Past Caring (27 page)

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me less than she would worry about me if I remained, coughing my
days away, at home.

And so it was agreed. On Wednesday morning, I telephoned
Downing Street to accept. The same day that the Prime Minister
and his entourage set off for Paris, I received a formal offer from
the Foreign Office and accepted by return. My mother reconciled
herself to my departure by looking forward to holidays on Madeira
with her son the Consul, whilst Ambrose occupied his days before
the start of term at Marlborough in poring over atlases and ency-clopaedias, rendering himself better informed about Madeira than
its Consul Designate.

At the end of January, my mother accompanied me to
Southampton to see me off on the ship to Lisbon. I was sorry to leave
her but glad, in another way, to be going. This was the clean break I
had promised myself. As the ship slipped out of the grey Solent that
cold afternoon , I bade farewell to my past as well as my home.

Elizabeth had been right: to leave well alone and seek a peaceful future was all that remained to me.

It was, of course, exactly what Lloyd George had said it was not: a
sinecure. Aside from dealing with some slight unpleasantness when
a group of dissidents exiled from the mainland seized control (or
thought they had) in 1931, His Majesty’s Consul on Madeira had
few duties and those he did have were far from taxing.

Madeira, I soon discovered, was a Portuguese possession in formal respects but a British colony in many others. There was a gov-ernor and a garrison in Funchal, the capital, with whom I had to
ensure good relations and a substantial Portuguese population
about whom I could be largely indifferent. More significant from
my point of view was the sizeable British presence on the island.

Some had come for the climate (as, in a sense, had I), others had
come with the oceanic cable-laying companies and never left. One
family—the Blandys—dominated the production of Madeira’s
eponymous liquor. Others were either in the staple crops of the
island—bananas, sugarcane and, of course, grapes—or simply in
retirement. They lived in varying degrees of luxury in sun-blessed
quintas scattered along the balmy south-eastern coast of the island

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and passed their days drinking tea at Reid’s Hotel or imbibing gin
at the Country Club in Funchal—both virtually British institutions—while discoursing upon the ills of Madeira and the greater
ills of the old country.

As Consul, all I had to do was look after their few administrative requirements—which was easy—and tolerate their assorted
prejudices at a range of social functions—which was not. The compensations for this were several—an airy, agreeable official residence set in the hills overlooking Funchal and the harbour, an
efficient secretary to discharge most of my duties at the Consulate
for me and time aplenty on an island in the sun to rest and relax. I
made friends among the enlightened element of the expatriate community, a few more—after I had mastered the language—among
the Portuguese population and grew to know the island well by my
extensive forays on foot into the hinterland: a lush, luxuriant plot,
sewn by nature, reaped by man. As one of its beneficiaries, I grew to
love it.

Which is not to say that I became happy. Time to wander the
Paúl da Serra—the plateau in the centre of the island that reminded me of Dartmoor—was also time for reflection. My bafflement and sadness were submerged by life on Madeira, but not
drowned. Whenever I touched bottom, they were waiting for me.

Each summer, Mother brought Ambrose out to visit me and we
passed a few happy weeks together. Every year, Mother was a little
frailer and Ambrose a little more of a man. Eventually, Mother was
not equal to the journey and, in 1930, I went home—my only return
visit—for her funeral. Ambrose has been out a couple of times since
then; otherwise I am quite forgotten in my homeland, which is as I
should want it. For the part I played as mediator in the quelling of
the uprising on Madeira in the spring of 1931 I was thanked in a
speech in Parliament by the Foreign Secretary. I wonder how many
M.P.s listening that day realized that the Consul referred to was
formerly one of their number.

One British resident on the island of whom I grew especially
fond was that relishable eccentric, Dr. Michael C. Grabham. I became a regular visitor to him and his wife, Mary, at their home near
Camacha, the village north-east of Funchal which constituted the
centre of the wicker industry. Grabham, who served as doctor for
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the area, had had the good sense to marry a member of the Blandy
family and the charming lack of it to collect clocks on an island
where time meant very little. He had erected a clock tower in the
village and hung it with a bell from his native parish in Lancashire,
which the villagers could happily ignore, and had laid a cricket
pitch on the village green, which they were happy to play on in festival matches against a British exiles’ XI, for whom I played and
later umpired: a far cry from Fenner’s.

When old Grabham died in 1935, he left me a longcase clock
which I had often admired and which now adorns my study. He
also left me with an abiding fondness for Camacha and the valley in
which it is set, full of apple blossom and willow trees, a veritable
Little England free of the associations that the genuine article has
for me. Accordingly, I used a bequest from my mother to purchase
Quinta do Porto Novo, a delightful residence which came onto the
market in that area. This sealed my resolve never to return to
England and I have not once regretted the decision.

My retirement fell due in 1941 but, by then , the Second World
War was in progress. Portugal remained neutral, but diplomatic resources were stretched thin. The Ambassador in Lisbon asked me if
I would stay on for the duration of hostilities and I felt it was the
least that I could do. Generally, the war passed me by, save for letters from Ambrose telling me of his life in uniform. When it was all
over, in the summer of 1945, he came out to stay with me and we
compared our experiences of two very different wars. He also told
me at that time of Barrowteign’s virtual bankruptcy and of his intention to cede it to the National Trust. Even had I been able to bale
him out—which I was not—I think I would still have seen the proposal as a fitting one.

My successor as Consul did not arrive until March 1946, one
month short of my seventieth birthday. After 27 years, I was happy
to relinquish the post and retire to Quinta do Porto Novo. Since first
espying the place on visits to the Grabhams, I had seen it as an ideal
venue for my declining years, to be spent overseeing nothing more
arduous than the wine cellar, the kitchen garden and a small apple
orchard to remind me of England.

Negligible as my Consular duties were, they gave me the habit
of attending a desk, which I could not wholly abandon. Accord-

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ingly, I conceived the idea of compiling this chronicle of a life unfulfilled to occupy the days when rain fell on the fertile Porto Novo
valley. Strangely, however, when it came to the point, I was reluctant
to set it down on paper, feeling that nothing would be served by such
an exercise, certainly not my own peace of mind. So the idea lay fal-low, though only, as it turned out, awaiting its moment.

His Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Winston Churchill,
chose to mark New Year 1950—the start of this brave new decade—

by holidaying on Madeira. I was not among the eager throng at the
harbour the morning his ship docked, though I had been offered a
place in the official reception party. Instead, I kept myself to myself in
Camacha. I received an invitation to take tea with him at Reid’s
Hotel, where he was staying, and deemed it churlish to refuse.

I found Churchill on the balcony at Reid’s, enjoying the shade
from the afternoon sun. He was gazing out across the harbour, with
palm trees waving sleepily in the hotel garden beneath, a panama
hat and some papers on the table before him and a large cigar
clamped in his mouth. The scene was a soporific one, but when
Churchill turned his eye upon me, I knew that he was still the same
sharp-brained Winston that I had always known. He had plumbed
the depths since last we had met—dismissed between the wars as a
Germanophobe—and climbed the heights—Prime Minister and
saviour of his country during the war—but looked that day at
Reid’s a happy, contented old man , smiling at some secret joke.

“Edwin , sit down,” he said. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am
to see you. It’s been so long . . .”

“More than thirty years,” I said, seating myself opposite
him and wondering if he recalled the exact circumstances of our
last meeting. Waiters bustled round to serve tea now that I had
arrived.

“Clemmie’s exploring the town, which will spare her our chin-wag about old times. You’re looking well, I must say—Madeira’s
been good for you.”

“Madeira’s good for everyone, especially an underworked,
overpaid British Consul. You’re looking pretty fit yourself—how’s
leadership?”

“Between you and me, pretty deadly in opposition. I’m longing
for an election so I can get back to Downing Street.”

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“It’s where you belong. We had our differences at times,
Winston , but let me say this as somebody who stayed in his quiet
burrow during the war—you did a damn good job. The country
owes you Downing Street.”

“Thank you, Edwin , it’s kind of you to say so.”

“But I must confess to one reservation.”

“I know it—the fact that they’ve made an old Tory of me!”

“Well, it takes a bit of swallowing. I remember when you
stopped being a young Tory.”

“Time rings in its changes, you know. I hadn’t reckoned on one
irony right here, though. They’ve put us in the suite L.G. once used.”

“Yes, they would. He came with his wife in . . . oh, it must be
1925.”

“You heard he married Miss Stevenson eventually—when he
was eighty?”

The comment struck a chord in my mind. Lloyd George, the old
charlatan , had truly had his cake and eaten it too—Prime Minister
and belted earl before his death, he had survived countless divorce
scandals and lived to marry the secretary with whom he had betrayed his wife. I, who had wished nothing more than to marry the
lady of my choice, both of us being free to do so, was allowed neither
political career nor wedded bliss. Such was my punishment for
wanting success and happiness. When Lloyd George, Churchill and
I sat together in Asquith’s Cabinet forty years ago, who could have
guessed that they were marked out for fame and honour whilst I
was destined for the most resounding failure.

It was too late to begrudge Churchill any of his achievement or
my lack of it. He might have detected by a flicker of my eye that his
mention of Lloyd George and Frances Stevenson was indelicate in
view of my own circumstances, but he could be forgiven for having
forgotten them. There was plenty of harmless talk for us to indulge
in: his anecdotes of the mighty at war in the world, mine of the petty
at peace on Madeira, our shared remembrance of the lost
Edwardian age. He told me of his plans to go painting down the
coast at Camara de Lobos. I invited him and Clementine to dine
with me at Quinta do Porto Novo before they left and he accepted.

In fact, the dinner engagement was never kept. News came from
England that Attlee had dissolved Parliament. The election for

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