Fall of Giants

“Ah,” she said. “I think I see. It is as if someone said: ‘I’m going to burgle your neighbor, but if you stand back and don’t interfere, I promise not to burn his house down too.’ Is that it?”

Grey warmed up a little. “A good analogy,” he said with a skeletal smile. “I shall use it myself.”

“Thank you,” said Maud. She felt dreadfully disappointed, and she knew it was showing on her face, but she could not help it. She said gloomily: “Unfortunately, this leaves us perilously close to war.”

“I’m afraid it does,” said the foreign secretary.

{V}

Like most parliaments around the world, the British had two chambers. Fitz belonged to the House of Lords, which included the higher aristocracy, the bishops, and the senior judges. The House of Commons was made up of elected representatives known as members of Parliament, or M.P.s. Both chambers met in the Palace of Westminster, a purpose-built Victorian Gothic building with a clock tower. The clock was called Big Ben, although Fitz was fond of pointing out that that was actually the name of the great bell.

As Big Ben struck twelve noon on Wednesday, July 29, Fitz and Walter ordered a prelunch sherry on the terrace beside the smelly river Thames. Fitz looked at the palace with satisfaction, as always: it was extraordinarily large, rich, and solid, like the empire that was ruled from its corridors and chambers. The building looked as if it might last a thousand years-but would the empire survive? Fitz trembled when he thought of the threats to it: rabble-rousing trade unionists, striking coal miners, the kaiser, the Labour Party, the Irish, militant feminists-even his own sister.

However, he did not give utterance to such solemn thoughts, especially as his guest was a foreigner. “This place is like a club,” he said lightheartedly. “It has bars, dining rooms, and a jolly good library; and only the right sort of people are allowed in.” Just then a Labour M.P. walked past with a Liberal peer, and Fitz added: “Although sometimes the riffraff sneak past the doorman.”

Walter was bursting with news. “Have you heard?” he said. “The kaiser has done a complete volte-face.”

Fitz had not heard. “In what way?”

“He says the Serbian reply leaves no further reason for war, and the Austrians must halt at Belgrade.”

Fitz was suspicious of peace plans. His main concern was that Britain should maintain its position as the most powerful nation in the world. He was afraid the Liberal government might let that position slip, out of some foolish belief that all nations were equally sovereign. Sir Edward Grey was fairly sound, but he could be ousted by the left wing of the party-led by Lloyd George, in all likelihood-and then anything could happen.

“Halt at Belgrade,” he said musingly. The capital was on the border: to capture it, the Austrian army would have to venture only a mile inside Serbian territory. The Russians might be persuaded to regard that as a local police action that did not threaten them. “I wonder.”

Fitz did not want war, but there was a part of him that secretly relished the prospect. It would be his chance to prove his courage. His father had won distinction in naval actions, but Fitz had never seen combat. There were certain things one had to do before one could really call oneself a man, and fighting for king and country was among them.

They were approached by a messenger wearing court dress-velvet knee breeches and white silk stockings. “Good afternoon, Earl Fitzherbert,” he said. “Your guests have arrived and gone straight to the dining room, my lord.”

When he had gone Walter said: “Why do you make them dress like that?”

“Tradition,” said Fitz.

They drained their glasses and went inside. The corridor had a thick red carpet and walls with linenfold paneling. They walked to the Peers’ Dining Room. Maud and Aunt Herm were already seated.

This lunch had been Maud’s idea: Walter had never been inside the palace, she said. As Walter bowed, and Maud smiled warmly at him, a stray thought crossed Fitz’s mind: could there be a little tendresse between them? No, it was ridiculous. Maud might do anything, of course, but Walter was much too sensible to contemplate an Anglo-German marriage at this time of tension. Besides, they were like brother and sister.

As they sat down, Maud said: “I was at your baby clinic this morning, Fitz.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Is it my clinic?”

“You pay for it.”

“My recollection is that you told me there ought to be a clinic in the East End for mothers and children who had no man to support them, and I said indeed there should, and the next thing I knew the bills were coming to me.”

“You’re so generous.”

Fitz did not mind. A man in his position had to give to charity, and it was useful to have Maud do all the work. He did not broadcast the fact that most of the mothers were not married and never had been: he did not want his aunt the duchess to be offended.