by A. O'Connor
Lloyd George raised his eyes to heaven as he took a sip of his tea. “Don’t they all? They all want to make a difference these days!”
“Winston is quite taken with her,” said Philip.
“I’m not sure that is an endorsement,” smirked Lloyd George.
The butler knocked and opened the door, announcing, “Lady Lavery.”
Lloyd George stood with Philip and watched as Hazel walked confidently into the room. He immediately realised how this woman had reached the top of London society in a few short years: she oozed charm and beauty.
“Philip!” She greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, before turning her dazzling smile on the Prime Minister.
“Hazel, may I introduce you to –” began Philip.
“I feel introductions are unnecessary – David, I have so looked forward to meeting you,” she said, taking his hand and shaking it warmly. “I just know we are going to be friends.”
“Yes, indeed, madam, the pleasure is all mine, I’m sure,” said Lloyd George, deciding he needed to be on his absolute guard with this woman. She was so disarming, she could be dangerous.
“Please, have a seat, Hazel,” urged Philip.
As she sat down on an armchair opposite them, she spotted one of John’s painting on the wall behind them beside a priceless tapestry.
“I am so glad to have the opportunity to finally meet you!” said Hazel, observing the Prime Minister and realising he was a lot shorter than she had expected. He struck her as having crafty, cunning eyes set in a cheerful good-natured face. She suspected his right hand didn’t know what his left hand was doing most of the time!
“Yes, I’m sorry it has taken this long to meet you,” said Lloyd George, “but I’ve been busy – the Treaty of Versailles, you know.” He wondered if she recognised the touch of sarcasm in his voice.
“Indeed! I am glad you mention it as I was devastated that Ireland was not included at the Treaty. An Irish delegation should have been invited to decide the country’s independence, along with the other countries of Europe. Now we are left with the terrible consequences of decades of mismanagement in Ireland – the Anglo-Irish war.”
Hazel was getting straight down to business.
“Lady Lavery, please –” began Lloyd George.
“Hazel, please call me Hazel,” she urged.
“I have been told that you are passionate about this subject and please be assured the last thing I or the rest of the government want is this war, but we have been put in an impossible situation with these terrorists committing mindless assassinations and murders of our troops.”
“Well, if the troops weren’t there committing their atrocities they wouldn’t be attacked, David. Why not just give the Irish their independence and let history take its natural course?”
Lloyd George shot Philip a look before responding. “My dear Hazel – it is not as simple as you seem to think. Firstly, we cannot just let Ireland sever its ties from the empire as these terrorists are insisting.”
“Why not?” demanded Hazel.
“Because we can’t allow a part of the whole to just cut itself off. It would set a precedent and could mean the end of the British Empire.” He smiled at her to soften his words.
“All empires must eventually come to an end, David – look at the Romans or the Greeks,” said Hazel.
Lloyd George’s smile turned sour. “I would prefer that the British Empire did not meet its demise under my watch! I would not like to go down in history as the Prime Minister who oversaw its dismantling. Then there is the whole Northern problem – the large Protestant population who refuse to join the Catholic South in this quest for independence. We cannot just abandon those friends of ours in the North to an independent southern-controlled country which they vehemently do not want to be part of.”
“But you are fighting against the tide of history,” said Hazel. “You are like King Canute trying to stop the tide when nothing will stop it.”
Lloyd George glanced at Philip and decided the discussion had gone on long enough. Bad enough trying to explain his actions to the leader of the opposition in the House of Commons – he really didn’t need to spend any more time discussing it with an American socialite.
“Look, Hazel,” he smiled warmly at her, “we all want peace in Ireland. Nobody wants this killing and slaughter to continue – we just have to find the right path to achieve that peace.”
“And I hope you understand that you are on the wrong path?”
“I’ve taken on board everything you have said today, and you have made some very valid points.”
“Really? You agree with what I’m saying?”
He nodded compassionately. “We all need to sit back and rethink things.” He stood up. “But it has been an absolute pleasure to meet you, Hazel.”
Hazel stood and took his hands. “I feel as though I’ve made a new friend.”
“I feel the same way,” he said, smiling at her.
After Lloyd George had left, Hazel clasped her hands together. “My goodness, Philip, it seems as if he really has had a change of heart and is ready to change policy.”
“Yes – indeed,” said Philip.
When she arrived back home Hazel was in a euphoric mood, believing she had received an assurance from Lloyd George that he would re-evaluate the situation in Ireland.
In John’s studio she walked up to the portrait he was doing of her and began to inspect it. Although John was an artistic genius, Hazel herself had been an accomplished artist in her youth and considered herself a very able art critic. John often relied on her opinions. As she inspected this latest portrait of her, she examined the face closely. She looked thirty in the portrait. And she knew her husband was not flattering her. She looked thirty in reality as well, a good decade younger than her real age. A number of years before, when she had first arrived in London, she had begun to lie about her age whenever questioned. She liked to think this was not vanity or shallow behaviour. It was more a case of trying to remain current. She had important things to do in life, important people to influence. She had always used her charm and her looks as her main currency, and so she had to ensure that currency stayed in demand. Lying about her age helped achieve that. John had told her once that he would always see her as that young girl he met in France in 1903, seventeen years before. She had only been twenty-three at the time and John had been forty-seven. Hazel had wanted to be an artist at the time and had come to France with her mother, also called Alice, and her sister Dorothy. Her father had died six years before that, leaving the small family devastated by the loss. Alice had been determined the family would not lose their place in society and spent lavishly to ensure that. Both Hazel and Dorothy had been presented as debutantes in Chicago and sent to expensive finishing schools in New York. Both girls were expected to marry into the upper echelons of East Coast society. When Hazel met Ned Trudeau in New York on the social circuit, he certainly fitted the bill. A dashing, handsome Yale-educated doctor from a highly respected New York family, Ned was a sweet boy who fell head over heels in love with her. Hazel had been well used to men falling for her and hadn’t given Ned too much thought, despite her mother’s absolute approval of him.
“You won’t find better than Ned, Hazel. He is everything a girl could want in a husband,” said Alice.
“But I don’t love him, Mama.”
“For goodness’ sake, Hazel. Is there a debutante in America who has actually loved the man she married? She may come to love him, but it’s not that important compared to other things!”
Hazel disagreed with her mother but knew she was only trying to look after her daughter’s future. She found out years later, after her mother died, that the family’s financial situation had been precarious when she was trying to coerce her into a marriage with Ned. Since her father’s death, his estate could not keep up with her mother’s lavish spending. When Alice had sold their beautiful home on Astor Place and the family moved into an apartment at one of the city�
�s best hotels, this was not for convenience, as her mother had claimed at the time, but because they were being forced to downsize by the banks she had begun to borrow extensively from.
Like so many of America’s upper class, the Martyns also spent great swathes of time travelling in Europe. It was on one such trip in 1903 that Hazel had first met John Lavery, in Paris. John had been visiting the artists’ community where she was taking classes. John said it was love at first sight for him. Hazel had never met anybody like John before. He was kind, patient, steady and a most wonderful painter. He was also widowed, twenty-four years her senior and had a young daughter with whom he spent little time as he was so consumed by his work. Hazel immediately felt this was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with and the two began to secretly see each other. He seemed to be able to understand her as nobody had before. He was encouraging of her art and listened to her thoughts, accepting of her. Soon they were madly in love. They kept their relationship clandestine at the beginning and as soon as Hazel told her mother about it, her mother, as expected, saw red.
“He’s older than me!” exclaimed Alice in horror.
“Only by a year!” Hazel knew her defence on this issue was lame.
“He’s twice your age!” Alice shouted as if Hazel could not do maths. “He’s widowed with a young daughter! He’s already been around the block more times than the No. 64 tram!”
“I don’t care about all that, Mama! I really don’t. All I know is that I love him, and I want to marry him.”
“Marry him?” cried Alice in despair. “You could marry anybody you wanted. You’re a beautiful, bright, intelligent girl – have you lost your marbles even contemplating marrying such a man?”
Before Hazel knew what was happening, she found herself on an ocean liner heading to New York. After that she kept up a secret correspondence with John, but she did not stand a chance of stopping her mother getting what she wanted. Alice reacquainted the family with the Trudeaus and, more importantly, Hazel with Ned. Hazel was subtly manipulated and coerced into a courtship. In the end she decided to stop fighting what she decided was obviously her destiny. She had been born and bred to be an East Coast society wife and there was no point in trying to fight it any further. Her heart breaking, her love for John Lavery as strong as ever, she consented to marry Ned Trudeau. Their marriage was the society event of the year and they settled down to live on New York’s Park Avenue.
Within a couple of months Hazel was pregnant. Then, when she was five months pregnant, Ned came home from work at his surgery one day complaining that he was not feeling well and dropped down dead in front of her.
As Hazel stared at her own face on the canvas in John’s studio, she remembered vividly the image of her young, strong, handsome husband lying dead before her. It was a terrible shock to everybody. Out of all the ironies of her life, Hazel thought the biggest was that the young, fit, dashing man her mother thought was ideal had died in front of his pregnant young wife at only twenty-nine years of age. Whereas the much older man who her mother considered totally unsuitable was still alive, in good health, had risen to the top of British society and had even been knighted and made her a ‘Lady’. Hazel had learned never to take anything in life for granted.
Over the breakfast table the next morning, Hazel reached over, took the morning newspaper and opened it.
She saw the headline on the front page: LLOYD GEORGE TO SEND ANOTHER ONE THOUSAND TROOPS TO IRELAND.
“I don’t believe it!” said Hazel.
“What is it?”
“This!” She flung the newspaper across the table at John and began to pace up and down in frustration and anger.
“He lied to me! Lloyd George sat there and said he had no wish to continue this war in Ireland and all the time he had planned to send hundreds of more troops and escalate the conflict. How could he?”
“Well, he is a politician, Hazel.”
“I’ll have him expelled from every drawing room in the city!” Hazel swore in anger.
CHAPTER 8
Eileen Lavery stood outside 5 Cromwell Place looking up at the building. Even though it was her family home, she did not have particularly good memories of the place.
Eileen was John’s daughter from his first marriage. The marriage had not lasted long as Eileen’s mother, Kathleen, had died when she was a toddler. Eileen was now twenty-seven years of age, a woman, a mother. She was not just a wife, but a divorcee who had remarried the previous year. And yet, as she looked up at 5 Cromwell Place, she felt she was regressing to being that lonely young girl again. A girl whose mother had died and whose father had left her care to family friends and boarding schools as he travelled Europe building his reputation as an artist.
She climbed the steps and knocked. A few moments later Gordon answered.
He smiled in welcome and ushered her in.
“Hello, Gordon,” she said taking off her coat and handing it too him. “Is my father home?”
“Yes, he’s in his studio with Lady Lavery. I’ll inform them you are here.”
“No need – I’ll show myself up,” said Eileen as she walked down the hallway towards the sweeping staircase.
Gordon hurried after her. “Please … it might be wise if I announced you as there is a photographer there from Vogue magazine engaged in a photographic session with Lady Lavery.”
Eileen raised her eyes to heaven. “It will be fine, Gordon. I will tell them I insisted on coming up unannounced.”
Gordon nodded and watched her walk on. He always thought her a handsome young woman, dark-eyed with her jet-black hair pulled back in a bun – but her face, which showed great character, was always serious – almost as if a cloud of unhappiness followed her. Although that might just be the memories stirred up when she came back to her childhood home. He knew Eileen had not had one of the happiest of childhoods.
Eileen continued up the stairs to the top of the landing and turned left. She opened the double doors leading into her father’s studio. As ever the sumptuous glamour of the studio hit her. The polished teak floor, the sweeping velvet curtains, the domed glass roof. And the paintings of different celebrities adorning the walls. But the most significant presence was Hazel. Portrait after portrait of her gazed down from the walls. Other paintings of her that were not finished rested on easels or against the walls. And the woman herself was that day poised on a gold-leaf-framed, red-velvet throne as a man with an elaborate-looking camera took her photograph.
In the background, proudly looking on, was her husband.
The camera flashed and a cloud of smoke billowed from it.
“Beautiful!” declared the photographer.
Eileen coughed loudly. “Am I interrupting?”
Hazel looked over and her initial surprise turned to a smile as she got up and walked quickly across the floor with her arms outstretched.
“Eileen!” she said, embracing and kissing her.
“Hello, Hazel,” Eileen said with a smile.
John approached his daughter and kissed her on the cheek. “You should have let us know you were coming, and we would have prepared something special for dinner.”
“No, I’m not staying for dinner. I have to get back to Ann.”
“Oh – did you not bring her?” Hazel said in disappointment.
“No, she has a cold so I thought it best to leave her at home,” said Eileen. Ann was her five-month-old baby.
“Oh, what a pity!” said Hazel. “I would have loved to have seen her before we leave for Ireland.”
“Ireland? You’re going to Ireland?”
“Yes – did we not mention it to you before?”
“Excuse me, ladies,” said John, “but we have to continue with the photographic session – we cannot waste this man’s time or the magazine’s.”
“It’s quite alright! I have all the photographs I need,” said the Vogue photographer as he began to pack away his equipment.
“Are you sure?” asked John.
&
nbsp; “Quite sure. Thank you for what I’m sure will be some excellent photographs.”
John rang the servants’ bell. “Gordon will assist with your equipment.”
Hazel thanked the photographer and then led Eileen over to the couch.
“It’s for Vogue magazine,” she said as they sat down.
“Yes, Gordon did warn me,” said Eileen.
Gordon arrived and John escorted him and the photographer out.
“So, Ireland?” said Eileen. “What for?”
“We are going there officially for your father to paint the Archbishop and some senior political figures. Unofficially, we are going on a fact-finding mission to see this terrible war for ourselves and report back what we see and hear.”
Eileen looked confused. “Report back to whom?”
“Well, to Winston Churchill for starters – and the Prime Minister. I met him recently and, although he seems a little –” Hazel waved her hand in the air, “airy, I believe he can be influenced to our side.”
Eileen looked at her stepmother as if she were mad. “And are you taking Alice?”
“No, no – she will stay.”
“And who’s going to look after her while you’re gallivanting around Ireland?”
“Oh, I have arranged a full itinerary for her in our absence – she won’t be bored!”
“I see …”
John re-entered the studio and came to sit by them.
“Well, I fear I have had a wasted trip here,” Eileen said. “I had intended to invite you all to our place for dinner next week – for you to spend some time with your grandchildren … and to have an opportunity to get to know William better.”
“Oh, dear, what a pity we shall not be here,” said John.
“A pity or a convenience, Papa?” asked Eileen.
“A pity, of course!” said Hazel.
“I wonder!” Eileen addressed her father. “You have made little or no effort to either meet William or your new granddaughter.”
“That’s not true, Eileen!” objected Hazel.