There was a shocked pause, during which we all took in the significance of what she had said. Then I spoke as levelly as I could. “Perhaps you will tell me, Florence, how you came to think of Elizabeth as a Suffragette.”
“Do you deny that she is?”
“Not at all. The point is that I have never told you that she is.”
“It was obvious that there was something amiss with her. I made certain enquiries that …”
“Florence! Be silent!” Robert had spoken with uncharacteristic force and his wife was cowed by it.
“Would you care to explain for her, Robert?”
“Very well. Florence was naturally concerned to put at rest her doubts about Miss Latimer and sought to do so, but, in the process, discovered that they were all too well-founded. She advised me of her findings at once.”
“You never said anything to me about it.”
“Nor me,” said Mother.
“I did not wish to worry you, Mother, and I judged that Edwin would misconstrue my interest, which was throughout in his welfare. I did, however, consult Mr Flowers on the implications of Florence’s intelligence and he undertook to safeguard Edwin’s position as best he could.”
I rose solemnly from the table. “Whatever interests you were serving, Robert, you were actually only satisfying Florence’s spite. Whatever your excuses, it was dishonourable to go behind my back to Flowers, who was without doubt the Chief Whip’s informant. Had you behaved properly, I might today be a happily married man, not the miserable fool you and others have made of me. It seems that every man’s hand is against me, even my brother’s. I will leave now rather than say any more.”
I had reached the door when my mother called me back. I turned to look at her. “Naturally, I exonerate you, Mother. But I cannot stay with others who have deceived me. I shall return to London in the morning.”
And so I went, without a word, before breakfast, driving up the old coach road to London in reckless fury. Nowhere could I be happy. At least in London I could be alone in my misery and nearer to Elizabeth.
Not that that did me much good. I went down to Putney on several occasions in search of her, not to speak to her, but merely in the hope of a fleeting glimpse. I gained not a one and the house appeared to be shut up. Eventually, I nerved myself to enquire of a neighbour, who told me that the Latimers had gone abroad for several months in the interests of Mercy’s health. She did not know where.
There was no more to be done on that front and I could raise no interest on others. I put in a few token appearances at the Commons, but now found proceedings there tiresome. I was constantly berated by the Whips for my erratic attendance and, in mid-October, my constituency party chairman wrote to me enquiring as to my intentions. I replied in short order saying that I would not seek re-election and that, unless an election was called soon, I would take steps to vacate my seat. There was no reply, which seemed to write finis to my political career.
Towards the end of October, my mother came to stay with me and we were swiftly reconciled. She reported that Robert had been so upset by the circumstances of my departure from Barrowteign that his relations with Florence had deteriorated markedly. I was prevailed upon to return at Christmas and seek to heal the breach, but I agreed only for my mother’s sake.
Before then, there were other developments. On November 10, the Constitutional Conference broke down without agreement, though not without rumours reaching even my remote position in the party that there had been mooted, in its latter stages, some form of coalition. This came as no surprise to me in view of what I knew of Lloyd George’s manoeuvrings, frustrated at the last, it seemed, by feeling within the Conservative rank and file. That had been the weakness in his scheme all along and maybe Asquith had been shrewd enough to know that.
At all events, this made an election inevitable to meet the King’s pre-condition for the creation of peers. It was called for early December and, forewarned by my letter in October, the constituency party had a respectable candidate to succeed me in a Londoner who had lost his seat the previous January. In a sense, this came as a merciful release, since it neatly avoided having to give Asquith the satisfaction of my applying for the Chiltern Hundreds. In another sense, it left me farther adrift than ever, for I was no nearer recovering myself than I had been in the summer. The government was returned to office and my part in public life was ended.
I went down to Barrowteign at Christmas and tried to put a brave face on the festivities, but my truce with Robert was an uneasy one and Florence I blatantly avoided. Little Ambrose seemed to enjoy himself and my mother took some comfort from the apparent unity of her family, but it was not for me a season of hope.
The early days of January, 1911, were marked by heavy snow and high winds in Devon. Nevertheless, Twelfth Night celebrations went ahead in Dewford on the evening of January 5 and Robert and Florence attended to represent the family. Not wishing to walk in such weather, Robert drove down to the village. We expected them back by midnight. As it turned out, they never returned. They came back as far as the level crossing where the Teign Valley railway line crossed the estate, but were destined to progress no further.
So far as anybody could ever after establish, their car became stuck by one wheel in a snow-filled pothole between the lines at a time when the blizzard made visibility extremely poor. The crossingkeeper was out rescuing some sheep that were also his responsibility and so there was no-one to assist Robert in freeing the wheel. He would not have been alarmed by this, since he would have known that there were no trains due at such a time. Unhappily, stormy seas had flooded the main line at Dawlish and a much-delayed express train to Plymouth was accordingly re-routed via the Teign Valley. Proceeding faster than may have been prudent in an attempt to make up lost time, the engine driver stood no chance of seeing Robert’s car as he rounded the bend just north of the crossing, braked far too late and carried the car away. Florence, who was still aboard, went with it, whilst Robert, who was presumably working on the wheel at the time, was thrown to one side.
I was called from the house, where I had been sitting gloomily by the fire, and hurried down to the crossing. There was a scene of utter confusion in the darkness and swirling snow, with the driver and crew of the train gathered by the mangled wreck of the car, carried half a mile down the track after the impact. For Florence there was no hope, but Robert we found horribly injured, lying some yards from the crossing, yet still alive. It was obvious, however, that he was not long for this world. He seemed to recognize me, clutched my hand, muttered the name of his son, then died in my arms.
A bitter night it was, with the bitterest moment – that of telling my mother, who had been asleep in bed – still to come. With one son a shadow of his former self, she had now to face the loss of another outright. There seemed no easy way to tell her after we had carried Robert’s body up to the house, leaving others for the moment to extricate Florence from the wreckage. I simply blurted it out and she broke down. The doctor was called to attend to her, whilst I returned to the scene of the accident to assuage with labour my regret for harsh words exchanged which could never now be withdrawn.
A week after the event, we assembled at Dewford Church on a bright day, with the snow melting, to bury Robert and Florence side by side. If my mother was still numb with the shock of the tragedy, I was bemused that another blow should have come from an unexpected quarter to add to those I had already borne.
Yet life had to go on. In particular, Ambrose had to be cared for and this concern was a great aid to my mother’s recovery. As her surviving son, I rallied round as best I could. I had always liked little Ambrose and he me, so I shared with my mother responsibility for him, assisted as we both were by his nanny, who proved to be a tower of strength. Other than with this, I was entirely occupied in management of the estate now that Robert was no longer there to handle such matters. I sold my house in London and settled permanently at Barrowteign, the running of the place keeping me busy and leavin
g me little time to brood. For all that the house was sadder without its master, I was at least usefully engaged in maintaining it.
Society and politics I continued to shun, falling out of touch with national affairs. When the Parliament Act was finally passed in August 1911, ending two years of struggle between the Commons and the Lords, I paid it no heed. I could never be a country gentleman in my brother’s mould, but I could absorb myself in life and work at Barrowteign to some effect. It was as good a therapy as any for one in my condition. As the years slipped by, I did not learn to forget Elizabeth, but at length I adjusted to being without her. I did not succeed in becoming a happy man, but at least I ceased to be an entirely hapless one.
A man forms habits to cope with reality. Deprived of political life, I could at least read about it in the newspapers and did so assiduously. Wryly, over breakfast at Barrowteign, I read how my successor at the Home Office, Churchill, turned the siege of Sidney Street into an exhibition of his own flare for theatricality. Ruefully, I followed his successor in turn, McKenna, in his ever more desperate dealings with the Suffragettes.
As for Elizabeth, I could glean nothing of her, though I scanned the personal and social columns for anything that might tell me how she fared. I was determined to make no more active enquiries and stuck to that, for life at Barrowteign had become sufficient for me. Nevertheless, I was momentarily shaken when I read that a Suffragette had died after throwing herself under the King’s horse at the 1913 Derby, but, as soon as I had established her identity, my mind was at rest again.
The following summer, that rest was lost to me. By a cruel coincidence, it was on the morning of 22 June 1914 – four years to the day after Elizabeth and I celebrated so tenderly our impending wedding – that I read the following announcement in The Times:
The marriage took place at St. Peter’s, Putney, on Saturday, June 20th, between Miss Elizabeth Latimer of Sutler Terrace, Putney and Major Gerald Couchman of Garrard Court, South Kensington, formerly of the Devonshire regiment.
I read the announcement again – then again. What could I do? What was I to say? The words would not rearrange themselves before my eye. They continued, however hard I looked, to shout at me in silent mockery. Elizabeth married was one thing, which appalled but did not surprise me. Elizabeth married to Gerald Couchman was quite another. Two figures from my past had only one connection and that was me. What could this mean?
“What is it, Edwin?” My mother had noticed my dismay from across the breakfast table.
“Nothing.”
She picked up the paper from where I had let it fall and scanned the page. “Oh Edwin,” she said at length. “I see here what it is. It is not nothing and I know how you must feel. But surely you must have expected it sooner or later.”
“Not to that man.”
“I paid his name no attention. Do you know him?”
“As you do. Look again.”
She did so. “Good heavens. Gerald Couchman … surely you … surely we …”
“Yes, Mother. That is my friend Couch, however clearly our hearts say that it cannot be so.”
“But I never knew they were even acquainted.”
“Nor I. Nor were they, I swear, until … until when? That is the question.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that it is a mystery that they should know each other, since I am their only apparent connection. And where there is one mystery may lie the answer to another. I must go to London at once.”
I strode for the door and paused only at my mother’s word. “What will you do in London? What is the point in going there after all this time?”
“To find out what I can.”
Mother could see that it was useless to attempt to stop me. Within the hour, I was ready to go. After a word with our bailiff on what to do in my absence, I was off. After 3½ years of avoiding even a short visit to London because of the indulgence of my emotional and political nostalgia that such a trip would represent, now I was speeding in that direction with no clear plan of action, just a new-found conviction that stoicism was no longer enough, that the sense of injustice that had all along burned within me might not merely be self-perceived.
London was subdued by midsummer heat when I reached it in the late afternoon. I sped past the carts and cabs of sprawling suburbia, leaving dust and shouts in my wake, heading straight for Putney. There, by the church where once I had wept openly for my lost love and where, but two days since, she had married, I halted. I walked slowly down the road to Sutler Terrace and viewed the house. Everything was as I remembered it: the well-tended lawns, the wistaria arch leading to the garden behind, the polished brass knocker on the dark green front door, closed to me forever four years before. I pushed open the gate and walked up the path.
Strangely, I stopped short of the door, pausing for the first time in that day’s headlong rush after truth, unable to think of what I would say if that door were at last opened to me. And whilst I stood there, poised in indecision, a voice addressed me from behind.
“Are you looking for someone?”
It was dear old Mercy speaking and I could tell from her tone that she had not recognized me from the rear. When I turned, a smile dropped from her face.
“I had hoped you would stay away for ever,” she said gravely.
“I would have done M, but for this morning’s announcement in The Times.”
“Why should it have surprised you?”
“Because I did not expect to know the groom as well as the bride.”
“Does that give you a right to try to spoil their happiness?”
“It may do. Where are they now?”
“On their honeymoon. They’ve gone abroad for a month. Don’t ask me where, for I shan’t tell you.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To find out how – and why – they met.”
“Edwin” – it was a triumph of a kind that she should use my Christian name – “it’s nothing to do with you. They met shortly after you … after your wedding was cancelled. Gerald was acquainted with the Lambournes, who introduced him to Elizabeth. He made her happy again. Knowing you was just a remarkable coincidence.”
“Did he mention our time in South Africa together?”
Mercy said nothing, but glared and walked straight past me to the door. I looked after her.
“Well did her?”
“He said as little of you as he could. To have known you was no recommendation. But we did not hold it against him.”
She opened the door and went to enter. A crazy thought came to my mind with which to stop her on the threshold.
“Did he tell you about his actions at Colenso?”
Mercy looked back once, coldly, then closed the door behind her. There was nothing left to do or say. I walked away down the path. It was foolish, I reflected, to cast aspersions on Couch’s war record when what I really wanted to cry out against was that he should have benefited from my rejection. It was incomprehensible, yet incontrovertible.
I drove slowly over Putney Bridge into Fulham, then traced my way to Garrard Court, South Kensington, a large apartment block near Sloane Square. The lift attendant gave me Couch’s number, but warned me that Couch was away “consequent upon his nuptials”. He was right. There was no answer.
So I booked into a nearby hotel and glumly surveyed my plight during a solitary evening in the bar. My impetuous descent upon the capital had achieved nothing. Without confronting Elizabeth – which I could not bear – or Couch, I had no hope of finding out what had drawn them together or whether it was connected with my unexplained disgrace. In the absence of any way forward, I knew that I should abandon the enterprise. But I had only to think of Elizabeth to know that I could never do that.
So, the following morning, I went to Rotherhithe and the insalubrious premises of Mr Palfrey, private enquiries agent, whose services had been called upon by the Metropolitan Police from time to time d
uring my years at the Home Office. I had never seen Palfrey or his place of work before and neither encouraged me to linger longer than was necessary to commission some discreet observation of the Couchmans when they returned to London. Odious and, for that matter, odorous as he undoubtedly was, Palfrey nevertheless had a record that inspired confidence and I left the matter in his clammily capable hands.
I felt vaguely unclean at having to resort to such measures, but anything was preferable to nothing. It was with distaste tingeing my dismay that I drove out of London that morning and headed in the only direction I could go – back to Barrowteign. My mother was relieved to see me again so soon. I told her that I had seen Mercy, learned nothing and proposed to leave it at that. I made no mention of Palfrey.
Knowing that Elizabeth and Couch were not due home until late July, I did not expect to hear from Palfrey until some time during August. As it turned out, I had by then other matters of moment to concern me, as had we all. Five days after my return from London, an Austrian archduke was assassinated in the distant Balkan city of Sarajevo and, during July, a crescendo of ultimata exchanged between the great European powers led us inexorably from that obscure act to the outbreak of a world war.
My involvement in this was accelerated by the fact that I had, ever since leaving South Africa, remained an officer in the regimental reserve. At first, this had been invaluable to a young M.P., for in those days we were unpaid, but I had never seen any reason to sever the link after becoming a salaried minister.
So it was that, on the morning of August 4, when I read in the newspaper that we would be at war with Germany before the day was out unless they undertook not to violate Belgian neutrality in their moves against France, I also received notification from the War Office that the reserve was to mobilize and that I was to report to my regimental barracks in Exeter by noon the following day.
As one who had read the runes during previous weeks, this caused me much less surprise than my mother. But for all her consternation, I knew that, in her hands, Barrowteign and little Ambrose would be safe. By the following morning, when war had been formally declared and I was ready to set off, Mother had found consolation in the prevailing notion that hostilities would be over by Christmas. My own expectations, which I kept to myself, were far less sanguine but even they went nowhere near the ghastly reality of the next four years that drove even Elizabeth far from my thoughts.
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