by Follett, Ken
“No!” Why could the old man not see how dangerous this thinking was? “It means we should be seeking peaceful solutions to petty disputes.”
“Peaceful solutions?” Otto shook his head knowingly. “You’re a young idealist. You think there is an answer to every question.”
“You actually want war,” Walter said incredulously. “You really do.”
“No one wants war,” said Otto. “But sometimes it’s better than the alternative.”
{ III }
Maud had inherited a pittance from her father—three hundred pounds a year, barely enough to buy gowns for the season. Fitz got the title, the lands, the houses, and nearly all the money. That was the English system. But it was not what angered Maud. Money meant little to her: she did not really need her three hundred. Fitz paid for anything she wanted without question: he thought it ungentlemanly to be careful with money.
Her great resentment was that she had had no education. When she was seventeen, she had announced that she was going to university—whereupon everyone had laughed at her. It turned out that you had to come from a good school, and pass examinations, before they would let you in. Maud had never been to school, and even though she could discuss politics with the great men of the land, a succession of governesses and tutors had completely failed to equip her to pass any sort of exam. She had cried and raged for days, and even now thinking about it could still put her in a foul mood. This was what made her a suffragette: she knew girls would never get a decent education until women had the vote.
She had often wondered why women married. They contracted themselves to a lifetime of slavery and, she had asked, what did they get in return? Now, however, she knew the answer. She had never felt anything as intensely as her love for Walter. And the things they did to express that love gave her the most exquisite pleasure. To be able to touch one another that way any time you liked would be heaven. She would have enslaved herself three times over, if that were the price.
But slavery was not the price, at least not with Walter. She had asked him whether he thought a wife should obey her husband in all things, and he had answered: “Certainly not. I don’t see that obedience comes into it. Two adults who love one another should be able to make decisions together, without one having to obey the other.”
She spent a lot of time thinking about their life together. For a few years he would probably be posted from one embassy to another, and they would travel the world: Paris, Rome, Budapest, perhaps even farther afield to Addis Ababa, Tokyo, Buenos Aires. She thought of the story of Ruth in the Bible: “Whither thou goest, I will go.” Their sons would be taught to treat women as equals, and their daughters would grow up independent and strong-willed. Perhaps they would eventually settle in a town house in Berlin, so that their children could go to good German schools. At some point, no doubt, Walter would inherit Zumwald, his father’s country house in East Prussia. When they were old, and their children were adults, they would spend more time in the country, walking hand in hand around the estate, reading side by side in the evenings, and reflecting on how the world had changed since they were young.
Maud had trouble thinking about anything else. She sat in her office at the Calvary Gospel Hall, staring at a price list of medical supplies, and remembered how Walter had sucked his fingertip at the door to the duchess’s drawing room. People were beginning to notice her absentmindedness: Dr. Greenward had asked if she was feeling all right, and Aunt Herm had told her to wake up.
She tried again to concentrate on the order form, and this time she was interrupted by a tap at the door. Aunt Herm looked in and said: “Someone to see you.” She seemed a bit awestruck, and handed Maud a card.
General Otto von Wrich
ATTACHÉ
EMBASSY OF THE EMPIRE OF GERMANY
CARLTON HOUSE TERRACE, LONDON
“Walter’s father!” said Maud. “What on earth . . . ?”
“What shall I say?” whispered Aunt Herm.
“Ask him if he would like tea or sherry, and show him in.”
Von Ulrich was formally dressed in a black frock coat with satin lapels, a white piqué waistcoat, and striped trousers. His red face was perspiring in the summer heat. He was rounder than Walter, and not as handsome, but they had the same straight-backed, chin-up military stance.
Maud summoned her habitual insouciance. “My dear Herr von Ulrich, is this a formal visit?”
“I want to talk to you about my son,” he said. His English was almost as good as Walter’s, though he had an accent where Walter did not.
“It’s kind of you to come to the point so quickly,” Maud replied with a touch of sarcasm that went right over his head. “Please sit down. Lady Hermia will order some refreshment.”
“Walter comes from an old aristocratic family.”
“As do I,” said Maud.
“We are traditional, conservative, devoutly religious . . . perhaps a little old-fashioned.”
“Just like my family,” Maud said.
This was not going the way Otto had planned. “We are Prussians,” he said with a touch of exasperation.
“Ah,” said Maud as if trumped. “Whereas we, of course, are Anglo-Saxons.”
She was fencing with him, as if this were nothing more than a battle of wits, but underneath she was frightened. Why was he here? What was his aim? She felt it could not be benign. He was against her. He would try to come between her and Walter, she felt bleakly certain.
Anyway, he was not to be put off by facetiousness. “Germany and Great Britain are at odds. Britain makes friends with our enemies, Russia and France. This makes Britain our adversary.”
“I’m sorry to hear that you think that way. Many do not.”
“The truth is not arrived at by majority vote.” Again she heard a note of asperity in his voice. He was used to being heard uncritically, especially by women.
Dr. Greenward’s nurse brought in tea on a tray and poured. Otto remained silent until she left. Then he said: “We may go to war in the next few weeks. If we do not fight over Serbia, there will be some other casus belli. Sooner or later, Britain and Germany must do battle for mastery of Europe.”
“I’m sorry you feel so pessimistic.”
“Many others think the same.”
“But the truth is not arrived at by majority vote.”
Otto looked annoyed. He evidently expected her to sit and listen to his pomposity in silence. He did not like to be mocked. He said angrily: “You should pay attention to me. I’m telling you something that affects you. Most Germans regard Britain as their enemy. If Walter were to marry an Englishwoman, think of the consequences.”
“I have, of course. Walter and I have talked at length about this.”
“First, he would suffer my disapproval. I could not welcome an English daughter-in-law into my family.”
“Walter feels that your love for your son would help you get over your revulsion for me, in the end. Is there really no chance of that?”
“Second,” he said, ignoring her question, “he would be regarded as disloyal to the kaiser. Men of his own class would no longer be his friends. He and his wife would not be received in the best houses.”
Maud was becoming angry. “I find that hard to credit. Surely not all Germans are so narrow-minded?”
He appeared not to notice her rudeness. “Third, and finally, Walter’s career is with the foreign ministry. He will distinguish himself. I sent him to schools and universities in different countries. He speaks perfect English and passable Russian. Despite his immature idealistic views, he is well thought of by his superiors, and the kaiser has spoken kindly to him more than once. He could be foreign minister one day.”
“He’s brilliant,” Maud said.
“But if he marries you, his career is over.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said, shocked.
“My dear young lady, is it not obvious? A man who is married to one of the enemy cannot be trusted.”
“We ha
ve talked about this. His loyalty would naturally lie with Germany. I love him enough to accept that.”
“He might be too concerned about his wife’s family to give total loyalty to his own country. Even if he ruthlessly ignored the connection, men would still ask the question.”
“You’re exaggerating,” she said, but she was beginning to lose confidence.
“He certainly could not work in any area that required secrecy. Men would not speak of confidential matters in his presence. He would be finished.”
“He doesn’t have to be in military intelligence. He can switch to other areas of diplomacy.”
“All diplomacy requires secrecy. And then there is my own position.”
Maud was surprised by this. She and Walter had not considered Otto’s career.
“I am a close confidant of the kaiser’s. Would he continue to place absolute trust in me if my son were married to an enemy alien?”
“He ought to.”
“He would, perhaps, if I took firm, positive action, and disowned my son.”
Maud gasped. “You would not do that.”
Otto raised his voice. “I would be obliged to!”
She shook her head. “You would have a choice,” she said desperately. “A man always has a choice.”
“I will not sacrifice everything I have earned—my position, my career, the respect of my countrymen—for a girl,” he said contemptuously.
Maud felt as if she had been slapped.
Otto went on: “But Walter will, of course.”
“What are you saying?”
“If Walter were to marry you he would lose his family, his country, and his career. But he will do it. He has declared his love for you without fully thinking through the consequences, and sooner or later he will understand what a catastrophic mistake he has made. But he undoubtedly considers himself unofficially engaged to you, and he will not back out of a commitment. He is too much of a gentleman. ‘Go ahead, disown me,’ he will say to me. He would consider himself a coward otherwise.”
“That’s true,” Maud said. She felt bewildered. This horrible old man saw the truth more clearly than she did.
Otto went on: “So you must break off the engagement.”
She felt stabbed. “No!”
“It is the only way to save him. You must give him up.”
Maud opened her mouth to object again, but Otto was right, and she could not think of anything to say.
Otto leaned forward and spoke with pressing intensity. “Will you break with him?”
Tears ran down Maud’s face. She knew what she had to do. She could not ruin Walter’s life, even out of love. “Yes,” she sobbed. Her dignity was gone, and she did not care; the pain was too much. “Yes, I will break with him.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes, I promise.”
Otto stood up. “Thank you for your courtesy in listening to me.” He bowed. “I bid you good afternoon.” He went out.
Maud buried her face in her hands.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mid-July 1914
There was a cheval glass in Ethel’s new bedroom at Tŷ Gwyn. It was old, the woodwork cracked and the glass misted, but she could see herself full-length. She considered it a great luxury.
She looked at herself in her underwear. She seemed to have become more voluptuous since falling in love. She had put on a little weight around her waist and hips, and her breasts seemed fuller, perhaps because Fitz stroked and squeezed them so much. When she thought about him her nipples hurt.
Fitz had arrived that morning, with Princess Bea and Lady Maud, and had whispered that he would meet her in the Gardenia Suite after lunch. Ethel had put Maud in the Pink Room, making up an excuse about repairs to the floorboards in Maud’s usual apartment.
Now Ethel had come to her room to wash and put on clean underwear. She loved preparing herself for him like this, anticipating how he would touch her body and kiss her mouth, hearing in advance the way he would groan with desire and pleasure, thinking of the smell of his skin and the voluptuous texture of his clothes.
She opened a drawer to take out fresh stockings, and her eye fell on a pile of clean strips of white cotton, the rags she used when menstruating. It occurred to her that she had not washed them since she had moved into this room. Suddenly there was a tiny seed of pure dread in her mind. She sat down heavily on the narrow bed. It was now the middle of July. Mrs. Jevons had left at the beginning of May. That was ten weeks ago. In that time Ethel should have used the rags not once but twice. “Oh, no,” she said aloud. “Oh, please, no!”
She forced herself to think calmly and worked it out again. The king’s visit had taken place in January. Ethel had been made housekeeper immediately afterward, but Mrs. Jevons had been too ill to move then. Fitz had gone to Russia in February, and had come back in March, which was when they had first made love properly. In April Mrs. Jevons had rallied, and Fitz’s man of business, Albert Solman, had come down from London to explain her pension to her. She had left at the beginning of May, and that was when Ethel had moved into this room and put that frightening little pile of white cotton strips into the drawer. It was ten weeks ago. Ethel could not make the arithmetic come out any differently.
How many times had they met in the Gardenia Suite? At least eight. Each time, Fitz withdrew before the end, but sometimes he left it a bit late, and she felt the first of his spasms while he was still inside her. She had been deliriously happy to be with him that way, and in her ecstasy she had closed her eyes to the risk. Now she had been caught.
“Oh, God forgive me,” she said aloud.
Her friend Dilys Pugh had fallen for a baby. Dilys was the same age as Ethel. She had been working as a housemaid for Perceval Jones’s wife and walking out with Johnny Bevan. Ethel recalled how Dilys’s breasts had got larger around the time she realized that you could, in fact, get pregnant from doing it standing up. They were married now.
What was going to happen to Ethel? She could not marry the father of her child. Apart from anything else, he was already married.
It was time to go and meet him. There would be no rolling on the bed today. They would have to talk about the future. She put on her housekeeper’s black silk dress.
What would he say? He had no children: would he be pleased, or horrified? Would he cherish his love child, or be embarrassed by it? Would he love Ethel more for conceiving, or would he hate her?
She left her attic room and went along the narrow corridor and down the back stairs to the west wing. The familiar wallpaper with its pattern of gardenias quickened her desire, in the same way that the sight of her knickers aroused Fitz.
He was already there, standing by the window, looking over the sunlit garden, smoking a cigar; and when she saw him she was struck again by how beautiful he was. She threw her arms around his neck. His brown tweed suit was soft to the touch because, she had discovered, it was made of cashmere. “Oh, Teddy, my lovely, I’m so happy to see you,” she said. She liked being the only person who called him Teddy.
“And I to see you,” he said, but he did not immediately stroke her breasts.
She kissed his ear. “I got something to say to you,” she said solemnly.
“And I have something to tell you! May I go first?”
She was about to say no, but he detached himself from her embrace and took a step back, and suddenly her heart filled with foreboding. “What?” she said. “What is it?”
“Bea is expecting a baby.” He drew on his cigar and blew out smoke like a sigh.
At first she could make no sense of his words. “What?” she said in a bewildered tone.
“The princess Bea, my wife, is pregnant. She is going to have a baby.”
“You mean you’ve been at it with her at the same time as with me?” Ethel said angrily.
He looked startled. It seemed he had not expected her to resent that. “I must!” he protested. “I need an heir.”
“But you said you loved me!”
“No, Teddy!” she cried. “Don’t say it like that—please don’t!”
“Keep your voice down!”
“Keep my voice down? You’re throwing me over! What is it to me now if people know?”
“It’s everything to me.”
Ethel was distraught. “Teddy, please, I love you.”
“But it’s over now. I have to be a good husband and a father to my child. You must understand.”
“Understand, hell!” she raged. “How can you say it so easily? I’ve seen you show more emotion over a dog that had to be shot!”
“It’s not true,” he said, and there was a catch in his voice.
“I gave myself to you, in this room, on that bed by there.”
“And I shan’t—” He stopped. His face, frozen until now in an expression of rigid self-control, suddenly showed anguish. He turned away, hiding from her gaze. “I shan’t ever forget that,” he whispered.
She moved closer to him, and saw tears on his cheeks, and her anger evaporated. “Oh, Teddy, I’m so sorry,” she said.
He tried to pull himself together. “I care for you very much, but I must do my duty,” he said. The words were cold, but his voice was tormented.
“Oh, God.” She tried to stop crying. She had not told him her news yet. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, sniffed, and swallowed. “Duty?” she said. “You don’t know the half.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m pregnant, too.”
“Oh, my good God.” He put his cigar to his lips, mechanically, then lowered it again without puffing on it. “But I always withdrew!”
