Fall of Giants

by Follett, Ken

  Maud interrupted her imperiously. “Have you thought about who the left-out women are?”

  It was a fault of Maud’s that she could occasionally seem high-handed. Ethel tried not to be offended. Mildly, she said: “Well, I’m one of them.”

  Maud did not soften her tone. “The majority of female munitions workers—such an essential part of the war effort—would be too young to vote. So would most of the nurses who have risked their lives caring for wounded soldiers in France. War widows could not vote, despite the terrible sacrifice they have made, if they happen to live in furnished lodgings. Can’t you see that the purpose of this bill is to turn women into a minority?”

  “So you want to campaign against the bill?”

  “Of course!”

  “That’s crazy.” Ethel was surprised and upset to find herself disagreeing violently with someone who had been a friend and colleague for so long. “I’m sorry, I just don’t see how we can ask members of Parliament to vote against something we’ve been demanding for decades.”

  “That is not what we’re doing!” Maud’s anger mounted. “We’ve been campaigning for equality, and this is not it. If we fall for this ruse we’ll be on the sidelines for another generation!”

  “It’s not a question of falling for a ruse,” Ethel said tetchily. “I’m not being fooled. I understand the point you’re making—it’s not even particularly subtle. But your judgment is wrong.”

  “Is it, indeed?” Maud said stiffly, and Ethel suddenly saw her resemblance to Fitz: brother and sister held opposing opinions with a similar obstinacy.

  Ethel said: “Just think of the propaganda the other side will put out! ‘We always knew women couldn’t make up their minds,’ they’ll say. ‘That’s why they can’t vote.’ They will make fun of us, yet again.”

  “Our propaganda must be better than theirs,” Maud said airily. “We just have to explain the situation very clearly to everyone.”

  Ethel shook her head. “You’re wrong. These things are too emotional. For years we’ve been campaigning against the rule that women can’t vote. That’s the barrier. Once it’s broken down, people will see further concessions as mere technicalities. It will be relatively easy to get the voting age lowered and other restrictions eased. You must see that.”

  “No, I do not,” Maud said icily. She did not like being told that she must see something. “This bill is a step backward. Anyone who supports it is a traitor.”

  Ethel stared at Maud. She felt wounded. She said: “You can’t mean that.”

  “Please don’t instruct me as to what I can and cannot mean.”

  “We’ve worked and campaigned together for two years,” Ethel said, and tears came to her eyes. “Do you really believe that if I disagree with you I must be disloyal to the cause of women’s suffrage?”

  Maud was implacable. “I most certainly do.”

  “Very well,” said Ethel; and, not knowing what else she could possibly do, she walked out.

  { II }

  Fitz caused his tailor to make him six new suits. All the old ones hung loosely on his thin frame and made him look old. He put on his new evening clothes: black tailcoat, white waistcoat, and wing collar with white bow tie. He looked in the cheval glass in his dressing room and thought: That’s better.

  He went down to the drawing room. He could manage without a cane indoors. Maud poured him a glass of Madeira. Aunt Herm said: “How do you feel?”

  “The doctors say the leg’s getting better, but it’s slow.” Fitz had returned to the trenches earlier this year, but the cold and damp had proved too much for him, and he was back on the convalescent list, and working in intelligence.

  Maud said: “I know you’d rather be over there, but we’re not sorry you missed the spring fighting.”

  Fitz nodded. The Nivelle Offensive had been a failure, and the French general Nivelle had been fired. French soldiers were mutinous, defending their trenches but refusing to advance when ordered. So far this had been another bad year for the Allies.

  But Maud was wrong to think Fitz would rather be on the front line. The work he was doing in Room 40 was probably even more important than the fighting in France. Many people had feared that German submarines would strangle Britain’s supply lines. But Room 40 was able to find out where the U-boats were and forewarn ships. This information, combined with the tactic of sending ships in convoys escorted by destroyers, rendered the submarines much less effective. It was a triumph, albeit one that few people knew about.

  The danger now was Russia. The tsar had been deposed, and anything could happen. So far, the moderates had remained in control, but could that last? It was not just Bea’s family and Boy’s inheritance that were in danger. If extremists took over the Russian government they might make peace, and free hundreds of thousands of German troops to fight in France.

  Fitz said: “At least we haven’t lost Russia.”

  “Yet,” said Maud. “The Germans are hoping the Bolsheviks will triumph—everyone knows that.”

  As she spoke Princess Bea came in, wearing a low-cut dress in silver silk and a suite of diamond jewelry. Fitz and Bea were going to a dinner party, then a ball: it was the London season. Bea heard Maud’s remark and said: “Don’t underestimate the Russian royal family. There may yet be a counterrevolution. After all, what have the Russian people gained? The workers are still starving, the soldiers are still dying, and the Germans are still advancing.”

  Grout came in with a bottle of champagne. He opened it inaudibly and poured a glass for Bea. As always, she took one sip and set it down.

  Maud said: “Prince Lvov has announced that women will be able to vote in the election for the Constituent Assembly.”

  “If it ever happens,” Fitz said. “The provisional government is making a lot of announcements, but is anyone listening? As far as I can make out, every village has set up a soviet and is running its own affairs.”

  “Imagine it!” said Bea. “Those superstitious, illiterate peasants, pretending to govern!”

  “It’s very dangerous,” Fitz said angrily. “People have no idea how easily they could slip into anarchy and barbarism.” The subject made him irate.

  Maud said: “How ironic it will be if Russia becomes more democratic than Great Britain.”

  “Parliament is about to debate votes for women,” Fitz said.

  “Only for women over thirty who are householders, or the wives of householders.”

  “Still, you must be pleased to have made progress. I read an article about it by your comrade Ethel in one of the journals.” Fitz had been startled, sitting in the drawing room of his club looking at the New Statesman, to find he was reading the words of his former housekeeper. The uncomfortable thought had occurred to him that he might not be capable of writing such a clear and well-argued piece. “Her line is that women should accept this on the grounds that something is better than nothing.”

  “I’m afraid I disagree,” Maud said frostily. “I will not wait until I am thirty to be considered a member of the human race.”

  “Have you two quarreled?”

  “We have agreed to go our separate ways.”

  Fitz could see Maud was furious. To cool the atmosphere he turned to Lady Hermia. “If the British Parliament gives the vote to women, Aunt, for whom will you cast your ballot?”

  “I’m not sure I shall vote at all,” said Aunt Herm. “Isn’t it a bit vulgar?”

  Maud looked annoyed, but Fitz grinned. “If ladies of good family think that way, the only voters will be the working class, and they will put the socialists in,” he said.

  “Oh, dear,” said Herm. “Perhaps I’d better vote, after all.”

  “Would you support Lloyd George?”

  “A Welsh solicitor? Certainly not.”

  “Perhaps Bonar Law, the Conservative leader.”

  “I expect so.”

  “But he’s Canadian.”

  “Oh, my goodness.”

  “This is the problem of havi
ng an empire. Riffraff from all over the world think they’re part of it.”

  The nurse came in with Boy. He was two and a half years old now, a plump toddler with his mother’s thick fair hair. He ran to Bea, and she sat him on her lap. He said: “I had porridge and Nursie dropped the sugar!” and laughed. That had been the big event of the day in the nursery.

  Bea was at her best with the child, Fitz thought. Her face softened and she became affectionate, stroking and kissing him. After a minute he wriggled off her lap and waddled over to Fitz. “How’s my little soldier?” said Fitz. “Going to grow up and shoot Germans?”

  “Bang! Bang!” said Boy.

  Fitz saw that his nose was running. “Has he got a cold, Jones?” he asked sharply.

  The nurse looked frightened. She was a young girl from Aberowen, but she had been professionally trained. “No, my lord, I’m sure—it’s June!”

  “There’s such a thing as a summer cold.”

  “He’s been perfectly well all day. It’s just a runny nose.”

  “It’s certainly that.” Fitz took a linen handkerchief from the inside breast pocket of his evening coat and wiped Boy’s nose. “Has he been playing with common children?”

  “No, sir, not at all.”

  “What about in the park?”

  “There’s none but children from good families in the parts we visit. I’m most particular.”

  “I hope you are. This child is heir to the Fitzherbert title, and may be a Russian prince too.” Fitz put Boy down and he ran back to the nurse.

  Grout reappeared with an envelope on a silver tray. “A telegram, my lord,” he said. “Addressed to the princess.”

  Fitz made a gesture indicating that Grout should give the cable to Bea. She frowned anxiously—telegrams made everyone nervous in wartime—and ripped it open. She scanned the sheet of paper and gave a cry of distress.

  Fitz jumped up. “What is it?”

  “My brother!”

  “Is he alive?”

  “Yes—wounded.” She began to cry. “They have amputated his arm, but he is recovering. Oh, poor Andrei.”

  Fitz took the cable and read it. The only additional information was that Prince Andrei had been taken home to Bulovnir, his country estate in Tambov province southeast of Moscow. He hoped Andrei really was recovering. Many men died of infected wounds, and amputation did not always halt the spread of the gangrene.

  “My dear, I’m most frightfully sorry,” said Fitz. Maud and Herm stood either side of Bea, trying to comfort her. “It says a letter will follow, but God knows how long it will take to get here.”

  “I must know how he is!” Bea sobbed.

  Fitz said: “I will ask the British ambassador to make careful inquiries.” An earl still had privileges, even in this democratic age.

  Maud said: “Let us take you up to your room, Bea.”

  Bea nodded and stood up.

  Fitz said: “I’d better go to Lord Silverman’s dinner—Bonar Law is going to be there.” Fitz wanted one day to be a minister in a Conservative government, and he was glad of any opportunity to chat with the party leader. “But I’ll skip the ball and come straight home.”

  Bea nodded, and allowed herself to be taken upstairs.

  Grout came in and said: “The car is ready, my lord.”

  During the short drive to Belgrave Square, Fitz brooded over the news. Prince Andrei had never been good at managing the family lands. He would probably use his disability as an excuse to take even less care of business. The estate would decline further. But there was nothing Fitz could do, fifteen hundred miles away in London. He felt frustrated and worried. Anarchy was always just around the corner, and slackness by noblemen such as Andrei was what gave revolutionists their chance.

  When he reached the Silverman residence Bonar Law was already there—and so was Perceval Jones, the member of Parliament for Aberowen and chairman of Celtic Minerals. Jones was a turkey-cock at the best of times, and tonight he was bursting with pride at being in such distinguished company, talking to Lord Silverman with his hands in his pockets, a massive gold watch chain stretched across his wide waistcoat.

  Fitz should not have been so surprised. This was a political dinner, and Jones was rising in the Conservative party: no doubt he, too, hoped to be a minister when and if Bonar Law should become prime minister. All the same, it was a bit like meeting your head groom at the Hunt Ball, and Fitz had an unnerving feeling that Bolshevism might be coming to London, not by revolution but by stealth.

  At the table Jones shocked Fitz by saying he was in favor of votes for women. “For heaven’s sake, why?” said Fitz.

  “We have conducted a survey of constituency chairmen and agents,” Jones replied, and Fitz saw Bonar Law nodding. “They are two to one in favor of the proposal.”

  “Conservatives are?” Fitz said incredulously.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “But why?”

  “The bill will give the vote only to women over thirty who are householders or the wives of householders. Most women factory workers are excluded, because they tend to be younger. And all those dreadful female intellectuals are single women who live in other people’s homes.”

  Fitz was taken aback. He had always regarded this as an issue of principle. But principle did not matter to jumped-up businessmen such as Jones. Fitz had never thought about electoral consequences. “I still don’t see . . . ”

  “Most of the new voters will be mature middle-class mothers of families.” Jones tapped the side of his nose in a vulgar gesture. “Lord Fitzherbert, they are the most conservative group of people in the country. This bill will give our party six million new votes.”

  “So you’re going to support woman suffrage?”

  “We must! We need those Conservative women. At the next election there will be three million new working-class male voters, a lot of them coming out of the army, most of them not on our side. But our new women will outnumber them.”

  “But the principle, man!” Fitz protested, though he sensed this was a losing battle.

  “Principle?” said Jones. “This is practical politics.” He gave a condescending smile that infuriated Fitz. “But then, if I may say so, you always were an idealist, my lord.”

  “We’re all idealists,” said Lord Silverman, smoothing over the conflict like a good host. “That’s why we’re in politics. People without ideals don’t bother. But we have to confront the realities of elections and public opinion.”

  Fitz did not want to be labeled an impractical dreamer, so he quickly said: “Of course we do. Still, the question of a woman’s place touches the heart of family life, something I should have thought dear to Conservatives.”

  Bonar Law said: “The issue is still open. Members of Parliament have a free vote. They will follow their consciences.”

  Fitz nodded submissively, and Silverman began speaking of the mutinous French army.

  Fitz remained quiet for the rest of the dinner. He found it ominous that this bill had the support of both Ethel Leckwith and Perceval Jones. There was a dangerous possibility that it might pass. He thought Conservatives should defend traditional values, and not be swayed by short-term vote-winning considerations; but he had seen clearly that Bonar Law did not feel the same, and Fitz had not wanted to show himself out of step. The result was that he was ashamed of himself for not being completely honest, a feeling he hated.

  He left Lord Silverman’s house immediately after Bonar Law. He returned home and went upstairs immediately. He took off his dress coat, put on a silk dressing gown, and went to Bea’s room.

  He found her sitting up in bed with a cup of tea. He could see that she had been crying, but she had put a little powder on her face and dressed in a flowered nightdress and a pink knitted bed jacket with puffed sleeves. He asked her how she was feeling.

  “I am devastated,” she said. “Andrei is all that is left of my family.”

  “I know.” Both her parents were dead and she had no other clos
e relatives. “It’s worrying—but he will probably pull through.”

  She put down her cup and saucer. “I have been thinking very hard, Fitz.”

  That was an unusual thing for her to say.

  “Please hold my hand,” she said.

  He took her left hand in both of his. She looked pretty, and despite the sad topic of conversation, he felt a stirring of desire. He could feel her rings, a diamond engagement ring and a gold wedding band. He had an urge to put her hand in his mouth and bite the fleshy part at the base of the thumb.

  She said: “I want you to take me to Russia.”

  He was so startled that he dropped her hand. “What?”

  “Don’t refuse yet—think about it,” she said. “You’ll say it’s dangerous—I know that. All the same there are hundreds of British people in Russia right now: diplomats at the embassy, businessmen, army officers and soldiers at our military missions there, journalists, and others.”

  “What about Boy?”

  “I hate to leave him, but Nurse Jones is excellent, Hermia is devoted to him, and Maud can be relied upon to make sensible decisions in a crisis.”

  “We would need visas . . . ”

  “You could have a word in the right ear. My goodness, you’ve just dined with at least one member of the cabinet.”

  She was right. “The Foreign Office would probably ask me to write a report on the trip—especially as we’ll be traveling through the countryside, where our diplomats rarely venture.”

  She took his hand again. “My only living relative is severely wounded and may die. I must see him. Please, Fitz. I’m begging you.”

  The truth was that Fitz was not as reluctant as she assumed. His perception of what was dangerous had been altered by the trenches. After all, most people survived an artillery barrage. A trip to Russia, though hazardous, was nothing by comparison. All the same he hesitated. “I understand your desire,” he said. “Let me make some inquiries.”

  She took that for consent. “Oh, thank you!” she said.

  “Don’t thank me yet. Let me find out how practicable this is.”

  “All right,” she said, but he could see that she was already assuming the outcome.