Past Caring (20 page)

6 Sutler Terrace

Putney.

23rd June 1910

Dear Mr. Strafford,

I write following your visit here this afternoon, since there seems some possibility that you will seek to brazen out your deceit of me. Be clear, then, that I wish never to see you or hear from you again. I am only prevented from invoking some greater sanction against you than this by the knowledge that incidents such as this afternoon’s will only heighten my distress and that of my dear aunt. Do me one small service after all your dissembling: leave me alone.

Yours truly,

Elizabeth Latimer.

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It was appalling. It could not be true, yet it undoubtedly was.

Elizabeth had rejected me, in the coldest and most outright terms,
apparently believing me to be guilty of some vile outrage. I stag-gered into the study, seized some notepaper and wrote a reply.

Elizabeth,

Wherein have I offended?

Edwin.

I sealed the letter and went to post it, already fearing that it
would never be opened. I returned to the house, a cold dread upon
me. There I brewed and drank strong coffee in a bid to confront the
unthinkable in a sober state, gazed blankly out at the slowly stirring
street, numbed now by it all, uncomprehending but no longer disbelieving. What was to be done? I could not go back to Putney, but
elsewhere life held nothing for me. I had but lately abandoned a career, which might have been an anchor of a kind.

This last, I resolved, was one area in which I could act, and action alone assuaged my anguish. I washed and shaved, striving to
keep a grasp on what had, until today, been a life of order and
progress. I donned clean clothes and set off for Downing Street, arriving shortly after nine o’clock. Asquith’s secretary received me
and presented some objections to my seeing the Prime Minister,
but I was not in the mood to be trifled with and he seemed to recognize this.

Asquith was in his study, reading
The Times
. He glanced up
quizzically at my entrance.

“To say that I’m surprised to see you, Strafford, would be to put
it mildly.”

“No doubt, Prime Minister. May I come straight to the point?”

“By all means.”

“I wish to withdraw my resignation.”

“If this is a joke, it’s in damned poor taste.”

“Levity could hardly be further from my thoughts.”

“Good. This newspaper”—he flourished
The Times
—“will
tomorrow report your going as a private decision occasioning dismay and regret to the government. You and I both know that, so far

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from that, it is the only honourable course open to you. So what do
you mean by coming here today speaking of withdrawal?”

“Prime Minister, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Two
days ago, you pleaded with me to stay.”

“Now, I have been given certain information which suggests
you are unfit to be a minister of the Crown , for that matter a
Member of Parliament.”

“What information?”

“It concerns your proposed marriage to Miss Elizabeth
Latimer, for which you have so often proclaimed your eagerness in
past months. How you could deceive the young lady as you have, I
do not know.”

“In what way deceived?”

“Let that remain a matter between you and Miss Latimer. For
her sake, I shall not speak of it. But it will do no good to try to outface the situation.”

Had everyone conspired against me? Was I alone not to know
the act for which I was to be punished?

“Prime Minister, as God is my witness . . .”

“Don’t say any more, Strafford. Just get out.”

“But . . .”

“Go.”

There seemed no point in persisting. I turned to the door.

“One thing, Strafford.” I paused, but did not look back. “Any
application from you for the wardenship of the Chiltern Hundreds
will be sympathetically entertained.”

I left then , the final insult inflicted upon me. I wandered west
through St. James’s Park, bearing with me misery and despair
enough for a dozen men.

So that was it. Strafford had been cast adrift. It came as some kind of consolation to a man who’d also endured a bitter transformation in life, the staples of marriage, parenthood and career swept suddenly from my grasp, that the wealthy and powerful were not immune to such impenetrable workings of fate.

Judging by my own example, I could hardly believe that 114

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Strafford was as innocent as he appeared. Conspiracy or blind nemesis were attractive alternatives to the greater likelihood of some culpability Strafford couldn’t admit, even to himself. Yet, as an historian enticed by mystery, I yearned for something more sinister and as a man who’d inflicted many misfortunes on himself, I was eager to demonstrate that it was possible to attract them undeserved.

Alec returned around dusk and insisted I drag myself away from the Memoir and join him on a visit to some English friends—the Thorpes—who lived in a small quinta of their own on the hilly fringes of Funchal. Reluctantly, I went, but didn’t regret going.

Mrs. Thorpe cooked a fine meal and her husband seemed to know everybody who was somebody on the island. I mentioned Sellick and Thorpe described him as “a good man to have on your side.”

There was an implication he was a worse man to oppose. As a businessman of some repute, it seemed Thorpe ought to know.

On our way home that night, I asked Alec if Thorpe, being a moneyed Englishman, might have been interested in financing the magazine.

“He was a natural candidate, but didn’t fancy the economics of the operation. I tried several like him and it was the same story.

Only Leo was prepared to put up the cash.”

“Fairy godfather to both of us, then?”

“You said it, Martin.”

The next morning, my last, the Manager of Maritimo was giving a press conference and Alec had to be there. I took myself into the garden, where it was warm and quiet and shady under the palm tree. There, in a final session before my flight home, I resumed Strafford’s story.

1910‒1950

I can give no clear account of myself in the days following my rejection by Elizabeth and Asquith’s refusal to let me withdraw
my resignation. I went home, knowing that I could be alone there,
and drank steadily until I was no longer conscious of what had be-fallen me. Oblivion was surely the best state for me at that time.

My family read in the newspapers that I had resigned, then
found they could not contact me. Concern became alarm and, mid-way through the following week, Robert came up to London with
the Prideaux to root me out. He later told me of the scene they found
at Mallard Street and had cause to thank his instinct in not allowing
my mother to accompany them. I was, by then , a drunken and dishevelled wreck of the man they thought they knew.

A doctor was called and I was put to bed, fed by Mrs. Prideaux,
denied alcohol and restored to some degree of normality. When I
was able and when I could bear to, I told Robert what had happened. He expressed astonishment that his talented young brother
should have been brought so low. It was nothing to my own shock at
the speed with which my world had disintegrated. Wisely, Robert
did not indulge my morbidity. As soon as I was up and about, he
took me back to Barrowteign.

There, he and my mother sought to raise my spirits by arranging all manner of diversions during the summer. Even Florence
tried to jolly me along, though to the opposite effect. But I had no
wish to forget Elizabeth or the tragedy of our parting. The pain was
all I was left with to remember our love by. Even when I summoned
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up some good cheer for my mother’s sake, it was a feeble and
ephemeral affair. Although I no longer looked to liquor for consolation

, I remained entrenched in my misery, pacing the Moor
through the long days of summer, finding in that harsh landscape a
determined bleakness to match my own. I wrote several letters to
Elizabeth, hoping against hope for a reply. None came, then the letters began to be returned unopened. At that, I gave up.

One evening in early September, over dinner, my family’s impatience with my melancholia could be contained no longer.

“The Haddows have invited us to dine with them next
Saturday,” my mother announced. “They’re having quite a party
down for the weekend. I said that we’d all go.”

“You’ll have to count me out, Mother,” I said.

“Do you have a prior commitment, dear?”

“No. I’d just rather not go.”

“Haddow keeps a fine table,” said Robert.

“I’m hardly in need of food.”

“It would do you good,” said Florence.

“Your concern is touching, Florence, but I’m sure I’ll survive
without a visit to the Haddows’.”

Robert decided to play the elder brother. “You’ve seen no-one
outside the household since coming down here, Edwin. Couldn’t you
make the effort?”

“I think not.”

“Isn’t that what it comes down to, though?”

“What do you mean?”

“That you’re simply not prepared to make the effort to recover
from what’s happened. We’ve all tried to help you, but sometimes
you don’t seem to want to be helped.”

Mother was alarmed by this sudden note of fraternal friction.

“That’s going too far, Robert.”

“No, no, Mother,” I said. “If that’s what Robert feels, he should
say so. Maybe he’s right. But I’m not able to consign a marriage and
a career to the past without a few regretful backward glances.”

Robert snorted. “You’re still an M.P., remember.”

“For how much longer? I’m clearly a marked man as far as the
leadership is concerned.”

“But why?”

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“Robert, I wish I knew.”

“You were marked the day you decided to marry that woman ,”

Florence put in.

“In what way, Florence?” I struggled to remain calm.

Florence warmed to her theme. “I simply do not understand
how a man in your position can have thought to marry a shameless
Suffragette.”

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
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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.”