Fitz knew she was disappointed that the bill had included only women over thirty who were householders or the wives of householders. Fitz himself was angry that it had passed at all.
Churchill went on mischievously: “You must thank, in part, Lord Curzon here, who surprisingly abstained when the bill went to the House of Lords.”
Earl Curzon was a brilliant man whose stiffly superior air was made worse by a metal corset he wore for his back. There was a rhyme about him:
I am George Nathaniel Curzon
I am a most superior person
He had been viceroy of India and was now leader of the House of Lords and one of the five members of the War Cabinet. He was also president of the League for Opposing Woman Suffrage, so his abstention had astonished the political world and severely disappointed the opponents of votes for women, not least Fitz.
“The bill had been passed by the House of Commons,” Curzon said. “I felt we could not defy elected members of Parliament.”
Fitz was still annoyed about this. “But the Lords exist to scrutinize the decisions of the Commons, and to curb their excesses. Surely this was an exemplary case!”
“If we had voted down the bill, I believe the Commons would have taken umbrage and sent it back to us again.”
Fitz shrugged. “We’ve had that kind of dispute before.”
“But unfortunately the Bryce Committee is sitting.”
“Oh!” Fitz had not thought of that. The Bryce Committee was considering the reform of the House of Lords. “So that was it?”
“They’re due to report shortly. We can’t afford a stand-up fight with the Commons before then.”
“No.” With great reluctance, Fitz had to concede the point. If the Lords made a serious attempt to defy the Commons, Bryce might recommend curbing the power of the upper chamber. “We might have lost all our influence-permanently.”
“That is precisely the calculation that led me to abstain.”
Sometimes Fitz found politics depressing.
Peel, the butler, brought Curzon a cup of coffee, and murmured to Fitz: “Dr. Mortimer is in the small study, my lord, awaiting your convenience.”
Fitz had been worrying about Boy’s stomachache, and welcomed the interruption. “I’d better see him,” said Fitz. He excused himself and went out.
The small study was furnished with pieces that did not fit anywhere else in the house: an uncomfortable Gothic carved chair, a Scottish landscape no one liked, and the head of a tiger Fitz’s father had shot in India.
Mortimer was a competent local physician who had a rather too confident air, as if he thought his profession made him in some way the equal of an earl. However, he was polite enough. “Good evening, my lord,” he said. “Your son has a mild gastric infection which will most likely do him no harm.”
“Most likely?”
“I use the phrase deliberately.” Mortimer spoke with a Welsh accent that had been moderated by education. “We scientists deal always in probabilities, never certainties. I tell your miners that they go down the pit every morning knowing there will probably be no explosion.”
“Hmm.” That was not much comfort to Fitz. “Did you see the princess?”
“I did. She, too, is not seriously ill. In fact she is not ill at all, but she is giving birth.”
Fitz leaped up. “What?”
“She thought she was eight months pregnant, but she miscalculated. She is nine months pregnant, and happily will not continue pregnant many more hours.”
“Who is with her?”
“Her servants are all around her. I have sent for a competent midwife, and I myself will attend the birth if you so wish.”
“This is my fault,” Fitz said bitterly. “I should not have persuaded her to leave London.”
“Perfectly healthy babies are born outside London every day.”
Fitz had a feeling he was being mocked, but he ignored it. “What if something should go wrong?”
“I know the reputation of your London doctor, Professor Rathbone. He is of course a physician of great distinction, but I think I can safely say that I have delivered more babies than he has.”
“Miners’ babies.”
“Indeed, most of them; though at the moment of birth there is no apparent difference between them and the little aristocrats.”
Fitz was being mocked. “I don’t like your cheek,” he said.
Mortimer was not intimidated. “I don’t like yours,” he said. “You’ve made it clear, without even a semblance of courtesy, that you consider me inadequate to treat your family. I will gladly take my leave.” He picked up his bag.
Fitz sighed. This was a foolish quarrel. He was angry with the Bolsheviks, not with this touchy middle-class Welshman. “Don’t be a fool, man.”
“I try not to be.” Mortimer went to the door.
“Aren’t you supposed to put the interests of your patients first?”
Mortimer stopped at the door. “My God, you’ve got a bloody nerve, Fitzherbert.”
Few people had ever talked to Fitz that way. But he suppressed the scathing retort that came to mind. It might take hours to find another doctor. Bea would never forgive him if he let Mortimer leave in a huff. “I’ll forget you said that,” Fitz said. “In fact I’ll forget this whole conversation, if you will.”
“I suppose that’s the nearest thing to an apology that I’m likely to get.”
It was, but Fitz said nothing.
“I’ll go back upstairs,” said the doctor.
Princess Bea did not give birth quietly. Her screams could be heard throughout the principal wing of the house, where her room was. Maud played piano rags very loudly, to entertain the guests and drown out the noise, but one piano rag was much like the next, and she gave up after twenty minutes. Some of the guests went to bed, but as midnight struck, most of the men congregated in the billiard room. Peel offered cognac.
Fitz gave Winston an El Rey del Mundo cigar from Cuba. While Winston was getting it alight, Fitz said: “The government must do something about the Bolsheviks.”
Winston glanced quickly around the room, as if to make sure that everyone present was completely trustworthy. Then he sat back in his chair and said: “Here is the situation. The British Northern Squadron is already in Russian waters off Murmansk. In theory their task is to make sure Russian ships there don’t fall into German hands. We also have a small mission in Archangel. I’m pressing for troops to be landed at Murmansk. Longer-term, this could be the core of a counterrevolutionary force in northern Russia.”
“It’s not enough,” Fitz said immediately.
“I agree. I’d like us to send troops to Baku, on the Caspian Sea, to make sure those vast oil fields are not taken over by the Germans, or indeed the Turks, and to the Black Sea, where there is already the nucleus of an anti- Bolshevik resistance in the Ukraine. Finally, in Siberia, we have thousands of tons of supplies at Vladivostok, worth perhaps a billion pounds, intended to support the Russians when they were our allies. We are entitled to send troops there to protect our property.”
Fitz spoke half in doubt and half in hope. “Will Lloyd George do any of this?”
“Not publicly,” said Winston. “The problem is those red flags flying from miners’ houses. There is in our country a great well of support for the Russian people and their revolution. And I understand why, much as I loathe Lenin and his crew. With all due respect to the family of Princess Bea”-he glanced up at the ceiling as another scream began-“it cannot be denied that the Russian ruling class were slow to deal with their people’s discontents.”
Winston was an odd mix, Fitz thought: aristocrat and man of the people, a brilliant administrator who could never resist meddling in other people’s departments, a charmer who was disliked by most of his political colleagues.
