Fall of Giants

He was grateful for the cool of the hall, with its flagstones underfoot and hammer-beam ceiling. His father had chosen this feudal decor. The only book Papa had ever read, apart from the Bible, was Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He believed that the even greater British Empire would go the same way unless noblemen fought to preserve its institutions, especially the Royal Navy, the Church of England, and the Conservative Party.

He was right, Fitz had no doubt.

A glass of dry sherry was just the thing before lunch. It perked him up and sharpened his appetite. With a pleasant feeling of anticipation, he entered the morning room. There he was horrified to see Ethel talking to Bea. He stopped in the doorway and stared in consternation. What was she saying? Was he too late? “What’s going on here?” he said sharply.

Bea looked at him in surprise and said coolly: “I am discussing pillowcases with my housekeeper. Did you expect something more dramatic?” Her Russian accent rolled the letter r in “dramatic.”

For a moment he did not know what to say. He realized he was staring at his wife and his mistress. The thought of how intimate he had been with both these women was unsettling. “I don’t know, I’m sure,” he muttered, and he sat down at a writing desk with his back to them.

The two women carried on with their conversation. It was indeed about pillowcases: how long they lasted, how worn ones could be patched and used by servants, and whether it was best to buy them embroidered or get plain ones and have the housemaids do the embroidery. But Fitz was still shaken. The little tableau, mistress and servant in quiet conversation, reminded him of how terrifyingly easy it would be for Ethel to tell Bea the truth. This could not go on. He had to take action.

He took a sheet of blue crested writing paper from the drawer, dipped a pen in the inkwell, and wrote: “Meet me after lunch.” He blotted the note and slipped it into a matching envelope.

After a couple of minutes, Bea dismissed Ethel. As she was leaving, Fitz spoke without turning his head. “Come here, please, Williams.”

She came to his side. He noticed the light fragrance of scented soap-she had admitted stealing it from Bea. Despite his anger, he was uncomfortably aware of the closeness of her slim, strong thighs under the black silk of the housekeeper’s dress. Without looking at her he handed her the envelope. “Send someone to the veterinary surgery in town to get a bottle of these dog pills. They’re for kennel cough.”

“Very good, my lord.” She went out.

He would resolve the situation in a couple of hours’ time.

He poured his sherry. He offered a glass to Bea but she declined. The wine warmed his stomach and eased his tension. He sat next to his wife, and she gave him a friendly smile. “How do you feel?” he said.

“Revolting, in the mornings,” she said. “But that passes. I’m fine now.”

His thoughts quickly returned to Ethel. She had him over a barrel. She had said nothing, but implicitly she was threatening to tell Bea everything. It was surprisingly crafty of her. He fretted impotently. He would have liked to settle the matter even sooner than this afternoon.

They had lunch in the small dining room, sitting at a square-legged oak table that might have come from a medieval monastery. Bea told him she had discovered there were some Russians in Aberowen. “More than a hundred, Nina tells me.”

With an effort, Fitz put Ethel from his mind. “They will be among the strikebreakers brought in by Perceval Jones.”

“Apparently they are being ostracized. They can’t get service in the shops and cafés.”

“I must get Reverend Jenkins to preach a sermon on loving your neighbor, even if he is a strikebreaker.”

“Can’t you just order the shopkeepers to serve them?”

Fitz smiled. “No, my dear, not in this country.”

“Well, I feel sorry for them and I would like to do something for them.”

He was pleased. “That’s a kindly impulse. What do you have in mind?”

“I believe there is a Russian Orthodox church in Cardiff. I will get a priest up here to perform a service for them one Sunday.”

Fitz frowned. Bea had converted to the Church of England when they married, but he knew that she hankered for the church of her childhood, and he saw it as a sign that she was unhappy in her adopted country. But he did not want to cross her. “Very well,” he said.

“Then we could give them dinner in the servants’ hall.”

“It’s a nice thought, my dear, but they might be a rough crowd.”

“We’ll feed only those who come to the service. That way we will exclude the Jews and the worst of the troublemakers.”

“Shrewd. Of course, the townspeople may not like you for it.”

“But that is of no concern to me or you.”

He nodded. “Very well. Jones has been complaining that I am supporting the strike by feeding the children. If you entertain the strikebreakers, at least no one can say that we’re taking sides.”

“Thank you,” she said.

The pregnancy had already improved their relationship, Fitz thought.