Maravillosa
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- Sep 7, 2018
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This is an excerpt from my work in progress: the provisional title is The Asquith Affair. I have written about 50,000 words of a first draft and am now revising it. It is an alternate history: the protagonist is Venetia Stanley, the aristocratic young confidante of H.H. Asquith, British Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916 (at least in our timeline). The main divergence from our historical timeline takes place in May 1915. Asquith discovers Venetia in bed having lesbian sex with his daughter Violet (who is Venetia's best friend: Venetia's biographer has posited that Violet was the love of Venetia's life) and goes ballistic. In revenge, Venetia gives the hundreds of letters that Asquith has written to her to the newspaper publisher Lord Northcliffe: Venetia's aims are to bring about an end to the Great War and to put Asquith out of his misery (which she realizes could mean that he would ctb, since he has expressed suicidal thoughts in his letters to Venetia).
This is the last part of Chapter 3 (at about the halfway point of my manuscript). Northcliffe has published in the Daily Mail extensive extracts from the love letters filled with state secrets that Asquith wrote to Venetia. A scandal is brewing, and the Cabinet wants Asquith out of office immediately. David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has been in contact with Northcliffe, intends for Asquith's removal to be permanent. Lloyd George (who wants to become Prime Minister himself) is giving Asquith an ultimatum: either Asquith takes his own life in short order (with a state funeral and burial in Westminster Abbey to follow) or Asquith goes on trial for treason.
A few notes: Puffin is the nickname of Asquith's youngest son Anthony, who was twelve years old in May 1915. Helen (née Melland) was Asquith's first wife and mother of his first five children (Raymond, Herbert [Beb], Arthur [Oc], Violet, and Cyril [Cys]). Helen died of typhoid fever in 1891 at the age of 35: Asquith was 38. Several months before Helen died, Asquith met Margot Tennant (whom he would marry in 1894) and began an intense correspondence with her. I think it is fair to say that Asquith probably had an emotional affair with Margot that began before Helen's death, though I doubt that Asquith and Margot had sex with each other before their marriage.
Anyway, folks, what do you think about this? Sorry for the length (over 2000 words). Is it any good? Please give critiques if you are interested. Thanks
Lloyd George strode about the room like an eerily persuasive panther surveying his prey. "If you die now," he told Asquith, "the government will give a life pension to Margot and pensions for the children — at least to the girls till they marry, and to Puffin till he turns 21. Your older sons are self-supporting, so they need no pension. But be assured that Margot, the girls, and Puffin will receive a substantial pension, Prime Minister: £10,000 a year for Margot, £5000 a year for each of the girls and for Puffin. You don't come from a wealthy family. Even if you were to be acquitted of treason, you would still have to provide for your family — and how would you do that? Your political career is over. You can't return to the Bar. I can't imagine you doing hack journalism for your daily bread —"
Asquith interrupted the riverine flow of Lloyd George's words. "I wrote for the Spectator when I was young. Would that count as 'hack journalism'?"
Lloyd George guffawed briefly, then continued. "What you did 30 years ago is not what you can do today. Really, Prime Minister, we've all read the letters. Death would not be completely unwelcome to you. All you have to do is acknowledge it, embrace it. Embrace it as you did Miss Stanley —"
Asquith was outraged. "You should talk! What about Miss Stevenson, David?" Frances Stevenson, an attractive but seemingly businesslike blonde about Venetia's age, was not only Lloyd George's mistress, but his personal secretary.
"I'm not the one in trouble, Prime Minister," Lloyd George said smoothly. "I'm not the one who sent sweet nothings and state secrets in the regular post. Would l be so careless? No. I would not. And if Miss Stevenson were to do anything like what Miss Stanley did, I would denounce her as a liar and a forger. Even if she told the honest swear-to-God truth. You know why, Prime Minister? I don't pride myself on being a man of honor. I'm not one of those ancient Romans, ready to fall on his sword. You are. You have been checkmated. Dying would be easy for you. So do it."
"I don't think —" Asquith sputtered, temporarily at a loss for words.
"If you're afraid that the scandal will dominate everything and ruin your posthumous reputation, it won't. At the state funeral, you can be sure that Archbishop Davidson will say nothing about this past week. You have been a good prime minister — at least till the War came. You could have been one of the great ones, better even than Gladstone, if the War hadn't come and ruined everything for you. And you do deserve a state funeral and a burial in Westminster Abbey for all your pains. You don't want to forfeit that for an uncertain future. Even if you were to be acquitted of treason, your life is over. You want to die. This is the right time to hop off the omnibus, so to speak. And if you're afraid of Hell — good God, I know that you come from a good Nonconformist family. So do I — me a Baptist, you a Congregationalist, at least by upbringing. You've come a long way from it — so have I — but I can see why the fear of Hell might intrude at this moment. I can't speak for God, but I think He would be merciful. Just think: your mother, your father, your first wife — they are waiting for you. A good God would not damn you. All you have to do is one little thing, and you will be at peace. Your troubles over. Think of that, Prime Minister." Lloyd George smiled. The panther had not only caught his prey but was about to swallow it whole.
Asquith was reminded of a historical quote he had once read. "'I believe sleep was never more welcome to a weary traveler than death was to her.' Dr. Arbuthnot to Swift on the death of Queen Anne."
Lloyd George nodded in apparent sympathy. "Sleep was never more welcome to a weary traveler than death is to you, Prime Minister. We'll give you two hours to write anything you wish before you shoot yourself. If you are still alive at half-past three, then you are under arrest for treason, and any pension to Margot and the children is forfeit. Rest in peace, Prime Minister, and bon voyage."
Lloyd George locked Asquith in Asquith's own office. In the office was a loaded .455 Webley revolver, a bottle of whiskey, a supply of paper, and a pen. Asquith paced about his office for several minutes, then poured himself a glass of whiskey. He did not like whiskey neat, without soda, but gulped it nevertheless to calm his nerves. Then he filled the glass again and began to sip the whiskey slowly. If given a choice, he would have preferred brandy, champagne, claret, or port. However, those beverages were nowhere to be found in his office.
Yes, Asquith had wished himself dead from time to time, but to actually do the deed… it was frightening. He did not want to think that suicide would automatically condemn him to Hell: he wanted to believe in a merciful God, but it was hard to do so. Yet it was better than the alternative, to be sure. A treason trial? Even if he were acquitted — which Asquith thought was likely, since he had not been deliberately treacherous by writing all those letters to Venetia — or convicted and given a light sentence, his political career was over. It was over the minute Northcliffe published the letters to Venetia. And how could he live after politics, in humiliation, the laughingstock of the world, all the good things he had done in public life disregarded, remembered only as an old man obsessed with a slip of a girl, writing to her during Cabinet meetings… There was a rhyme — one could not really call it a poem — that Asquith had heard going around the past few days. Asquith could imagine it becoming almost a Mother Goose or Robert Louis Stevenson-style nursery rhyme, perhaps to jump rope with:
H.H. Asquith
Who when the Great War was tasked with
Never felt more manly
Than with Venetia Stanley.
Oh, Venetia… his love, his obsession, his downfall, his angel of death. How could she and Violet do such a thing? He had known they were the best of friends, but sapphists? And apparently, it was not the first time they had gone to bed with each other. Asquith remembered all the times that Violet and Venetia had been together in Violet's room, behind closed doors. So it had been not just gossip that they had been sharing! Well, he hoped that Venetia could live with herself now, somehow. Yes, the letters would inevitably have come out, although he remembered his own adage about the inevitable never happening — but this time the inevitable had indeed happened. He had sent the letters in the ordinary post, after all. If Venetia had not given the letters to Northcliffe, Venetia's maid could have chanced upon the letters and given them to Northcliffe. Perhaps Asquith had been courting the moment of his death by his own hand all along, even though he did not know it at the time he was writing all those letters.
The clock on the wall chimed two o'clock. Asquith looked out the window. What a lovely afternoon to die! Never to see another spring, or summer, or autumn, or winter… Perhaps the afterlife would be pleasant if there were one. Either that or oblivion. Asquith preferred the thought of a pleasant afterlife. Mama, Papa, Helen… He imagined them beckoning him, welcoming him to a better place than this. How could he explain to them all that had happened? Would they forgive him his foolishness? He hoped so. He imagined himself dead, in his coffin, at the state funeral that Lloyd George had promised him. Asquith imagined Archbishop Davidson going overboard with lapidary praise, to the titters of the congregation in Westminster Abbey.
And all the time he was writing to Venetia, he had never written a word to Raymond or Beb or Oc, who were serving at the Front. How could his sons ever forgive him? "Dear God, forgive me!" Asquith exclaimed out loud. He glanced at himself in the mirror. He looked haggard and felt like Hell. Northcliffe and his obscene crew were right. They had had Asquith's number all along. No matter what the rest of the world would have said of him before the scandal got out, he, Herbert Henry Asquith, was, if not an imposter, at any rate a failure, and au fond, a fool. No fool like an old fool. He supposed that most people would have said that he had got at least a fair share of what men desire and struggle and aim at. But then came in the Gospel question: What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Was his soul lost? Asquith hoped not.
After he was dead, Asquith was sure that Margot would weep loud lamentations: Puffin, Oc, and Violet would be devastated: Haldane (Lord Chancellor and Asquith's oldest friend in politics), McKenna (Home Secretary), and the Assyrian (as Asquith half-affectionately, half-mockingly called Edwin Montagu, emphasizing Montagu's Jewishness) would miss him — at least for a while. Should he write notes to all of the children? No. What could he tell them? "Forgive me" over and over again? And where was he to shoot himself? Asquith shuddered at the thought of blowing his brains out. He admitted to himself that he was vain enough to want to look good in that open casket at the state funeral. The heart, then. Left breast, a bit away from the nipple. It would not be an instantaneous death, but worth the trouble. The pain would only last a moment. He hoped that he could compose his face peacefully despite the pain. And then Helen would come to him, to take him home, to be happy forever.
Asquith stopped pacing around the room and sat down at his desk. After finishing his second glass of whiskey and setting the glass down on the desk, Asquith took a piece of paper and picked up the pen. A fountain pen: he preferred quills. Eh bien! One last inconvenience for him. Bongie must have forgotten to bring the daily supply of quills: not only was it Sunday, but they were in the midst of a crisis and little things like that could be overlooked. Asquith wrote to Margot:
My own darling,
Forgive me.
Your loving
H
She needed no more than that. He did not need to make his suicide notes a manifesto. Now another one:
My dearest Violet,
Forgive me.
Your loving
Father
Now to Venetia. She deserved a note, after all. Asquith's mind contained a whirlwind of emotions. What to write? He did not fully forgive her all this — not yet, anyway. Perhaps in the hereafter, when he could see his entire life in perspective, he would come to forgive her. As for now, let the girl squirm. Let her feel guilty for her role in his death. Let her expiate her sin. Then, when she was an old, old woman, she would die, full of good deeds. Then he would forgive her and give her all the love she deserved — which was a lot, by the way. She had been good to him, after all. If she had not been there, he would not have been able to function, especially since the War began.
Most loved —
How could you?
Love and blessings forever,
HHA
Asquith added his initials at the end, although he had not signed his letters to Venetia for a long time. After all, this note was for posterity, not just for Venetia.
There were some envelopes next to the sheets of paper. He wrote the names in his best handwriting:
Mrs. Margot Asquith
Miss Violet Asquith
Hon. Venetia Stanley
And he carefully folded each note in its proper envelope but did not seal the envelopes, since he knew that the police would read the notes before giving them to their intended recipients.
Asquith picked up the revolver with his right hand and glanced at the clock: it was almost three. Wasn't that the hour that Jesus died on the Cross on Good Friday? Asquith thought that it seemed to be an appropriate time of day to die. The revolver felt heavy. Asquith held the small framed photo of Helen in his left hand, gently kissed the glass that covered the lips in the photo, and then clutched the photo tightly.
Asquith's breathing was jagged and his heart was beating quickly as if to protest against his decision. He whispered the Lord's Prayer. "Forgive me, God, for all this trouble," he then murmured. There! The muzzle was above his heart. Here it goes, he thought —
And pulled the trigger.
This is the last part of Chapter 3 (at about the halfway point of my manuscript). Northcliffe has published in the Daily Mail extensive extracts from the love letters filled with state secrets that Asquith wrote to Venetia. A scandal is brewing, and the Cabinet wants Asquith out of office immediately. David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has been in contact with Northcliffe, intends for Asquith's removal to be permanent. Lloyd George (who wants to become Prime Minister himself) is giving Asquith an ultimatum: either Asquith takes his own life in short order (with a state funeral and burial in Westminster Abbey to follow) or Asquith goes on trial for treason.
A few notes: Puffin is the nickname of Asquith's youngest son Anthony, who was twelve years old in May 1915. Helen (née Melland) was Asquith's first wife and mother of his first five children (Raymond, Herbert [Beb], Arthur [Oc], Violet, and Cyril [Cys]). Helen died of typhoid fever in 1891 at the age of 35: Asquith was 38. Several months before Helen died, Asquith met Margot Tennant (whom he would marry in 1894) and began an intense correspondence with her. I think it is fair to say that Asquith probably had an emotional affair with Margot that began before Helen's death, though I doubt that Asquith and Margot had sex with each other before their marriage.
Anyway, folks, what do you think about this? Sorry for the length (over 2000 words). Is it any good? Please give critiques if you are interested. Thanks
10 Downing Street
Sunday, May 9, 1915
Sunday, May 9, 1915
Lloyd George strode about the room like an eerily persuasive panther surveying his prey. "If you die now," he told Asquith, "the government will give a life pension to Margot and pensions for the children — at least to the girls till they marry, and to Puffin till he turns 21. Your older sons are self-supporting, so they need no pension. But be assured that Margot, the girls, and Puffin will receive a substantial pension, Prime Minister: £10,000 a year for Margot, £5000 a year for each of the girls and for Puffin. You don't come from a wealthy family. Even if you were to be acquitted of treason, you would still have to provide for your family — and how would you do that? Your political career is over. You can't return to the Bar. I can't imagine you doing hack journalism for your daily bread —"
Asquith interrupted the riverine flow of Lloyd George's words. "I wrote for the Spectator when I was young. Would that count as 'hack journalism'?"
Lloyd George guffawed briefly, then continued. "What you did 30 years ago is not what you can do today. Really, Prime Minister, we've all read the letters. Death would not be completely unwelcome to you. All you have to do is acknowledge it, embrace it. Embrace it as you did Miss Stanley —"
Asquith was outraged. "You should talk! What about Miss Stevenson, David?" Frances Stevenson, an attractive but seemingly businesslike blonde about Venetia's age, was not only Lloyd George's mistress, but his personal secretary.
"I'm not the one in trouble, Prime Minister," Lloyd George said smoothly. "I'm not the one who sent sweet nothings and state secrets in the regular post. Would l be so careless? No. I would not. And if Miss Stevenson were to do anything like what Miss Stanley did, I would denounce her as a liar and a forger. Even if she told the honest swear-to-God truth. You know why, Prime Minister? I don't pride myself on being a man of honor. I'm not one of those ancient Romans, ready to fall on his sword. You are. You have been checkmated. Dying would be easy for you. So do it."
"I don't think —" Asquith sputtered, temporarily at a loss for words.
"If you're afraid that the scandal will dominate everything and ruin your posthumous reputation, it won't. At the state funeral, you can be sure that Archbishop Davidson will say nothing about this past week. You have been a good prime minister — at least till the War came. You could have been one of the great ones, better even than Gladstone, if the War hadn't come and ruined everything for you. And you do deserve a state funeral and a burial in Westminster Abbey for all your pains. You don't want to forfeit that for an uncertain future. Even if you were to be acquitted of treason, your life is over. You want to die. This is the right time to hop off the omnibus, so to speak. And if you're afraid of Hell — good God, I know that you come from a good Nonconformist family. So do I — me a Baptist, you a Congregationalist, at least by upbringing. You've come a long way from it — so have I — but I can see why the fear of Hell might intrude at this moment. I can't speak for God, but I think He would be merciful. Just think: your mother, your father, your first wife — they are waiting for you. A good God would not damn you. All you have to do is one little thing, and you will be at peace. Your troubles over. Think of that, Prime Minister." Lloyd George smiled. The panther had not only caught his prey but was about to swallow it whole.
Asquith was reminded of a historical quote he had once read. "'I believe sleep was never more welcome to a weary traveler than death was to her.' Dr. Arbuthnot to Swift on the death of Queen Anne."
Lloyd George nodded in apparent sympathy. "Sleep was never more welcome to a weary traveler than death is to you, Prime Minister. We'll give you two hours to write anything you wish before you shoot yourself. If you are still alive at half-past three, then you are under arrest for treason, and any pension to Margot and the children is forfeit. Rest in peace, Prime Minister, and bon voyage."
*
Lloyd George locked Asquith in Asquith's own office. In the office was a loaded .455 Webley revolver, a bottle of whiskey, a supply of paper, and a pen. Asquith paced about his office for several minutes, then poured himself a glass of whiskey. He did not like whiskey neat, without soda, but gulped it nevertheless to calm his nerves. Then he filled the glass again and began to sip the whiskey slowly. If given a choice, he would have preferred brandy, champagne, claret, or port. However, those beverages were nowhere to be found in his office.
Yes, Asquith had wished himself dead from time to time, but to actually do the deed… it was frightening. He did not want to think that suicide would automatically condemn him to Hell: he wanted to believe in a merciful God, but it was hard to do so. Yet it was better than the alternative, to be sure. A treason trial? Even if he were acquitted — which Asquith thought was likely, since he had not been deliberately treacherous by writing all those letters to Venetia — or convicted and given a light sentence, his political career was over. It was over the minute Northcliffe published the letters to Venetia. And how could he live after politics, in humiliation, the laughingstock of the world, all the good things he had done in public life disregarded, remembered only as an old man obsessed with a slip of a girl, writing to her during Cabinet meetings… There was a rhyme — one could not really call it a poem — that Asquith had heard going around the past few days. Asquith could imagine it becoming almost a Mother Goose or Robert Louis Stevenson-style nursery rhyme, perhaps to jump rope with:
H.H. Asquith
Who when the Great War was tasked with
Never felt more manly
Than with Venetia Stanley.
Oh, Venetia… his love, his obsession, his downfall, his angel of death. How could she and Violet do such a thing? He had known they were the best of friends, but sapphists? And apparently, it was not the first time they had gone to bed with each other. Asquith remembered all the times that Violet and Venetia had been together in Violet's room, behind closed doors. So it had been not just gossip that they had been sharing! Well, he hoped that Venetia could live with herself now, somehow. Yes, the letters would inevitably have come out, although he remembered his own adage about the inevitable never happening — but this time the inevitable had indeed happened. He had sent the letters in the ordinary post, after all. If Venetia had not given the letters to Northcliffe, Venetia's maid could have chanced upon the letters and given them to Northcliffe. Perhaps Asquith had been courting the moment of his death by his own hand all along, even though he did not know it at the time he was writing all those letters.
The clock on the wall chimed two o'clock. Asquith looked out the window. What a lovely afternoon to die! Never to see another spring, or summer, or autumn, or winter… Perhaps the afterlife would be pleasant if there were one. Either that or oblivion. Asquith preferred the thought of a pleasant afterlife. Mama, Papa, Helen… He imagined them beckoning him, welcoming him to a better place than this. How could he explain to them all that had happened? Would they forgive him his foolishness? He hoped so. He imagined himself dead, in his coffin, at the state funeral that Lloyd George had promised him. Asquith imagined Archbishop Davidson going overboard with lapidary praise, to the titters of the congregation in Westminster Abbey.
And all the time he was writing to Venetia, he had never written a word to Raymond or Beb or Oc, who were serving at the Front. How could his sons ever forgive him? "Dear God, forgive me!" Asquith exclaimed out loud. He glanced at himself in the mirror. He looked haggard and felt like Hell. Northcliffe and his obscene crew were right. They had had Asquith's number all along. No matter what the rest of the world would have said of him before the scandal got out, he, Herbert Henry Asquith, was, if not an imposter, at any rate a failure, and au fond, a fool. No fool like an old fool. He supposed that most people would have said that he had got at least a fair share of what men desire and struggle and aim at. But then came in the Gospel question: What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Was his soul lost? Asquith hoped not.
After he was dead, Asquith was sure that Margot would weep loud lamentations: Puffin, Oc, and Violet would be devastated: Haldane (Lord Chancellor and Asquith's oldest friend in politics), McKenna (Home Secretary), and the Assyrian (as Asquith half-affectionately, half-mockingly called Edwin Montagu, emphasizing Montagu's Jewishness) would miss him — at least for a while. Should he write notes to all of the children? No. What could he tell them? "Forgive me" over and over again? And where was he to shoot himself? Asquith shuddered at the thought of blowing his brains out. He admitted to himself that he was vain enough to want to look good in that open casket at the state funeral. The heart, then. Left breast, a bit away from the nipple. It would not be an instantaneous death, but worth the trouble. The pain would only last a moment. He hoped that he could compose his face peacefully despite the pain. And then Helen would come to him, to take him home, to be happy forever.
Asquith stopped pacing around the room and sat down at his desk. After finishing his second glass of whiskey and setting the glass down on the desk, Asquith took a piece of paper and picked up the pen. A fountain pen: he preferred quills. Eh bien! One last inconvenience for him. Bongie must have forgotten to bring the daily supply of quills: not only was it Sunday, but they were in the midst of a crisis and little things like that could be overlooked. Asquith wrote to Margot:
My own darling,
Forgive me.
Your loving
H
She needed no more than that. He did not need to make his suicide notes a manifesto. Now another one:
My dearest Violet,
Forgive me.
Your loving
Father
Now to Venetia. She deserved a note, after all. Asquith's mind contained a whirlwind of emotions. What to write? He did not fully forgive her all this — not yet, anyway. Perhaps in the hereafter, when he could see his entire life in perspective, he would come to forgive her. As for now, let the girl squirm. Let her feel guilty for her role in his death. Let her expiate her sin. Then, when she was an old, old woman, she would die, full of good deeds. Then he would forgive her and give her all the love she deserved — which was a lot, by the way. She had been good to him, after all. If she had not been there, he would not have been able to function, especially since the War began.
Most loved —
How could you?
Love and blessings forever,
HHA
Asquith added his initials at the end, although he had not signed his letters to Venetia for a long time. After all, this note was for posterity, not just for Venetia.
There were some envelopes next to the sheets of paper. He wrote the names in his best handwriting:
Mrs. Margot Asquith
Miss Violet Asquith
Hon. Venetia Stanley
And he carefully folded each note in its proper envelope but did not seal the envelopes, since he knew that the police would read the notes before giving them to their intended recipients.
Asquith picked up the revolver with his right hand and glanced at the clock: it was almost three. Wasn't that the hour that Jesus died on the Cross on Good Friday? Asquith thought that it seemed to be an appropriate time of day to die. The revolver felt heavy. Asquith held the small framed photo of Helen in his left hand, gently kissed the glass that covered the lips in the photo, and then clutched the photo tightly.
Asquith's breathing was jagged and his heart was beating quickly as if to protest against his decision. He whispered the Lord's Prayer. "Forgive me, God, for all this trouble," he then murmured. There! The muzzle was above his heart. Here it goes, he thought —
And pulled the trigger.
