by John Masters
‘It’s so kind of you … to come,’ Ruth stammered. ‘I didn’t think, we didn’t think … with the snow … and all …’
Lady Swanwick said pointedly, ‘The wind seems to come right through the door doesn’t it?’
‘What? Oh yes, of course … This way.’ Ruth led back into the drawing room, where a huge coal fire burned in the grate. Lady Swanwick sat down, her eyes wandering round the room – large oil portraits of ‘ancestors’ obviously bought at antique dealers … landscapes … fox hunting … heavy gilt frames … Louis XV furniture, second hand … didn’t all match … They’d have done better to choose some less ornate style and carry through with it. The room was a hodgepodge of opulence, like poor Mrs Hoggin’s dress … that hat! Looked like Barker’s at its worst. The poor woman was so nervous.
The earl, warming his hands in front of the fire, said, ‘Did you read what that blighter’s done now, Hoggin?’
Hoggin was puzzled, ‘What blighter, me lord?’
‘Lloyd George. He’s released a lot of Sinn Feiners who were taken in arms against us during the Easter Rising.’
‘Why would he do that?’ Hoggin asked.
‘To please the bloody Yanks,’ the earl said.
The countess intervened, ‘Now, Roger, we didn’t come here to talk about such unpleasant subjects … Don’t you have a little boy, Mrs Hoggin?’
‘Oh yes, m’lady… Launcelot.’
‘How old is he?’
‘A year and ten months, m’lady. I was going to have Nanny bring him down for a minute, when we’ve had our tea.’
‘That would be nice.’
Ruth drew a deep breath and said, ‘He’s going to Eton College, m’lady. After that, I suppose it’ll be up to him, then, to decide what he wants to be. Once he’s been at Eton College, he can be anything.’
The earl had heard and broke in, speaking to Hoggin, ‘What’s that? Your boy going to Eton?’
Hoggin said, ‘Ruthie’s got her heart set on it.’
The earl said, ‘Have you entered him? Written to the school, telling them you have a son and you want him to enter in such and such a half?’
Hoggin said, ‘No, my lord, we haven’t done that yet. It can wait till he’s a bit older, can’t it?’
‘Good God, no,’ the earl said. ‘He’d start in the summer of 1928, but he should have been entered within a day or two of birth. There’ll be no place for him. You might have afforded to wait a year if you had family connections, but …’
‘’Course not!’ Hoggin said. ‘This ain’t none of my doing. It’s Ruthie. He’ll be like a fish out of water there, if you ask me.’
Ruth said sharply, ‘Launcelot’s going to Eton College, Bill! And he’s going to speak proper, so the boys won’t laugh at him!’
The countess listened, fascinated: a war in the family – Hoggin wanting to stay in his own class, though apparently seeking a K, but with money to do what he liked: concomitantly, accepting none of the upper classes’ duties and obligations – catch him leading a platoon over the top! … while the little mousey wife wanted their son to rise, knowing that if he did, she’d lose him, and he would accept the responsibilities his father was avoiding … fascinating!
Lord Swanwick said, ‘I don’t think you have a hope of getting him into Eton now.’
The countess thought, that little woman deserves help. She said, ‘There is one chance. Tell them about Collegers, Roger.’
The earl looked doubtful – ‘Is he clever? Got to be damn clever to be a Colleger … a real inky swot.’
‘We don’t know how clever he is,’ Hoggin said. ‘He hasn’t made any speeches yet.’
Swanwick said, ‘Oh? Yes, quite … Well, a certain number of boys are admitted to Eton every year, free, as a result of winning scholarships – by open competition. They’re called Collegers because they live in the college buildings. There are about a hundred of them at school at any one time, as far as I can remember. All the other boys, about a thousand of them, are called Oppidans, and live in various houses in the town round Eton – Oppidum, Latin for town. Each house has its own housemaster. You call him ‘m’tutor.’ If your boy – what’s his name?’
‘Launcelot,’ Hoggin said, glowering at his wife.
‘Launcelot – wants to go to Eton, he must win an open scholarship. Then they cannot refuse him. He’ll be a Colleger, a scholar.’
Hoggin said, ‘An’ I won’t be paying them a penny, though by then I’ll be able to buy the plurry place, beg pardon, Your Ladyship. It’s enough to make a cat laugh.’
Ruth Hoggin said, ‘He will win the scholarship, my lord…Can you tell us the name of a good school where he can go first? So that he will be sure to win the scholarship. Or do you think it would be better if we hired tutors here?’
The earl said heartily, ‘Send him to school, Mrs Hoggin…dozens of such prep schools – private schools, we called them at Eton – all over the place … get his little bottom whacked and his face pushed in the mud, do him a world of good!’ Ruth Hoggin paled. The countess murmured aside, ‘It doesn’t have to be as brutal as that,’ while the earl barked, ‘Just make sure that none of the beaks are, well, you know, those … see that they don’t starve the little beasts … Lot of those places serve potatoes till the boys are full, then a piece of meat not big enough for a good dinner for a mouse. The boys can’t eat even that, so the school takes it back and makes mince out of it for tomorrow.’ He pulled out his watch and Ruth started ‘Oh, shall we serve tea, m’lady?’
‘Certainly,’ the countess said. ‘We built up quite an appetite on the drive here …’
The tea had been served and eaten and the ruins removed. Nanny Hopgood had brought Launcelot downstairs and led him into the drawing room, curtsying to the earl and countess as she came in. She was fifty and had served two generations in a noble house in Ireland, but now the nurseries were empty and would not be filled again in her lifetime, for the boys who would soon have become fathers were instead manuring the soil of Picardy, Flanders, and Artois. Ruth was humble before Nanny Hopgood’s knowledge of society and how to raise small sprigs of the aristocracy; but Nanny Hopgood had sensed the little woman’s fierce devotion to Launcelot, and was careful never to dictate to her employer where the little boy’s well-being was directly concerned: only in such matters as where she herself was to eat, her wages, her relationship with the rest of the staff …
Launcelot shook hands with the earl and countess, bowing jerkily before each. He was wearing a royal blue velvet jacket over a white shirt with a wide Byronic blue tie, and royal blue velvet shorts over long black silk stockings. There were pearl buttons on the sides of his shorts, and silver buckles on his shoes.
Nanny Hopgood led him out. As soon as she was sure he could not hear, the countess said, ‘A nice, little boy … Such fine eyes – like yours, Mrs Hoggin.’ The young should never be complimented to their faces.
Ruth blushed with pleasure, wishing Launcelot could have heard what Her Ladyship had said. Really, it hadn’t been so bad after all … with Harbinger and Mrs Bowes to arrange things, it had gone off very well.
The earl settled back in his chair, stretching out his hands toward the fire – ‘What do you think of Mr Wilson’s latest proposal, Hoggin?’
‘What proposal, my lord?’
The earl realized that Hoggin read nothing in the papers except what he saw as connected with or concerning him and his business – which was making money, not war. He said, ‘Mr Wilson – the American president – has invited all the belligerents to state their war aims. He thinks, he says, that they may not prove irreconcilable.’
Hoggin scratched his head and said, ‘Well, our war aim is to beat the ’Uns, right?’
‘That’s what I’d tell him,’ the earl said. ‘The country won’t swallow anything less.’
‘An’ the war might be over in a couple of weeks or months,’ Hoggin said; and that would be a bloody disaster, he was about to add, but caught the countess’s cold
look, and remembered that her younger son was rotting in the slime somewhere over there. He said instead, ‘I mean, we’ve got to teach the swine a lesson, don’t we?’
‘That’s what I say,’ Swanwick said.
The countess said, ‘It’s time we went home, Roger, before the roads become impassable.’
Ruth jumped to her feet, nearly falling over the hem of her gown – ‘Certainly, m’lady … It’s been so nice seeing you … and thank you ever so for telling us about Eton College and the private schools.’
‘We’ll give you some introductions, for the schools,’ the countess said. ‘Then you should go and look at a few for yourself and decide which one would be best for Launcelot. Then enter his name – the good private schools have waiting lists, too.’
Hoggin was on his feet, bowing. ‘It’s been an honour, Your Lordship … Your Ladyship.’
When Swanwick’s car had swept round the drive, and disappeared, and the front door of The Yews been closed, Ruth turned to her husband, ‘What did Lord Swanwick mean when he said we were to make sure the schoolmasters weren’t those?’
Bill patted her head, and said, ‘He meant to look out for like them scoutmasters what teach little boys what their cocks is for, and parsons what bumfuck the choirboys behind the altar.’
‘Bill!’
‘Cheer up, Ruthie. Worse things ’appen at sea, and Christmas is coming.’
He stopped in the middle of the hall, flung up one hand, and declaimed:
’Twas Christmas Day in the workhouse, that day of all the year
When the paupers’ ’earts is full of gladness and their bellies full of beer.
Up spake the workhouse master, ‘To all within these walls, I wish a Merry Christmas! ‘and the paupers answered …
‘Bill!’ Ruth cried, putting her hand over his mouth. She had heard the poem before.
Daily Telegraph, Friday, December 22, 1916
PEACE APPEAL FROM PRESIDENT WILSON
INQUIRY AS TO TERMS
We were officially informed by the Press Bureau last night that the following Note was communicated by the United States ambassador to his Majesty’s Government on Wednesday last:
The President of the United States has instructed me to suggest … a course of action with regard to the present war which he hopes (will be taken) under consideration as coming from … the representative of a neutral nation whose interests have been most seriously affected by the war …
The President suggests that an early occasion be sought to call out from all the nations now at war such an avowal of their respective views as to the terms upon which the war might be concluded, and the arrangements which would be deemed satisfactory as a guarantee against its renewal or the kindling of any similar conflict in the future, as would make it possible frankly to compare them …
REASON FOR THE STEP
U.S. NEAR VERGE OF WAR.
Washington, Thursday.
Mr Wilson’s Note came as a surprise to the official world at Washington. None of the ambassadors apparently had any idea that he intended to despatch one. Exactly when the Note was finished has not been disclosed, but it is known that it was cabled on Tuesday.
Mr Lansing, Secretary of State, to-day made a statement explaining that Mr Wilson’s Note to the belligerents declared that the situation for neutrals was becoming increasingly critical, and that the United States itself was being drawn near the verge of war. The following is the text of Mr Lansing’s statement:
The reasons for sending the Note were as follows. It was not our material interests that we had in mind when the Note was sent, but rather our own rights, which are becoming more and more involved by belligerents on both sides, so that the situation is becoming increasingly critical. I mean by that we are drawing nearer to the verge of war ourselves, and therefore we are entitled to know exactly what each belligerent seeks in order that we may regulate our conduct in future.
Cate read the whole of the President’s Note and the Secretary of State’s statement with absorbed interest. What Mr Lansing was clearly trying to do was dispel the widely held belief that America’s only interest in the war was to make money. What Mr Wilson was equally clearly trying to do was force the belligerents to state with precision what their war aims were. A part of the Note pointed out that ‘the leaders of the several belligerents have stated these objects in general terms. But stated in general terms they seem the same on both sides.’ Well, that was enough to raise the jingoes’ blood pressure, but if you went back to the very origins of the war, it had some validity. However, when you defined that into, say, a German demand for large and rich portions of France and Russia (to protect herself against a war on two fronts); and England’s demand that the German Navy be reduced to a cipher with no submarines (which would ensure that Britain could not be starved out); and France’s demand for the return of Alsace and Lorraine; and all the Allies’ insistence that a democratic form of government be imposed on Germany, and the Kaiser hanged … it was impossible. Nor would any diplomat of any skill show his real hand this early. They would all overstate their cases, with the intention of later giving away a little of this, which they didn’t really want, in return for a little of that – which they did. But the inflated demands, once stated, would put a stop to all talk of accommodation or negotiation. No, one side had to be forced to its knees, to a point where negotiation with all its terrors was clearly less bad than the alternative.
Only three days to Christmas. Boxing Day would fall on Sunday this year, so if he gave out the boxes that day, no one would be able to buy anything for little after-Christmas celebrations. He’d better calculate what the boxes would come to – it would make more of a hole in his account than he cared to contemplate; but he couldn’t reduce them now, with prices going up everywhere. Then he’d go early into Hedlington, draw the money, come back at once, and distribute the boxes this afternoon, so the people would have tomorrow to make any purchase.
21
London: Wednesday, January 17, 1917
Colonel Rodney Venable wandered down the Admiralty corridor, pass ready in hand, because he knew he would have to show it again before he could have a word with Room 40. He’d given Admiral Hall, Director of Naval Intelligence, the information Army Counter-Intelligence had picked up about two Irish nationalists working in Plymouth dockyard. Admiral Hall had been pleased. He’d been in a strange mood, for him, Venable thought … euphoric, ready to go through the high ceiling.
The duty officer at the cipher room was a lieutenant R.N.V.R., whom Venable knew. He held up the pass and the lieutenant said, ‘Morning, Colonel.’
Venable put away the pass and knocked on the door of the inner room beyond – Room 40 – and waited. Then someone called – he recognized Montgomery’s voice; he was a clergyman and had never lost the unctuous tones of the Church of England – ‘Who is it?’
‘Venable,’ he answered.
‘Wait a minute, please, Colonel.’
He waited, what seemed a long time. He heard a door slam – a heavy door – probably one of the cipher safes … they must have had something really hush-hush on the table if they felt compelled to hide it from him.
‘Come in, Colonel.’ The door opened and he walked in. The younger man, de Grey, sitting at a desk by the window, said, ‘What can we do for you, Colonel?’
‘Oh, nothing. I’ve just given the D.N.I. some information which we knew would interest him … I thought I’d drop in and see if you fellows had anything for us before I go back to the War Office.’
The older Montgomery looked at his colleague – both civilians, taken from their normal professions at the outbreak of war and now working as cipher experts in this most secret of secret departments of the Admiralty – indeed of the whole British government. Montgomery said, ‘Nothing at all, Colonel – that hasn’t been sent over to your people through normal channels.’
‘Sorry to bother you then,’ Venable said. ‘No link turned up between Bertrand Russell’s pacifists and
the Germans?’
‘Nothing that we know of,’ Montgomery said. ‘And I somehow doubt whether Bertrand Russell is linked with the Germans in any way, Colonel. I feel he acts from his own motives.’
‘So did the Sinn Feiners and the Irish Republican Army,’ Venable said, ‘but they turned to Germany for help – which made them traitors. Well, sorry to have bothered you.’
He went out with a nod and a wave of his leather-gloved hand. The duty officer looked up, said nothing, and returned to his work. Venable strode down the passage. They were like dogs with a hidden bone in there. His loins stirred … Naomi, as soon after two as she could get there, to No. 43 Halsey Crescent in St John’s Wood. He saw her long body, the breasts up thrust, swelling, her arms out, her deep brown eyes softening. Oh Christ, she was beginning to obsess him…
In Room 40 the two civilians began opening safes and taking out heavy cipher books, deciphering keys, and the papers they had been working on. They sat down side by side at a table by one wall, facing the wall. Montgomery said, ‘I wish we had had some sop to give Colonel Venable. He’s no fool. He’ll guess something important’s going on.’
‘But not exactly what. And he’ll be out of Intelligence here before long. Our counter-intelligence people have discovered that he’s having an affair with a girl in one of the women’s services … using flats the War Office keeps for interviews and to hide people they want to protect and so on, to meet her.’
‘Have we told the D.M.I. yet?’
De Grey shook his head – ‘No. We’re waiting to see whether there is anything really dangerous in it – spying, double agents, links with subversives which he’s not supposed to have … but probably not. Just the simple lust of an elderly Don Juan.’
The clergyman sighed, ‘Poor Venable … Well, let us see what we have.’ They bent their heads together over two sheets of paper. The first one was headed:
Berlin to Washington. W 158. 16 January, 1917. Most Secret. For your Excellency’s personal information and to be handed on to the Imperial Minister in Mexico by a safe route.
