The Wheel of Fortune (36 page)

Silly Lion.

I can’t conceive. At least I’m sure I can, but I haven’t yet. I tell myself it’s because I’m still so upset about Declan, and that’s true; I am. But Rory was so nice to me when he came back from Ireland, and I’m sure he’ll be less difficult now that Declan’s gone. I wonder what he’ll think when I have the baby. Declan would have hated it but I suspect Rory will be generous. He’s more forgiving and has such an easygoing nature.

Oh, I do hope I conceive soon! Perhaps this time next year I’ll be preparing for the christening. …

Excitement about the war is rising to fever pitch and all we need now, as Robert says sardonically, is a panegyric from Kipling. However Robert takes a bleak view which is quite out of step with all this raging Jingoism. He says he knows death too well to be deceived; he says death often appears brilliantly attired in the theater of life, but once that mesmerizing figure starts to move downstage the gorgeous garments dissolve to reveal the horrors beneath. What a revolting image. I thought Robert had finally set aside that morbid obsession with death, but it would take a morbid mind to imagine that death could ever seem glamorous. It’s war that’s glamorous, not death. It’s death that makes war vile. I know war is vile, of course I do, but nevertheless unlike Robert I do see the glamour of this great European convulsion. It’s jolted everyone out of their ruts, sent a thrill of excitement crackling through all the ranks of society and united our unstable problem-racked country in an electrifying comradeship against the common foe.

However as usual I have Lion to divert me because it now looks as if he’ll be sent to France in the new year and he wants to marry before he goes. (I thought the war would be over by Christmas but it seems everyone’s got bogged down in France. Such a bore.) I told Lion to press for an early wedding day, and to my surprise the Wynter-Hamiltons have now given way. But no doubt they feel that our fighting men have to be humored wherever possible, and certainly everyone’s rushing to the altar at the moment. Even Johnny’s taking advantage of the current rage for the quick marriage, although there’s no obligation on him to rush into uniform; his position at the Foreign Office would exempt him from military service even if military service were compulsory—which it isn’t. However I can see Johnny’s becoming muddled about his position because although he wants to do the Done Thing as usual, he can’t work out what the Done Thing is. Should he resign and enlist? Or should he stay where he is? Robert tells him in no uncertain terms that anyone can enlist but not everyone can do Johnny’s work at the F.O., and that as the Home Front will ultimately be as important as the Front Line, Johnny has an absolute moral duty to stay where he is. That settles it. He stays.

Robert sets Johnny an example, thank God, by deciding from the start to stay at Westminster, and he says he’s determined to stick to that decision no matter how long we’re bogged down in France. Of course being a Member of Parliament is more important than being a Foreign Office clerk, but Robert says the principle is the same: he can be of more service to the nation at home than overseas. And now this truth has just been confirmed by Mr. Asquith himself who has dropped a hint that Robert will be given an Under-Secretaryship at the earliest opportunity. Robert can hardly flout the Prime Minister’s plans for him so there’s nothing he can do now but remain in London—unlike his friend Raymond, who isn’t yet a Member of Parliament and will probably enlist. But perhaps Raymond, like Lion and Edmund, is keen to be a soldier. At least it’ll give him a respite from the legal and political worlds for which he apparently has so little enthusiasm.

“You’re not secretly longing to escape into uniform, are you, Robert?” I say nervously, just to make sure.

“Good God, no,” says Robert. “I wouldn’t want to compete with death when the odds are stacked against me.”

That chills me. It chills him too—but we’re chilled for different reasons. Robert’s chilled because he’s afraid I’ll think him a coward, but I don’t, I just think he’s appallingly rational; I could never doubt Robert’s courage after hearing the details of that fearful climbing accident. No, I’m chilled because he’s implied how badly the war’s going and because he probably has secret information about the current situation in France.

“Asquith’s got us into the war,” says Robert, “and now he thinks all he has to do is let the generals get on with it. But I don’t share Asquith’s touching faith in generals. God knows where it’ll all end.”

I say, “Don’t let’s talk about it anymore.” Honestly, I’d rather not face such pessimism, and Robert, seeing he’s distressed me, falls silent.

I’m not worried about Lion. Lion will bounce in and out of danger with his usual insouciance and regale us all later with amusing stories about how he won the war. But it’s Edmund’s fate that terrifies me—twenty-year-old mild gentle Edmund who loves gardening and whose biggest problem has always been how many rashers of bacon to have for breakfast. Could anyone be less suited to a military life? Yet he says he wants to do his bit to ensure that the Huns are kept out of Oxmoon. Edmund loves Oxmoon. Since he left school he’s been pottering around there, officially helping Bobby on the estate, but I think he spends most of his time growing roses. Bobby and Margaret, who are both so insistent that Lion should be employed in London, are far more lax with Edmund because they accept how unworldly Edmund is, how unsuited to earning a living in a city. How can he ever survive this nightmare waiting for him in France?

I can’t bear to dwell on that so I won’t.

I’ll think of Celia instead. Poor Celia has been staying with us for a few days, and I’ve been drumming up eligible men for her to meet, but alas! I know she hasn’t a hope of suiting them. She’s thirty now and yearns to be married but has never had anyone in love with her. What can it be like to be a virgin of thirty, six feet tall with mousy hair, protuberant eyes and a flat bosom? I think I’d cut my throat and pray for reincarnation in a more tolerable form. How unfair it is that women’s entire lives depend on their physical appearance! I honestly do feel very sorry for Celia, and so although she drives me to distraction with her boring conversation, I make every effort to be nice to her.

Robert just treats her as an imbecile, of course, but then Robert would. It’s men like Robert who make life hell for women like Celia.

Anyway poor Celia’s rather a strain, and then on top of that I now have a fearful servant problem because perfect Bennett, butler and
valet par excellence,
has regretfully decided that it’s his patriotic duty to enlist. Really, it’s small wonder I’m not pregnant. I’ve got much too much on my mind.

Lion looks gorgeous in his uniform. He says he adored his training camp and can’t wait to get to France. Poor Daphne looks up at him with shining eyes. Can it really be two weeks since they were married? It seems like yesterday. Johnny marries Blanche tomorrow at St. James’s Piccadilly, and Robert, who’s to be the best man, has taken him out tonight to celebrate his last evening as a bachelor. Not that Johnny’s interested in getting drunk and having a good time; he’ll go home early and be tucked up in bed by midnight.

But Robert will come home and I’ll seduce him. Oh, how I wish I could get this baby started. …

Christmas at Oxmoon. Bobby and Margaret utter not one word of reproach that we haven’t visited them since our wedding a year ago, but I talk too much out of guilt about how frantically busy we’ve been. Margaret asks me in private if all’s well, and I say yes, simply divine and I’m trying to have a baby. I shouldn’t have mentioned the baby before it’s been conceived—not the Done Thing—but I had to find some way of convincing her that Robert and I are in the seventh heaven of marital bliss.

Margaret says, “That’s nice, dear; I’m so glad” and rearranges her mourning brooches into an octagon.

Robert seems closer to his mother than ever, and now I notice that his feelings go beyond mere filial respect. Neither of them shows emotion to the other; they’re much too English for that, but in a crowded room he seeks her out as if she’s the only person worth talking to, and in his company she seems to relax her grip on that relentless air of refinement and become blunter, pithier and wittier. She doesn’t quite slip back into her Staffordshire accent, which I can dimly remember, but I can now look at her and see that tough energetic forthright little girl in her teens who looked after me so conscientiously during my earliest years long ago.

To my horror I find that I’m jealous of her close alliance with Robert. He treats her as an equal. He treats her as if she’s capable of balancing a checkbook. He treats her as a friend.

I don’t get treated as a friend anymore. That thrilling campaign at Pwlldu was just a romantic interlude. I’ve now been permanently converted into an object labeled
WIFE
, and I hate it, I hate being treated as if I’m an inferior being incapable of understanding a subject like politics. I know much more about politics now and I would certainly vote sensibly if I were given the chance. … Heavens, I’m beginning to sound like a suffragette! I must stop before I succumb to the urge to chain myself to the nearest railing.

The truth is it’s no good grumbling about Robert. He has his tiresome side, just as we all do, and I’ve no choice but to resign myself to it until we can embark on our joint venture, parenthood. Once I’m pregnant matters are bound to improve because of course the baby will draw us together.

Or will it?

Yes, of course the baby will draw us together. I was feeling drenched in pessimism when I wrote that last sentence because the most ghastly things have been happening in France. But I won’t think of them. Robert’s become convinced that the country can’t continue in wartime with a one-party government, and he talks privately of coalition and reorganization. I now actively enjoy Robert’s reports from Westminster not only because I’m becoming increasingly interested in politics but because it stops me thinking about what might be happening in France.

Lion’s left now and Edmund’s also due to leave soon. They’re in different regiments, which I think is a good thing because one hears frightful stories of multiple fraternal casualties sustained during a single offensive.

London seems full of men in uniform now and the whole atmosphere of the city has changed. People say the tough new liquor laws are at the bottom of the new sobriety, but it’s not as simple as that. Everyone I know is still drinking like a fish—more so than ever, in fact, and the social life goes on at a hysterical pace as if to compensate for the abnormal times we live in, but London is darker, mentally darker; mentally London is now gun-metal-gray, and the symbol of this bleakness is DORA, the Defence of the Realm Acts, which give the government dictatorial powers to keep us all in order. Nobody talks about “Business As Usual” now. The talk is all of DORA and the servant crisis and whether so-and-so really is a Swiss and not a German who ought to be locked up.

But perhaps London seems so bleak to me because today I had the most depressing consultation with a gynecologist who told me I may have damaged myself by indulging in what Mrs. Sanger has described so neatly as “birth control.” It’s the only explanation he can offer for my failure to conceive. I hated him, although I’m not sure why. I hated him for being the bearer of gloomy tidings but perhaps there was another reason too for my deep antipathy. He made me feel like an imbecile. He was Robert in a different guise.

Damn it, why shouldn’t a woman practice birth control if she wants? It’s her body and no man has the right to dictate to her what she should do with it.

Oh, I feel so angry sometimes, so
angry …

“Ginevra!”

“Julie? Is it—can it be Julie?”

It was indeed Julie Harrington, who had been at boarding school with my old friend Gwen de Bracy. Gwen and I had for some years shared a governess with Angela Stourham, but at the age of fourteen Gwen had been sent to finish her education at Eastbourne and later Julie, her new friend, had spent more than one holiday with her at Penhale Manor.

“Ginevra, it’s been years! How are you?”

“My dear, quite overcome that we should bump into each other like this in the middle of Piccadilly—do you have time to pop into the divine Ritz for a cup of coffee?”

Julie is thirty-four, a few months younger than I am, but unlike me she’s not married and she has a job. Why, I ask her (I know she doesn’t have to work for a living). She says she does it because she likes it. She has a good job. She’s not just an office clerk working for a pittance. She’s an editor on that dreary magazine
A Woman’s Place
which instructs its readers how to embroider tablecloths, but Julie’s trying to broaden the magazine’s outlook by including articles on modern life. It sounds interesting.
She’s
interesting. I’m so puzzled about why she’s never married (obviously she must have had her chances) that in the end I ask her directly. She says she’s never fancied it. How peculiar. Can she be a Lesbian, I wonder? How exciting! I’ve never met a Lesbian before and have always longed to find out what they actually
do.

Julie lives
all alone
in a little flat in Bloomsbury and
she has a checkbook.
I saw it when she opened her smart leather handbag. (How did we all manage without handbags a few years ago?) Naturally I suspect her of being a suffragette but somehow I can’t quite see her attempting to strip Mr. Asquith naked on a golf course. She’s far too busy enjoying her independent life.

I wouldn’t like a life like that, of course, but I admire her for having the courage to live it, and we get on very well—so well that finally I tell her what a beastly visit I’ve had to the gynecologist and how horrid doctors can be to women sometimes.

“Why not go to a doctor who’s a woman?” says Julie carelessly. “I do.”

A woman doctor! Heavens, how daring. But I like the idea, and when I tell Julie so, we arrange to meet again. I won’t tell Robert, though. He’d just say women are temperamentally unsuited for the upper reaches of the medical profession, and besides … I don’t think he’d care at all for Julie Harrington.