fought so hard to destroy. They could spend their early mornings riding and the rest of the day on the farm in brilliant sunshine. It would be a life in paradise where what money they had would go a long way.
On 11 November, the day the Armistice was signed, as the nation celebrated and her sister, Avie, was planning her marriage to Stewart, Idina wrote to Euan asking for a divorce.
On Wednesday, 20 November, Euan reached Charing Cross Station at ten to three in the afternoon, surprised to find nobody there to meet him. “Got a taxi home: Dina had never got my wire,” 9 he wrote, as if unable to understand what asking for a divorce meant.
Idina was waiting for Euan at home. She hadn’t seen him for almost half a year. Yet his face was still the same one that she had spent years wanting to reach out and touch.
Before either of them had a chance to talk, tea arrived. Rapidly burdened with a saucer and a cup full to the brim with scalding liquid in one hand, and a sandwich plate in the other, neither was able to say anything of any meaning whatsoever until after it had all been cleared away.
Then they sat by the window overlooking Hyde Park and its expanse of dulling green autumn grass pockmarked by brown mulch pools of leaves, bare-armed trees reaching above. The light was almost gone. They spoke about their marriage. “Important discussion with D after tea,” Euan wrote. It would be five years the following week: five years, two children, a not yet half-built house several hundred miles away. Not quite a year and a half of that time had been spent on the same side of the Channel, during a war that they thought had been the beginning of the end of the world.
Idina did not want to remain married to a man who had so openly forgotten he had a wife. She didn’t mind what anyone thought, but she wanted a divorce and a chance to start again. Euan would easily find witnesses to win him a divorce from her, if that was how he wished to do it.
The light outside had gone, but when Idina looked up she would have seen that this discussion had come as a relief to Euan: “explains much, thank goodness,” he wrote later of their afternoon’s conversation. His reaction was not surprising, considering that, if Idina had tried todivorce him by claiming desertion, he would have been thrown out of the Life Guards.
EUAN RETURNED FROM HIS BEST MAN’S dinner with Stewart, Avie, and Muriel just after eleven. Idina, too, had returned from dinner, dressed to the nines. She’d had time to have a drink or two. Euan had too.
He tried to persuade her to stay: “Long talk to Dina …”
Euan had some strong points to make. For one, Idina would lose any right to the money in the Marriage Trust. Her mother was still emptying her own bank account into the Socialists’ and Theosophists’ pockets. Charles Gordon couldn’t have much left to rub together. That meant no Lanvin, no Claridge’s, no Ritz. If Idina insisted upon going, she would be giving up a fortune.
But Idina clearly didn’t give a damn about money. She wouldn’t have been leaving Euan if she had. In any case, she had a little money in her own right. It wasn’t a fortune, but if she went abroad it would be enough to live on.
The children were more difficult. Euan was, after all, the one with the money to support them and give them the best lives they could have. Besides, no gentleman wanted his children living in another man’s house. Even if he had seen them just twice in the past twelve months, he certainly was not going to allow Idina to take them to Africa. What they needed was an English education. In any case, before they could blink the boys would be seven and off to boarding school. What would either see of them then?
For the past four years and a bit, the major part of their short pre–boarding school life at home, Idina had been the one making sure the children were well, taking them to the doctor, taking them to the seaside, finding somewhere for them to
On 11 November, the day the Armistice was signed, as the nation celebrated and her sister, Avie, was planning her marriage to Stewart, Idina wrote to Euan asking for a divorce.
On Wednesday, 20 November, Euan reached Charing Cross Station at ten to three in the afternoon, surprised to find nobody there to meet him. “Got a taxi home: Dina had never got my wire,” 9 he wrote, as if unable to understand what asking for a divorce meant.
Idina was waiting for Euan at home. She hadn’t seen him for almost half a year. Yet his face was still the same one that she had spent years wanting to reach out and touch.
Before either of them had a chance to talk, tea arrived. Rapidly burdened with a saucer and a cup full to the brim with scalding liquid in one hand, and a sandwich plate in the other, neither was able to say anything of any meaning whatsoever until after it had all been cleared away.
Then they sat by the window overlooking Hyde Park and its expanse of dulling green autumn grass pockmarked by brown mulch pools of leaves, bare-armed trees reaching above. The light was almost gone. They spoke about their marriage. “Important discussion with D after tea,” Euan wrote. It would be five years the following week: five years, two children, a not yet half-built house several hundred miles away. Not quite a year and a half of that time had been spent on the same side of the Channel, during a war that they thought had been the beginning of the end of the world.
Idina did not want to remain married to a man who had so openly forgotten he had a wife. She didn’t mind what anyone thought, but she wanted a divorce and a chance to start again. Euan would easily find witnesses to win him a divorce from her, if that was how he wished to do it.
The light outside had gone, but when Idina looked up she would have seen that this discussion had come as a relief to Euan: “explains much, thank goodness,” he wrote later of their afternoon’s conversation. His reaction was not surprising, considering that, if Idina had tried todivorce him by claiming desertion, he would have been thrown out of the Life Guards.
EUAN RETURNED FROM HIS BEST MAN’S dinner with Stewart, Avie, and Muriel just after eleven. Idina, too, had returned from dinner, dressed to the nines. She’d had time to have a drink or two. Euan had too.
He tried to persuade her to stay: “Long talk to Dina …”
Euan had some strong points to make. For one, Idina would lose any right to the money in the Marriage Trust. Her mother was still emptying her own bank account into the Socialists’ and Theosophists’ pockets. Charles Gordon couldn’t have much left to rub together. That meant no Lanvin, no Claridge’s, no Ritz. If Idina insisted upon going, she would be giving up a fortune.
But Idina clearly didn’t give a damn about money. She wouldn’t have been leaving Euan if she had. In any case, she had a little money in her own right. It wasn’t a fortune, but if she went abroad it would be enough to live on.
The children were more difficult. Euan was, after all, the one with the money to support them and give them the best lives they could have. Besides, no gentleman wanted his children living in another man’s house. Even if he had seen them just twice in the past twelve months, he certainly was not going to allow Idina to take them to Africa. What they needed was an English education. In any case, before they could blink the boys would be seven and off to boarding school. What would either see of them then?
For the past four years and a bit, the major part of their short pre–boarding school life at home, Idina had been the one making sure the children were well, taking them to the doctor, taking them to the seaside, finding somewhere for them to
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