November 15, 1909
Bristol, England
My step feels light. With each movement forward, the confinement of pregnancy, the birth itself, and the long, sometimes lonely, recovery afterward are shed, like an unwanted skin. These trials, of course, I had heard other women describe, but until I suffered through them myself, I could not imagine how metamorphic they would be. Now I know. And with each step, I leave them in my wake. I rejoin Winston in the work we undertake together as part of our unique marriage.
As I walk down the aisle and closer to the stairs descending from the train into the station where we will meet with local politicians, I summon myself into the wife and person that Winston requires of me. I am determined to return to the unit we had become since our marriage, at home and at work. Until my pregnancy intervened anyway. I remember the words of his August letter, which I’d received during my convalescence at the Blunts’ estate in Sussex after Diana’s July birth: Recover, my Cat, as I will need you to assist me in the approaching election. I have a key role in mind for you. His words reinforced my purpose, spurring along my recovery, and they push me forward now.
This moment feels long in coming. After Diana’s birth, I’d taken some time alone for recuperation, first to Sussex at Wilfrid Scawen Blunt’s Newbuildings estate and then to my Stanley cousins’ estate Alderley Park in Cheshire, leaving the baby in London under the care of a nurse and the supervision of Winston. After I returned, I’d assumed that I would step back immediately into the part of Winston’s political confidante and social companion. In fact, I’d prepared for this role during my convalescence by keeping abreast of current affairs and studying the dozens of political books Winston had assigned me—including the indecipherable The Life of the Bee. But when I returned to our new house on Eccleston Square in late August, I discovered that Jennie had insinuated herself into every facet of the daily life of our household, as well as the routines of both Winston and Diana—from the daily menus to the servants’ cleaning regimens to the decor of our new home to Diana’s napping schedule to Winston’s wardrobe and social agenda. Untangling her imprint—and finally her—from our home took weeks, and even then, I only achieved my goal because her husband, George Cornwallis-West, summoned her.
But then, Jennie’s departure coincided with Winston’s. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany summoned my husband for an extended trip to inspect the military and to visit the country’s labor exchanges. Immediately upon his return from the continent, his constituency demanded his presence in Dundee. When he came back to London after his trips, long-neglected parliamentary matters consumed him, and I soon heard rumors that Violet Asquith had begun to accompany her father to meetings in the hopes of encountering Winston. While I was powerless to stop Violet’s efforts, I knew I had to reclaim my role at my husband’s side.
London had been stiflingly hot—too hot for the baby—so I made a proposal: I would decamp to the Crest Hotel in Sussex with Diana and the nurse, and he would give us his undivided attention on weekends. The picturesque landscape surrounding the hotel, reminiscent of Scotland, provided an inviting backdrop for nights of affection between Cat and Pug and days discussing political issues, just us two.
As president of the Board of Trade, Winston had succeeded David Lloyd George, both in title and purpose. Winston and I were in full accord that Lloyd George’s Liberal welfare programs should be continued. We reviewed plans to improve working conditions and provide labor exchanges and pensions for workers, and when Winston protested that the only way to fund these programs was to tax luxuries and land to the detriment of his aristocratic friends and family members, I encouraged him to stay true to his convictions. We agreed that everyone must pay their share.
Our only note of political dissension on these long Sussex evenings stemmed from the impact that the suffragettes’ recent campaigns had on Winston’s public support for the women’s vote. Their militant actions, spurred on by the Women’s Social and Political Union, included the smashing of government and shop windows, burning of homes, assault of governmental figures, and even bombing of public buildings. While I did not condone the suffragettes’ activities, my support for the women’s vote did not waver, and Winston worried that he disappointed me in this regard. I understood that, in his mind, a support for the suffragettes was a support for their tactics, so I extricated a promise to reconsider the women’s vote when they had backed down from their current maneuvers.
But when I returned full-time to London with Diana and the nanny in the autumn, the long stretches when Winston was traveling or doing the work of Parliament seemed interminable. I was left alone with the tasks of finalizing our new home on Eccleston Square while fending off Jennie’s interference and minding Diana alongside the nanny or Goonie, who’d recently had a little boy, and I felt simultaneously overwhelmed with my responsibilities and isolated from Winston and the hub of political work. Finally, I understood Mother’s need to keep her children at bay, even to maintain a separate house for us and our governess, nearby but distinctly apart. I began to wonder why no one had told me that the maternal state didn’t come naturally to all women. Not that I didn’t love Diana. I did, but the actual caretaking of the infant left me empty. When Winston finally summoned me for a specific role in helping with his Parliamentary reelection in early November, it felt like a reprieve.
* * *
Before I disembark from the train, Winston tugs on my hand from behind. The stiff navy skirt of my traveling suit rustles against the floor, and I turn toward my husband’s familiar half smile. He pulls me close for a private kiss, whispering, “This trip is the first time we’ve been truly alone since Italy.” I giggle at his reference to the fact that I became pregnant during our Italian honeymoon, and thus, we were three by the time we returned to England.
I breathe into his neck. “How I long to return.”
“If only important affairs did not require our attention,” he answers. While his voice contains a note of wistfulness, I know that he actually thrives on “important affairs” and longs to always be in the center of the nation’s activities. “But since they do, I am honored to have you at my side. You will be a great help, Cat, in securing the votes. It will be the first of our political triumphs.”
Hand in hand, we step off the train onto the platform of the Bristol Temple Meads railway station. The interior of the station bears none of the stately Tudor beauty of its exterior, which we had spotted as our train arrived. The busy station, which held fifteen tracks, eight of which serviced passengers, pulsates with people hurrying to and fro. From across the throngs, a group of men waves to us.
“Ah, look there. They must be the representatives from the Anchor Society, here to take us to Colston Hall,” Winston speculates. We weave through the crowd toward the constituents who will transport us to the auditorium for Winston’s speech and my first public talk, for which I’d prepared extensively. A general election in the upcoming months means that Winston’s parliamentary seat is in jeopardy, and he plans to unveil me as part of his campaign at this event. I am to bolster not only his parliamentarian claim but also the plans of Lloyd George’s government, particularly the much-disputed People’s Budget.
I nod, and together, we walk toward the gentlemen. With my hand looped through Winston’s arm, I feel proud to be at his side and part of the important work of the nation. Imagine, I think, caught short for a moment. My husband, summoned by kings and kaisers alike for his advice, seeks my counsel and relies upon me in his campaigning and policy making. I worry less and less about Violet’s claim on his attention, even when she sidles up to him at social occasions, as it is me—not her—he turns to for guidance.
Winston and the men exchange introductions, and after a conversational lull, I say, “I have tremendous respect for the work your society undertakes to assist the poor and elderly in the Bristol area.”
Winston nods approvingly, but the men appear surprised. Is it the words I’ve chosen or the simple fact that I spoke? Political wives are seldom seen and rarely heard. The ones I’ve encountered seem to cultivate invisibility, preferring the company of their social peers to the political creatures with whom their husbands work. But I long for a more substantial part than my predecessors and contemporaries have modeled, and Winston encourages me—no, he demands—that I assume a significant mantle, no matter how unusual.
What sort of political spouse will I become after today’s launch? As I muse on the possibilities while the men talk logistics, I see a young woman striding purposefully across the platform. Dressed in the suffragette uniform of white shirtwaist, tie, and black skirt—an outfit I once sported myself while at Berkhamsted and working as a French tutor—she does not seem headed toward a particular train but toward us. She has some kind of long, sinuous object in her right hand.
What on earth is she doing? Surely she doesn’t mean to approach us but is rushing to catch a train. Surely all this talk about suffragettes and their threats is making me on edge. Fear courses through me, but I do not want to appear a typical female hysteric. After all, the men do not seem flustered. They don’t even seem to notice the woman, for that matter.
Before I can draw Winston’s attention to the woman, she hurls herself toward him. As she releases the object in her hand into the air, her words ring out, “This is for women everywhere!”
Only then do I realize that the object in her hand is a whip. Snapping it into the air, the woman brandishes it expertly, unleashing it at Winston’s chest. As she brings it back to strike him again, he stumbles backward.
Will no one help? A crowd gathers, but no one races to assist Winston. The men from the Anchor Society do not move, except for the gaping of their mouths. Shock initially renders me immobile as well, but then I see that the woman—undoubtedly a suffragette—is driving Winston back on the platform, toward the path of an oncoming train. And I realize that if I do not intervene, my husband could stumble onto the tracks and be crushed by the train’s force.
Instinct takes over. I leap over a pile of luggage heaped next to me, and I insert myself between Winston and the woman. The tip of the whip, the popper, lands on the floor of the platform instead of upon Winston’s flesh. The commotion unbalances him further, and the moment he begins to fall back onto the train tracks, I grab the lapel of his coat and pull him to safety.
We hold one another as the train rushes past us, its wind blowing free the loose strands of my coiffure. When I look into Winston’s pale-blue eyes, I see that he is staring at me in wonder. “You saved me, Clemmie.”
As I hold my husband in a grateful embrace, I see my future with Winston unspool before me. Perhaps this rescue is not meant to be my last. My husband’s discerning eye perceives all but the threats standing right in front of him, and it seems that I may have to serve as the sentinel of his personal landscape and the gatekeeper of our shared ideals and our marriage.