Palace Circle (8 page)

In the summer she made a trip home to Virginia, explaining to her parents that Ivor hadn't been able to accompany her due to his royal duties. For six weeks she spent hours riding the countryside she loved and jumping every high fence in sight. She even spent a weekend in White Sulphur Springs and was amused by Beau persistently introducing her as “ma second cousin, Viscountess Conisborough. Her husband, the viscount, is on real friendly terms with England's king, don't ya know.”

In one of his regular letters to her, Jerome told her he had been ill. “Nothing to worry about,” he wrote. “Just one of those childish ailments that affect adults badly. Is there much talk in Virginia about the ruckus in the Balkans?”

“Hardly any,” she had written back, and, to amuse him, “which isn't surprising when you consider that most Virginians don't know where the Balkans are.”

When she returned to London that autumn, it was to discover that in her absence Sylvia had acted as Ivor's hostess at Cadogan Square.

“And did you make love to her here?” Her rage and pain were so intense she felt she was going to explode. “Did you make love to her in my bed?”

“Hysteria doesn't suit you, Delia.” His voice and eyes were as chilly as the North Sea. “If Gwen had been able to act as my hostess for the very important dinner I gave, then she would have done. As she was indisposed with influenza, Sylvia did so instead. You are making an undignified scene over nothing.”

“Your mistress publicly acts as if my home is hers and you call it nothing?” Her face was sheet white. “Who were your guests? Were Margot and H.H. among them? Was George Curzon?”

He remained frigidly tight-lipped and she whirled away
from him, hurrying blindly from the house, intent on finding comfort in the arms of the one person who never failed her.

Four months later the political crisis had deepened to the point where war with Germany had become a very real possibility. Delia was serenely uncaring for she was happier than she had been for almost three years. She was pregnant.

Ivor was ecstatic, though not so pleased as to stay in London when Sylvia departed for one of her regular trips to Nice.

“He's gone to Monaco,” she said bitterly to Jerome. “It doesn't look as if anything is going to change, does it?”

“No,” he said wryly, her crushing disappointment a knife to his heart.

Six months later the many predictions of war with Germany were fulfilled.

Delia barely saw Ivor for with the outbreak of war there was a banking crisis and, as a member of the Privy Council, he was constantly in meetings. It was Jerome she missed most, though, for within days of war being declared he was off to his home county in order to volunteer with the North Somerset Mounted Infantry.

Morning sickness, coupled with Ivor's long absences, brought her social life almost to a halt. She lunched occasionally with Margot Asquith, who was a great admirer of Sir John French, the leader of the British Expeditionary Force. “With Sir John in command it will be over in six weeks,” Margot said to her cheerfully the day after the Expeditionary Force sailed. “Pray God it is, Delia, for I have four stepsons of military age and two of them are married with children.”

Two weeks later came the shocking news that after engaging the enemy at Mons, Sir John's army had suffered a massive defeat and was in retreat.

“So much for the war being over by Christmas,” Gwen said with rare waspishness. “Thank goodness Ivor is too important to be called up.”

By the end of August there was another huge defeat to come to grips with when Russian troops were routed on the eastern front in a battle at Tannenberg.

Heavily pregnant and unable to bear either the sight of the ever-growing casualty lists or the company of her anxious older friends who had sons of recruitment age, Delia left Cadogan Square for Shibden Hall.

She wrote to Jerome, who was still in Somerset.

Even as she wrote the last words she knew Jerome would not agree. Every letter showed only too plainly how much he was itching to see action.

By the end of September the prime minister had called for another 500,000 men to enlist.

“How long does Winston think it will continue?” Delia asked when Clementine telephoned, only to be told that the first lord of the admiralty's opinion was that it would go on for a very long time.

In the first week of October Ivor drove to Shibden, insisting that as Delia was now only a month or so from giving birth it
was high time she returned to Cadogan Square. “You can't run the risk of going into labor here and having the local doctor attend you,” he said bluntly. “You need to be within reach of your gynecologist. Apart from which,” he said, looking more tired and tense than she had ever seen him, “I have news which I hope you are going to take in your stride.”

Her heart almost ceased to beat as she thought of all the young men they knew who were in France. “Who has been killed?” she asked fearfully. “One of the prime minister's sons? The Denbys’ elder boy?”

“No. It's not that sort of news. I'm sorry for alarming you, Delia.” He poured himself a whiskey and soda. “I have to go to America. Needless to say, it's the very last thing I want to do so close to the baby's birth, but I'm going as a member of the Privy Council and I can't possibly cry off. I'm sorry.”

She waited for a feeling of intense disappointment, but it didn't come. Since she had become pregnant, all lovemaking between them had ceased and he had spent far more time away from her than with her.

“It don't matter,” she said, and for once he didn't criticize her slang. “I will have Gwen with me when the pains start.”

“Well, I wouldn't be with you then anyway,” he said. “Men only get in the way at a time like that. I would have liked to see our son within minutes of his arrival, though.”

His disappointment that he wouldn't be able to do so—unless the baby was very late—was so intense she squeezed his hand comfortingly.

“Don't worry, Ivor. He'll keep.”

He gave her his attractive down-slanting smile and, with an arm around her shoulders, walked her out to the car.

A week later he sailed on the
Mauretania
for New York.

The baby didn't oblige him by being late. Instead it was early.

On October 30, two days before Jerome was due to leave for France, Delia went into labor. While she was still able she made two telephone calls. One to Gwen, the other to Jerome.

Then, slightly apprehensive, she took a warm bath and waited to see what would happen next.

What happened was six hours of torture she was quite sure she would never willingly repeat.

“My goodness, what a lot of complaining over nothing,” said the midwife who had assisted her gynecologist. “Lady Fitzwallender was sixteen hours in labor and not a murmur. And no, Lady Conisborough, you can't hold the baby yet. Nurse still has to bathe and dress her.”

Delia watched with bone-deep joy as her crying daughter— her beautiful, magnificent,
wonderful
daughter—was bathed and dressed.

“Lady Pugh is ever so anxious to see you and to see the baby, my lady,” Ellie said, taking a tissue-wrapped shawl from a nearby drawer. “Since her arrival she hasn't left the house once—and Sir Jerome Bazeljette is here as well. He came about an hour ago.”

“Show Lady Pugh in, Ellie,” Delia said, well aware of the furor there would be if Jerome saw the baby first. “And has Bellingham sent a telegram to his lordship?”

“Yes, my lady. Five minutes ago.”

The nurse took the shawl from Ellie and swaddled the bawling baby as efficiently as if she were a parcel.

Delia held out her arms, her face radiant as the baby was placed in them. “Don't cry, little darling. Don't cry,” she said gently and, as if by magic, the baby ceased and blinked up at her with hazel-green eyes.

“Shall I tell Lady Pugh she may come in now?” Ellie asked.

Delia nodded, not taking her eyes from her daughter's red, wrinkled little face.

When Gwen came in, Delia said with a smile, “It's a little girl, Gwen. Ivor will be disappointed, but I don't care. I've never been so happy in my life. Never, never, never.”

Gwen leaned over her, tenderly moving the shawl a little farther from the baby's face in order to see her better. “Oh,” she breathed reverently, “she's absolutely perfect! What girl's name did you and Ivor decide upon?”

“We didn't decide.” There was wry humor in Delia's voice. “He only ever made plans for a boy. However, I have picked a name. She is to be Petronella. Petronella Gwendolyn. I don't think Ivor will object.”

“No, Delia. I don't think he will.” Gwen was so overcome that the baby was to be named after her that tears misted her eyes. “And next time, when the baby is a boy, Ivor can choose. Oh, dear. I mustn't cry over her, must I? And you must need to sleep now, Delia. Shall I tell Jerome that it is far too soon for a visit and that he must come back in a few days?”

With great effort, Delia tore her attention away from her daughter's face. “No, Gwen. Jerome is leaving for France in two days. Please ask him to come in—though I think it best he does so after you have left. Two visitors at the same time would be too tiring for me.”

It was a fib, but she didn't care. She didn't want Gwen with her when Jerome saw the baby for the first time.

Gwen kissed her on the cheek and left the room. Delia turned to the midwife and nurse. “You must both be famished. If you go downstairs with Ellie, cook will make you a light meal.”

“Thank you, Lady Conisborough,” they said, both more than ready to eat.

Seconds after they had left, Jerome entered, resplendent in his cavalry officer's uniform.

“It's a girl, Jerome,” she said huskily as he crossed to the bed and looked down at the now-sleeping baby. “I'm going to
call her Petronella and she's the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, Jerome. Truly.”

He touched the baby's cheek very gently with the back of his finger. “She's going to have your coloring, Delia,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “There is red in her hair.”

She smiled up at him. “Would you like to hold her?”

He nodded, tenderly taking the sleeping baby from her arms.

When Ellie returned to the room five minutes later he was still holding her—and doing so not only with great competence but with almost fatherly care.

On the day Jerome and his regiment left for France, not even holding Petronella eased Delia's disquiet. Unlike the vast majority of the population she hadn't been euphoric at the outbreak of war. Now, even those who had been were anxious as it became increasingly obvious that the war was going to be a long, drawn-out affair. For Delia it was much worse. With a husband a member of the Privy Council and with one friend married to the prime minister and another to the first lord of the admiralty, she knew too much of the worries felt at the very highest levels to be comforted by the remorselessly upbeat propaganda being pumped out by national newspapers.

“Please, God,” she prayed throughout the day, “please God, don't let Jerome be killed. Don't let him be injured. Please, God.
Please
.”

She was soon beset by another grim anxiety for there were rumors of German submarine activity in the Atlantic.

“They won't attack civilian shipping,” Gwen's husband said confidently. “Such a thing is unthinkable, Delia. Ivor will be home safe and sound within the next couple of weeks.”

Despite his certainty she continued to worry, her only distraction the gossip of her visitors.

“The Queen is visiting as many as four hospitals a day,”
Gwen said, busily knitting a khaki sock as she sat at Delia's bedside. “Seeing such suffering must be a terrible ordeal for her. I remember she was once so overcome when a footman cut his finger that she nearly fainted.”

“The Prince of Wales has been gazetted to the Grenadier Guards,” Clementine said when she visited, delving in her bag for the khaki shirt she was making. “He must look quite odd, for he's only five foot three and the guards are all six foot and over!”

They giggled, but when Delia had tried to imagine the golden-haired prince in a guards uniform, she failed completely.

Clara Digby visited and was appalled to find Delia out of bed and seated in a chair by the window. “Goodness gracious, when doctors decree that a new mother should remain in bed for ten days after giving birth, they mean ten days. And bed means bed, not a chair!”

“I've been in bed for five days, Clara, and I'm bored to tears. What is Cuthie's latest news from the palace? Is it true the King has ordered that no more wine is to be served at mealtimes?”

Clara seated herself and said, “Yes, he's decided that alcohol is not consistent with emergency measures. How deadly dull palace dinners are to be endured without the benefit of wine, I can't think. I don't envisage Ivor enjoying boiled water sweetened with sugar—which is, apparently, what was served yesterday evening—do you? And when do you expect him home?”

Without waiting for an answer, she eased off her pale kid gloves. “He must be exceedingly impatient to see his daughter—and not, I hope, too disappointed about her sex. Cuthbert barely spoke to me for six months after Amelia was born.”

She straightened the seam of her glove. “Has Sylvia been to visit? It will look very odd if she doesn't. I saw her at the Denbys’ a week or so ago—your name was mentioned and the
tips of her claws showed. Muriel Denby put her in her place— as, of course, did I. Why men never see that side of Sylvia is quite beyond me. Young Maurice Denby is quite besotted with her. He's Muriel's youngest and due to leave for France this week.”

Delia let Clara rattle on, wondering, as she always did, just how much of a true friend Clara was. Clementine and Margot sensitively never brought Sylvia's name into the conversation. She was curious just how Sylvia had shown her claws, but she had far too much pride to ask. And Clara's remark about Ivor's reaction to a girl only increased her anxiety as to how deep his disappointment would be.