Outrageous Fortune: Growing Up at Leeds Castle

by Anthony Russell

  “My mother drove you up the front drive past the castle after collecting you from the station and bringing you to join the shoot?”

  “Absolutely, assuming the road we came up was the front drive because there was no shortage of roads leading in a bunch of directions. My God, the castle is stunning—it blows my mind!”

  “It never fails for me either.”

  “What’s it like living in a place like this?”

  The question came as a surprise. I couldn’t recall anybody asking me something similar, certainly none of my other friends from school. I knew their parents had to be sufficiently well off to send them to an expensive public school such as Stowe, but I was equally aware that Granny B’s “empire,” crowned by Leeds Castle, was in all likelihood unmatched by any other Stowe family. However, because Richard was so open himself, I answered him straightforwardly, if a little self-consciously. “We don’t strictly speaking live here. We come for weekends, but during the holidays I am here a lot. It’s got everything but, if truth be told, I feel a little isolated from time to time. It’s like being in a cocoon where every conceivable luxury is provided but no one knows you’re there. And when you step out into the big wide world you find yourself a little … I don’t know … unprepared. Don’t get me wrong, I know what a lucky bugger I am to have grown up with all this … sometimes, though, I wonder.…”

  I stopped speaking as peculiar thoughts entered my mind telling me to pipe down, I was not talking to Sigmund Freud. Richard had time to observe, “I think I know what you mean”—and I thought he did—before a final whistle told us the drive was over and it was time for lunch. We walked down to pick up the rabbit, but before I did Richard took a moment to crouch down and inspect the damage I had inflicted.

  “I don’t see the bullet wound,” he said, utterly mystified.

  “It was a clean shot. I think you’ll have to look very closely to find the pellets which killed him.”

  “Perhaps not today.”

  19.

  HEAVEN AND HELL

  It was all so simple. Everything was taken care of. Bills got paid; standards were maintained. All we had to do was stay out of trouble and soak up the fun. Slaving to achieve academic bull’s-eyes or a scratch handicap at golf (having a private course on one’s doorstep should have helped) were never the priorities they should have been for my brothers and me.

  By the time James’s twenty-first birthday party rolled around on July 22, 1969, and the Maiden’s Tower and swimming pool area had been decked out to resemble one of the King’s Road’s more fashionable discothèques for the celebration party, the three of us had the castle way imprint up to our necks, so there was a need to keep our wits about us and manage the beast. David was working for Hodder & Stoughton, the London publishers; James, characteristically, had become a salesman on commission for the flamboyant Bernie Cornfeld’s Investors Overseas Services, then the hottest (and later to be discovered highly questionable) purveyor of mutual funds on the planet. I, a little mournfully, was ticking off the clock at Stowe, but looking expectantly to the future. Opportunities abounded. To have thought otherwise would have been absurd.

  James had told me that he and Charlotte, his spectacularly beautiful blond girlfriend, would pick me up at one o’clock and we’d all go out to lunch. It was now two fifteen, and I was beginning to wonder if something had gone wrong, not to mention the rapidly disappearing image of steak-and-kidney pie that had lodged itself firmly in my mind halfway through chemistry class that morning.

  I’d been parading up and down the west colonnade on a cold and windy first Saturday in October since five to one, witnessing the comings and goings of people and automobiles across the North Front, hoping that at any moment James’s sleek new red E-type Jaguar, his twenty-first-birthday present from our parents and Uncle Gawaine, would rumble into view, coming majestically to a halt directly beneath where I patrolled, virtually outside my study window.

  Stowe School, Buckingham, my seat of learning for four years now, still mightily impressive to look at, its North and South fronts a breathtaking amalgam of massive steps, crowns, Corinthian columns and porticoes, crescent-shaped colonnades, and a brace of neoclassical façades equal to any in the country, with hundreds of acres of exquisitely landscaped gardens, lakes, bridges, and temples adding further luster to what few would dispute is an architectural gem. But through my eyes, sadly, it remained a soulless leviathan with few redeeming features beyond the friends I had made there.

  As opposed to St Aubyns, where the castle way, work, and sports had developed seamlessly into coordinated ambition, at Stowe the three became quickly separated and found themselves competing unfavourably with electric guitars, bass, and drums, and the most exciting, mind-altering music ever. I had drifted into being a sometime indifferent student without caring all that much about it.

  At two-thirty, cold and a little frustrated, I decided to return to my study for coffee and toast. Knowing James and Charlotte, it seemed reasonable to assume that the previous night, with the “deb” season in full swing, they had enjoyed a busy evening on the town attending a bevy of cocktail parties and dances. My brother’s mantelpiece at his house in London was permanently under siege from large engraved invitations. It stood to reason that they had surely left the city that morning much later than anticipated.

  As I waited for the kettle to boil, some of the more memorable events of the last few months popped into my head, chief amongst them James’s incredible birthday party, the Americans landing on the moon, to be followed only a few days later by Senator Edward Kennedy driving off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts with a secretary called Mary Jo Kopechne in the passenger seat. He survived, she drowned, and the rest was shrouded in mystery. In August almost four hundred thousand people had attended the Woodstock Festival in upstate New York, braving what must have been stupendously uncomfortable conditions since it poured half the time, and sanitation was reported as being medieval. But good vibes and music from the stratosphere had transformed the festival into an instant legend, and I wished I had been there. In Vietnam fifteen hundred Viet Cong had been killed in a twenty-four-hour period, and the unbelievable Rod Laver had won the United States Open tennis on September 8, becoming the first man to win the Grand Slam twice.

  Through my study window, the only part of the room above ground level, I could see the school starting to congregate along the touchlines to watch the first XV rugger match scheduled to begin at three. My study mate, Trevorrow, an amusing anti-authority type, had gone out with his parents for lunch, so I had the place to myself. About ten foot square, the room accommodated in cosy fashion two desks, a couple of bookshelves, a small sofa, coffee table, record player, and a corner by the door for the kettle and portable gas burner. Nine or ten such rooms lined the corridor underneath the west colonnade and provided the social hub of all mid-level-to-senior boys in the house.

  At five to three I put my navy blue overcoat back on, wrapped a long scarf round my neck, and went back up to watch the rugger. Joining some friends from another house, we offered some frenzied vocal support as Stowe kicked off and thirty supposedly civilized young gentlemen set about battering and bruising each other with furious abandon, attempting to trample the opposition into the mud—stomping on hands, booting testicles, jarring knees with bone-crushing shoulder tackles, all the while trying desperately to score by crossing the opponents’ line and touching the ground with the egg-shaped ball.

  Aside from demonstrating one’s enormous masculinity, I could never fathom why anybody volunteered to play this peculiar sport. Oliver assured me there was no better game on earth, but as I watched them all charging around in the freezing cold like demented bull terriers, I simply thought, rather them than me.

  Midway through the first half, I looked over for the umpteenth time towards the main drive, and there, miraculously, it was: the best-looking sports car in the world with the best-looking couple I knew seated within, rolling gently past the pav
ilion, heading, as I had suggested, for the slip road adjacent to my study block. I felt a surge of excitement combined with immense relief. People around me had turned to stare, some asking if I knew who it was. “Indeed I do!” I said, deriving fantastic pleasure from telling them.

  James and Charlotte, both wearing leather jackets and jeans, got out of the car and took in their surroundings, the epitome of good looks and rakish cool, and as we walked towards each other I knew that image would lodge itself in my memory forever.

  “I’m really sorry,” James said. “We were a little late setting off.” I kissed Charlotte and she apologized too. “Look, we’ve cancelled our dinner so we can take you out for supper instead. Is that all right?” she asked.

  “That’s terrific, thank you, but are you sure? I don’t want to upset your plans.”

  “Absolutely,” she went on. “We’re staying with friends not far away, so we’ll join them later in the evening.”

  “Excellent,” I said. “So how would you like to watch the rugger for a while?”

  “Too damn cold, I’d say,” James stated. “What do you think, darling?”

  “I’d love a cup of coffee, if that’s possible,” Charlotte suggested.

  Coffee in the study it was. Despite his former prowess on the rugby field, James had long since transferred his allegiance to sports of a more drawing-room-like nature, with the occasional foray, when time and company permitted, onto the golf course or tennis court. Furthermore, this was the first time he’d come to visit me at Stowe, and I wanted to show him around. In fact, I wanted to show him—them—off.

  We mounted the west colonnade steps, walked past the tuck-box room (where Peter and I had, long ago, got our friendship off to a resounding, nicotine-infused start surrounded by locked-up sweets and biscuits by the ton), past the junior changing rooms, and entered the main building through a sturdy door painted dark green. The relief from the cold was immediate. Going by the head-of-house’s two-floor private domain, we went down the stairs to the study block.

  Gratefully ensconced in the warm room, I made coffee, James lit up a Dunhill International cigarette, an exotically packaged affair, and Charlotte made her ravishing self comfortable on the sofa. “This is not bad. Not bad at all,” James said, looking around the room and puffing away Humphrey Bogart–style. “May I presume that is yours?” he judged accurately, pointing to the larger, neater, and more antique of the two desks that faced each other underneath the window.

  “How could you possibly tell?” I grinned at him, not needing a reply. “Perhaps I’ll have a puff myself since you’re here. Normally one has to troop off into the wilds when the urge for a cigarette strikes.”

  “Go ahead.” James passed me his luxury brand and gold Dunhill lighter.

  * * *

  The car was an E-type 4.2 (2+2), which meant, in theory, that two people could sit in the back. As I squeezed into a semi-contorted sideways position, I ruminated upon exactly how small those two people would have to be. Images of stuffing myself into Granny A’s Beetle in Ireland also came to mind. But the E-type was a monstrously exciting car: visually sensational, fast as lightning, and rock solid on the road. It was six thirty and completely dark as James accelerated hard down the three-quarter-mile-long dead-straight section of the main drive. In a flash the speedometer nudged eighty miles per hour, although it felt more like fifty. My brother was a very good driver who inspired confidence in his passengers.

  The ten-mile-drive along narrow country lanes, past Silverstone race track, to the Green Man for supper was a rapid and exhilarating experience. The Green Man was a classic English country pub, low beams and dark wood abounding, the walls plastered with hunting prints and portraits of inebriated gentlemen wearing Edwardian frock coats, talking to their dogs. Much to our surprise, we were able to commandeer a small table in the corner. Despite the room being jammed to the rafters, this crowd of revellers clearly preferred to drink standing up. Food, if food was on the agenda, would come later.

  James and Charlotte drank beer, while Coca-Cola remained my beverage of choice. Steak-and-kidney pie was available and ordered for three, along with mashed potato and peas. Good things do come to those who wait!

  I sat back and enjoyed the company, observing, as always, the wonderful rapport between James and Charlotte, their obvious closeness, and thought, it doesn’t get much better than this. We talked at length about what I’d shown them of the school, eliciting no more than neutral observations from either, which told me they already had an understanding of my feelings on the subject. We laughed a lot about the birthday party, a sensational affair which had succeeded in shocking our parents, and others, by both the appearance and behaviour of many of the guests, some of whom had had the misfortune to be interrupted by members of the older generation while having enthusiastic sex in their motor cars.

  It was past nine o’clock when they dropped me back at Stowe. I’d told James about a Spinners concert taking place at the school the weekend after next. We both really enjoyed the folk group’s music, and he told me he was going to try and come. I loved being around James. His style, his joie de vivre, was always such a kick. We said good-bye, and they roared off into the night.

  * * *

  Two weeks later I was in my study working on a history essay—Trevorrow was also busy at his desk—when someone knocked on the door. I couldn’t imagine who’d be paying us a visit at eight thirty in the evening. The door opened, and a junior boy informed me that Mr. Vinan, my new housemaster, wished to see me in his study. Not, to my knowledge, having transgressed significantly in the recent past, I had no idea as to why my presence might be required. I put on my jacket, went up the stairs, turned left into the main thoroughfare between our house and the North-Front entrance hall, and after a few paces wheeled left to face Mr. Vinan’s study door. It was ajar. I knocked and immediately heard him say, “Come in.”

  He was seated at his desk, an expression of rigid blankness on his face, holding the telephone to his ear but not speaking. Without looking directly at me, he stood up, came round the desk, holding the telephone out towards me. “It’s your father,” he said.

  As I took the phone from his hand, he immediately strode out of the room, closing the door behind him. Mystified, but with a creeping wariness, I spoke tentatively into the mouthpiece. “Hello.”

  Something was wrong. My father sounded strange. Then he said he had bad news. “It’s pretty rough. You’d better brace yourself.” My mind raced. What could have happened? There was a desperate quality in my father’s voice that I had never heard before.

  “It’s James,” he said. “He’s had a motor accident … it happened this morning … he was killed.”

  A physical force hit me in the chest. It felt like a boxer had just punched me with all his might. I gripped the telephone harder and gulped a few times, as if something had become wedged in my throat. Suddenly the room felt claustrophobic. My father was still talking, but his words had become a blur. My mother came on the line. When I heard her voice, I could control myself no longer. I burst into tears. She tried so hard to be strong and to comfort me. But I could not be comforted. Nor could I speak. After a few minutes we agreed to hang up and call again in the morning.

  I had understood that my parents had gone to my godfather Sir Francis Peek’s house in the country for the weekend. It was Friday. The accident had occurred that morning in north London, and the police had taken most of the day to track them down.

  As I walked out of the study, the weight and brutality of the news started to invade every fibre of my body. I needed air. I went out, through the dark green door which only two weeks before I had passed through so happily with my brother and his girlfriend. It was cold and raining, but I felt neither. I walked and cried through the night. Only the lights of the school reminded me where I was.

  For the first time in my life I had come face-to-face with the shattering nature and force of crushing sadness. James was dead. For the time being I was
inconsolable, and there was nothing I, or anybody, could do. I cried until there were no tears left inside me. I called out his name until my throat was raw. When I returned to my house I was soaked and dishevelled from top to toe. I had no energy or inclination to clean up. It was the middle of the night. I dumped my clothes, put on my pyjamas, ran a towel over my head, and went to bed. I must have exhausted all my reserves. I slept.

  * * *

  Sunlight, cruel, demanding, insensitive, insistent, streamed through the tall bow windows of the castle dining room, casting corners filled with Chinese porcelain into dark shadow but saturating the eight of us seated at the polished mahogany table with bright, unwelcome intensity. My parents and Granny B were wearing sunglasses. I’d never seen that at the luncheon table before. Conversation was sparse. Words did not come, or at least not the kind of words that meant anything, or helped at all. Woody, so eloquent by nature, was almost silent, as were David, Vanessa, Nanny, and I. The depth of misery which hung palpably in the air was draining, debilitating. It had been eight days since the accident. No one mentioned James. The shock was still too present, the pain too raw.

  My mother spent the afternoon in her bedroom in the Maiden’s Tower while my father went, on his own, for the longest walk anyone recalled him ever taking. No one actually announced what they were going to do except Nanny, who understood that Vanessa should not stay cooped up unnecessarily on such a gorgeous day. David chose to read in the drawing room, and I went upstairs to be alone in the blue bedroom I had shared with my brother so happily, for so long.

  I opened the cupboard by his bed and felt the tears well up seeing the familiar jackets and jumpers he’d worn only in the country. Going to the window, I saw my father striding out across the golf course, his pace a good deal quicker than usual.

  “Good night sweet prince: / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!” I was reading Hamlet at school and couldn’t dislodge Horatio’s beautiful farewell from my mind.