The Diplomat's Wife

by Ridpath, Michael

  The Growcotts, affable gentry pushing sixty, I had known since childhood, but I had never met Mr Meeke before. The first thing I noticed was how dark he was: black hair, black eyebrows, deep brown eyes, even his skin was an unseasonable shade of brown. He was about the same height as Hugh, but whereas my brother was broad of shoulder and face, Mr Meeke was slim: narrow face, thin fingers, delicate gestures.

  And charm. Oodles of effortless charm.

  It was quite difficult to charm me in those days, and Mr Meeke didn’t seem to try. We were seated next to each other at dinner. I was curious about a diplomat’s life, a curiosity springing from those hours of conversation with my friend Edwina, and Mr Meeke did not disappoint. He came from a diplomatic family; like Edwina his father had been an ambassador – he’d served in Vienna and Brazil. Mr Meeke’s first posting had been to Prague and, after a couple of years in Whitehall, he was about to head off to the embassy in Paris. He had a couple of weeks’ leave before he went, and he wanted to get in some foxhunting.

  Before I knew it, I had agreed to ride around the estate with him the next morning.

  ‘Do you think the Schutzbund will succeed against Dollfuss?’ I asked him.

  Mr Meeke blinked at the sudden change of subject, a small smile flickering beneath his narrow moustache.

  ‘I think the socialists are falling into a trap,’ he replied. ‘Dollfuss is provoking them so that he can come down hard on them. It will give him an excuse to lock up their leaders and ban the socialist parties.’

  ‘Do you approve of Dollfuss?’

  ‘No. But I don’t approve of the Schutzbund either.’ We spent several minutes discussing the details of Austrian politics, before Lady Growcott ‘rescued’ him. I am sure that’s what she thought she was doing, although it seemed to me that Mr Meeke was interested in my opinions, even if they were gleaned from no more than a careful daily reading of The Times. But perhaps he was just being charming.

  ‘Did you see Bettinson, Hugh?’ Papa asked his son.

  ‘Yes, I did, as a matter of fact,’ Hugh replied. ‘He gave me luncheon at the Carlton last week.’

  Sir Patrick Bettinson was an MP for a constituency in the north of the county.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s offered me a post as his secretary until the FO exam results. And I think he’ll keep me on if I need to retake.’

  ‘Good man, Bettinson,’ said Sir Ivor. ‘You can learn a lot from a fellow like that, Hugh.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Hugh.

  ‘You didn’t take the job?’ I asked. I sounded more horrified than I meant to, but less horrified than I felt.

  Hugh looked at me uncomfortably. ‘Yes. I did.’

  ‘Excellent!’ said Papa. ‘Ivor’s right. You can learn a lot from Bettinson. Do you know Sir Patrick, Mr Meeke?’

  ‘But Sir Patrick is a Conservative!’ I interrupted, before Mr Meeke had a chance to answer.

  ‘And the Conservatives are in power,’ said Mama, glaring at me. ‘Or the National Government is, which is pretty much the same thing.’

  ‘Hugh!’ I beseeched my brother. ‘I know you told me you had changed your mind about politics, but you said you were still a socialist. Bettinson’s a dinosaur. He should be extinct! You can’t possibly work for him.’

  Hugh’s expression of discomfort turned to pain. ‘If I am going to represent my country abroad, I am going to have to represent the government, whatever their political persuasion. Working for Sir Patrick will help that.’

  Something inside me snapped. I profoundly disagreed with Hugh, but it wasn’t that which ignited my anger, or not just that. It wasn’t even that Hugh had betrayed me, although by now I believed he had. It was that my brother had shown himself to be a weaker man than I had always believed him to be. He was a hypocrite, a moral coward. The most important person to me in the world had let me down, and I didn’t like it one bit.

  He was leaving me all alone.

  ‘You are going to throw over all your beliefs, Hugh, just like that?’ I was shouting now. ‘What about me, Hugh? What about me?’

  ‘What about you?’ said Mama sharply. ‘This has nothing to do with you. Behave yourself!’

  ‘All right then, Hugh. What about you?’

  Everyone stared at me. Including Hugh. The others were staring in incredulity, but Hugh understood, and I could see he was ashamed.

  I wanted to scream at him. A voice at the back of my head started to yell, and I wanted to open my mouth to let the sound out. My eyes stung; I could feel the tears coming.

  I couldn’t bear the humiliation of crying at my brother’s betrayal of me.

  ‘I’m sorry, please excuse me,’ I said, pushing my chair back and rushing from the room.

  Five

  I didn’t sleep well, and I was awake when the world outside my bedroom curtains turned from black to grey, although when I drew them, the clouds had all gone and the sun was peeking over the moor.

  I expected I would be the first down to breakfast, but I passed Hugh on his way out, clutching the flat cap he wore when driving.

  ‘Morning, Emma,’ he said with a tentative grin.

  ‘Morning.’ I tried to sound non-committal, but it probably came out sullen.

  ‘I’m off to Okehampton. I’m convinced there’s a problem with the carburettor, but they can’t spot it in London, so I’m going to try Wilkins. If anyone can find it, he can.’

  ‘Right you are,’ I said unenthusiastically. I am interested in a lot of things, but I have never been interested in car engines.

  I kept moving towards the breakfast room, but Hugh stopped me. ‘Ems?’ He grabbed my sleeve. ‘Ems!’

  I turned to him.

  ‘Look. I’m sorry. I really am.’

  I met his eyes. I could tell he was indeed sorry.

  And so he should be.

  I brushed his hand away, and went in to breakfast.

  I was concerned that Mr Meeke wouldn’t appear at the stables, given my behaviour the night before, but he arrived fifteen minutes after me. Jonny the groom got Tallow ready for me, and Merlin for Mr Meeke, and we set off through the woods behind the Hall. It was a glorious morning. No sign of the clouds of the day before, and the clearing skies had brought a light brush of frost. The birds seemed happy: blackbirds, thrushes and robins were yelling their heads off, with a woodpecker somewhere deep in the wood providing a percussion accompaniment.

  ‘Can we go up on the moor, do you think?’ Mr Meeke asked.

  ‘If you like,’ I said. ‘It will be lovely up there this morning.’

  We left the wood and cantered across an open field to a bridle path that would lead us up and on to the open moor. Mr Meeke was graceful on a horse, and Merlin took to him.

  ‘Do you get the chance to hunt much?’ I asked him.

  ‘No. That’s the problem with being a diplomat, and the child of a diplomat. I have spent my entire life in capital cities. It’s why I like to get out when I can, and hunting blows away the cobwebs.’

  ‘You ride well.’

  ‘Thank you. I learned in Vienna when I was a small boy. They know how to ride there.’

  ‘Did you see the Lipizzaners?’

  ‘Many times. And they are more beautiful in the flesh than they look in photographs.’

  ‘Have you ever ridden one?’

  ‘Sadly, no.’

  ‘I’d love to go to Vienna,’ I said.

  ‘You should. Can’t you get your parents to send you? I’m sure I could arrange someone for you to stay with. But then I’m even more sure your mother could.’

  ‘She could if she wanted to,’ I said. Mother knew everyone. She spent at least half her time up in London, often leaving Papa behind at Chaddington.

  ‘I assume it was she who invited you down here?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. Jolly kind of her, really.’

  I glanced at him. Did he realize why she had invited him?

  He smiled at me. ‘I enjoyed meeting your brother
last night. Nice chap. I’m sure he will do very well in the FO.’

  I returned his smile. Of course he realized; Mr Meeke was no fool.

  ‘I’m so sorry I made such a frightful idiot of myself last night,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t thought about it until just now, but Mama will be furious with me for telling you Hugh is a communist. Or was a communist.’

  ‘I doubt your brother will need my help. He seems very capable.’

  ‘Yes, but you should know that when he says he has given up on communism, he really means it. That’s what has got me so upset.’

  ‘But you are still a believer, I take it?’

  I glanced at Mr Meeke to see whether he was teasing me, but he seemed to want to know the answer. So I told him. I told him what I thought about Marx. What I thought about Lenin. How I longed to visit the Soviet Union. How I admired Beatrice Webb and Rosa Luxemburg. How I admired the Austrian Schutzbund. And how I hated our own National Government.

  He listened. He asked me questions. He knew a lot.

  ‘But does it matter to you if Hugh has changed his mind?’ he said. ‘You don’t have to change yours.’

  ‘I know. I know I rely too much on my brother. In fact, he said just the same as you. Hugh has taught me virtually all I know. He has made me who I am, and I’m grateful for it. But now I feel as if he has abandoned me. I know it shouldn’t, but it just makes me angry. So very angry.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mr Meeke. ‘But he’s still your brother. He’ll always be your brother.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, he will. I’m just being silly.’

  ‘No. I can see how important he is to you. You’re not being silly.’

  We climbed the flank of Dartmoor, rising high above where Hugh and I had walked the day before. Eventually, we reached the top. On one side, Dartmoor stretched out bleak and desolate, folds of grass and bog scattered with its famous tors, stacks of stone that had been dumped on the moor by a long-forgotten giant. On the other, we looked out over the hedgerows and wooded valleys of Devon towards Cornwall and Bodmin Moor in the distance. Thin February sunshine brought golden life to the leafless trees and bracken below us.

  ‘See that tor over there?’ I said, pointing to a cluster of rocks about three-quarters of a mile away. ‘I’ll race you.’

  Tallow and Merlin were usually evenly matched, but Mr Meeke urged Merlin ahead of my mare, without using his crop, I was pleased to see. The speed, the countryside beneath me, Tallow’s muscles at full stretch invigorated me as they always did. We zipped past the tor, and I pulled up next to Mr Meeke, whose clever smile had turned into a broad grin.

  ‘God, I love this!’ he said.

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Are you hunting on Thursday?’

  ‘I don’t hunt any more,’ I said. ‘I used to really enjoy it, but I stopped last year.’

  ‘That’s a shame. It would have been fun to ride out together.’

  ‘We can do that anyway,’ I said. ‘Papa would never believe this, but I’ve discovered it’s perfectly possible to enjoy riding a horse without killing a fox at the end of it.’

  ‘But what about the thrill of the chase? You can’t deny that’s real.’

  I did know it was real. ‘It’s true: I do miss the thrill. But I never enjoyed seeing the hounds tearing foxes apart. And one day I realized I couldn’t pretend all that needless bloodshed wasn’t happening.’

  ‘But don’t you think it’s natural? For man to hunt an animal? That’s why it is so exciting; we’ve been doing it for millennia.’

  ‘I think it’s natural to hunt an animal for food. But not for sport. Or it’s natural in the same way it’s natural for men to be cruel, that it’s natural for men to demand the death of a gladiator in the ring. Natural isn’t necessarily right. Is it?’

  I had tried this argument out on a number of people over the previous year. Mostly it only served to irritate them, so I had given up. But I didn’t want to hide my opinion from Mr Meeke, and I was curious how he would react.

  He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘No. It isn’t.’

  We rode on in silence. I was not sure whether I had won my argument, or whether he was just being diplomatic, but he had listened to me.

  It was a long time since I had spoken to a man apart from Hugh who had really listened to me. In fact, Hugh was the only one.

  We left the moor, dropping down towards the Hall, passing Dockenbush Farm and trotting along Dockenbush Lane, a tiny road bordered by high banks and hedges.

  We crested a small hump, two abreast.

  ‘Hello. What’s that?’ said Mr Meeke.

  The lane ducked down and then turned sharp right. A knot of four or five people, one of whom wore a policeman’s uniform, was gathered around a car, the bonnet of which was crumpled into the trunk of a large oak tree right on the bend.

  The car was blue. I recognized the make. A Riley.

  Something was stretched out on the road, something covered by a travel blanket. The travel blanket I had given Hugh for Christmas two months before.

  ‘Oh no. No!’ I cried.

  I jumped off Tallow and ran to the car.

  The policeman, PC Melluish, stood in my way as I rushed towards the body. ‘Now, miss, best not to look.’

  ‘I must see him!’ I shouted.

  ‘No, miss.’

  I kicked PC Melluish hard in the shin and pushed past him.

  I pulled back the rug from Hugh’s face. I will never forget what I saw – it was a mess. His forehead and cheek had been smashed. There was blood, but there was also bone and pinkish stuff, which I realized later was brain matter.

  It was truly horrible. But I’m glad I saw him that last time, in Dockenbush Lane.

  Six

  June 1979, Chaddington Hall

  * * *

  ‘Dockenbush Lane was the back way you made me take coming here?’ Phil asked.

  ‘That’s right. That’s where Hugh died.’

  ‘It’s a shame I never got to meet him.’

  ‘A great shame.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Grams,’ said Phil, reaching over to touch his grandmother’s hand.

  Emma seemed surprised by the gesture, but squeezed Phil’s hand gratefully.

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘They said it was ice on the road. That he skidded.’

  ‘You sound doubtful?’

  ‘There had been a tiny bit of frost on the ground early that morning, but there was none on the road by then. And I couldn’t understand at that point why Hugh had taken Dockenbush Lane. You’ve seen it. It’s not exactly more scenic, it just takes longer than the Tavistock Road.’

  Phil frowned. ‘“Understand at that point”? You mean you understand now?’

  ‘I think so. Come on. Let’s go and see his grave. It’s in the churchyard.’

  They left the bench under the wisteria, and Emma led Phil to a small path at the side of the house that passed some sheds on the way to the church. Emma stumbled and grabbed at Phil’s arm for support.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I seem to be unsteady on my feet these days.’ She clung on to his arm.

  ‘I didn’t realize you were a real communist,’ said Phil. ‘Mum never told me. Does she know?’

  ‘Of course she knows. I think she’s ashamed of me. A loyal Conservative, your mother, always has been. It’s her form of rebellion. Against me.’

  ‘Are you still a communist?’

  ‘No. What with one thing and another, it lost its allure. But I still vote Labour. What about you? Presumably last month was your first election. What did you vote?’

  ‘Conservative,’ Phil said.

  ‘Just like your parents.’ Emma made no attempt to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  Sod you, Phil thought with a flash of irritation. I’ll vote the way I want.

  They passed through a gate in a low wall into a churchyard. Tall oaks guarded the perimeter, throwing most of the yard into shadow, and three or four smaller, twisted dark gr
een yews dotted the uneven ground. The church lurked a few feet away, and another gate at the far side of the yard led out towards the village. One large corner was given over to memorials of varying degrees of ornamentation to Chaddingtons and Breartons.

  ‘Here it is.’ Emma stopped in front of a relatively simple stone.

  * * *

  Hugh Brearton 1911–1934

  ‘I have spread my dreams under your feet’

  * * *

  ‘It’s Yeats,’ Emma said. ‘I chose it.’

  ‘Why was he called Brearton, not Chaddington?’

  ‘We all started off as Brearton – it was my maiden name. Hugh should have become Lord Chaddington eventually.’

  Emma stood staring at the stone.

  Phil noticed a wooden seat a few yards back against the wall of the churchyard and withdrew. Next to Hugh’s grave he saw another for Lord Chaddington, but there seemed to be none for Lady Chaddington. Phil wondered where she was. Was it possible she was still alive? Surely someone would have told him if she was.

  Given what he was coming to know about his family, probably not.

  He watched his grandmother stand straight but perfectly still at the grave of her brother.

  He didn’t yet understand what she was doing. He knew whatever it was was really important for her, and he was pleased that she had decided to share it with him. He was becoming increasingly curious where all this was leading, and happy to go along for the ride.

  The churchyard was peaceful, and Phil was content to wait in the late-afternoon sun peeking beneath the leaves of the oaks. After ten minutes or so, Emma turned and joined him on the bench. Her eyes were dry and her expression thoughtful, rather than miserable.

  ‘Let me tell you about Hugh’s funeral.’