculars, smiling at me. As if intuiting my thoughts, he says, “Cat, you needn’t worry that the crew will deliver the trunks to the wrong staterooms. These men are professionals through and through.”

  I give him a wry smile and say, “Pug, it isn’t the skills of your crewmen I doubt. My concern lies with the slippery morality of our guests and its impact on room arrangements.”

  He chuckles. “Venetia isn’t on this trip, so I don’t think you need to worry about any funny business.”

  “True enough. I suppose vigilance has become a habit.”

  “One borne of necessity,” he says supportively, referencing the many times that Venetia and Prime Minister Asquith have tried to camouflage their relationship—whatever it may be—using Venetia’s preexisting friendship with Violet. He knows as well as I that our guests on this Mediterranean cruise to Malta via Venice and Athens have provided us with reason to be suspicious on past trips.

  On this voyage of the Enchantress, we will be hosting Jennie; James Masterton-Smith, Winston’s private secretary; and the Asquiths—the prime minister; his wife, Margot; and, of course, his daughter, Violet. Winston’s mother is in a delicate state, as she is in the process of divorcing her husband, George Cornwallis-West, on the legal grounds of desertion, although in truth, his affair provided the impetus. In the fourteen months since my Times article was published, my relationship with the Asquiths has turned almost friendly, and we have found ourselves playing golf and bridge together with some regularity. I remain cautious in their company, however, because although their words and glances might appear kindly and cordial to the untutored, I know them to be critical and forever looking for a misstep upon which they can pounce. Venetia always delights in informing me about the Asquiths’ private opinions regarding me—namely that, while they find me attractive and eager, they believe me to be not nearly erudite and sophisticated enough for them—but she refrains from saying what is apparent to everyone. Violet continues to pine for Winston, and while I am still wary of her, her behavior as of late has given me no cause for worry.