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"I don't want a bath. "
"Perhaps you can skip your bath tonight. " Fitz got up. "Send for me when the doctor arrives," he said to Nurse. "I'd like to speak to the fellow myself. "
"Very good, my lord. "
He left the nursery and went to his dressing room. His valet had laid out his evening clothes, with the diamond studs in the shirtfront and the matching cuff links in the sleeves, a clean linen handkerchief in the coat pocket, and one silk sock placed inside each patent-leather shoe.
Before getting changed he went through to Bea's room.
She was eight months pregnant.
He had not seen her in this state when she was expecting Boy. He had left for France in August 1914, when she was only four or five months along, and he had not returned until after Boy had been born. He had not previously witnessed this spectacular swelling, nor marveled at the body's shocking ability to change and stretch.
She was sitting at her dressing table but not looking in the glass. She was leaning back, her legs apart, her hands resting on the bulge. Her eyes were closed and she looked pale. "I just can't get comfortable," she complained. "Standing, sitting, lying down, everything hurts. "
"You ought to go along to the nursery and take a look at Boy. "
"I will as soon as I can summon up the energy!" she snapped. "I should never have traveled to the country. It's ridiculous for me to host a house party in this state. "
Fitz knew she was right. "But we need the support of these men if we're to do anything about the Bolsheviks. "
"Is Boy's tummy still poorly?"
"Yes. The doctor is coming. "
"You'd better send him to me while he's here-not that a country doctor is likely to know much. "
"I'll tell the staff. I take it you won't be coming down to dinner. "
"How can I, when I feel like this?"
"I was just asking. Maud can sit at the head of the table. "
Fitz returned to his dressing room. Some men had abandoned tailcoats and white ties, and wore short tuxedo jackets and black ties at dinner, citing the war as their excuse. Fitz did not see the connection. Why should war oblige people to dress informally?
He put on his evening clothes and went downstairs.
{II}
After dinner, as coffee was served in the drawing room, Winston said provocatively: "So, Lady Maud, you women have got the vote at last. "
"Some of us have," she said.
Fitz knew she was disappointed that the bill had included o
nly 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. "
