The same morning that Curzon’s promotion to the temporary rank of Brigadier-General appeared in the Press, there arrived the invitation to dinner, which enabled Curzon to confirm his suspicion that Sir Henry was really Sir Henry Cross, the barrister and Conservative Member of Parliament; and the other letter which the waiter brought him was a note from the War Office:
DEAR CURZON,
Sorry to interrupt your leave, but could you possibly come and see me here in room 231 at your earliest convenience?
Yours,
G. MACKENZIE, Major-Gen.
Curzon puzzled over this note as he ate his kidneys and bacon solitary in the hotel dining-room – his early-rising habit persisted even in a West End hotel, so that he was bound to be the only one having breakfast at that gloomy hour. It was a surprise to him to be addressed as ‘Dear Curzon’ by General Mackenzie. Mackenzie had been one of the eminent officers who had discussed the war with him two days before, but half an hour’s conversation did not seem sufficient reason for the Director-General of Tactical Services to address him without a prefix and to preface with an apology what might just as well have been a simple order. It was possible that now that he was a General himself he was being admitted into the confraternity of Generals who might have their own conventions of behaviour among themselves, but Curzon did not think that very likely.
He smoked a comfortable cigar while he read The Times – he could not help reading the announcement of his promotion three times over – and then he walked across St James’s Park and the Horse Guards to the War Office. Relays of commissionaires and Boy Scouts led him through the corridors to Room 231. There was only the briefest of delays before he was brought into the office of the Director-General of Tactical Services, and Mackenzie offered him a chair and a cigar and made three remarks about the weather before he began to say what he meant to say.
‘I didn’t know you were acquainted with the Budes, Curzon?’ he began.
‘I know them slightly,’ replied Curzon cautiously. ‘I dined there a night or two ago.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ was the surprising rejoinder. Mackenzie drummed with his fingers, and looked across his desk at Curzon with a hint of embarrassment on his large pink face. His ginger hair was horribly out of harmony with the red tabs on his collar. ‘That fellow Cross was there, too.’
‘Yes,’ said Curzon.
‘You’ve never had anything to do with politicians, Curzon,’ went on Mackenzie. ‘You’ve no idea how gossip spreads.’
‘I don’t gossip, sir,’ said Curzon indignantly.
‘No,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Of course not.’
He looked meditatively at his finger-nails before he spoke again.
‘Cross has put down a question to ask in the House to-day – the House of Commons, I mean. It’s about Le Cateau.’
‘That’s nothing to do with me,’ said Curzon, more indignantly still, as the implication became obvious to him.
‘That was all I wanted to know,’ said Mackenzie, simply. His bright eyes, of a pale grey, were scrutinizing Curzon very closely, all the same. Mackenzie could not make up his mind as to whether or not this was yet another example of the plain blunt soldier with secret political affiliations.
‘We can put the lid on friend Cross all right,’ he went on. ‘We can always say that it is opposed to public interest to answer his question, if we want to.’
‘I suppose so,’ agreed Curzon.
‘But the House of Commons is not a very important place just now, thank God,’ said Mackenzie. ‘It isn’t there that things happen.’
Curzon felt bewildered at that. If Mackenzie was not accusing him of betraying military secrets he could not imagine what he was driving at. He had no conception of the power residing in the casual conversation of about fifty or so luncheon and dinner tables in London. He did not realize that high position in the Army – even the post of Director-General of Tactical Services – was, if not exactly at the mercy of, at any rate profoundly influenced by, whispers which might circulate in a particular stratum of society. More especially was this the case when a rigid censorship left public opinion unable to distribute praise or blame except under the influence of gossip or of prejudice. All these circumstances were aggravated by the fact that England had entered upon the war under a government not at all representative of the class accustomed to the dispensing of military patronage; there were already hints and signs that to prolong its existence the government must allow some of the opposition to enter its ranks, and in that case the foolish ones who had staked their careers on its continuance unchanged in power would be called upon to pay forfeit.
Mackenzie felt strongly opposed to explaining all this to Curzon. It might be construed as a confession of weakness. Instead, he harked back to the original subject.
‘The Bude House set,’ he said, ‘– the women, I mean, not the men – want a finger in every pie.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Curzon perfectly truthfully. Of course, throughout his life, he had heard gossip about petticoat influence. But he had not believed – in fact, he still did not believe – that people played at politics as at a game, in which the amount of patronage dispensed acted as a useful measure of the score, so that to have brought about the appointment of one’s own particular nominee to an Under-Secretaryship of State was like bringing off a little slam at bridge.
Now that the war had become such a prominent feature in the news, and friends and relations were taking commissions or returning from retirement, the value of military appointments as counters in the game was higher than ever before. And at the moment the Army was especially entangled in politics, thanks to the Irish business. When certain people returned to power there would be a good many old scores to pay off. There would be distinctions drawn between the men who had declared their unwillingness to obey orders and the men who had not seen fit to make a similar declaration. Besides, in some strange way the fact that there was a war in progress accentuated the intensity of this hidden strife between the Ins and the Outs, and made it more of a cut-and-thrust business than ever before.
‘Well, you know now,’ said Mackenzie grimly.
‘Yes,’ said Curzon. He was no fool. He could see that he was in a strong position, even if he could not guess what it was that constituted its strength. ‘I’m due to dine with Cross next week, too.’
‘Really?’ said Mackenzie, contriving to give no hint of meaning at all in his intonation, but drumming with his fingers at the same. He was convinced now that if the man he was talking to was not yet a political soldier, he would be quite soon, and one with very valuable connexions. In fact, he did not feel strong enough to nip the development in the bud by commanding Curzon, on pain of losing his promised brigade, to have nothing to do with the Bude House set.
‘Cross gives damned good dinners,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why these lawyer sharks should always be able to get the best chefs. More money, I suppose.’
‘I suppose so,’ agreed Curzon, and Mackenzie changed the subject.
‘By the way, the Foreign Office has just been through to us on the telephone,’ he said. ‘The Belgian Government wants to present decorations to some English officers, and I have to give my opinion about their distribution. Seeing what you did at Ypres it would be appropriate if one came to you, don’t you think? I suppose you wouldn’t mind?’
‘Of course not,’ said Curzon.
‘Right,’ said Mackenzie, making a note on a memorandum tablet. ‘I expect it will be the Order of Leopold – a nice watered red ribbon. It’ll look well with your C.M.G. and D.S.O.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Curzon.
‘Don’t thank me,’ said Mackenzie, with a certain peculiar emphasis in his tone. ‘It’s yourself you have to thank.’
Curzon came away from that momentous interview with no very clear idea of what had happened. He was delighted, of course, with the offer of the Belgian decoration. Including his two South African medals he would have five ribbons on his breast now; it would not be long before he could start a second row. Ribbons and promotion were the two signs of success in his profession and now he had both. Success was sweet; he swung his walking stick light-heartedly as he strode across the park. He even laughed when a spiteful old lady said to him as he passed: ‘Why aren’t you in the army?’
That Curzon could perceive the humour of a situation and laugh at it was a remarkable state of affairs in itself. As he walked, he debated with himself as to whether or no he should telephone Cissie Barnes and see if he could spend the afternoon with her – Cissie Barnes was a lady with whom he had often spent afternoons and week-ends before the war began. If Curzon had been given to self-analysis he might have been seriously alarmed at finding that he was not specially anxious to go and see Cissie.
And then although he was quite sure what he wanted to do he ran through in his mind the other ways open to him of spending the afternoon. He might go round to the Club, and at the Club he might talk or play bridge – the latter, more likely. There would be more than a chance that at the Club he might run across an acquaintance with whom he could share a couple of stalls at a musical comedy or at one of these revues which seemed to have suddenly become fashionable. That might serve very well for the evening. He was not so sure about the afternoon.
There were a few houses at which he might call – he ran over them in his mind and decided against each one in turn. He could go down into Leicestershire so as to hunt next day; presumably Clayton could be relied upon to produce a hireling, and he could stay at the Somerset Arms. The illustrated papers he had read yesterday had informed him that, of course, hunting was still being carried on in the Shires. He could do that to-morrow, though. This afternoon – he admitted it to himself now, having decided that there was a good reason to put forward against all the other courses – he would call at Bude House. It was growing a little old-fashioned to pay a call two days after dinner, but, damn it, he was content to be old-fashioned. Lady Emily might be there. Once he had formed this decision the hours seemed to drag as he ate his lunch and waited for the earliest possible moment at which he could ring the bell at Bude House.
‘Her Grace is not at home, sir,’ said the butler at the door. By a miracle of elocution he managed to drop just enough of each aitch to prove himself a butler without dropping the rest.
‘Is Lady Emily at home?’ asked Curzon.
‘I will inquire, sir.’
Lady Emily was glad to see the General. She gave him her hand and a smile. She offered him tea, which he declined, and a whisky and soda, which he accepted.
Lady Emily had been brought up very strictly, in the way a child should be during the eighties and nineties, especially when she had had the impertinence to be a girl instead of the boy who would inherit the title. Men, she had been taught, were the lords of the universe, under God. With regard to the subjection of women an important exception was to be made in the case of her mother – the Duchess undoubtedly occupied a place between men and God. What with her parents’ ill-concealed disappointment at the accident of her sex, and the prevailing doctrine of the unimportance of women, and her mother’s rapacious personality, and the homeliness of her own looks, there was not much self-assertiveness about Lady Emily. To such a pitch had her conviction of innate sin been raised that she even felt vaguely guilty that Lloyd George’s pestilent budgets from 1911 onwards had weighed so heavily upon the ducal income.
It was no wonder she had never married. Of course, there were plenty of men who would have been glad of the opportunity of marrying a Duke’s only child, but, being a Duke’s only child, it had been easy to make sure that she never met that kind of man, and suitable matches had never been attracted. It might be said that Curzon was the first adventurer she had ever met – Curzon would have been furious if anyone had called him an adventurer, but such he was to pay his respects to Lady Emily when he had no more than seven hundred a year of private means, however ample might be his prospects of professional eminence.
Curzon’s motives were hardly susceptible to analysis. There could be no denying that for some very obscure reason he liked Lady Emily very much indeed. When her eyes met his as she drank her tea he felt a warm unusual pleasure inside him – but there is nothing that so defies examination as the mutual attraction of two apparently not very attractive people. He was glad to be near her, in a fashion whose like he could not remember regarding any of his light loves or the wives of brother officers with whom he had exchanged glances.
Women had never paid much attention to Curzon; it was gratifying to find one who did, and especially gratifying (there is no shirking this point) in that she was the daughter of a Duke. Success was a stimulating thing. He had risen in four months from Major to Brigadier-General. He had always fully intended to marry at forty, and here he was at forty-one with nothing impossible to him – why should a Duke’s daughter be impossible to him? The daring of the thought was part of the attraction; and that business with Mackenzie this morning added to the feeling of daring.
He was so much above himself that he was able to talk more readily than he had ever been able to talk to a woman in his life, and Lady Emily listened and nodded and smiled until they both of them felt very much the better for each other’s company. They talked about horses and dogs. Lady Emily had much experience of one kind of sport which Curzon had never sampled – stag-hunting in Somersetshire, where lay the greater part of the Duke’s estates. She actually found herself talking about this with animation, and Curzon, fox-hunting man though he was, found himself listening with something more than toleration. They exchanged reminiscences, and Curzon told his two tall fox-hunting stories (the regimental mess had grown tired of them away back in 1912) with complete success. They found, of course, that they had friends in common in the Shires, and they were talking about them when the Duchess came in with a fragile old gentleman trailing behind her.
Her Grace was mildly surprised at finding Curzon in her house, and she endeavoured to freeze him by displaying exactly that mildness of surprise which could not be construed as rudeness but which most definitely could not be called overwhelming hospitality. It was all very well to have a successful general to dinner at a time when successful generals were more fashionable than poets or pianists, but that gave him no excuse for presuming on his position – especially when he promised to be of no use at all in her political manoeuvres. But before Curzon had time to take note of the drop in temperature and to take his leave Lady Emily had interposed – unconsciously, perhaps.
‘Tea, Mr Anstey?’ she asked.
‘Thank you, yes,’ said the frail old gentleman. ‘I shall be glad of some tea. My work at the Palace is unusually tiring nowadays in consequence of the war.’
The Duchess made the introductions:
‘General Curzon – Mr Anstey.’
‘Curzon?’ repeated Mr Anstey with mild animation. ‘Brigadier-General Herbert Curzon?’
‘Yes,’ said Curzon.
‘Then you are one of the people responsible for my present fatigue.’
‘I’m sorry to hear you say that, sir,’ said Curzon.
‘Oh, there’s no need to be sorry, I assure you. I am only too delighted to have the honour of doing the work I do. It is only to-day that I made out two warrants for you.’
‘Indeed, sir?’ said Curzon vaguely.
‘Yes. There is, of course, no harm in my telling you about them, seeing that they are already in the post and will be delivered to you to-morrow. One of them deals with the Companionship of the Bath and the other with the Belgian Order of Leopold – I must explain that I combine in my humble person official positions both in the department of the Lord-Chamberlain and in the registry of the Order of the Bath. You will find you have been commanded to be present at an investiture to be held next week.’
‘Thank you,’ said Curzon. He remembered vaguely having heard of the Ansteys as one of the ‘Court families’ who occupied positions at the Palace from one generation to the next.
‘The Order of Leopold,’ went on Mr Anstey, ‘is a very distinguished order indeed. It is the Second Class which is being awarded to you, General – the First Class is generally reserved for reigning monarchs and people in corresponding positions. Of course, it is not an order with a very lengthy history – it can hardly be that, can it? – but I think an order presented by a crowned head far more distinguished than any decoration a republic can award. I hope you agree with me, General?’
‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Curzon, perfectly sincerely.
The Duchess merely nodded. The orders her husband wore were such as no mere general could ever hope to attain, and possessed the further recommendation (as has frequently been pointed out) that there was no ‘damned nonsense about merit’ attached to them. The Duke’s ribbons and stars were given him, if a reason must be assigned, because his great-great-great-great grandfather had come over in the train of William of Orange – certainly not because ten years ago he had been chivvied by his wife into accepting minor office under a tottering Conservative Government. Her Grace was sublimely confident in her share of the universal opinion that it was far better to receive distinctions for being someone than for doing something.
‘You are one of the Derbyshire Curzons, I suppose, General?’ said Mr Anstey.
Curzon was ready for that. He had been an officer in India during Lord Curzon’s vice-royalty and had grown accustomed to having the relationship suggested – in the course of years even his unimaginative mind had been able to hammer out a suitable answer.
‘Yes, but a long way back,’ he said. ‘My branch has been settled in Staffordshire for some time, and I am the only representative now.’
Curzon always remembered that his father had a vague notion that his father had come to London from the Potteries as a boy; moreover, he thought it quite unnecessary to add that these mystic Staffordshire Curzons had progressed from Staffordshire to the Twenty-second Lancers via Mincing Lane.
‘That is extremely interesting,’ said Mr Anstey. ‘Even though the Scarsdale peerage is of comparatively recent creation the Curzons are one of the few English families of undoubtedly Norman descent.’
Mr Anstey checked himself with a jerk. Despite his Court tact, he had allowed himself to mention Norman descent from a follower of William the Conqueror in the presence of a representative of a family of Dutch descent from a follower of William of Orange. To his mind the difference was abysmal and the gaffe he had committed inexcusable. He glanced with apprehension at the Duchess, but he need not have worried. Coronets meant far more to her than did Norman blood.
‘How very interesting,’ said the Duchess coldly.
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Lady Emily eagerly, and attracted every eye by the warmth with which she said it.
The Duchess ran a cold glance over every inch of her thirty-year-old daughter’s shrinking form.
‘There are a great number of fresh letters arrived,’ she said, ‘about the Belgian Relief Clothing Association. You will find them in the library, Emily. I think they had better be answered at once.’
Curzon saw Lady Emily’s face fall a little, and it was that which made him take the plunge. He cut in with what he had to say just as Lady Emily, with the obedience resulting from years of subjection, was rising from her arm-chair.
‘I was wondering, Lady Emily,’ he said, ‘if I might have the pleasure of your company at the theatre this evening?’
Lady Emily looked at her mother, as ingrained instinct directed. Mr Anstey sensed an awkwardness, and hastened to try and smooth it over with his well-known tact.
‘We all of us need a little relaxation in these strenuous days,’ he said.
‘Thank you, I should very much like to come,’ said Lady Emily – perhaps she, too, was infected by the surge of revolt against convention and parental control which the newspapers had noted as a concomitant of war-time. The Duchess could hardly countermand a decision publicly reached by a daughter of full age and more.
‘What is the play to which you are proposing so kindly to take my daughter?’ she asked icily, which was all she could do.
‘I was going to leave the choice to Lady Emily,’ said Curzon – a reply, made from sheer ignorance, which left the Duchess with no objection to raise, and that emboldened Curzon still farther.
‘Shall we dine together first?’ he asked.
‘That would be very nice,’ said Lady Emily, her bonnet soaring clean over the windmill in this, her first flourish of emancipation.
‘Seven o’clock?’ said Curzon. ‘It’s a pity having to dine so early, but it’s hard to avoid it. Shall I call for you?’
‘Yes,’ said Lady Emily.