Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy)

by Ken Follett

  Fitz sat in a green leather armchair. To Ethel's surprise, Albert Solman was there too, in a black suit and a stiff-collared shirt. A lawyer by training, Solman was what Edwardian gentlemen called a man of business. He managed Fitz's money, checking his income from coal royalties and rents, paying the bills, and issuing cash for staff wages. He also dealt with leases and other contracts, and occasionally brought lawsuits against people who tried to cheat Fitz. Ethel had met him before and did not like him. She thought he was a know-all. Perhaps all lawyers were, she did not know: he was the only one she had ever met.

  Fitz stood up, looking embarrassed. "I have taken Mr. Solman into my confidence," he said.

  "Why?" said Ethel. She had had to promise to tell no one. Fitz's telling this lawyer seemed like a betrayal.

  Fitz looked ashamed of himself--a rare sight. "Solman will tell you what I propose," he said.

  "Why?" Ethel said again.

  Fitz gave her a pleading look, as if to beg her not to make this any worse for him.

  But she felt unsympathetic. It was not easy for her--why should it be easy for him? "What is it that you're frightened to tell me yourself?" she said, challenging him.

  He had lost all his arrogant confidence. "I will leave him to explain," he said; and to her astonishment he left the room.

  When the door closed behind him she stared at Solman, thinking: How can I talk about my baby's future with this stranger?

  Solman smiled at her. "So, you've been naughty, have you?"

  That stung her. "Did you say that to the earl?"

  "Of course not!"

  "Because he did the same thing, you know. It takes two people to make a baby."

  "All right, there's no need to go into all that."

  "Just don't speak as if I did this all on my own."

  "Very well."

  Ethel took a seat, then looked at him again. "You may sit down, if you wish," she said, just as if she were the lady of the house condescending to the butler.

  He reddened. He did not know whether to sit, and look as if he had been waiting for permission, or remain standing, like a servant. In the end he paced up and down. "His lordship has instructed me to make you an offer," he said. Pacing did not really work, so he stopped and stood in front of her. "It is a generous offer, and I advise you to accept it."

  Ethel said nothing. Fitz's callousness had one useful effect: it made her realize she was in a negotiation. This was familiar territory to her. Her father was always in negotiations, arguing and dealing with the mine management, always trying to get higher wages, shorter hours, and better safety precautions. One of his maxims was "Never speak unless you have to." So she remained silent.

  Solman looked at her expectantly. When he gathered that she was not going to respond he looked put out. He resumed: "His lordship is willing to give you a pension of twenty-four pounds a year, paid monthly in advance. I think that's very good of him, don't you?"

  The lousy rotten miser, Ethel thought. How could he be so mean to me? Twenty-four pounds was a housemaid's wage. It was half what Ethel was getting as housekeeper, and she would be losing her room and board.

  Why did men think they could get away with this? Probably because they usually could. A woman had no rights. It took two people to make a baby, but only one was obliged to look after it. How had women let themselves get into such a weak position? It made her angry.

  Still she did not speak.

  Solman pulled up a chair and sat close to her. "Now, you must look on the bright side. You'll have ten shillings a week--"

  "Not quite," she said quickly.

  "Well, say we make it twenty-six pounds a year--that's ten shillings a week. What do you say?"

  Ethel said nothing.

  "You can find a nice little room in Cardiff for two or three shillings, and you can spend the rest on yourself." He patted her knee. "And, who knows, you may find another generous man to make life a little easier for you . . . eh? You're a very attractive girl, you know."

  She pretended not to take his meaning. The idea of being the lover of a creepy lawyer such as Solman disgusted her. Did he really think he could take the place of Fitz? She did not respond to his innuendo. "Are there conditions?" she said coldly.

  "Conditions?"

  "Attached to the earl's offer."

  Solman coughed. "The usual ones, of course."

  "The usual? So you've done this before."

  "Not for Earl Fitzherbert," he said quickly.

  "But for someone else."

  "Let us stick to the business at hand, please."

  "You may go on."

  "You must not put the earl's name on the child's birth certificate, or in any other way reveal to anyone that he is the father."

  "And in your experience, Mr. Solman, do women usually accept these conditions of yours?"

  "Yes."

  Of course they do, she thought bitterly. What choice have they got? They are not entitled to anything, so they take what they can get. Of course they accept the conditions. "Are there any more?"

  "After you leave Ty Gwyn, you must not attempt in any way to get in touch with his lordship."

  So, Ethel thought, he doesn't want to see me or his child. Disappointment surged up inside her like a wave of weakness: if she had not been sitting down she might have fallen. She clenched her jaw to stop the tears. When she had herself under control she said: "Anything else?"

  "I believe that's all."

  Ethel stood up.

  Solman said: "You must contact me about where the monthly payments should be made." He took out a small silver box and extracted a card.

  "No," she said when he offered it to her.

  "But you will need to get in touch with me--"

  "No, I won't," she said again.

  "What do you mean?"

  "The offer is not acceptable."

  "Now, don't be foolish, Miss Williams--"

  "I'll say it again, Mr. Solman, so there can be no doubt in your mind. The offer is not acceptable. My answer is no. I got nothing more to say to you. Good day." She went out and banged the door.

  She returned to her room, locked her door, and cried her heart out.

  How could Fitz be so cruel? Did he really never want to see her again? Or his baby? Did he think that everything that had happened between them could be wiped out by twenty-four pounds a year?

  Did he really not love her any longer? Had he ever loved her? Was she a fool?

  She had thought he loved her. She had felt sure that meant something. Perhaps he had been playacting all the time, and had deceived her--but she did not think so. A woman could tell when a man was faking.

  So what was he doing now? He must be suppressing his feelings. Perhaps he was a man of shallow emotions. That was possible. He might have loved her, genuinely, but with a love that was easily forgotten when it became inconvenient. Such weakness of character might have escaped her notice in the throes of passion.

  At least his hard-heartedness made it easier for her to bargain. She had no need to think of his feelings. She could concentrate on trying to get the best for herself and the baby. She must always think how Da would have handled things. A woman was not quite powerless, despite the law.

  Fitz would be worried now, she guessed. He must have expected her to take the offer, or at worst hold out for a higher price; then he would have felt his secret was safe. Now he would be baffled as well as anxious.

  She had not given Solman a chance to ask what she did want. Let them flounder around in the dark for a while. Fitz would begin to fear that Ethel intended to get revenge by telling Princess Bea about the baby.

  She looked out of the window at the clock on the roof of the stable. It was a few minutes before twelve. On the front lawn, the staff would be getting ready to serve dinner to the miners' children. Princess Bea usually liked to see the housekeeper at about twelve. She often had complaints: she did not like the flowers in the hall, the footmen's uniforms were not pressed, the paintwork on the l
anding was flaking. In her turn the housekeeper had questions to ask about allocating rooms to guests, renewing china and glassware, hiring and firing maids and kitchen girls. Fitz usually came into the morning room at about half past twelve for a glass of sherry before lunch.

  Then Ethel would turn the thumbscrews.

  { III }

  Fitz watched the miners' children queuing up for their lunch--or "dinner," as they called it. Their faces were dirty, their hair was unkempt, and their clothes were ragged, but they looked happy. Children were amazing. These were among the poorest in the land, and their fathers were locked in a bitter dispute, but the children showed no sign of it.

  Every since marrying Bea he had longed for a child. She had miscarried once, and he was terrified she might do so again. Last time she had thrown a tantrum simply because he had canceled their trip to Russia. If she found out that he had made their housekeeper pregnant, her rage would be uncontrollable.

  And the dreadful secret was in the hands of a servant girl.

  He was tortured by worry. It was a terrible punishment for his sin. In other circumstances he might have taken some joy in having a child with Ethel. He could have put mother and baby into a little house in Chelsea and visited them once a week. He felt another stab of regret and longing at the poignancy of that daydream. He did not want to treat Ethel harshly. Her love had been sweet to him: her yearning kisses, her eager touch, the heat of her young passion. Even while he was telling her the bad news, he had wished he could run his hands over her lithe body and feel her kissing his neck in that hungry way that he found so exhilarating. But he had to harden his heart.

  As well as being the most exciting woman he had ever kissed, she was intelligent and well-informed and funny. Her father always talked about current affairs, she had told him. And the housekeeper at Ty Gwyn was entitled to read the earl's newspapers after the butler had finished with them--a below-stairs rule that he had not known about. Ethel asked him unexpected questions that he could not always answer, such as "Who ruled Hungary before the Austrians?" He was going to miss that, he thought sadly.

  But she would not behave the way a discarded mistress was supposed to. Solman had been shaken by his conversation with her. Fitz had asked him: "What does she want?" but Solman did not know. Fitz harbored a dreadful suspicion that Ethel might tell Bea the whole story, just out of some twisted moral desire to let the truth come out. God help me keep her away from my wife, he prayed.

  He was surprised to see the small round form of Perceval Jones, strutting across the lawn in green plus fours and walking boots. "Good morning, my lord," said the mayor, doffing his brown felt hat.

  "Morning, Jones." As chairman of Celtic Minerals Jones was the source of a great deal of Fitz's wealth, but all the same he did not like the man.

  "The news is not good," Jones said.

  "You mean from Vienna? I understand the Austrian emperor is still working on the wording of his ultimatum to Serbia."

  "No, I mean from Ireland. The Ulstermen won't accept home rule, you know. It will make them a minority under a Roman Catholic government. The army is already mutinous."

  Fitz frowned. He did not like to hear talk of mutiny in the British army. He said stiffly: "No matter what the newspapers may say, I don't believe that British officers will disobey the orders of their sovereign government."

  "They already have!" said Jones. "What about the Curragh Mutiny?"

  "No one disobeyed orders."

  "Fifty-seven officers resigned when ordered to march on the Ulster Volunteers. You may not call that mutiny, my lord, but everyone else does."

  Fitz grunted. Jones was unfortunately right. The truth was that English officers would not attack their fellow men in the defense of a mob of Irish Catholics. "Ireland should never have been promised independence," he said.

  "I agree with you there," said Jones. "But I really came to talk to you about this." He indicated the children, seated on benches at trestle tables, eating boiled cod with cabbage. "I wish you'd put an end to it."

  Fitz did not like to be told what to do by his social inferiors. "I don't care to let the children of Aberowen starve, even if it's the fault of their fathers."

  "You're just prolonging the strike."

  The fact that Fitz received a royalty on every ton of coal did not mean, in his view, that he was obliged to take the side of the mine owners against the men. Offended, he said: "The strike is your concern, not mine."

  "You take the money quick enough."

  Fitz was outraged. "I have no more to say to you." He turned away.

  Jones was instantly contrite. "I beg your pardon, my lord, do forgive me--an overhasty remark, most ill-judged, but the matter is extremely tiresome."

  It was hard for Fitz to refuse an apology. He was not mollified, but all the same he turned back and spoke to Jones courteously. "All right, but I shall continue to give the children dinner."

  "You see, my lord, a coal miner may be stubborn on his own account, and suffer a good deal of hardship through foolish pride; but what breaks him, in the end, is to see his children go hungry."

  "You're working the pit anyway."

  "With third-rate foreign labor. Most of the men are not trained miners, and their output is small. Mainly we're using them to maintain the tunnels and keep the horses alive. We're not bringing up much coal."

  "For the life of me I can't think why you evicted those wretched widows from their homes. There were only eight of them, and after all they had lost their husbands in the damn pit."

  "It's a dangerous principle. The house goes with the collier. Once we depart from that, we'll end up as nothing better than slum landlords."

  Perhaps you should not have built slums, then, Fitz thought, but he held his tongue. He did not want to prolong the conversation with this pompous little tyrant. He looked at his watch. It was half past twelve: time for a glass of sherry. "It's no good, Jones," he said. "I shan't fight your battles for you. Good day." He walked briskly to the house.

  Jones was the least of his worries. What was he going to do about Ethel? He had to make sure Bea was not upset. Apart from the danger to the unborn baby, he felt the pregnancy might be a new start for their marriage. The child might bring them together and re-create the warmth and intimacy they had had when they were first together. But that hope would be dashed if Bea learned he had been dallying with the housekeeper. She would be incandescent.

  He was grateful for the cool of the hall, with its flagstones underfoot and hammer-beam ceiling. His father had chosen this feudal decor. The only book Papa had ever read, apart from the Bible, was Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He believed that the even greater British Empire would go the same way unless noblemen fought to preserve its institutions, especially the Royal Navy, the Church of England, and the Conservative Party.

  He was right, Fitz had no doubt.

  A glass of dry sherry was just the thing before lunch. It perked him up and sharpened his appetite. With a pleasant feeling of anticipation, he entered the morning room. There he was horrified to see Ethel talking to Bea. He stopped in the doorway and stared in consternation. What was she saying? Was he too late? "What's going on here?" he said sharply.

  Bea looked at him in surprise and said coolly: "I am discussing pillowcases with my housekeeper. Did you expect something more dramatic?" Her Russian accent rolled the letter r in "dramatic."

  For a moment he did not know what to say. He realized he was staring at his wife and his mistress. The thought of how intimate he had been with both these women was unsettling. "I don't know, I'm sure," he muttered, and he sat down at a writing desk with his back to them.

  The two women carried on with their conversation. It was indeed about pillowcases: how long they lasted, how worn ones could be patched and used by servants, and whether it was best to buy them embroidered or get plain ones and have the housemaids do the embroidery. But Fitz was still shaken. The little tableau, mistress and servant in quiet conversation, remin
ded him of how terrifyingly easy it would be for Ethel to tell Bea the truth. This could not go on. He had to take action.

  He took a sheet of blue crested writing paper from the drawer, dipped a pen in the inkwell, and wrote: "Meet me after lunch." He blotted the note and slipped it into a matching envelope.

  After a couple of minutes, Bea dismissed Ethel. As she was leaving, Fitz spoke without turning his head. "Come here, please, Williams."

  She came to his side. He noticed the light fragrance of scented soap--she had admitted stealing it from Bea. Despite his anger, he was uncomfortably aware of the closeness of her slim, strong thighs under the black silk of the housekeeper's dress. Without looking at her he handed her the envelope. "Send someone to the veterinary surgery in town to get a bottle of these dog pills. They're for kennel cough."

  "Very good, my lord." She went out.

  He would resolve the situation in a couple of hours' time.

  He poured his sherry. He offered a glass to Bea but she declined. The wine warmed his stomach and eased his tension. He sat next to his wife, and she gave him a friendly smile. "How do you feel?" he said.

  "Revolting, in the mornings," she said. "But that passes. I'm fine now."

  His thoughts quickly returned to Ethel. She had him over a barrel. She had said nothing, but implicitly she was threatening to tell Bea everything. It was surprisingly crafty of her. He fretted impotently. He would have liked to settle the matter even sooner than this afternoon.

  They had lunch in the small dining room, sitting at a square-legged oak table that might have come from a medieval monastery. Bea told him she had discovered there were some Russians in Aberowen. "More than a hundred, Nina tells me."

  With an effort, Fitz put Ethel from his mind. "They will be among the strikebreakers brought in by Perceval Jones."