The First of July(54)

“I certainly wouldn’t try to avoid it,” he said. “But the truth is,” and as he spoke, he realized that it was, indeed, an absolute truth, “there would seem to be something undignified about waiting until I’d been tracked down and forced to do my duty.”

She smiled, mischievously, but evidently pleased with his words. “So you do feel it is your duty, then?”

“How would you feel, seeing pictures of your countrymen being slaughtered every day and then going out to—to listen to some—harpist—play Celtic folk songs?”

She touched his sleeve. Her voice was low. “I am so sorry. That was abominably insensitive of me. I was interested, genuinely, but it is not a good topic for dinner-party talk.”

“No. No, I am very glad you asked me. I should have been asking myself. And I rather hate dinner-party talk.”

On his other side, the debutante’s knife grated on the gold-scrolled dinner plate, and she stared at it as if trying to pare it back to china clay.

“Are you enjoying the evening?” he asked her. “The harpist was rather good, wasn’t she?”

The girl, with a mouth full of sole, stared at him, panic-stricken and chewing earnestly, her fork brandished like a weapon on the end of her chubby forearm. He put his hand up. “Sorry. I always ask questions at the wrong time!”

He turned back to the editor’s wife.

“What would you do, if you were me?” he said with what he hoped was levity.

“Do you have children?”

He was caught by surprise. His eyes flickered across to Marina, who was in polite conversation with an elderly banker.

“No. No, we don’t.” Then he added, as if it were an excuse, “We haven’t been married very long.”

It struck Harry that he had thought very little about children. He knew of Marina’s longings, but she was healthy and young: presumably children would come. For himself, he had taken it for granted that Teddy would be his heir—at least to Abbotsgate, his home—in his own right. Yet Marina had every right to expect that any son of theirs, if they had one, would inherit the estate. He thought again of what an inadequate husband he had been, isolated, detached from real life; even in his passionate exploration of this great city, he had been a spectator; his pursuit of Marina had been like selecting a particularly beautiful, interesting souvenir. If he had had the simple courage to explain his circumstances to a woman who had trusted him enough to become his wife, then these things could have been discussed. Now, it was impossible.

He was startled for a second when his neighbor spoke again.

“I would talk to your ambassador,” she said. “Informally. He will know how things stand. You could see about taking a commission without committing yourself yet. Perhaps they won’t want you. But your position is to either wait until they drag you off to fight, or to stay here and gawp from afar at horrors facing your childhood friends.”

He nodded very slowly. “Thank you.” Then he told her that if America joined the war, he’d enlist as an American.

She looked unflatteringly amused.

“I’m sure they’d be glad to have you. But President Wilson is quite determined that we should merely watch and stay well away.”

“And you agree?”

“Of course. It’s terrible. I hate war. My grandfathers were generals on different sides of the Civil War. North, South: we burned and destroyed each other, and we planted deep roots of hatred and distrust. I don’t even know why you—Britain—are involved in this war. Truly, I don’t. I’m not a religious woman, but as the saying goes, ‘They have sown a wind but shall reap a whirlwind.’ I hope that whirlwind doesn’t engulf my country too.”

“Of course—” he began.

“But do I think it will be possible for us to stay out?” She didn’t let him interrupt. “No. The money says we’ll be drawn in. Business interests have kept us out so far; and now that there’s a blockade, it’s proving impossible. . . . Maybe Mr. Roosevelt is right and we should be preparing ourselves.”

“You talk like a man,” he said, attracted to her forthright views and her passion, and conscious too of her dark eyes, her white neck and curls of dark hair in which nestled tiny diamond stars.

“And you like an Englishman,” she said, briskly, but then laughed loud enough to make the couple opposite her look up. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask me what my husband thinks. Or my notoriously pacifist relatives.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to patronize you. It’s been a great help to talk to you.” As he said it, he felt disloyal. What was stopping him from revealing his doubts to Marina?