The Glitter and the Gold Read online

  The housemaids lived in the Housemaids Heights up in a Tower where there was no running water, but since housemaids had so lived for nearly two centuries I was not allowed to improve their lot. There were further five laundresses and a still room maid, who cooked the breakfasts and the cakes and scones for our teas. The still room looked onto the Italian garden as did the china room, with its enchanting walls festooned with lovely china, was one of my favorite resorts.

  A French chef presided over a staff of four. Frequent rows between him and the housekeeper ensued over the intricacies of breakfast trays, since meat dishes were provided by the kitchen and the kitchen and still room were separated by yards and yards of damp, unheated passages so that the food was often cold.

  Later, when there was a nursery, a fourth estate came into being. This was ruled over by the head nurse. She was perhaps the most typical example of snobbishness, and when my second son was born she refused to hand over the "Marquess" to the second nurse, as by rights she should have done, claiming that he was still a baby. It was to her humiliating to push the perambulator which contained the younger son, in spite of the fact that Ivor who was a lovely child was frequently held up by admiring ladies. Nanny was an autocrat, with the strange hostility to any youthful pleasures that is sometimes caused by the lack of personal happiness. She had, as an Englishwoman, the traditional dislike of the French nursery maid, who, she complained to me, refused to take a bath; but when I taxed the girl I found it was only Nanny's personal supervision she objected to. The dourness Nanny showed to her wards was fortunately not extended to my sons or to me. On my frequent visits to the nursery she greeted me with a pleasant smile, and I felt welcomed to those lovely hours I spent romping with my babies.

  Still another important person in the household was my maid. She was with me twenty years and died in my service. My mother-in-law had chosen her for me. Jeanne, the French maid who had accompanied me on my honeymoon, was not considered suitable by my husband, who wrote to his mother to have one already used to English ways awaiting me. Mindful of my youth. Lady Blandford selected a staid and elderly person completely devoid of joy. She was the old maid personified and, disliking men in general and my husband in particular, she made me the object of a loyal but somewhat hectoring devotion. A Swiss with the sterling qualities of her race, she had a strong sense of duty and an equally acute dislike for the full eager life of youth. Her one wish was to remain quietly at home. She hated the week-end parties which, as time went by and I lived alone, were the relaxation I most enjoyed after a busy week. It was with fear and trembling that I would announce that we were spending Sunday at Esher or Taplow or Hackwood. She hated them all for she knew that she would share a room with other maids. At times I would argue with her and say, "You have five quiet days in the week; don't grudge me my two gay ones." With an unanswerable logic she would answer, "You always have your room to yourself!"

  These visits had for her other drawbacks, and the fight for the bathroom became a painful subject which, though recurrent, was best ignored. English country houses contained few bathrooms and they were usually installed in some inconvenient place at the end of a passage. It therefore became a strategic war of movement among the various maids to secure the bathroom for their ladies. Sometimes, coming up to dress for dinner, I would see a queue of them standing with sponges, towels and underwear, waiting in sulky enmity for possession of the bathroom. There was one distressing evening when coming up late after a game of bridge I was greeted angrily by my maid with, "Twice have I prepared your bath tonight and twice has it been stolen from me." "Never mind," I answered contritely, "I'll do without one," but she refused to be mollified. Poor Rosalie, she died of a dread disease and left what for her was a large sum of money. A year later a letter from her Swiss relatives informed me that she had so tied up her legacies that there would be very little left for them to inherit. Her lawyer told me that, inspired by the will of a millionaire she had seen published in the news, she had insisted upon imposing the same safeguards and restrictions on her pounds, shillings and pence that he had on his millions. Such, alas, can be the unfortunate result of a good example!

  Between the various departmental heads there were frequent difficulties which it became my business to adjust. I sometimes wished at first that my nineteen years had provided me with a greater experience.

  Our own rooms which faced east were being redecorated so we spent the first three months in a cold and cheerless apartment looking north. They were ugly, depressing rooms, devoid of the beauty and comforts my own home had provided. Just across the hall overlooking a small inner court were rooms known as Dean Jones's—where, incidentally, Winston Churchill was born. The Dean had been private chaplain to the first Duke and his portrait can be seen in the murals painted by Laguerre. He had a stout form and a florid countenance and looked as if he must have enjoyed the good things of this life unchecked by his spiritual vocation. It seemed strange to me that he should haunt the ugly apartment that had been his, but there was no doubt that various people who slept there were terrified by his appearance. A young woman, a miniature painter who was doing my portrait, begged me to change her room, hysterically declaring that she had been awakened in the night by a blaze of light and had seen the Dean bending over her. A male guest had had a similar experience, and impressed me by his evident terror. So the rooms remained empty during my reign. They have now become famous as Winston Churchill's birthplace, and to his other achievements may be added the fact that it seems he has exorcised a ghost since no one now mentions having seen Dean Jones; no doubt disgruntled by his eclipse he no longer haunts the scene. When eventually we moved into the apartment usually occupied by the Duke and Duchess I found it equally uncongenial. It is strange that in so great a house there should not be one really livable room. Planned to impress rather than to please, Blenheim gave rise to Abel Evans's famous epitaph for Vanbrugh:

  Under this stone, reader, survey

  Dear Sir John Vanbrugh's house of clay.

  Lie heavy on him earth, for he

  Laid many a heavy load on thee.

  Blenheim was perhaps not designed as a home; its creators may have preferred the characteristics one of Vanbrugh's enemies described in his lines upon the Duke of Marlborough's House at Woodstock:

  See, Sir, see here's the grand Approach,

  This Way is for his Grace's Coach;

  There lies the Bridge, and here's the clock.

  Observe the Lyon and the Cock,

  The spacious Court, the Colonade,

  And mark how wide the Hall is made?

  The Chimneys are so well design'd,

  They never smoke in any Wind.

  This Gallery's contriv'd for walking.

  The Windows to retire and talk in;

  The Council-Chamber for Debate,

  And all the rest are Rooms of State.

  Thanks, Sir, cry'd I, 'tis very fine.

  But where d'ye sleep, or where d've dine?

  We slept in small rooms with high ceilings; we dined in dark rooms with high ceilings; we dressed in closets without ventilation; we sat in long galleries or painted saloons. Had they been finely proportioned or beautifully decorated I would not so greatly have minded sacrificing comfort to elegance. But alas, Vanbrugh appears to have subscribed more readily to the canons of dramatic art than to those of architecture, for he had been a playwright before becoming an architect. Alexander Pope's criticism of Blenheim: "I never saw so great a thing with so much littleness in it," and again: "In a word the whole is a most expensive absurdity and the Duke of Shrewsbury gave a true character of it when he said it was a great quarry of stones above ground," may have been inspired by the scorn a writer feels for one who transfers his affections to another muse.

  My bedroom had a very high ceiling and a deep frieze on which golden cupids held flowered garlands. The room was comparatively small and just at the foot of my bed on the opposite wall there was a marble mantelpiece that looked to me like a tomb. On
its flat surface I read the words: "Dust Ashes Nothing." This bleak inscription in large black letters greeted my waking, and I wondered why Marlborough when redecorating the rooms should have left this morbid sentiment, a survival of his father's philosophy, in so prominent a place. I began to be intrigued by a personality that could have chosen such a motto with which to face two brides, for of course I had not known the preceding Duke. He evidently enjoyed proclaiming his mordant views, for on another mantelpiece he had had printed: "They say what they say let them say," which I gathered he lived up to. In spite of the depressing reflections caused by these rather sinister admonitions, a sense of humor and the companionship of my sisters-in-law helped me to forget them.

  My happiest times were daily rides with our estate agent, an accomplished horseman. We used to gallop across country to our outlying farms where I met Marlborough's tenants. They were fine men, good farmers, and loyal friends, and some had lived on the estate for over fifty years. Their sons enlisted in the County Yeomanry in which Marlborough was an officer. The Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Light Infantry, as this Voluntary Yeomanry Corps was called, used to train in our High Park and the three weeks they spent there under canvas were a gay time with dinners and dances and sports. I remember an exciting paper chase which I won on a bay mare, thundering over the stone bridge up to the house in a dead heat with the adjutant.

  Visits to County neighbors were less pleasant than those I paid to tenant farmers. The informality of horseback was not to be thought of. Instead I had to drive in an old landau—sometimes accompanied by my sisters-in-law, more often alone—the long miles that separated the various estates. Etiquette dictated a visit of at least twenty minutes. This was usually prolonged to an hour or more as our neighbors invariably wished to show me their houses and give me tea; besides the coachman had told me that the horses required a rest before the eight miles home and I realized that he wanted to gossip about me as well. There is always a certain jealousy of what is considered the most important family or the finest estate in a county. It was apparent that the older families whose roots were embedded in Oxfordshire regarded the Churchills, who moved there in the eighteenth century, rather as the Pilgrim Fathers looked upon later arrivals in America. Perhaps also to impress me, they stressed their ancient lineage, seeming to imply that lives lived in a long ago past conferred a greater dignity on those lived in the present.

  One of our most charming neighbors was Lady Jersey. She was a witty and cultured lady and a fine public speaker. The Earl of Jersey had been Governor General of Australia and on one occasion when addressing a large audience was greatly put out by a rude heckler who shouted, "We have had enough of you, bring out the old girl!"

  There was one family in particular which for no other reason than the extraordinary appearance of its members excited our merriment. Had they appeared on any vaudeville stage as they did on their visits to Blenheim I am sure they would have been greeted with hilarious applause. No sooner would the butler announce their visit than my sisters-in-law and I felt a nervous desire to giggle; we had to bite our lips and avoid looking at each other to prevent the roar of laughter invariably provoked by these two old maids of fifty years and more. They were enormously fat and dressed in black bombazine which accentuated the generous curves of their anatomy. On their colossal chests were to be seen a variety of spots and crumbs, vestiges of their last meal. Their feather boas hung straight instead of curled. They had masses of coarse gray hair on which they perched at saucy angles picture hats trimmed with lilacs and roses, which were held to their heads by black dotted veils that exhaled a musty odor. Their large red hands were half hidden in black cotton mittens and they firmly grasped parasols. On their feet were high black shoes with elastic sides. They used to burst in on us bubbling over with jocular good fellowship, pressing us to their bosoms with the utmost good will. It was hard to escape the kiss that their black mustaches rendered almost painful, but they were so full of gaiety in spite of their drab lives that we were soon all physically exhausted by the merriment they created. My duties also consisted in visits to the poor, whose courtesy I found congenial. In almshouses founded and endowed by Caroline, Duchess of Marlborough, there were old ladies whose complaints had to be heard and whose infirmities had to be cared for, and there were the blind to be read to. There was one gentle, patient old lady whom I loved. She used to look forward to my visits because she could understand every work I read to her while sometimes with others she could neither hear nor follow and was too polite to tell them so. I grew to know the Gospel of St. John by heart because it was her favorite. Dear Mrs. Prattley—when I looked at her lovely peaceful face, the thin hands folded in her lap, the black shawl crossed neatly on her chest, the bowed head, the closed sightless eyes, the lips repeating the words of St. John after me, I felt the peace of God descending into that humble home and I was happy to go there for the strength it gave me.

  It was the custom at Blenheim to place a basket of tins on the side table in the dining room and here the butler left the remains of our luncheon. It was my duty to cram this food into the tins, which we then carried down to the poorest in the various villages where Marlborough owned property. With a complete lack of fastidiousness, it had been the habit to mix meat and vegetables and sweets in horrible jumble in the same tin. In spite of being considered impertinent for not conforming to precedent, I sorted the various viands into different tins, to the surprise and delight of the recipients.

  Our days during those first months were busy but uneventful. Marlborough spent a good deal of time away in London and I was left with his two unmarried sisters to keep me company. The mornings began with prayers in the chapel at nine-thirty, after which breakfast was sensed. If one overslept it was a great scramble to be ready and I often had to run across the house to the chapel fastening the last hook or button, and ramming on a hat. At the toll of the bell housemaids would drop their dusters, footmen their trays, housemen their pails, carpenters their ladders, electricians their tools, kitchenmaids their pans, laundry-maids their linen, and all rush to reach the chapel in time. Heads of departments had already taken their seats in the pews allotted them. The curate in his surplice read the prayers and a lesson, and after the short service, when I accompanied him to the door, he told me of any sick or poor who needed my personal attention. On Sunday afternoon we had evensong and hymns, which I chose, and the schoolchildren came up to sing. On Sunday mornings we attended service at Woodstock. Indeed, I had ample proof of the Sunday feeling which D. H. Lawrence found so blighting in England.

  The Palace chapel was small but high and Rysbrack's ambitious monument to John Duke took up a whole wall. Our pews faced this monument with the altar on our left. I often wondered whether the architect had wished to suggest that allegiance to John Duke came before allegiance to The Almighty. Having been confronted with Marlborough's victories in the tapestries that adorned the walls, having viewed his household in the murals painted by Laguerre, his effigy in silver on our dinner table, his bust in marble in the library, his portrait over mantels, his ascent to celestial spheres on the ceilings, my feelings as I faced the funeral monument were akin to those of the Bishop of Rochester who says in a letter to Alexander Pope, speaking of the first Duke's funeral at which he was to officiate: "I go tomorrow to the Deanery (of Westminster) and I believe I shall stay there till I have said Dust to Dust and shut up that last scene of pompous vanity."

  The first Duke and his Duchess were buried under this chapel. Some years after my arrival we were dismayed by a smell of putrefaction. On investigation it was found that some of the coffins were such light shells that they had burst open. It was fortunate that there was room only for the Dukes and their consorts in the chapel. Smaller fry were buried in the little churchyard of Bladon across the park from the house.

  These few months of my first English spring spent quietly at Blenheim proved an introduction to the serious side of life in England. It was then that I sampled the fine tradition of public s
ervice which English men and women have willingly subscribed to, a tradition to which they owe their greatness. I came to realize that when Marlborough spoke of a link in the chain he meant that there were certain standards that must be maintained, whatever the cost, for what was a generation but such a link; and to him it was inconceivable that he, given the greatness of his position, should fail to uphold the tradition of his class. The English countryside was still rural; the farmers and laborers loyal to their landlord, the standard of living possible for those whose needs were elementary. It was not for me, with my more democratic ideals, to upset the precarious balance. I should have to adopt the role expected of me by my marriage and fulfill its obligations as conscientiously as possible. It was with these good resolutions that I left Blenheim early in May to go to London for my first season. I might almost say to my coming out, for there had been little gaiety in my previous life, and that sporadic, without sequence and without results—a few balls in Paris, London and New York, with no time for friendships or even understanding.

  4: Mistress of Blenheim Palace

  THE Marlborough family had no London residence, since Marlborough House had reverted to the crown and was occupied by the Prince and Princess of Wales. We took a tiny house in South Audley Street for the months of May, June and July. Those who knew the London of 1896 and 1897 will recall with something of a heartache the brilliant succession of festivities that marked the season. There were seasons in European capitals —the Paris season—the Vienna season—the St. Petersburg season —but nowhere was there anything to equal the sustained brilliance of the London season. To me it appeared as a pageant in which beautiful women and distinguished men performed a stately ritual. One year I even witnessed a tilting tourney in which Marlborough encased in medieval armor charged his horse full tilt against an opposing knight. There was a tremendous impact as their lances crashed, and my husband was declared the victor. It was, I believe, at a performance organized by Lady Randolph Churchill for the benefit of some charity that this romantic episode was staged. It is recorded among the spectacular celebrations of those early years.