of shopping, popped into a lunch party or two, and by midafternoon were at the first of their day’s shows of scantily clad dancing girls. At the Folies Bergère “therewas such a crowd we couldn’t get a seat.” On the second night the two of them ended up with the dancing partners at Madame de la Barondière’s. By teatime on day three Euan had whisked his young friend “off to Passy & introduced him to Solange!!”
Euan returned from the whirl of Paris to Brigade HQ to find some astounding news waiting for him. He was, at last, being posted back to England. He would be there for almost four months.
Chapter 7
S hort of the whole beastly war coming to an end, the prospect of four months with Euan was about as good news as Idina could hope to receive. He was being sent back to England to attend a training course for Staff Officers. The course was a twelve-week affair that would mean living as a student at a Cambridge University college, dining in the college hall, attending lectures, and writing essays. In a rapid-fire exchange of letters and wires, Idina, although not yet fully well again, planned to join him. It was a taste of the university life that neither of them had experienced. Idina would take a house or some rooms in a hotel, and they would spend as much time as they could together. And, on either side of the course, Euan would have a whole fortnight’s home leave. In theory it should have given the two of them much-needed time together to strengthen their relationship. But Euan’s return would not save their marriage, but destroy it.
On 21 March 1918 Idina took a late-lunchtime train from Brighton to London. She reached Victoria just after three, hailed a taxi, and arrived at Connaught Place half an hour later to discover that Euan had wired from Folkestone at one. One of their household servants, driving the Calcott, had already left to pick him up from Victoria, giving Idina just a few minutes to do her face and conceal how ill she was still feeling. On her dressing table was spread an array of silver-topped glass jars and pots, an armory of brushes, pencils, and powder puffs between them. 1
Whatever she did, it was not enough. When, twenty minutes later,Euan came in he was dismayed: “Found Dina had just got up from Brighton and is still not looking at all fit,” 2 he wrote that evening.
It was not a thunderbolt of a reunion. Euan was disappointed that Idina was not yet well. In a sense it had been her wartime duty to recover for her husband’s return. She appeared to have neglected it. Brighton, where she had supposedly been recuperating, was full of fresh sea air, but it was also full of bright young things on jaunts out of London. Once they realized what precious little entertainment the town held for them, these jaunts would end in drunken and often morphine-fueled bottle parties in hotel rooms. Idina had been there, a beacon to their friends, waiting to be visited, cheered up, and entertained.
Euan insisted they dine “quietly upstairs” at a small table at the end of the drawing room, and when the evening paper arrived he seized it. Idina watched him pore over its pages. The long-expected great German offensive had begun. He had made it back to England just, and only just, in time. Here in London all he had to fight for—apart from avoiding the bombs—was palatable food. Not only bread, but now meat, butter, and sugar were tightly rationed and, first thing the next morning, before Idina had had time to dress, Euan was off to hunt down his ration tickets. Then, he told her, he would visit his mother. 3 Idina stayed in bed.
Euan’s mother, Minnie Wallace, was a disapproving, dour, and tight-fisted woman, ironically so, given that she lived at 9 Grosvenor Street, an elegant town house barely twenty yards from the extravagances of the Bond Street shops. Since the death of her husband, Jack, Minnie had depended on her son for money. She had been widowed ten years earlier at the age of
Euan returned from the whirl of Paris to Brigade HQ to find some astounding news waiting for him. He was, at last, being posted back to England. He would be there for almost four months.
Chapter 7
S hort of the whole beastly war coming to an end, the prospect of four months with Euan was about as good news as Idina could hope to receive. He was being sent back to England to attend a training course for Staff Officers. The course was a twelve-week affair that would mean living as a student at a Cambridge University college, dining in the college hall, attending lectures, and writing essays. In a rapid-fire exchange of letters and wires, Idina, although not yet fully well again, planned to join him. It was a taste of the university life that neither of them had experienced. Idina would take a house or some rooms in a hotel, and they would spend as much time as they could together. And, on either side of the course, Euan would have a whole fortnight’s home leave. In theory it should have given the two of them much-needed time together to strengthen their relationship. But Euan’s return would not save their marriage, but destroy it.
On 21 March 1918 Idina took a late-lunchtime train from Brighton to London. She reached Victoria just after three, hailed a taxi, and arrived at Connaught Place half an hour later to discover that Euan had wired from Folkestone at one. One of their household servants, driving the Calcott, had already left to pick him up from Victoria, giving Idina just a few minutes to do her face and conceal how ill she was still feeling. On her dressing table was spread an array of silver-topped glass jars and pots, an armory of brushes, pencils, and powder puffs between them. 1
Whatever she did, it was not enough. When, twenty minutes later,Euan came in he was dismayed: “Found Dina had just got up from Brighton and is still not looking at all fit,” 2 he wrote that evening.
It was not a thunderbolt of a reunion. Euan was disappointed that Idina was not yet well. In a sense it had been her wartime duty to recover for her husband’s return. She appeared to have neglected it. Brighton, where she had supposedly been recuperating, was full of fresh sea air, but it was also full of bright young things on jaunts out of London. Once they realized what precious little entertainment the town held for them, these jaunts would end in drunken and often morphine-fueled bottle parties in hotel rooms. Idina had been there, a beacon to their friends, waiting to be visited, cheered up, and entertained.
Euan insisted they dine “quietly upstairs” at a small table at the end of the drawing room, and when the evening paper arrived he seized it. Idina watched him pore over its pages. The long-expected great German offensive had begun. He had made it back to England just, and only just, in time. Here in London all he had to fight for—apart from avoiding the bombs—was palatable food. Not only bread, but now meat, butter, and sugar were tightly rationed and, first thing the next morning, before Idina had had time to dress, Euan was off to hunt down his ration tickets. Then, he told her, he would visit his mother. 3 Idina stayed in bed.
Euan’s mother, Minnie Wallace, was a disapproving, dour, and tight-fisted woman, ironically so, given that she lived at 9 Grosvenor Street, an elegant town house barely twenty yards from the extravagances of the Bond Street shops. Since the death of her husband, Jack, Minnie had depended on her son for money. She had been widowed ten years earlier at the age of
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