Fall of Giants

Gus’s mind went back to that surprising conversation in the bar of the Adlon Hotel in Berlin. “He said he was obliged to let me into a secret. But then he didn’t tell me what the secret was.”

“He thought you would be able to guess.”

“I guessed he must be in love with you. And from your reaction when I gave you the letter at Tŷ Gwyn, I could see that his love is returned.” Gus smiled. “If I may say so, he’s a lucky man.”

She nodded, and Gus read something like relief on her face. There must be more to the secret, he realized; that was why she needed to find out how much he knew. He wondered what else they were hiding. Perhaps they were engaged.

They walked on. I understand why he loves you, Gus thought. I could fall for you in a heartbeat.

She surprised him again by suddenly saying: “Have you ever been in love, Mr. Dewar?”

It was an intrusive question, but he answered anyway. “Yes, I have-twice.”

“But no longer.”

He felt an urge to confide in her. “The year the war broke out, I was wicked enough to fall in love with a woman who was already married.”

“Did she love you?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“I asked her to leave her husband for me. That was very wrong of me, and you will be shocked, I know. But she was a better person than I, and she rejected my immoral offer.”

“I’m not so easily shocked. When was the second time?”

“Last year I became engaged to someone in my hometown, Buffalo; but she married someone else.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry. Perhaps I should not have asked. I have revived a painful memory.”

“Extremely painful.”

“Forgive me if I say that makes me feel better. It’s just that you know what sorrow love can bring.”

“Yes, I do.”

“But perhaps there will be peace after all, and my sorrow will soon be over.”

“I very much hope so, Lady Maud,” said Gus.

{IV}

Ethel agonized for days over Fitz’s proposition. As she stood freezing in her backyard, turning the mangle to wring out the washing, she imagined herself in that pretty house in Chelsea, with Lloyd running around the garden watched over by an attentive nurse. “I’ll give you anything you want,” Fitz had said, and she knew it was true. He would put the house in her name. He would take her to Switzerland and the south of France. If she set her mind to it, she could make him give her an annuity so that she would have an income until she died, even if he got bored with her-although she also knew she could make sure he never got bored.

It was shameful and disgusting, she told herself sternly. She would be a woman paid for sex, and what else did the word prostitute mean? She could never invite her parents to her Chelsea hideaway: they would know immediately what it meant.

Did she care about that? Perhaps not, but there were other things. She wanted more from life than comfort. As a millionaire’s mistress she could hardly continue to campaign on behalf of working-class women. Her political life would be over. She would lose touch with Bernie and Mildred, and it would be awkward even to see Maud.

But who was she, to ask for so much from life? She was Ethel Williams, born in a coal miner’s cottage! How could she turn up her nose at a lifetime of ease? You should be so lucky, she told herself, using one of Bernie’s sayings.

And then there was Lloyd. He would have a governess, and later Fitz would pay for him to go to a posh school. He would grow up among the elite and lead a life of privilege. Did Ethel have the right to deny him that?

She was no nearer an answer when she opened the newspapers in the office she shared with Maud and learned of another dramatic offer. On December 12 the German chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, proposed peace talks with the Allies.

Ethel was elated. Peace! Was it really possible? Might Billy come home?

The French premier immediately described the note as a crafty move, and the Russian foreign minister denounced the Germans’ “lying proposals,” but Ethel believed it was the British reaction that would count.

Lloyd George was not making public speeches of any kind, claiming he had a sore throat. In London in December half the population had coughs and colds, but all the same Ethel suspected Lloyd George just wanted time to think. She took that as a good sign. An immediate response would have been a rejection; anything else was hopeful. He was at least considering peace, she thought optimistically.

Meanwhile President Wilson threw America’s weight into the balance on the side of peace. He suggested that as a preliminary to talks all the warring powers state their aims-what they were trying to achieve by fighting.

“That’s embarrassed them,” said Bernie Leckwith that evening. “They’ve forgotten why they started it. They’re fighting now just because they want to win.”

Ethel remembered what Mrs. Dai Ponies had said about the strike: These men-once they get into a fight, all they care about is winning. They won’t give in, whatever the cost. She wondered how a woman prime minister might have reacted to a peace proposal.