Past Caring (18 page)

Stay if you will, go if you must. But do not set terms for staying
which I cannot meet.”

“Thank you for saying that.” I rose a second time. “Let us say
no more for the present. I will consider what to do for the best.”

Asquith also rose. “Consider well, Edwin. But remember—we
have need of such as you.”

“I will.”

Spontaneously, I shook his hand, then left quickly. He had, I
noted, wrenched some decent sentiments from his soul, but this
seemed to require more effort than had once been the case. By his

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lights a good man , he appeared to me to have withered beneath his
load of responsibility, a worthy advocate worn down by advancing
too many dubious arguments in the service of causes he only half-believed in. He had never lied to me, only misrepresented; never
promised, only hoped; never acted, only reacted.

I made my way to the Embankment and walked west beside
mother Thames, in need of its breezes to clear my thoughts. I felt not
outraged by Asquith’s indecision but saddened that he should have
so little grasp on events. Anger was reserved for myself, for having
allowed him to deceive me with his pious hopes, for having thought
there would be some end to his procrastination. Now I knew there
never would be and that Elizabeth and I were waiting upon his instinct for infinite delay. He might have believed my report of Lloyd
George, but I knew now that he would do nothing about it, as he had
himself admitted. Rather he would ignore it—and any other problem—until the moment when a crisis was forced by hands other
than his. Elizabeth and I were in no position to impose a crisis,
which left us only one recourse.

At Battersea Bridge, I turned inland from the river and made
my way home, where I knew that solitude awaited me in which to
decide what to do next. The Prideaux had gone down to Devon for
their annual fortnight with their daughter’s family in Bideford. So
there had been nobody to admit the figure I saw standing by my
door as I came along the street. Drawing closer, my heart leapt at
the realization that it was my beloved Elizabeth. She was clad
soberly in grey, as when once she had come there with a housebrick
concealed in her reticule, gazing about her now quite as anxiously
as she had that day. But, at my approach, she smiled and waved a
gloved hand. I joined her at the door and snatched a kiss.

“This is very forward of you, Mr. Strafford,” she said with a
laugh. “To kiss me in the street.”

“May I not so greet my fiancée?”

“Of course. It was only that . . .”

“We have endeavoured to be cautious in our displays of affection. But I hope such circumspection can now end, Elizabeth. Come
inside and I will explain.”

I showed her into the drawing room and took her cape, explaining the Prideaux’ absence as I went to hang it up. She in turn
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explained her presence on my doorstep, although I had sought no
reason for such a happy manifestation.

“I walked up from Putney this afternoon half-hoping to find
you in. I wondered whether I had given you sound advice yesterday.”

“Don’t doubt it,” I said, returning to the room. “We have
discharged our obligations in exemplary fashion. Would that
others had.”

“Such as the Prime Minister?”

“Such as he indeed.” I sat her down on the sofa next to me. “I
have just returned from seeing him.”

“What happened?”

“I told him of Lloyd George’s proposition and how I thought
the Conference would be undermined by his activities.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that he could not act upon such information , even if he
believed it, which he was inclined not to do because he thought that I
had a vested interest in wrecking the Conference. When I challenged him on the point, he backed down , but not with sufficient
conviction to warrant my reconsidering my next move.”

“Which is?”

“To resign . . . and marry you as soon as possible.”

Elizabeth’s mouth broadened into a smile, then she as suddenly
looked down. “Oh, Edwin , I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. To
marry you is all I want to do, but not at the expense of your career.”

I took her by the hand. “Elizabeth, my career is not worth that
much, especially not in this tainted administration. We have waited
too long as it is and should wait no longer.”

“But . . .”

“No buts, please, my darling. We took oaths of love last
Michaelmas which should now be honoured. I should never have
asked you to indulge in the charade of recent months. And be assured: it was a charade. The day Asquith has long spoken of, when
he is prepared to tolerate the embarrassment of our union , will
never come. He will always advance a plausible reason for its delay.

Now I will save him the trouble. Let him cope with Lloyd George
unaided. Let Lloyd George forward his own grubby schemes with-

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out my assistance or opposition. I will leave them all to it and devote
myself to making you happy.”

“Are you sure?”

“As sure as my love for you.” I drew her to me and kissed her.

“Marry me, Elizabeth.”

“I will, Edwin , I will.”

“The sooner the better now. I will resign tomorrow and apply
for a special licence.”

“If you are to sacrifice high office, I will relinquish what paltry
political career of my own I have. I will resign from the WSPU and
sunder all links with the suffragist movement.”

“I do not require that ofyou.”

“Just as I do not require anything of you, Edwin , except your
love and your hand. But permit me a small sacrifice to stand beside
your far greater one.”

“Very well.”

“What will you do without politics?”

“I will remain an M.P. for a little longer yet and consider my
options. Business, journalism—who knows? Let it all be a grand adventure, starting with our wedding.”

I poured two glasses of sherry, the best libation I could muster,
and we toasted our mutually assured happiness, infecting each
other with a sudden release of nervous gaiety. To know that all the
waiting was at an end was to know that a better, brighter day would
dawn now for both of us. We stood by the window, arm in arm, looking out at the few passers-by, all of them unaware of our joy, then
turned away to look at each other.

“Nobody out there will be able to say that our action is unsuitable for people in our positions because we will have abandoned
those positions to take up far happier ones.”

“Like any good politician , Edwin , you convince me.”

“But unlike many politicians, Elizabeth, you can believe
this one.”

“I will always trust in you.”

We touched glasses and drank again in the summer sun shafting through the new glass of the window, then kissed and returned
to the sofa.

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“A glass of sherry in a house shorn of servants is no way to celebrate our decision ,” I said. “Might you be free for dinner, Miss
Latimer?”

“With my future husband, always, though I am hardly dressed
for the occasion.”

“If I can abandon a conference, cannot you abandon convention
for an evening?”

And, of course, she did. We summoned a cab and proceeded at
once to The Baron for dinner at what had by now become our usual
table. If less gorgeously dressed than usual for such an occasion ,
Elizabeth was certainly more radiant than normal, her eyes forever
on mine as we drank and ate and talked, with a kind of feverish relief, of the rest of our lives together. For once, and, as it seemed, forever, we forgot the Liberal Party and the suffragist movement and
thought only of ourselves. The months of anxiety and suspense were
at an end and, in their wake, came all the pleasure in each other
which we had so long suppressed. The beautiful young woman who
was soon to become my wife shared my delight with all the wholeheartedness I could have hoped for.

Around ten o’clock, we left The Baron and I summoned a cab to
take Elizabeth home to Putney.

“It seems a pity,” I said as the cab drew up, “that our homes lie
apart.”

“I no longer feel that they do,” said Elizabeth.

“Nor I. On such a balmy night, would you like to walk with me
back to what will soon be your home as well as mine? I could drive
you out to Putney in my car.” At this stage, I was merely reluctant
for us to part so soon and so early, as was, I think, Elizabeth. So we
walked slowly and happily, arm in arm, through quiet residential
roads back to Mallard Street. As a chill crept into the night, I put my
arm round Elizabeth’s shoulder, reflecting with slight but pleasur-able dismay that we had hitherto punctiliously avoided such intimate proximity. My beautiful bride-to-be yielded to my caress as we
went and, by the time we arrived at my door, it seemed not so much
intolerable as wonderfully unnecessary for us to part for the night.

We went into the drawing room and I poured a nightcap.

“Thank you for the happiest evening of my life,” Elizabeth
said.

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“And thank you for mine,” I replied. “Just think: it is the first
of many more. There is a sense in which our marriage begins
tonight.”

“I feel that too, Edwin.” I was uncertain how far I had been
speaking metaphorically and Elizabeth’s response did not suggest
she was any clearer on the point. I walked over to hand her a glass,
but instead set it down on a table and took her in my arms.

“Stay with me, Elizabeth.”

“Forever, Edwin.”

“And tonight?”

She paused for a moment to look at me, then spoke. “I am
yours.”

I cradled her in my arms and carried her upstairs to the bedroom, in a progression that seemed the most natural thing in all the
world. There we celebrated in the flesh our marriage of the mind.

For the first time, we were each other’s in the fullest sense, unaware
in our ecstasy that this was not the glorious beginning of our life together but its poignant end.

So it was that, when the rays of morning crept across the room, I
awoke with Elizabeth asleep against me, seeing only bright promise
in the day ahead. I slipped out of bed and made some tea. When I
returned, Elizabeth had donned a dressing gown of mine and was
sitting up in bed, bashful and discomposed, but not unhappy. I sat
down beside her with the tray.

“Without the Prideaux, we must shift for ourselves,” I said.

“Would you care to risk some tea brewed by me?”

“It is as well the Prideaux are not here, Edwin. They would be
scandalized.”

“No doubt, but there is no scandal, my love. All such thoughts
are behind us. By the time the Prideaux get back, we will have fixed
a date for you to become Mrs. Strafford. In all but the formal sense,
you already are.”

Elizabeth took my arm. “Let it be soon.”

“It will be, never fear.”

I now prevailed upon Elizabeth to try some of my tea, but, before she had finished the cup, she began to fret about Mercy, who
was bound to be concerned about her whereabouts. The least censorious of ladies, Mercy would nevertheless be worried, so then we
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hurried, which helped besides to cover some of our embarrassment.

I left Elizabeth to dress and busied myself downstairs.

Soon it was time to go, only Elizabeth’s expressive look conveying that this was a different young girl in grey to the one who had
come to my door the day before.