Past Caring - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  Unhappily, the defeat at Colenso carried a bitter personal lesson for me. A battlefield far from home is no place to learn that one’s trusted friend is a coward, but this conclusion was forced upon me by Gerald Couchmans conduct that day. In an action to save the ten guns that were ultimately lost, Buller took a personal hand and, therefore, we adjutants with him. In this action, the general was himself wounded and the only son of Lord Roberts was killed. I did what little I could with what fortitude I could muster, but Couch held back and, in an incident overlooked by all but me, quitted the scene in a craven act of self-preservation. I did not despise him for it, for any sane man would have felt fear that day, but I was chastened to learn that he could leave my side at such a crucial time. I did not reproach him afterwards, yet he knew that I had seen, and matters were never again the same between us.

  When Lord Roberts was appointed as the new C-in-C, Buller despatched Couch and me to Capetown to await his arrival and perform what services we could in a staff capacity. We passed a long, silent, grudging journey back, Couch perhaps appalled by his own discovery about himself, perhaps resenting my silence as a reminder of it, I saying too little for fear of saying too much and reflecting that perchance the censorious Threlfall had been right all along. It might have cheered us to know that Colenso was the first and last action either of us was to see in South Africa. It might, but I must take leave to doubt it.

  Lord Roberts reached Capetown in the middle of January, 1900, with the redoubtable Kitchener as his chief of staff. He at once overhauled the organization of the whole campaign and it was this greater attention to matters of supply, transport and communication that not only effected a transformation of the army’s fortunes but also detained me in the Cape for the rest of my time in South Africa. My political reputation, such as it was, had evidently gone before me, for I was directed to devote some of my time – when it was not consumed in ordinary staff duties – to a tentative exploration of popular feeling in the Cape, most especially to a cultivation of the Dutch community, with an assurance of happy internal relations, when the war was over, the ultimate objective. I made little enough progress in this direction, but did what I could and always found contact with the citizenry of the Cape – its elected representatives, its magistrates and landowners, its journalists and businessmen – interesting and instructive. Couch was, at this time, engaged in the coordination of supplies, for which he developed a forte. I will say no more than that, where the distribution of food and equipment was concerned, he was not slow to introduce a commercial element to his own advantage. At all events, we saw little of each other at this time.

  By the summer of 1900, the war seemed virtually over. Roberts having taken Johannesburg on May 31 and Pretoria five days later, there appeared to remain only the mopping-up of Boer resistance. It was this swift redemption of Buller’s earlier blunderings that presumably convinced the Conservative-Unionist government at home that the time was ripe for a general election. It seemed to me, when I heard of it, a simple attempt to capitalize on the victorious mood of the people, but it is true to say that my view may have been influenced by the imminence of my candidature for Parliament, which I had thought to be two years away and for which I was consequently ill-prepared.

  Lord Roberts showed great understanding of my difficulty and sanctioned my immediate return home. Here Couch, for all that I have said about his loss of nerve at Colenso, did me a not inconsiderable service. I had accepted an invitation to stay with the van der Merwes, an influential Dutch family near Durban, as part of my bridge-building exercise. Passing through Capetown in late August, I met Couch by chance and mentioned that I would have to disappoint the van der Merwes if I were to return to England in time to make any kind of fist of the election, which seemed a pity, this being the most overt hospitality I had been shown by the Dutch community. Couch, granted leave at this slack time, when everyone was merely awaiting the formal cessation of hostilities, volunteered to take my place in Durban. In a role where charm counted for much, I have little doubt that he did an excellent job.

  So it was that I arrived home in England with but a week in which to conduct my election campaign. As I might have known, my parents and brother had already mounted a highly effective one in my absence and it was the considered opinion of Flowers, the taciturn agent whom I inherited from Sir William, that any attack upon my party’s attitude to the war by my Conservative opponent would be more than offset by my own record of service in South Africa. In this he was correct. The general election of October 1900 has ever after been referred to as the “Khaki” election and if it was, as I firmly believe, the government’s attempt to exploit their virtual victory in South Africa, I am happy to record that it went otherwise for them in Mid-Devon.

  I shall ever recall the scene in the town hall at Okehampton in the early hours of October 5, when the returning officer announced my victory at the poll by a majority only a little short of that traditionally commanded by Sir William and a throng of red-faced Devonians toasted in cider their new young tribune. At the age of 24, I found myself a member of that most exalted of democratic institutions – the British Parliament – with everything to look forward to.

  “Senhor Radford! Excuse the interruption: the master has asked me to tell you that luncheon is served.”

  It was old Tomás speaking, rousing me from the reverie that had followed my completion of the first chapter of the Memoir.

  “Obrigado, Tomás,” I said. Then, hesitantly, I sought to use a little more of the basic Portuguese I’d gleaned from my handbook. “Oude fica o almoço?”

  “In the morning room, senhor,” Tomas replied. “Please come with me.”

  Taking the Memoir with me, I followed him along the verandah.

  “Have you been on the island long, senhor?”

  “Only a few days.”

  “Then your Portuguese does you great credit.”

  “Thank you for saying so. But I think your English does you greater credit.”

  “No, no, senhor. I have been here forty years and Quinta do Porto Novo has always had a master who spoke English. Therefore, it has not been difficult for me to learn your language, so excellent was my teacher.”

  Who’d taught him English? If Tomás had been there forty years, it seemed he must mean Strafford.

  “You worked for Senhor Strafford?”

  “Yes, senhor. I had that honour.”

  We’d passed through the drawing room into the hall. Tomás led me along the gallery to a large, airy room on the western side of the house, with picture windows overlooking the vineyard. At one end of the room was a grand piano and, above it on the wall, an oil painting of a savannah landscape. In the centre of the room stood a table, laid with bowls and plates for a salad lunch. There was an air of newness here, more of Sellick and less of Strafford.

  I tried to draw Tomás out before he left me. “You admired Senhor Strafford?”

  “Senhor Strafford was a gentleman.”

  “Thank you, Tomás. That will be all.” Sellick’s voice came abruptly from behind us. Tomás nodded gravely and padded away. There was a hint of curtness in his dismissal, dispelled at once by Sellick’s warmth and courtesy to me.

  “I see you have the Memoir with you, Martin. Set it aside for a moment and help yourself to some lunch. I trust you will excuse the informality of the arrangement.”

  “It looks delicious. All this is really too generous of you.”

  “Not at all. I have put a business proposition to you. The least that I can do is offer some meagre hospitality whilst you consider it.”

  There was, needless to say, nothing meagre about his hospitality. I took some grilled tuna from a platter and some of the rice, potato and vegetable salads that accompanied it. Sellick poured me some vinho verde and offered me a seat by the window. This had been slid half-open to a wisp of cooling breeze in the midday heat. Below, the vines stood in silent ranks. This was the siesta hour and no sound broke the peace.

  I�
��d set the Memoir down on a coffee table between us. “Have you made much progress?” Sellick asked. “You see that I cannot contain my curiosity.”

  “I’ve just finished the first chapter: Strafford’s just been elected to Parliament. It’s a fascinating read.”

  “I hoped that you would find it so. Has it helped you to form a view of my earlier proposition?”

  “It’s confirmed my first reaction – that I’d be delighted to accept. I feel sure it’s an opportunity I don’t deserve. But, if you’re prepared to back me, I’ll try to justify your confidence.”

  “I’m most gratified to hear you say so, Martin. Let’s drink to your investigation.”

  As we touched glasses to toast our agreement, I thought of Helen again, for the second time that morning: Helen, my dear ex-wife. She’d always performed that ritual when wine was served with a meal. I remembered her tight frown of annoyance whenever I drank from the glass prematurely, now with none of the impatience I’d have felt at the time. It was odd to think of her with so little venom, odder still that Strafford’s college friend, Gerald Couchman, should share her surname. For Couchman was not a common name.

  “You look pensive, Martin.”

  “The Memoir’s given me a lot to think about. To be honest, I can’t wait to get back to it.”

  “I understand and will not delay you. But before you do, you might be interested in seeing Strafford’s study. You’ll remember I referred to it last night.”

  “That would be very interesting.”

  “Straight after lunch then.”

  When we’d finished our meal, Sellick led me back to the hall and up the stairs to a large room on the southern side of the house. When he opened the shutters, light flooded onto a scene that took me straight back to Strafford. Sellick explained that he never used the room himself and had left it as it was when he arrived. The view from the window was of the garden and, beyond that, the sea. Motes of dust floated in the sunlight and the tick of an old longcase clock by the door added to the impression of another time and place. In front of the window was a large mahogany leather-topped desk and, in front of that, a leather-seated, wheelback swivel chair.

  This, clearly, was the desk where Sellick had originally found the Memoir. Either side of the inkstand were the framed photographs that must have drawn Strafford’s eye every time he sat there. On the left was a studied portrait of a couple, the man elderly, with a walrus moustache but a ramrod back, the woman middle aged and elegant – surely Strafford’s parents.

  On the right was a less formal portrait of a young lady. She wore a high-necked dress, fastened with a brooch. Her dark hair was drawn up high and evenly from her face, with just a few strands hanging by her cheeks. Her eyes were large, dark and intent and her lips, slightly parted, seemed just about to smile. To me, she was a stranger – or so I thought. To Strafford, she must have meant, at some time, almost everything. That certainty charged not only her look but the very placing of her photograph. Strafford could have sat there and seen those eyes and, beyond, the ocean, both so deep and distant, every day of his life on Madeira. But only his Memoir could tell me what the frozen past of this room never would: what he felt when he looked at the confident, confiding tilt of her chin, fixed in time by the camera, or gazed out across the placid infinity of the ocean.

  “It’s as if Strafford had just left the room,” I said at last.

  “Isn’t it?” said Sellick. “I feared it might seem morbid to leave it like this, but with so much space to spare, why not? It’s easy to imagine him sitting at that desk.”

  “I just have. Presumably, one of these pictures is of his parents. What about the other one?”

  “There’s really only one person it can be.”

  “His fiancée?”

  “That’s right: Elizabeth Latimer. My enquiries have revealed that she is still alive in England, under her married name of Couchman … You look surprised, Martin.”

  “The name … Then she …”

  “Married Gerald Couchman. That’s right. But I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t give so much away like this. Still, you must have wondered why Strafford made such a point of that friendship.”

  I had, and this explained it. But it wasn’t the irony of Strafford losing his fiancée to his discredited former friend that dismayed me, though I was happy for Sellick to think that it was. It was the echo in my own past that his words caused. No longer was there just a coincidence of surnames. Seven years before, at my own wedding, I’d met the redoubtable Elizabeth Couchman, Helen’s grandmother, then a hale old widow of eighty, and still, it appeared, alive and well. It was the achievement of her generation of Couchmans that made my marriage the social coup my family thought it was and which, in the end, helped to unmake it. Now, in Strafford’s study on Madeira, I encountered my ex-wife’s grandmother as the beautiful young Edwardian lady she once was and the woman who won – and broke – the heart of a famous man.

  After dismay came caution. It was still possible – just – that this wasn’t the person I thought. But if it was, how would Sellick react to my connection with a family that was to form part of my investigations? Not well, my instincts told me. And they went further: don’t risk this golden opportunity, don’t tell him. So I didn’t.

  “It makes it all the sadder,” I said. “That and the atmosphere of this room.”

  “Yes,” said Sellick. “There are so many echoes.”

  For a moment, I was alarmed. Had he found me out? No. How could he? There were echoes enough of Strafford’s past without him needing to guess at those of mine – weren’t there?

  “I know what you mean.” The truth was, I hoped I knew what he meant. “In fact, the Memoir seems so much more real here – more immediate – that I’d like to stay to read it, if that’s all right.”

  “By all means, Martin. Stay as long as you like. I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed. I hope, though, that you’ll join me for an aperitif before dinner. Alec’s sure to be back by then.”

  “Thanks. I’d like to.”

  Sellick left then, closing the door behind him. I sat at the desk and looked out across the garden and the valley towards the sea, then back at the picture of that face and those eyes, imagining Strafford doing the same. I opened the Memoir and looked at his firm, assured handwriting, betraying nothing, no sign, no quaver that might tell me the message those eyes held for him. There was only one way to find out. Eagerly, I resumed my reading.

  Memoir

  1900–1909

  Parliament was due to assemble in early December, 1900. By then, I had recovered somewhat from the euphoria of election night and had taken rooms in Pimlico, so as to be handily placed for Westminster. Sir William had kindly arranged my introduction to some of the leading figures of the party and my brother had quietly assured me of such financial support as might be necessary in the straitened circumstances of a fledgling M.P.

  I had supposed that, in the Parliamentary Liberal Party, I would rejoice in the company of enlightened, like-minded men steering a straight course for the betterment of their country. I soon discovered that such a rosy view could not be sustained when I actually joined their ranks. I knew, of course, that the war had created a division of opinion. What I did not know, but sought rapidly to assimilate, was that on virtually no point was there universal agreement, that many of the disagreements had more to do with personal enmities than issues of principle and that possibly the only uniting factor was an interest by individuals in cultivating a political career. Such and swift was the disenchantment of the new M.P. for Mid-Devon.

  But I must not do an injustice to the many able men whom I encountered at Westminster. Campbell-Bannerman, the leader, was a tough old Scottish Liberal who at once surprised me by his radicalism. He seemed determined to soldier on despite the mutterings of those who thought him mediocre. I was often told how we should revert to Rosebery or plump for Asquith as leader but, as a young and impressionable man imbued by my father with a respect for olde
r generations, I unhesitatingly aligned myself behind C-B.

  The only issue on which we might have differed was the war. But my experiences in South Africa had not endeared me to our cause in that conflict. My latter days there, spent as they were more amongst the local populace than the military, had filled me with great respect for their robust desire for independence and I felt sure, as did C-B, that the correct Liberal line was to deplore a piece of heavy-handed colonialism. In taking this view, I found an enthusiastic welcome in that most fiery spirit of the party – Lloyd George, whose accounts of speaking against the war in public almost persuaded me that I had had a softer time of it at Colenso.

  Lloyd George was an inspiration. Not that much older than me, he embodied what seemed the youthful promise of the party. Instead of the non-committal crustiness I found in older members, Lloyd George could exuberantly and persuasively propound so many reforms that one was left only wondering in which order they should be introduced. Whilst laying great stress upon his Welshness, he did not trouble himself to disguise his own ambition, the very English one of being Prime Minister. I could see no reason why he should not be, indeed contemplated the prospect with some relish for my own position should he one day have charge of things. For I was not slow in developing my own ambitions and a desire to advance them.

  It was certain, however, that neither the Liberal party nor its rising young men could hope for much whilst the war lasted and the public suspected our patriotism. And the war lasted much longer than I had supposed it would. So far from being virtually over when I left Capetown at the end of August, 1900, it had nearly two years to run. The Boers resorted to highly effective harrying tactics and Kitchener, now the C-in-C, responded with a scorched earth policy, destroying homesteads and rounding up the Boer population in camps. In my maiden speech in Parliament, in March 1901, I deplored the breakdown of negotiations between Kitchener and Botha and questioned what purpose would be served by the gradual subordination of a people to the extent that, finally, they felt only mute hostility towards the mother country. Lloyd George congratulated me afterwards and C-B winked a sagacious eye. There was even a quiet word in the lobby from Winston Churchill, now a Conservative M.P. but eager to befriend any fellow-newcomer to the House.