Lady Clementine

by Marie Benedict

  “March on, children,” Winston, pants rolled knee-high, calls back to Diana. She dutifully shoulders far more equipment than her five-year-old body should be able to carry. Three-year-old Randolph, by contrast, collapses in a fit of tears at the very suggestion that he might be responsible for his own sand pail. I wish the disparity could be explained by the difference in their ages, but I fear it is attributable to the differences in their temperaments.

  I take up the rear of this busy brigade, trudging behind not only my husband and daughter but also Goonie and her children. I think about the expression on their faces when Winston arrived earlier today. When we first spotted an enormous vessel docked off the coast, its steam pipe pouring clouds of billowy gray into the otherwise cloudless azure sky, Goonie, the children, and I simply stared, marveling at the size of the ship in comparison to the fishing boats, bobbing nearby like bath toys. Only when a tiny rowboat dropped from the ship’s side into the swelling sea and two men rowed its oars furiously toward the shore did we all scream with recognition and delight. The ship was the Enchantress, and one of the men was Winston.

  I watch as my husband builds a fortress with the children. Once the castle, ramparts, towers, and moat are complete, the children scream and run in circles around the creation, assuming various warlike poses. Winston steps back to admire his handiwork and wraps his arm around my thickening waist, lightly draped with a robe over my modest bathing costume.

  Rubbing his hand on my belly, he asks, “How are you faring, dear one?”

  I turn into his chest. “Bearing up, Pug. But I miss you terribly. And of course, I worry.”

  He kisses the top of my head. His voice is thick with regret when he next speaks. “It will be some time before I can return to Overstrand, my kitten. If at all.”

  “What do you mean? We rented Pear Tree Cottage for the entire summer, and you promised you’d visit every weekend that was not mission critical.”

  “It seems that we have reached the mission critical stage.”

  I pull away from him just enough to look into his eyes. “So soon? What’s happening?”

  I know that, for the better part of the summer, our foreign secretary has been working to prevent Britain’s involvement in a war. This has required unusually tricky diplomacy, as Britain is part of the Triple Entente, and tensions have been mounting between Germany on one side and France and Russia on the other. But I’d believed that a balance had been struck and that Britain’s entry into the war might be avoided for the summer.

  “My kitten, I fear that the upcoming week will bring events to a head. I believe that—despite efforts to negotiate—Austria-Hungary will declare war on Serbia, which will undoubtedly lead to Russia mobilizing its army to help the Serbs, and Germany declaring war on Russia to help the Austro-Hungarians.”

  “No!” I exclaim.

  He pulls me back into his embrace. “I’m sorry, Cat, but I believe so. And it won’t stop there. Germany will likely want to bring Russia’s ally France into the fray by attacking via neutral Belgium. And even though the Cabinet is split on the acceptability of war with Germany, I believe that invasion will not be one we can ignore or negotiate our way around.”

  “Your intelligence is solid?”

  “Impeccable.”

  I know he is right, just as surely as I know that helping France defend against Germany’s invasion is the morally correct choice. If Winston’s intelligence proves right and Germany does indeed attack Belgium—providing the Germans a direct route to France via the countryside and also to England through nearby ports—then our country must declare war as well. And my husband must be among those leading the charge.

  My limbs begin to tremble. I try to steady the shaking, as I do not want him to think I am unable to bear the weight of this decision. Winston cannot help but feel it. He tightens his arms around me, whispering, “We will prevail, Cat. These past thirty months, I’ve ensured that we have the mightiest navy, well able to conquer the Germans. The fighting should be over by Christmas.”

  His words don’t comfort me. It matters not that Britain’s fleet is fierce but that my husband will be at its center. But I know what Winston needs of me privately: unshakable faith in his ability to lead. I also know the public face he needs the lord admiral’s wife to show the world: confidence. And he will get what he needs.

  I press my lips together and smile at him. “I know, my love. Just as I know you will lead that fleet to victory.”

  He nods at me, and I see a spark of exhilaration in his eyes at the coming controversy. Does he imagine that, through this war, he’ll match the military feats of his beloved ancestor, the first Duke of Marlborough? “Exactly.”

  “The children and I will return to London with you. As a show of our support.” Despite my pregnant state and my fears, I feel mounting excitement at returning to London and becoming swept up in the wartime tide. We will be amid the making of history.

  “No, my darling. You and the children must stay here. I need you to prove to the people of England that we can continue with our lives, that we need not fear.” He releases me, staring into my eyes. “I must away now, Kitten. There’s no need for tears. Triumph is inevitable.” Then he kisses me.

  I watch as he hugs Diana and Randolph in turn, then his brother’s family. We gather at the seashore, laughing and cheering as he rows back out to the Enchantress. Then we grow silent, understanding that this leave-taking is unlike the rest. This leave-taking could be the last.

  * * *

  Within days, Winston’s predictions begin to prove accurate, and by August 4, Britain is at war. A desperation builds within me, and I experience an impulse to abandon the seaside and rush to Winston’s side, to offer him the support and advice I know he needs during this time. Inexplicably, I also imagine London to be a bastion of safety, safer than this rather rickety seaside town, and I worry about my brother, Bill, readying for conflict on board a battleship, and Winston’s brother, Jack, who is posted to the Second Division.

  One restless evening, I very nearly ignore Winston’s directive to stay in Overstrand and begin packing for our departure, but then our housemaid returns from her night off with curious news. A movie trailer at a local theater admonishes holiday-goers not to panic and abandon their Norfolk holidays because Mrs. Winston Churchill and her children are in the area for their holiday, and if it is safe enough for them, it should be safe enough for everyone else. I return our clothes to their armoires. How can I leave when my every move is watched as if I’m some sort of bellwether of the nation’s fortunes?

  While I resign myself to staying in Overstrand, despite the fact that we sit on an open coastline potentially vulnerable to attack, it feels wrong to leave Mother exposed on the French coast in Dieppe where she has retreated for the summer by herself. Since Bill is unavailable to help and I am limited by my pregnancy, Nellie agrees to extricate her from France and bring her to Pear Tree Cottage. But instead of accompanying Mother the full distance to Overstrand as she’d agreed, she drops her at a coastal train station on August 13 while she races to Buckinghamshire to help the Astors transform their mansion into a military hospital and then join a nursing corps in Belgium. I am left alone with my two anxious children and my exasperating mother while my husband directs the war from its beating heart, London.

  “I swear I saw someone,” Mother insists, pointing to the cliff wall below our feet. She’s been here only two days and already she is setting the agenda.

  She and I stand on the edge of the cliff abutting Pear Tree Cottage. Slate-gray clouds cover the sky as they have for nearly a week, and the sunny days of beachcombing and sand digging seem long gone. This weather combined with the news has left everyone on edge. My nerves become unraveled like a spilled spool of thread.

  I stare at the cliff, scanning its length and studying the sandy beach that lines its base. I can imagine a fleet of German surface ships—the very
sort about which Winston has been warning the government—blanketing the blue-gray sea, but I see only whitecaps and our long shadows stretching across the beach. Has Mother really spotted someone? Or has she gotten wrapped up in the spy mania spreading like a virus in coastal towns and imagined German enemies scaling the Overstrand cliffs?

  “Are you certain, Mama?” My voice betrays my skepticism. I know that if the shoreline was indeed facing serious threats, Winston would recall us to London quicker than a heartbeat. Yet his letter this morning raised no such concerns, only details about his naval plans and his love.

  “Absolutely. I swear I saw a figure.” Her words convey strength, but her tone wavers. Even if she doubts herself, she will never admit it. Mother believes in the infallibility of her own opinions.

  I wonder about an enemy agent at Pear Tree Cottage. Could the children and I be a target? As the family of the lord admiral, I suppose it is possible, even though I see no evidence of a threat.

  “Well, that ‘figure’ seems to have scuttled off without even a footprint in the sand,” I decide.

  She assumes an imperious pose, as if she still maintained control of my life. “How can you doubt me, Clementine? In times such as these.”

  Before I can answer, I feel Diana and Randolph pulling at my skirts. “What are you looking at?” my daughter asks.

  “Nothing, children, only the sea. Daddy has not come by boat again,” I answer, not wanting them to think that anything is amiss.

  “Daddy, Daddy!” Randolph claps his hands in excitement at the possibility of his favorite playmate arriving.

  I shouldn’t have mentioned Daddy. I squat down to their eye level and deliver the unpleasant news. “I’m sorry, my dears. But Daddy must stay in London. The country needs him.”

  “But I need Daddy,” Randolph yells and throws himself to the ground. His sobbing prompts Diana to cry, and in seconds, both children are shrieking. I reach out to comfort them, but Diana shrinks into herself, and Randolph slaps my hand away. Upon seeing my stunned reaction, he strikes again, this time intentionally.

  My temples pound with the beginnings of a headache. Where the devil is Nanny? I think. I get back up, but my pregnant belly leaves me off balance, and I fall down on my hands and knees. Instead of helping me up, Mother scolds, “What the devil are you doing down there, Clementine?”

  “Do you think I want to be down here, Mama?” I retort. I struggle to my feet and face my mother, my disgust plain.

  Hearing our sharp exchange, the children’s shrieks escalate to screams. When Nanny finally pushes open the cottage’s back door and races to Diana and Randolph, I walk back toward the house without a word to her, Mother, or the children. I lurch up the stairs to my bedroom, curling into the chaise longue and resting my head against the cool wall.

  I would rather be in London, facing the stresses of war, than here on the desolate seaside, dealing with Mother and the children. Why do the maneuverings of battleships and naval men seem an easier task than the managing of two small children and an elderly woman? Perhaps I am not suited to the usual work of a woman.

  My breathing quickens. I rock back and forth on the chaise longue, banging my forehead on the wall in the process. I welcome the pain, as it inexplicably provides relief from the chaos within me. What is wrong with me?

  Even though I know it is self-pitying—more than that, it is selfish—I want my husband. He alone understands me and gives me focus. But I do not know when I will see him next, so I reach for my pen and paper.

  Chapter Fourteen

  October 7, 1914

  London, England

  The pangs are sharp but bearable, I tell myself as I withhold a scream.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” the nurse asks, but I cannot answer. I can’t catch a breath.

  I nod at the doctor, midwife, and nurse lining my bedroom at Admiralty House, all assigned to ensure the safety of the lord admiral’s wife and unborn child, as well as Goonie, who agreed to stay with us at Admiralty House. Strange how the self-indulgent sadness and isolation I experienced at Overstrand disappeared the moment Winston summoned the children and me back to London, which happened within weeks of his receipt of my hysterical August letter. While I suspect that many women would have preferred the remote beach location to the wartime bustle of London, even with the vague threat of shoreline espionage, I delighted at plunging into the thick of things. The risks of the conflict never overwhelmed me, only the fear of marginalization.

  Another contraction takes hold, and all thinking ceases. My mind can process only the pain. The body-wrenching pain and the urgent desire to push consume me.

  Once it subsides like a retreating wave, the past few weeks reenter my consciousness. Have I provided my husband the help he so desperately needs to navigate the murky naval waters? Immediately upon my return to Admiralty House, I saw that Winston’s brash enthusiasm for his military plans—combined with unwavering confidence in his own vision—was presenting problems with key naval staff and his ability to lead. I understood that these difficulties might hamper his ability to defeat Germany’s plan of fighting on two fronts, attacking the west via France through Belgium and confronting Russia in the east. While I agreed with him that the reluctant chief of the home fleet, Admiral Sir George Callaghan, needed to be replaced, I saw that firing him with only a medal for his troubles would be a blow to the men’s morale. I suggested that perhaps providing him a seat on the Admiralty Board would soothe not only his feelings but also the men’s. I offered Winston a fresh lens to view his dealings with the combative secretary of state for war Lord Herbert Kitchener as well. While he would not accept disagreement from others, he accepted my proposals. But I am not at his side now, and I worry.

  The waves of pain are coming quicker now, barely giving me a chance to breathe in between. The only word that slides through the agony is Antwerp. When the contraction recedes, anger rises up. Why did Winston have to be in Antwerp instead of London right now?

  The German invasion of Belgium has advanced with unfortunate success to the critical port city of Antwerp, the last holdout of the Belgian military. On October 2, the very day the baby was due, Winston received word that Antwerp was on the verge of falling. Despite my begging, he offered to sail to the besieged city to assist the Belgian forces, even though no senior government official had ordered him to take the action. By October 4, he had become so swept up in war fever, he telegraphed the prime minister from Antwerp, asking to temporarily resign his lord admiral position to lead the British forces in Antwerp’s port. Even though Winston was not a career military man, his request was accepted by Asquith, although I could envision the scuttlebutt characterizing it as an obvious grab for military glory.

  But Winston’s efforts were for naught. Even with the additional troops and fleet under his command, Antwerp fell to the Germans earlier today. The British forces were evacuated, and Winston will return to London this evening. Will the fall of Antwerp be attributed to the failure of his last-minute efforts? He will return to London on the waves of the war’s first major failure.

  Winston should never have raced to Antwerp. He should have left the defense of the Belgian city to a career military officer and let that man wear the stain of that fiasco. He should have stayed here, instead of leaving me alone with only the whisper, “You must stay strong, Cat.”

  The contractions grow closer and then blend into one ceaseless agony. I cannot stop from crying out. The pain sears like an unrelenting knife stab, rending me in two. Sweat pours from my brow, and the nurse mops my forehead in a useless gesture of comfort. I shove her hand away and howl in exhaustion and torment. The urge to push takes hold of me, and then suddenly, it ceases.

  And I hear a cry.

  In my peripheral vision, I see the nurse and midwife hover together. Goonie sits by my side, holding my hand, and I manage to whisper, “Is everything all right?”

 
No one answers me at first. Panic rises within me, but then the nurse walks toward me with a parcel swaddled in white cotton.

  “You have a beautiful, healthy baby, Mrs. Churchill.”

  “Is it a boy?” I croak out the question.

  “It is a lovely baby girl,” she says as she hands me the bundle.

  Goonie rises and peers into the blankets. “She’s beautiful, Clemmie.”

  She is not a boy, as I’m sure Winston would like, but I’m relieved. Randolph is boy enough for me. She is beautiful, with her father’s red hair, which will please him endlessly. I clutch at the tiny bundle, bringing my newborn daughter close to my chest.

  Peeling the blanket back a bit, I gaze at her perfect rosebud lips and gently closed eyes. I smile at my daughter, who we will call Sarah. I will love her and ensure her care, but she will not hold me back.

  Chapter Fifteen

  January 3, 1915

  London, England

  I stare at the long table, set with monogrammed china and multifaceted crystal as if an elegant dinner party were to begin instead of an unofficial war cabinet meeting. The exquisite service for twelve does not contain the usual name cards, but then the usual rules do not apply in wartime. This leaves my place at the table uncertain, however, particularly because, as usual, I am the only woman.

  Unlike many of the men holding these dinners, our host, Home Secretary Reginald McKenna, seems sensitive to my situation. He gestures for Winston and me to take seats flanking Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, and I gratefully settle into my chair. Servants immediately appear to ladle watercress soup into our bowls, and as they do, the men lining the table give me sidelong glances. I know they find my presence among them distasteful; after all, they wouldn’t dream of bringing their wives. But I am not here for their approval or their pleasure. I am here because I have a role to fulfill.

  As I sip my soup, I listen. The men around me are tallying the latest skirmishes. Soon after the Allies began gaining ground against the Germans on both the western and eastern fronts—derailing Germany’s aspirations for a quick victory—the powers that be realized that the war would likely devolve into impasse, a sort of cat-and-mouse game with each side taking turns as cat. Only an unexpected, massive victory could upend this tit for tat.