Chapter Forty-Eight

Framfield, 1929

Eve hadn’t married Brograve for his money. He only launched his copper cable company in 1922 and she had no idea whether he would turn out to be any good at business, but it was already thriving by the time Patricia was born in 1925. Eve was nervous when he invited Porchy to invest, worried that mixing family and business would be a mistake, but, as it turned out, Porchy made rather a lot of money from his stake and was delighted.

“Are we rich?” she asked Brograve, when he suggested they buy a country house.

“Comfortable,” he replied.

Eve liked that word. It made her feel secure.

They drove around the Home Counties, viewing properties that were in their price range and close enough to be an easy commute from town. Patricia sat in the back seat, singing happily, always a contented child.

As soon as they drove into the village of Framfield, Eve had a good feeling about it. There was a pretty old church, a pub, a few shops, a row of thatched and half-timbered cottages, and a large lake on the outskirts: it was the idyllic country village of her imagination. The house for sale was T-shaped, with a sixteenth-century main section and two wings that had been added in the seventeenth century, in a mixture of half-timbering and red brick. One of the best things, from Eve’s point of view, was that it was set on a remote lane, without through traffic, and she could see a group of children playing in the garden of a neighboring house.

Patricia was an only child and Eve was keen for her to have as many friends as possible, to compensate. She would love to have given her a sibling but the damage done to her insides during the birth had made the doctor advise Eve to avoid another pregnancy. It had been a blow at the time. She desperately wanted to give Brograve a son, not least because the baronetcy would become extinct if she didn’t. He was a man who should have a son. But he accepted the decision with equanimity, and Patricia was such a delightful child, Eve couldn’t harbor any regrets.

As they walked into the front hall, Eve had a curious sense of feeling at home immediately. She remembered Sir Arthur Conan Doyle saying that houses held memories in their stones. If that were the case, she felt sure the previous occupants had been happy here. It had a welcoming atmosphere. There was plenty of room to invite visitors for weekend house parties, the garden was a full acre, and there was good walking around about. It wasn’t palatial, but it felt more like a family home than Highclere ever had.

Brograve put in an offer and they hugged each other in glee when it was accepted. After they moved in, they discovered that the roof leaked, the bathroom plumbing drained into the cavity above the kitchen ceiling, and there were moles in the lawn, but right from the start they loved it dearly. They made friends with the neighbors in the lane, inviting each other for gin and tonics on long summer evenings. When they heard that the local school had an excellent reputation, Eve put Patricia’s name down.

Brograve became increasingly irate as the disastrous policies of Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour Party following the Wall Street Crash led the country into acute financial crisis. He often slammed his morning paper on the table in disgust or grumbled through the evening news on television. Still, Eve was astounded when he announced he was going to stand for parliament in the general election of October 1931.

“But the Liberal Party is dead as a dodo,” she replied. “Are you sure it’s a good idea?”

“I’m going to stand for the Conservatives,” he said. “They’ve offered me the seat of Walthamstow East. I’m sure if my father were alive, he would also switch allegiance since it seems the party most likely to save the country from ruin.”

When she got over her surprise, Eve was thrilled. She had time on her hands now that Patricia was at school, and she would relish going on the campaign trail with him.

She and Brograve drove out to explore Walthamstow in northeast London, and found a largely working-class constituency, enclosed by the Lea Valley to the west and Epping Forest to the east, with some picturesque historic areas and a mile-long street market full of bustle and color.

“I’m told that unemployment is an issue,” Brograve said, “and the people feel they have suffered unfairly under the Labour budget cuts. Our message is that we will promote business and create wealth for all.”

He had grown in confidence since the Lowestoft defeat. On the hustings, he spoke with a certainty that made people listen. He sounded like a man who had the answers. Eve wandered the streets, chatting to the market traders and women shoppers, and they told her about their desperation for decent housing and a secure living. It surely wasn’t too much to ask.

A journalist from the local paper requested an interview with Eve and she agreed, meeting him at campaign headquarters one late September morning. He was an eager lad who came armed with sheaves of notes, and—as she had anticipated—he quickly veered away from Brograve’s policies to question her about her family history. How did she feel about her mother’s notorious court case against Dorothy Dennistoun?

“That’s ancient history,” she told him. “I’m sure your readers have far more pressing issues to worry about.”

Did she feel her family had been cursed by its connection with Tutankhamun?

She laughed. “Yes, I broke a nail this morning, and I hold the Egyptian king entirely responsible.”

“Seriously, though,” he said, “your family seems to have had more than your fair share of tragedy, most recently with the sudden death of your brother-in-law.”

Eve took a calming breath before replying. Catherine’s brother had dropped dead at the age of twenty-nine while playing tennis on the court at Highclere. It seemed there had been an undiagnosed heart condition. Catherine went quite mad with grief. She came to Framfield to stay for a week after the funeral, and the only consolation she found was in the gin bottle.

“Catherine’s brother never entered Tutankhamun’s tomb, and had never even been to Egypt,” she told him. “Are you suggesting that anyone remotely associated with my family might be cursed, despite the fact that I myself remain mysteriously unscathed? In that case, are you sure you are not putting yourself at risk simply by being in my presence?”

He grinned at that. “Sorry. I had to ask. The editor insisted.”

“Don’t worry, I’m used to it.”

“There’s one more question of a delicate nature that he wants me to put to you. We’ve heard that your mother arranges abortions for upper-class girls at her private hospital. Would you care to comment?”

Eve flinched. “Blimey, which gutter did you trawl that nonsense from?”

“Shall I record that as ‘no comment’?” he asked.

“No, record exactly what I said. And remember that my mother knows her way around the law courts should you be tempted to print anything slanderous.”

He laughed. “Fair point.”

“Could it be true?” she asked Brograve as they drove home that evening.

“Very likely,” he replied. “Nothing your mother gets up to would surprise me. Why don’t you ask her?”

Eve closed her eyes. They were friends, she and Almina, but mainly because Eve never challenged her. Ian had proved an unreliable sort of husband and Almina had no one else to turn to, so Eve didn’t want them to fall out.

Perhaps she would pretend she’d never heard the abortion rumor. She hoped with all her heart it wasn’t true.

* * *

On the twenty-seventh of October, 1931, Brograve won a resounding victory over his Labour and Liberal counterparts, getting almost sixty percent of the vote in Walthamstow East. It reflected a national landslide for the Conservatives and a new era in British politics. As she watched him make his acceptance speech, Eve felt fit to burst with pride. If only Pups could have witnessed this!

She thought about the man Brograve had become since she first met him as a quiet, traumatized soldier at the Residency Christmas party in Cairo. Had she somehow sensed back then that he would turn out to have such inner strength? Or had it been the luck of the draw when she picked him as her husband-to-be? She felt a surge of lust for him. Winning an election was extremely sexy.

Eve was excited to explore the new opportunities that opened up for her as an MP’s wife. Before Brograve made his maiden speech, she had joined dozens of social committees at the House of Commons. She got involved in organizing charity fundraisers, volunteered to entertain the wives of politicians visiting from overseas, and took on umpteen other unpaid roles, simply because she loved meeting new people.

Every morning she drove Brograve to Uckfield station to catch the London train before she dropped Patricia at school, then she got on with her commitments for the day. She often drove to Walthamstow to help Brograve on constituency business, or to Putney to visit his mother. Some days she would be at the House or in one of the meeting rooms around Parliament Square. If she had time, she drove to Newmarket or Kempton Park, Cheltenham or Newbury when one of their horses was racing—they had bought another foal, named Hot Flash after the white flash on her nose.

It was the most fulfilling period of her life, she reflected. Eve had not accomplished her childhood dream to be a lady archaeologist, but she had no regrets about that. Her time was filled with pursuits that used her personality and skills, a family she cherished, and a home she loved.