Fall of Giants

Anger flashed in Maud’s eyes but she, too, controlled herself. “We might get the best of both worlds: energetic leadership of the war by Lloyd George as chairman of the War Council, and a statesmanlike prime minister such as Arthur Balfour to negotiate peace if we decide that’s what we want.”

“Hm.” Fitz did not like that idea at all, but Maud had a way of putting things that made it hard to disagree. Fitz changed the subject. “What are you planning to do this afternoon?”

“Aunt Herm and I are going to the East End. We host a soldiers’ wives club. We give them tea and cake-paid for by you, Fitz, for which we thank you-and try to help them with their problems.”

“Such as?”

Aunt Herm answered. “Getting a clean place to live and finding a reliable child minder are the usual ones.”

Fitz was amused. “You surprise me, Aunt. You used to disapprove of Maud’s adventures in the East End.”

“It’s wartime,” Lady Hermia said defiantly. “We must all do what we can.”

On impulse Fitz said: “Perhaps I’ll come with you. It’s good for them to see that earls get shot just as easily as stevedores.”

Maud looked taken aback, but she said: “Well, of course, yes, if you’d like to.”

He could tell she was not keen. No doubt there was a certain amount of left-wing rubbish talked at her club-votes for women and suchlike tosh. However, she could not refuse him, as he paid for the whole thing.

Lunch ended and they went off to get ready. Fitz went to his wife’s dressing room. Bea’s gray-haired maid, Nina, was helping her off with the dress she had worn at lunch. Bea murmured something in Russian, and Nina replied in the same language, which irritated Fitz as it seemed intended to exclude him. He spoke in Russian, hoping they would think he understood everything, and said to the maid: “Leave us alone, please.” She curtsied and went out.

Fitz said: “I haven’t seen Boy today.” He had left the house early this morning. “I must go to the nursery before he’s taken out for his walk.”

“He’s not going out at the moment,” Bea said anxiously. “He’s got a little cough.”

Fitz frowned. “He needs fresh air.”

To his surprise, she suddenly looked tearful. “I’m afraid for him,” she said. “With you and Andrei both risking your lives in the war, Boy may be all I have left.”

Her brother, Andrei, was married but had no children. If Andrei and Fitz died, Boy would be all the family Bea had. It explained why she was overprotective of the child. “All the same, it won’t do him good to be mollycoddled.”

“I don’t know this word,” she said sulkily.

“I think you know what I mean.”

Bea stepped out of her petticoats. Her figure was more voluptuous than it used to be. Fitz watched her untie the ribbons that held up her stockings. He imagined biting the soft flesh of her inner thigh.

She caught his eye. “I’m tired,” she said. “I must sleep for an hour.”

“I could join you.”

“I thought you were going slumming with your sister.”

“I don’t have to.”

“I really need to rest.”

He stood up to go, then changed his mind. He felt angry and rejected. “It’s been a long time since you welcomed me into your bed.”

“I haven’t been counting the days.”

“I have, and it’s weeks, not days.”

“I’m sorry. I feel so worried about everything.” She was close to tears again.

Fitz knew she was fearful for her brother, and he sympathized with her helpless anxiety, but millions of women were going through the same agonies, and the nobility had a duty to be stoical. “I hear you started attending services at the Russian embassy while I was away in France.” There was no Russian Orthodox church in London, but there was a chapel in the embassy.

“Who told you that?”

“Never mind who told me.” It had been Aunt Herm. “Before we married, I asked you to convert to the Church of England, and you did.”

She would not meet his eye. “I didn’t think it would do any harm for me to go to one or two services,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry to have displeased you.”

Fitz was suspicious of foreign clergymen. “Does the priest there tell you it’s a sin to take pleasure in lying with your husband?”

“Of course not! But when you’re away, and I feel so alone, so far away from everything I grew up with… it’s a comfort to me to hear familiar Russian hymns and prayers.”

Fitz felt sorry for her. It must be difficult. He certainly could not contemplate going to live permanently in a foreign country. And he knew, from conversations with other married men, that it was not unusual for a wife to resist her husband’s advances after she had borne a child.

But he hardened his heart. Everyone had to make sacrifices. Bea should be grateful she did not have to run into machine-gun fire. “I think I have done my duty by you,” he said. “When we married, I paid off your family’s debts. I called in experts, Russian and English, to plan the reorganization of the estates.” They had told Andrei to drain swamps to produce more farmland, and prospect for coal and other minerals, but he had never done anything. “It’s not my fault that Andrei wasted every opportunity.”