All that I had to admit. And yet, I said, trying to sound reasonable, let’s not make it over-tragic. If it came to losing him, wouldn’t she recover? She was still young, she was pretty, she wasn’t a delicate flower, she was rich. How long would it take her to get another husband?
‘You’re making it too easy for yourselves,’ said Margaret.
‘Who am I making it too easy for?’
‘For him. And for yourself.’ Her eyes were snapping. ‘Losing him,’ she said, ‘that might be the least of it. It will be bad enough. But the humiliation will be worse.’
She added: ‘You’ve always said, Caro doesn’t give a damn. Any more than her brother does. But it’s people who don’t give a damn who can’t bear being humiliated. They can’t live with it, when they have to know what it means.’
I was thinking, Margaret was speaking of what she knew. She too, by nature, by training, made her own rules: they were more refined rules than Caro’s, but they were just as independent. Her family and all her Bloomsbury connections cared no more what others thought than Caro’s did, in some ways less. She knew just how vulnerable that kind of independence was.
She knew something deeper. When she and I first married she had sometimes been frightened: should we come apart? I might think that I had come home. In her heart, knowing mine, she had not been as sure. She had told herself what she must be ready to feel and what it would cost.
Hearing of Roger and Caro, she felt those fears, long since buried, flood back. Suddenly I realized why the argument had mounted into a quarrel. I stopped my next retort, I stopped defending Roger. Instead, I said, looking into her eyes: ‘It’s a bad thing to be proud, isn’t it?’
The words meant nothing to anyone in the world except ourselves. To her, they were saying that I had been at fault and so had she. At once there was nothing between us. The quarrel died down, the tinge of rancour died from the air, and across the table Margaret gave an open smile.
22: ‘The Knives Are Sharpening’
One evening in the week that Roger made his confidence, Hector Rose sent his compliments to my office and asked if I could find it convenient to call upon him. After I had traversed the ten yards along the corridor, I was, as usual, greeted with gratitude for this athletic feat. ‘My dear Lewis, how very, very good of you to come!’
He installed me in the chair by his desk, from which I could look out over the sun-speckled trees, as though this were my first visit to his room. He sat in his own chair, behind the chrysanthemums, and gave me a smile of dazzling meaninglessness. Then, within a second, he had got down to business.
‘There’s to be a Cabinet committee,’ he said, ‘by which our masters mean, with their customary happy use of words, something to which the phrase is not appropriate. However, there it is.’
The committee was to ‘have an oversight’ of some of Roger’s problems, in particular the White Paper. It consisted of Collingwood in the chair, Roger himself, Cave, and our own Minister. According to present habits, there would be a floating and varying population, Ministers, civil servants, scientists, attending on and off, which was why Rose had produced his jibe. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘you and I will no doubt have the inestimable privilege of attending some of the performances ourselves.’
For an instant, Rose’s tidy mind was preoccupied with the shapelessness of new-style administration; but I broke in:‘What does this mean?’
‘By itself’ — he came back to business with a bite — ‘it doesn’t mean anything. Or at least, anything significant, should you say? The membership seems to be designed to strengthen Mr Quaife’s hand. I seem to have heard, from sensible sources, that the Lord President’ (Collingwood) ‘is a moderately strong backer of Quaife. So, on the face of it, there ought to be certain advantages for policies which Mr Quaife and others appear to have at heart.’
He was baiting me, but not in his customary machine-like manner. He seemed uncomfortable. He folded his arms. His head did not move, but his light eyes fixed themselves on mine. ‘You asked me an implied question,’ he said curtly. ‘I can’t be certain, but I have a suspicion the answer is yes.’ He added: ‘I fancy you do, too. I may be wrong, but I think I ought to warn you that the knives are sharpening.’
‘What evidence have you got?’
‘Not much. Nothing very considerable.’ He hesitated. ‘No, I shouldn’t feel at liberty to worry you with that.’
Again he had spoken with discomfort, as though — I could neither understand, nor believe it — he was protecting me.
‘Do you mean that I’m personally involved?’
‘I don’t feel at liberty to speak. I’m not going to worry you unnecessarily.’
Nothing would budge him. At last he said: ‘But I do feel at liberty to say just one thing. I think you might reasonably communicate to your friends that a certain amount of speed about their decisions might not come amiss. In my judgement, the Opposition is going to increase the more chance it gets to form. I shouldn’t have thought that this was a time for going slow.’ As deliberately as another man might light a cigarette, he smelled a flower. ‘I confess, I should rather like to know exactly what our friend Douglas Osbaldiston expects to happen. He has always had a remarkably shrewd nose for the way the wind is blowing. It’s a valuable gift. Of course, he’s a great friend of both of us, but I think it’s fair comment to say that this particular gift hasn’t exactly been a handicap to him in his career.’
I had never known Hector Rose behave like this. First, he had told me, not quite ‘in terms’ (as he would have said himself) but still definitely, that he was supporting Roger’s policy. That was surprising. I had assumed that he started, like Douglas and his colleagues, suspicious of it. He might have become convinced by reason: with Rose, more than most men, that could conceivably happen: or else the events of Suez were still working changes in him. Still, it was a surprise. But, far more of a surprise, was his outburst about Douglas.
I had known Hector Rose for nearly twenty years. In all that time, I had not heard him pass a judgement on any of his equals. Not that he did not make them — but keeping them quiet was part of the disciplined life. I had known for years that he probably disliked, and certainly envied, Douglas. He knew that I knew. Yet I was astonished, and perhaps he was too, that he should let it out.
Just then the telephone rang. It was for me: Francis Getliffe had called at my office. When I told Rose he said: ‘I think, if he wouldn’t mind, I should rather like him to spare me five minutes.’
After I had given the message, Rose regarded me as though, for the second time that evening, he could not decide whether to speak or not. He said: ‘You’ll have a chance to talk to him later, will you?’
‘I should think so,’ I said.
‘In that case, I should be grateful if you passed on the substance of what I’ve been telling you.’
‘You mean, there’s going to be trouble?’
‘There are certain advantages in being prepared, shouldn’t you say?’
‘Including personal trouble?’
‘That’s going further than I was prepared to go.’
Yet he wanted Francis Getliffe to know about it, and he also wanted to avoid telling him.
When Francis came into the room, however, Rose was so polite that he seemed to be caricaturing himself. ‘My dear Sir Francis, it really is extraordinarily good of you! I didn’t expect to have this pleasure—’ All the time he was brandishing Francis’ title; while Francis, who was not undisposed to formality himself, insisted on calling him ‘Secretary’. They sounded, I thought impatiently, used to it as I was, like two nineteenth century Spaniards: but that wasn’t fair. They really sounded like two official mid-twentieth century Englishmen. In fact, they respected each other. Rose liked Francis much more than he did me.