Fall of Giants

“She’s not a girl of that type or any other type,” Maud said rather frostily. “She’s nothing if not exceptional. You don’t meet two like her in a lifetime.”

Fitz looked away. He knew that was true.

He wondered what the child was like. It must have been one of the dirty-faced toddlers playing on the floor of the chapel. He had probably seen his own son this afternoon. He was strangely moved by the thought. For some reason it made him want to cry.

The car was passing through Trafalgar Square. He told the driver to stop. “I’d better drop in at the office,” he explained to Maud.

He limped into the Old Admiralty Building and up the stairs. His desk was in the diplomatic section, which inhabited Room 45. Sublieutenant Carver, a student of Latin and Greek who had come down from Cambridge to help decode German signals, told him that not many intercepts had come in during the afternoon, as usual, and there was nothing he needed to deal with. However, there was some political news. “Have you heard?” said Carver. “The king has summoned Lloyd George.”

{II}

All the next morning, Ethel told herself she was not going to meet Fitz. How dared he suggest such a thing? For more than two years she had heard nothing from him. Then when they met he had not even asked about Lloyd-his own child! He was the same selfish, thoughtless deceiver as always.

All the same, she had been thrown into a whirl. Fitz had looked at her with his intense green eyes, and asked her questions about her life that made her feel she was important to him-contrary to all the evidence. He was no longer the perfect, godlike man he had once been: his beautiful face was marred by one half-closed eye, and he stooped over his walking stick. But his weakness only made her want to take care of him. She told herself she was a fool. He had all the care money could buy. She would not go to meet him.

At twelve noon she left the premises of The Soldier’s Wife-two small rooms over a print shop, shared with the Independent Labour Party-and caught a bus. Maud was not at the office that morning, which saved Ethel the trouble of inventing an excuse.

It was a long journey by bus and underground train from Aldgate to Victoria, and Ethel arrived at the rendezvous a few minutes after one o’clock. She wondered if Fitz might have grown impatient and left, and the thought made her feel slightly ill; but he was there, wearing a tweed suit as if he were going into the country, and she immediately felt better.

He smiled. “I was afraid you weren’t coming,” he said.

“I don’t know why I did,” she replied. “Why did you ask me?”

“I want to show you something.” He took her arm.

They walked out of the station. Ethel felt foolishly pleased to be arm in arm with Fitz. She wondered at his boldness. He was an easily recognizable figure. What if they ran into one of his friends? She supposed they would pretend not to see one another. In Fitz’s social class, a man who had been married a few years was not expected to be faithful.

They rode a bus a few stops and got off in the raffish suburb of Chelsea, a low-rent neighborhood of artists and writers. Ethel wondered what he wanted her to see. They walked along a street of small villas. Fitz said: “Have you ever watched a debate in Parliament?”

“No,” she said. “But I’d love to.”

“You have to be invited by an M.P. or a peer. Shall I arrange it?”

“Yes, please!”

He looked happy that she had accepted. “I’ll check when there’s going to be something interesting. You might like to see Lloyd George in action.”

“Yes!”

“He is putting his government together today. I should think he will kiss the king’s hand as prime minister tonight.”

Ethel gazed about her thoughtfully. In parts, Chelsea still looked like the country village it had been a hundred years ago. The older buildings were cottages and farmhouses, low-built with large gardens and orchards. There was not much greenery in December, but even so the neighborhood had a pleasant semirural feel. “Politics is a funny business,” she said. “I’ve wanted Lloyd George for prime minister ever since I was old enough to read the newspaper, but now that it’s happened I’m dismayed.”

“Why?”

“He’s the most belligerent senior figure in the government. His appointment might kill off any chance of peace. On the other hand… ”

Fitz looked intrigued. “What?”

“He’s the only man who could agree to peace talks without being crucified by Northcliffe’s bloodthirsty newspapers.”

“That’s a point,” Fitz said, looking worried. “If anyone else did it, the headlines would scream: ‘Fire Asquith-or Balfour, or Bonar Law-and bring in Lloyd George!’ But if they attack Lloyd George there’s no one left.”

“So maybe there is a hope of peace.”

He allowed his tone of voice to become testy. “Why aren’t you hoping for victory, rather than peace?”

“Because that’s how we got into this mess,” she said equably. “What are you going to show me?”