Death Sits Down to Dinner Page 2

  “What I can’t begin to understand is Churchill’s determination to thrust himself forward and rush off to join a scene which was already verging on the edge of violent disaster. It was an action most unsuited to his position. Dispatching the Scots Guards from the Tower of London should have been enough. But his appalling display of eagerness to personally direct their efforts in storming that shabby little house was undignified.” Like most men of his background, Lord Montfort despised public displays of enthusiasm, he thought them vulgar and demeaning. “And he used field artillery, for God’s sake!”

  He stared ferociously into the flames leaping in the fireplace and Clementine knew he was not quite finished.

  “Of course the house caught fire and the fire brigade was called. And what did the ridiculous man do?” He gave his wife a look of outrage, as if she had been responsible for egging on Churchill’s childish behavior, and she sighed.

  “He refused to allow the firemen to put out the fire! What could he have been thinking? When the house was a smoking wreck, two pathetic bodies were found charred beyond recognition and the rest of the gang had miraculously escaped. All of this watched by a growing crowd of Londoners and the newspapers. I am not surprised public and official outcry was tremendous.”

  Clementine knew her husband would never forgive or forget the incident, as it served as an indication of Churchill’s true character.

  “I’ll never forget the sheer arrogance of Churchill’s self-justification after the Sidney Street debacle or forgive his outrageous encouragement of brute force and violence. What did he say when pressed for a reason for this deplorable display? That he thought it ‘better to let the house burn to the ground than risk good British lives in rescuing rascals.’ And then a year later the blighter is made First Lord of the Admiralty—unforgivable!”

  He shot his wife a look confirming that his usual good humor had left him hours ago.

  “However much I am devoted to Hermione Kingsley and her selfless efforts on behalf of her charity, I simply can’t imagine why she would have to court a friendship with someone as detestable as Churchill. I find him to be a pugnacious and wholly obnoxious bore, he monopolizes all conversation. The thought of an evening celebrating his birthday makes me want to hop on a train for Iyntwood and give my guns a thoroughly good cleaning.” He caught her eye and laughed, and to her relief he shook his head. “Yes, I know, I know … the man somehow manages to bring out the worst…”

  “Yes, it’s rather unfortunate. I had hoped that everyone else would provide a buffer. I’m sorry, darling, but you simply must—”

  “Get a grip. Yes, I know I must, and I will. Of course I will. But I am not happy about it. Feel I’ve been put on the spot.”

  She turned back to her dressing table and picked up her gloves and evening bag, as a signal that it was time for them to go.

  “Aaron Greenberg is lovely company, and so is Henry Wentworth in his own way.”

  “Yes, you are right, Clemmy, but neither of them is as dynamic and witty as Churchill. So they won’t get a word in all blasted evening.”

  Clementine sought a distraction; it wouldn’t do for him to keep on in this vein.

  “Olive told me this afternoon that Lady Ryderwood is to sing a duet with Nellie Melba at Hermione’s charity event next week; such an honor for her. Melba only sings privately for royalty now and is celebrated across the world—her season in America was a colossal success. And Olive says her temper is even more terrifying now that she is famous and she still absolutely refuses to sing at Covent Garden. How long has her feud with Sir Thom been going on for now? Is it two years since he told her she was ‘uninterestingly perfect and perfectly uninteresting’?”

  Lord Montfort shook his head and chuckled. “You can be quite sure he has said far worse than that to her. Melba may have a silver voice, but she has a tongue of brass and she loves a good scrap with her conductors. Just pray she behaves herself at Hermione’s charity event and doesn’t feel the need to shriek directions at the pianist.”

  “Oh, she will be quite the grande dame; the Chimney Sweep Boys charity event is heavily attended by royalty. Lady Ryderwood is going to sing for us tonight, a sort of informal dress rehearsal for the charity event. Olive says she has an exquisite voice, and you have to admit she is very lovely.”

  “Yes, I remember her husband well. Nice chap, terrible health after the Boer War. Didn’t they spend the rest of his life somewhere in the Balearics? Died recently, didn’t he? I heard that he was confined to a wheelchair, awfully bad luck for an ex-cavalry officer. Shame really, horses were his passion.”

  “All I know is that she returned to England this spring, recently widowed. We met her at the Waterfords’. I rather took to her.”

  More chimes announced the hour. Pettigrew arrived to wrap Clementine up in her sable fur, pulling its deep collar high up around her ears. Even with this layer of insulation around her she could still hear her husband’s voice quite clearly as they walked downstairs to the hall.

  “Do you know the swine has commissioned two more super dreadnoughts at two million blasted pounds a throw? Heard about it in the club this afternoon, the wretched man is collecting battleships like a damn schoolboy. I have never known anyone as hungry for war as Churchill; Kitchener can’t hold a candle to him.”

  The butler helped him on with his coat and handed him his scarf and hat. He turned at the foot of the stairs, held out his arm, and walked her to the front door. She rather wished that they were not going out after all.

  Clementine buried her gloved hands deep inside her fur muff as the butler opened the outer door and let in a draft of air so frigid that husband and wife huddled together as they went out into the night. Clementine raised her muff to shield her face. “Thank you, White; looks like winter is finally here,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “It’s bitterly cold out there, m’lady, but Herne has a foot-warmer and plenty of rugs in the motor. There will be a thermos flask of hot coffee for you on the way home.”

  On the way home. She sighed as she thought of the evening ahead and was quite envious of White, no doubt anticipating a cozy evening of leisure in the servants’ hall eating coq au vin.

  “Good heavens, White, we are only driving half a mile; we’ve hunted in worse weather than this.” Lord Montfort took his wife’s arm and she marveled at his determination not to be swerved from his dislike for the evening, it seemed that he was determined to wrong-foot everyone tonight.

  Chapter Two

  Hermione Kingsley’s dinner party was a glittering affair of sumptuous food, faultlessly served to an elegant gathering representing those who patronized the arts, who came from some of the oldest families in the country, or who were merely astonishingly rich. Hermione had chosen her guests carefully, Clementine thought, as they were ushered from the bitter night air into a drawing room thronged with beautifully dressed men and women, each one of them a sure touch for Hermione’s Chimney Sweep Boys, the largest and most prestigious charity in Britain for the orphaned children of the destitute.

  But, as predicted by Lord Montfort, Winston Churchill, at his most expansive, did indeed monopolize the conversation at dinner from his place of honor at the head of the table throughout a procession of eight delicious courses.

  Clementine had had the privilege of being taken in to dinner by the First Lord of the Admiralty and seated on his right. Mr. Churchill was in fine form and kept them all entertained with an effortless flow of convivial chatter. He dwelled at considerable length on his tussles with the leaders of the suffragette movement. His determination not to be henpecked by the formidable Mrs. Pankhurst and the most intimidating of her three daughters, Cristobel, was another anecdote deftly recounted from his days as home secretary.

  Halfway through dinner, Clementine glanced at her husband to see how he was faring. They had finished some poached turbot and empty plates were removed to make way for tender slices of roast duck in a red-wine sauce with game chips. She was g
rateful to see he had turned from Lady Cunard, who always seemed to believe it was her duty to fascinate everyone in sight, to Lady Ryderwood on his left. Oh the relief of it, thought Clementine. Lady Ryderwood is a perfect dinner companion for Ralph. Indeed, the lady in question was lovely to look at, attentive and intelligent, and if she flirted she did so with subtlety and restraint.

  There was a bray of laughter from Hermione’s nephew, Trevor Tricklebank, who was enjoying the company of Marigold Meriwether at the far end of the table. Trevor was a good-natured but fatuous ass of a young man thoughtlessly dedicated to good living. She wondered what her husband would say if their unmarried daughter, Althea, were to fall in love with a drone like Trevor.

  She glanced across the table to the upright figure of Captain Vetiver, Churchill’s chief aide at the Admiralty, who was seated next to Mrs. Churchill. Would they prefer perhaps someone as consciously perfect as Captain Vetiver for a son-in-law for their independent daughter? Captain, the Honourable Sir Parceval Vetiver, third son of the Duke of Andover, was impeccable in every aspect, but might be rather unforgiving if his wife was not quite as faultless as her husband. No, he would never do for independent Althea, always happier in the great outdoors than in the drawing room.

  Her gaze traveled on down the table to the young man seated at the end. He was awfully young and handsome in the scarlet coat of his dress uniform. What was his name again? Washington? No. Ah yes, Wildman-Lushington, Captain Gilbert Wildman-Lushington, Royal Marines. She nodded to Sir Reginald Cholmondeley, on her right, as he launched into a prolonged explanation as to how the New Year’s Honors List was compiled; no doubt he expected to be elevated to the peerage in the New Year for his considerable efforts on behalf the Chimney Sweep Boys charity.

  Sir Reginald is the sort of man to be congratulated rather than enjoyed. Clementine felt her eyes swim a little with the effort of keeping them fixed on his face as he elucidated on his charitable obligations.

  Deeply Anglican in his outlook, Sir Reginald was always ready to produce a ponderous moral fable to illustrate any aspect of human frailty, and this evening there were to be no exceptions. Countless dinner parties seated next to, or within earshot of, Sir Reginald had taught Clementine long ago to remind herself that the man worked only for the good of the deserving poor, which in this frivolous day and age demanded true beneficence and unrelenting hard work. Sir Reginald’s eyes were shining with the energy only the zealous possess, and she forced herself to pay attention.

  “… Always so generous with his donations … Mr. Greenberg might not be of our faith … but God’s way are mysterious…” Sir Reginald’s pale blue eyes were fixed on her face, and having grasped the gist of his monologue, for the next several minutes Clementine allowed herself to mentally drift away.

  Her conversation with Captain Wildman-Lushington had been far more interesting to her than any to be had with Sir Reginald or Churchill. He flew aeroplanes in the new Royal Naval Air Service, he had explained, his young face glowing with pride and enthusiasm. He flew a Farman-type pusher biplane, whatever that was, and he knew her son, Harry Talbot, Viscount Lord Haversham—not personally, he had hastened to assure her, but by reputation as a fellow pilot.

  Clementine had never truly come to terms with what she hoped was her son’s passing infatuation with aircraft and flying. In fact, she had kicked up such a fuss about his involvement with Tom Sopwith and his aeroplane manufactory in Kingston last summer that when the dust had settled in the Talbot family and everyone was talking to one another again, Harry had asked her never to bring up the subjects of “safety” and “flying” in the same sentence again, since it caused her so much distress. Denying her the opportunity to learn exactly what happened when one launched oneself into the heavens in what she considered to be a badly wrapped brown paper parcel, tied with string.

  The moment Captain Wildman-Lushington had introduced himself, she had deftly cut him away from Hermione’s other guests and interrogated him, using the words safety and aeroplanes as often as she wished. Their conversation had been illuminating once she had translated some of the strange terms the young pilot used, the vernacular of flying she supposed. Clearly delighted that someone in this eminent crowd actually wanted to talk to him at all, Captain Wildman-Lushington had been informative as he accounted for his invitation to dinner.

  “I am here this evening as the guest of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lady Montfort. Today I was appointed his personal flying instructor.” He almost blushed with pride.

  “Mr. Churchill went aloft?” Clementine realized that this was a term used for what you did in a hot-air balloon or when sailors scrambled up a ship’s rigging. She struggled for the right word. “I mean actually went…?” She lifted her hands upward.

  “Up, Lady Montfort.” He was beaming and trying not to swagger at the evident pride he felt at being connected to the First Lord of the Admiralty in such a dashing way. “Up, with me this afternoon, in my plane. He did frightfully well. Of course he’s been up before but this time he actually took the controls.”

  “Great heavens, so it’s considered to be quite safe then?” She had actually seen an aeroplane and couldn’t imagine Mr. Churchill’s considerable bulk crammed into such a fragile container.

  “Well, yes. But flying has its risks, even today.” He laughed the deprecating laugh of the truly brave or, perhaps, the completely unimaginative.

  The captain was tall, fit, and alert, with clear, steady gray eyes in a firm, round face that shone with health as a result of wholesome food, untroubled sleep, and no doubt masses of exercise. Captain Wildman-Lushington personified anyone’s ideal of a young man of derring-do. Now here was someone she would have been delighted for Althea to be interested in. Like her daughter, the young man before her relished the active life of doing. Yes, she thought, he is most certainly a doer before he is a deep thinker.

  Now as she finished her duck and turned a listening face to Sir Reginald Cholmondeley, she cast a quick, assessing glance at Mr. Churchill. How old is he? Older than I am, surely. She calculated; yes, he was easily in his late forties. She was later to discover that he was celebrating his thirty-ninth year, making him a surprising three years younger than herself. Mr. Churchill was balding and his heavy-limbed body was going to fat. He had downed at least a bottle and a half of wine during the first part of dinner and was still eating and drinking with enthusiasm.

  If a specimen as physically unfit and as unmuscled as Mr. Churchill could fly an aeroplane, then surely they must have ironed out all those wrinkles that made them such death traps only two short years ago? Keeping her expression responsive to alterations in the conversational tone of Sir Reginald’s lecture on the importance of charitable giving, she went back in her thoughts to her earlier examination of the young flying officer.

  “And how long have you been flying, Captain?”

  “Ohhhhh…” He squinted one eye and struggled with the arithmetic. “Let’s see now. Ah yes, started in May. So that’s…”

  “Six months! You’ve been doing it for just six months and you were appointed to take up one of England’s chief ministers! Why, Captain, that’s astounding!”

  “Yes,” he agreed, struggling to look modest. “It is rather. Your son has been flying at least a year longer than I have, of course, and is far more competent. Mr. Churchill is awfully keen to sign Lord Haversham up to the RNAS soon as possible, so we can get this whole show on the road before we go to war with Germany.”

  He was completely oblivious of her appalled silence. I don’t know what’s going on in the world, she thought as Captain Wildman-Lushington rhapsodized on about pusher biplanes. Here I am thinking war with Germany is still a laughable bit of posturing, and people like Churchill, Vetiver, and apparently Harry are planning on taking battles into the air. “Do you imagine, Captain, that there is a place in war for these machines?” she asked

  “There most certainly is,” came the blithe unheeding reply. “Mr. Churchill believes all wars
of the future will be fought in the air. Sea battles are a thing of the past really. And of course enemy reconnaissance is a piece of cake from an aeroplane.”

  If there was to be war with Germany, and hopefully if they all kept their heads there wouldn’t be, then Harry would be careering around in the sky in something as unpredictable and fragile as a “kite”—Wildman-Lushington’s term. Clementine stared in horror at the bright young man in front of her and had nothing whatsoever to say.

  Her preoccupation continued through to the end of dinner. Only self-discipline and a strong sense of social obligation helped her to contribute in the evening’s lighthearted chatter. But with Mr. Churchill on her left she had merely to incline her head in a parody of fascinated interest, as he talked inexhaustibly on any topic. He was now in the middle of an account of his near brush with what he called his “attempted assassination” by an enraged and militant suffragette at a country railway station in Hertfordshire.

  “She was a big woman.” Churchill gestured from the center of his chest outward with both hands. “She had an unattractive flat straw hat perched on her huge head.” His alert eyes glanced around the table and he lifted his voice so all could enjoy the joke as he paused to finish the last of the wine in his glass which was immediately replenished by the footman. “I was waiting on the platform at Tring station for the half-past-four with my wife.” Here he bowed his head to Mrs. Churchill, seated farther down the table, next to Sir Vivian Hussey. “We were anxious to be home: our youngest had chicken pox, we were tired and in need of our dinner. Well, long story short, this buffalo of a woman came up behind me as the train came steaming in at a fast clip. Just as it started to slow down she gave me this terrific buffet from behind. Of course I wasn’t expecting to be booted off the platform and I went staggering forward, completely caught off-balance. I remember seeing the pistons of the engine turning in front of my nose and fully expected to go down on the rails and be squashed quite flat.” Here he laughed—a big man’s laugh; a genial man’s laugh. The laugh, Clementine thought, of the truly successful, who always get what they want.