by John Pearson
“Hazel! For God’s sake, Hazel! What on earth …?”
“Just tell that simpering young slut of yours to keep away from you,” she panted. Her splendid hair had come undone, her eyes were bright with fury. Georgina backed away and began to cry. At this James’s own quick temper flared up dangerously.
“I’ve had enough!” he shouted. “First Father and now you. You don’t seem capable of seeing two people of different sexes without thinking of them in bed together.”
Whilst he was saying this Hazel was struggling to free herself and James, enraged, began shaking her.
“Just let me go,” she muttered.
“Not until you come to your senses and apologise to Georgina for what you’ve said!” he shouted.
“Never!” she shouted back. “Never, never, never!”
Luckily at this point the landing light went on.
“James. Would you mind explaining what is happening? You must have woken the whole household with your noise.”
It was Richard in his dressing gown, a very angry Richard whose appearance brought a touch of sanity to the proceedings.
“Hazel and I were having a slight discussion, Father,” James said sheepishly. “I’m sorry if we woke you.”
“And so you should be. And as for Hazel, what you think you’re doing keeping her up at this time of the night I hesitate to think. Get her to bed at once. You too, Georgina. And not another squeak from any of you. James, we’ll discuss this in the morning.”
Discuss it they did, at great length. And at the end of it a sort of understanding was patched up. Hazel apologised to Georgina and James to Hazel. But apologies were not enough to save the baby. Hazel did her best to persuade everyone that she had strained herself dragging an old trunk from the attic, but clearly it was the shock of that ferocious argument that brought on her bleeding the next afternoon. The doctor tried to save the child, but as he told Richard, Hazel seemed to have no will at all to bear it.
“Perhaps it’s just as well,” Richard said sadly. “I can’t think it would have had much of a life between two parents who detested one another.”
But “detested” was too strong a word after all. Now, at this point of absolute despair, some strange residue of love appeared to reassert itself. Hazel wanted only James to be with her, and he was far more tender than he had been since they were courting.
“What went wrong with us?” she asked a few days after the catastrophe.
He looked at her and smiled. “I think we were both a little immature, but we can start again. At least we’re young enough for that.”
“And there’s India too,” she said. “If you still want me. I quite like the idea of getting away from Eaton Place.”
He laughed gently then and shook his head.
“No, somehow I don’t think that we’ll be getting out to India. Not yet awhile, at any rate. It looks as if Father could be right. The Kaiser’s troops are mobilising as he said they would, and just this morning I got a note from the War Office to hold myself in readiness.”
“For what?” she asked.
“For war.” He smiled and kissed her softly on the cheek. “It looks as though we’ll need each other,” he said gently.
“Oh, James, my love, I’m so afraid,” she said.
1914–18
16. A House at War
Shortly after ten A.M. on the fourth of August, 1914, an all but fatal blow was struck against that prosperous and peaceful world of which Eaton Place was so privileged a part. His Majesty King George the Fifth, attended by two courtiers and a solitary minister of state, issued a royal proclamation against his German cousin in Berlin. Within the hour the Empire had entered the cruellest war in human history.
But, strange to say, that night at 165 there seemed no trace of apprehension in the air. Rather the reverse. Mrs. Bridges had excelled herself. In keeping with the weather she had served ice-cold cucumber soup, superbly poached cold salmon—sent down the day before from Speyside by Sir Geoffrey Dillon—and a delicious summer pudding. At Hudson’s suggestion they drank a fragrant Lafaurie-Peyraguey. (Richard had wanted to taste some Schloss Johannisberg, but, as Hudson rightly pointed out, it was hardly fitting to consume a Rhine wine at a time like this.) Faced with such splendid food, and with all the windows open to a warm summer evening, it was hard for the Bellamys to avoid a certain sense of celebration. Everyone seemed to consider this an occasion to remember, but an occasion of adventure rather than one of doom.
James was in uniform, and although it was all but five years since he last put it on, it fitted perfectly.
“Not bad, eh, Hudson?” he had said as he tried it on before the long glass in his dressing room. “No sign yet of middle-age spread?”
“Indeed no, sir. A perfect fit. What does it feel like to be wearing it again?”
“Wonderful, Hudson. I feel ten years younger.”
And so he looked as he sat opposite Richard at dinner.
“You know what, Father?” he said as he drained his glass. “The sergeant-major at Knightsbridge this afternoon actually remembered me. Chap called Wilkins. Used to be a corporal in my day. As he saluted he said, ‘Glad to have you back, sir’! Pretty good, eh, remembering like that? Makes one feel at home.”
“Did anybody say how long before you go?” asked Hazel brightly. She and her husband had discussed it all quite sensibly and had concluded that after the nightmare of the last ten weeks some sort of change was what they needed. With James so plainly thrilled to be back with his beloved regiment, she was determined she would do her best not to discourage him.
“Oh, nobody will let on. All this security, you know. Keep the Kaiser guessing. But it can’t be long. Off to help little Belgium, I suppose. It ought to be an interesting scrap, then home for Christmas.”
“You think that it will take that long?” asked Prudence. (Tiresome though Richard found her these days, she was James’s godmother, and he had felt it appropriate to ask her round for what might well be James’s last night at home for quite some time.)
James put on an old campaigner’s look before replying, “Well, Aunt Pru, it all depends upon the French. Kitchener says—and I agree with him—that the present British army is the finest in the world, bar none. Thanks to Brother Boer, we’ve had a chance to learn our lessons in South Africa, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t hamstring the German army out in Flanders and then sweep our way along the Rhine. No excuse if we’re not in Berlin by the autumn.”
“Exactly what a general friend of mine was saying just this afternoon,” said Prudence. “Thank God for Kitchener! Don’t you agree, Richard?”
“I’m more inclined to say ‘Thank God for the Royal Navy!’” Richard replied, smiling at James. “And I can’t say I feel too happy fighting a European war under this present lot of Liberals. Asquith’s a drunk, Grey’s a nonentity. Only young Winston seems to have the faintest idea of what it’s all about, and he’s too reckless.”
Prudence was up in arms at once. “Richard, how could you start preaching party politics at such a time? Everybody knows that Kitchener’s a genius.”
“Let’s hope so,” Richard said, still smiling and filling James’s glass.
“And that our brave lads are off to fight for everything that you and I believe in, Richard—”
Richard raised an eyebrow. “Everything? Prudence, come now.”
“Well, everything that matters. I think it’s very wrong of you to talk like that. Especially in front of James.”
James laughed at this. “Come now, Aunt Pru. Surely I’m old enough to take anything that Father says with a hefty pinch of salt. And anyhow, perhaps he’s right. I’m none too keen on any of this present gang of politicians myself. All I know is that, man for man, there’s no one in the world to beat the British Tommy, and that I’m proud to be going into battle with him.”
“You know,” Georgina said, “this afternoon there were crowds outside Buckingham Palace, and they were cheering all the minis
ters as they drove out through the gates. I saw them. It was really quite exciting.”
“There, you see, Richard?” Prudence said. “Not everybody thinks like you.”
Two days later, Captain Bellamy of the Royal Life Guards left for France. Hazel was still trying to be sensible, but once his bags were packed and his military trunk was standing in the hall, her painfully maintained façade of calm and common sense collapsed. She was still far from strong after the miscarriage, so he refused to let her see him off from Waterloo. Instead they said their farewells in the privacy of her own sitting room. As he strode in, resplendent in his polished brass and gleaming leather, it was a different James Bellamy from the unsatisfactory husband she had been fighting against for so many months. She knew all his faults—none better—but when she saw him standing there and knew that he was leaving, she felt her heart turn over with unhappiness.
“Oh, James, my dearest James,” she cried and clung to him. “However will I manage when you’ve gone?”
“Now, now,” he said, lifting her face and slowly stroking back her hair. “You know quite well that you’ll be better off without me—for just a while at least.”
“I won’t,” she sobbed. “I won’t, I won’t.”
“Oh, yes, you will. After the way I’ve treated you. I apologise, my love. I’m truly sorry. When I return, things will be very different.”
“I don’t care what you do, my darling James. Only promise you’ll come back.”
“Oh, I’ll be back all right. No one gets rid of me as easily as that. And, Hazel—”
Her tears had stopped, but she was gazing up at him with a small, worried frown.
“Yes?” she whispered.
“When I do come back, we’ll start again. You understand. No more failures, no more sadnesses.”
She nodded mutely, then burst out, “Oh, James, I wish I hadn’t lost the baby!”
Richard had said that he would be taking James to Waterloo in the Rolls.
“Off to the war in style, eh, Father?” he replied. “I only hope the return journey will be as comfortable.”
After his emotional farewell to Hazel, James found that he was dreading any further scenes, but fortunately there were none as they left the house. Georgina’s eyes were very bright, but she knew how much James detested tearful women and she managed to make him promise to write regularly without disgracing herself by crying.
“Make sure you wrap up warm of nights and always have a good cooked breakfast,” shouted Mrs. Bridges.
“God’s speed, and you can count on all of us to keep the home fires burning, sir,” cried Hudson, as the stately car drew off with Edward at the wheel. For James it was suddenly like going back to school with Father—except that now he was some sort of hero, which he had never been when he went off to Eton.
When they reached Waterloo their farewells were of necessity quite brief. Most of the regiment was already drawn up by the platform, the troop train in, the men at ease but waiting to be off. James was suddenly very much the regular officer as he stepped from the car and shook hands with Richard.
“Goodbye, old boy, take care,” said Richard.
“’Bye, Father. Look after Hazel for me while I’m gone.”
Richard nodded briskly. Already N.C.O.s were bawling out places for the train. A porter was helping Edward with the Captain’s baggage. James, poker-faced, saluted, then strode hurriedly away. Richard took one last look at the tall young officer marching off, very erect, down the long platform: as the Rolls drew away, he found himself wondering if he would ever see him again.
For the next few weeks the story of James’s life was the story of the “contemptible little British Army” that fills the pages of the wartime history books: arrival that same afternoon at Calais, two days at base camp with his men, entrainment on to Amiens, then up to Maubeuge on the Belgian frontier; and there they waited, none too certain when or how the enemy would come, but thoroughly determined to defeat him when he did.
James was extremely busy. As a Sandhurst-trained officer, he was placed second in command of a squadron of eighty-seven men, all of them regulars and some of them wearing the red-and-orange ribbon of the South Africa campaign. From the beginning James was popular. He knew his job, took good care of his men, and at this stage was still so delighted to be suddenly transported from his office in the City that his high spirits quite charmed everyone. He was quartered, along with four other officers, in a deserted farmhouse by a river; his first night there he wrote a letter to Hazel. As letters go, it was short and uninformative to a degree, partly because all mail was censored and partly because he’d had barely six hours’ sleep during the previous seventy-two, but when it arrived at Eaton Place some four days later it brought more happiness than the highest flights of literature. It had no date and no address and was scrawled in pencil on a page torn from a field service pad:
My Dearest Hazel,
I am fine but missing you—and hope you are the same. Everyone here in very best of spirits. A finer bunch of chaps it would be hard to find. Will soon be putting the Boche back where he belongs, then home for Christmas. My love to Father and tell Mrs. Bridges I could do with some of her baked jam roll.
Your loving husband,
James
Even while James was writing this, the grey-clad troops of von Kluck’s First Army were advancing almost unopposed through the flat green countryside of south-west Belgium, and swinging down the coast in a attempt to outflank the whole Allied line. The French army, under Joffre, were on the British right; and even now were wisely getting ready to fall back on their main defence positions on the river Marne. But James, of course, knew none of this—and for that matter, the British general in command, Sir John Denton Pinkstone French, a cavalryman with a red face and an optimistic nature, was equally ignorant. His strategy was one that James endorsed: “to find the enemy then hit him for six.” And in that third, still sunny week of August, Captain James Bellamy and some six thousand other British regulars began to carry out their general’s somewhat sporting orders.
James and his squadron were moving up towards the little town of Mons when he heard the first straggling bursts of rifle fire ahead of him. As he told Richard later, “My first thought was that some of our chaps were trying out a spot of target practice, especially when it stopped as suddenly as it started.” Then, in the lull that afternoon, the rumours started trickling back. It seemed that an advance patrol had fired on a troop of German cavalry. Several of the Germans had been captured and from them somewhat startled intelligence officers began to learn the truth. The British had blundered straight into the path of von Kluck’s advancing army. They were outnumbered three to one. Two days later James and his squadron of Guardsmen found themselves in the very thick of the Battle of Mons.
It is ironic that while this was going on the war’s ill wind was blowing Richard a modicum of good. He was emphatically the master once again at 165, and his life there was no longer plagued with worries about James and Hazel’s marriage. Indeed, after the shocks of her miscarriage and James’s departure Hazel had pulled herself together almost as a patriotic duty. Richard’s tenure of the house was all but guaranteed as well, at least as long as the hostilities persisted. While the war lasted there was no chance at all of James and Hazel going off to India and so closing down the house in Eaton Place. Instead, Richard and the entire household felt it their bounden duty to keep the house functioning as cheerfully as possible for James’s sake. And this, with some efficiency, they did.
“Hudson, I feel we should keep back the last six bottles of the Krug ’98 for Christmas when Captain James returns,” said Richard, and Hudson fully agreed.
Hazel, in her turn, took more trouble than she had for some time in making sure that everything at 165 was kept immaculate; again for James, whose sepia-coloured photograph surveyed the drawing room from a heavy silver frame.
His name was invoked again by Hazel when she suggested that 165 should “do its bit�
�� by taking in eight war refugees from Belgium. Only when she said, “James would expect it of us,” did Richard finally agree (and very much regretted it, although the unhappy Belgians did not stay for long).
Georgina was the only one at 165 who could complain that autumn that the war had caused her hardship. After her time at boarding school she had been looking forward to a year “finishing” in Switzerland. This was impossible now, and a rebellious Georgina had to make do with a finishing school at Queen Anne’s Gate. But once again the war was the ideal excuse. “How can you possibly complain, Georgina,” Richard said, “when you just think what James is having to endure?”
Needless to say, the servants all believed they had an almost sacred duty now to work as hard and conscientiously as possible “to do our bit for Captain James while he is fighting over there,” as Mrs. Bridges put it somewhat fulsomely to Rose. Rose, who since the departure of her under-housemaid was doing almost twice as much work (of course, for no extra pay), wearily agreed. And when Edward mentioned fairly casually to Hudson that it was several years since any of the staff had had a rise, he almost brought the wrath of God about his ears.
“I should have thought it was our privilege as servants, Edward, to have this chance to bear some small self-sacrifice without complaint.” Edward retired, squashed, and every night before they ate, the servants, led by Hudson, prayed that the God of Battles would simultaneously “smite the enemy, protect Captain James, and help us do our duty.”
So, thanks to Hudson, God, and patriotism, Richard could face that first autumn of the war with 165 running more smoothly than it had since Marjorie died. But he was far from happy. Part of the trouble was undoubtedly the absence of a woman from his life. True there was Hazel, but since James had left she kept herself uncomfortably aloof. It was her patriotic duty now to be in love with the departed hero, so there was nothing like the closeness there had been before; and Richard, an uxorious man, needed a warm, sympathetic woman to come home to.