by Paul Spicer
During the Mau Mau period, which coincided with my first visit to Kenya, I also got to know Derek Erskine and his family. Derek was a neighbor of Jock and Diana Delves Broughton in Nairobi. I met Derek through his son Francis, who befriended me on my arrival in Kenya and who was later awarded a Military Cross for his bravery while fighting the Mau Mau rebellion in the forests of the Aberdares. Derek was a businessman, and his grocery firm, Erskine & Duncan Ltd., handled several exclusive accounts from the UK, including Marmite and Bronco toilet paper. I remember the daily teatime assembly at Derek’s house, Riverside, where toast and Marmite were the preferred fare. After tea, Derek and I would ride out across the Kikuyu Reserve, on the same route that Jock Broughton had once taken on his hacking sessions. I had purchased an Arab polo pony called Rashid el Haroun from Juanita Carberry. (Juanita would later publish [1999] a memoir of her childhood in the Wanjohi Valley, entitled Child of Happy Valley.) During these evening rides, Derek talked much about life and business, explaining the difference between capital and income, how to embark on investment, and the workings of the gilt markets in London. Much to my fascination, he also spoke at length about Alice de Janzé. He remembered Alice’s hatred for Diana Broughton. He recalled that despite Diana’s infidelity, Jock and Joss were the best of friends—the two men would josh each other about whose turn it was to dry Diana when she went swimming nude in the pool at the Broughtons’ house in Marula Lane. It was Derek’s opinion that Jock had been a very good sport when it came to Diana’s affair with Joss.
A man of strong opinions in general, Derek was determined to promote a multiracial society in Kenya, which, sadly, made him extremely unpopular among the white settlers at the time. When I arrived in Kenya, Derek had recently befriended Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyuborn schoolmaster who would be arrested by the British authorities and unfairly charged with “managing and being a member” of the Mau Mau Society. Derek fought passionately for Kenyatta’s release, and in 1960, he traveled to London, where he joined the African delegates at Lancaster House to demand Kenyatta’s freedom and Kenya’s independence from the British. On Derek’s return to Nairobi, he was met by a group of angry settlers at the airport, and one threw thirty pieces of silver at him for his “treason.” Such opposition only strengthened Derek’s certainty about the rightness of the cause of African independence. In 1963, when Kenyatta became Kenya’s first president, the story goes, he wanted to pass two laws. The first law was to stop all beating at schools; the second was to make Derek Erskine a lord. Derek was later knighted by the queen, at Kenyatta’s request. I make these digressions to give a sense of Derek’s integrity and the likelihood that his recollections and opinions of Alice, Joss, Jock, and Diana were especially reliable.
It was through Derek Erskine’s daughter Petal—a Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts–trained actress—that I met Danièle Waterpark, wife of Lord Waterpark, who lived at Equator Farm in Subukia, Kenya. (I once went to stay there and acted as bodyguard to Lord Waterpark’s mother, Countess Enid Kenmare, during a Mau Mau skirmish in the district.) Many years later, in 1990, it was Danièle, a Parisian, who became a great provider of contacts in Paris as I undertook research into Alice’s life. Danièle introduced me to Alice’s grandson, Frédéric Armand-Delille, who is the owner of Parfondeval, the Normandy château where Alice spent much of her early married life. By coincidence, Petal had her own link to the Erroll case. She was married to Lee Harrigan, son of Walter Harrigan, the former attorney general of Kenya, prosecutor of Jock Delves Broughton for the murder of Lord Erroll, and possibly the man who had suppressed Alice’s confession note.
Later, in 1970, with Kenyatta still presiding, I would find myself living in Kenya for a second time. I had been asked to travel to Kenya to become managing director for an international group’s holding in East Africa. On this trip, I was accompanied by my wife, June, and our two children. The house provided for me by the company was in Marula Lane. It was the same house that Jock Delves Broughton had secured after his new marriage to Diana in 1940 and where they were living at the time of Joss’s murder. My wife and I immediately dubbed the place “Murder House.” A Swiss couple devoted to chamber music had originally built the house. The black cotton soil underlying the cement foundation was unstable, and therefore the whole structure was given to slippage, causing cracks at one end that had to be continually patched up. Much of the decor had been influenced by Diana, whose bedroom had an en suite bathroom done up with the pink tiles that had last been fashionable in the 1930s. My wife and I called it the “Brighton” bathroom, as it looked to us like the kind of thing you might see at the famously salubrious Brighton Metropole Hotel in England. (The Metropole was where errant husbands would go to stay with a prostitute, thereby giving “evidence” of adultery for divorce proceedings.) Jock’s bedroom was next door to Diana’s—it has been said that they never slept in the same room during their brief marriage. This room also had its own peculiar bathroom: The bath was surrounded on three sides by mirrors, and there was also one on the ceiling above the bath. The reasons for such self-imposed voyeurism must be left to the imagination. Downstairs were three main rooms and a cloakroom near the entrance. The sitting room was long and dominated at one end by a fireplace. It was here that Joss and Diana had had their last conversation before he was shot. Across the hall were two front rooms, a dining room and an extra sitting room. One dining room window looked out over the small round pool where Diana used to go skinny-dipping and which we filled with sand to provide a play area for the children. At the back of the house were servants quarters and a deep well, which provided fresh water for the house and was driven by a compression pump, or ram, as well as the stables, one of whose loose boxes was once used to accommodate Pantaloon, a piebald polo pony. The stairs in the house did indeed creak—as the police investigation had revealed—but only halfway down.
When I first took up residence at Murder House, almost thirty years had passed since Alice’s and Joss’s deaths, but there were aspects of life in Nairobi that both would have found familiar. The Muthaiga Club was still a center of social life for expatriates. Polo clubs were in full swing (I played in Nairobi, Gilgil, and Nanyuki). Race days in Nairobi were still very popular occasions. And people still spoke about the Erroll case. It was during this trip that I first met Dickie Pembroke, who was Alice’s last lover. I had heard much about him from my colleague Colin Mackenzie, a professional cattleman from Rhodesia who was a director of the company for which I worked at that time. One day in 1971, Colin came to visit me at Marula Lane, bringing Dickie with him. Dickie had returned to Kenya to retrace all the places he had lived with Alice and to remember their times there. The meeting was brief. Dickie gazed about him in a nostalgic sort of way and wandered around the garden, musing about the time some thirty years before when he had spent every day for five months with Alice before rejoining his regiment in North Africa to fight Field Marshal Rommel all the way back to Tunisia during World War II.
There is one more character in Alice’s story to whom I am also closely connected: Geoffrey Buxton, Alice’s Wanjohi neighbor and the man who had introduced Alice and Raymund in 1926. My mother got to know Geoffrey very well in 1928, which was how I became his godson. I still possess a King Charles II silver tankard he gave me. Engraved on its base are these words: “For Paul Spicer from his Godfather G. Buxton.” Sadly, I never met Geoffrey.
All these coincidences and connections led me to the creation of this book. After I retired from business in 1994, I began to follow Alice’s path around the world. I visited her house and farm in Kenya and her grave there. I met Dave Allen, a local bush pilot, and Senior Chief William Kinuthia, who helped me to identify her burial place. (The spot lies somewhere beside the banks of the Wanjohi River, close to a deep pool and near to where she had buried her dog Minnie in the iris beds.) I discovered Alice’s Nairobi cottage, now a massage spa, and her “golden” beach house at Tiwi, on Kenya’s south coast. I lunched with her grandson at Château de Parfondeval in Nor
mandy. I trailed her story to Chicago, and to London and Paris, as well. Over a period of ten years, I gained firsthand impressions of Alice from those who knew her. In my portrait of her, I have relied heavily on the reminiscences of her housekeeper for many years, Noel Eaton-Evans (née Case, now deceased). Other vital evidence came from Alice’s close friend Patsy Chilton (formerly Bowles), who survives. I was fortunate to have in my possession the written recollections of my mother. I also interviewed Alice’s then surviving daughter, Paola, as well as her half sister, Pat Silverthorne, and her cousin Harry Hartshorne. I was lucky enough to speak to her grandchildren, Frédéric Armand-Delille, Guillaume de Rougemont, and Angélique Fiedler. Other vital insights came from Alice Boyle. Her revelation about Alice’s confession letter assured me that I had a story to tell. Vi Case, Errol Trzebinski, Juanita Carberry, and Lee Harrigan also contributed enormously. My thanks go to all these people for helping me make this portrait of Alice as detailed and as conclusive as possible.
Cast of Characters
William (“Bill”) Allen
Married Paula Gellibrand in 1930, after her divorce from the Marquis de Casa Maury. Eventually became head of British Secret service in Ankara.
Lolita Armour
Daughter of J. Ogden Armour and Alice’s second cousin. She introduced Alice to Chicago socially and was the matron of honor at her wedding to Frédéric de Janzé on September 21, 1921.
Helen (“Poppy”) Baring
Daughter of Sir Godfrey Baring of Nubia House, Cowes, Isle of Wight. She became a mistress of the duke of Kent for several years. Raymund de Trafford knew her well—he went to stay with her soon after his release from prison.
Mr. Barratt
Alice’s lawyer in Kenya, he was a principal of the firm Shapley, Schwartze and Barratt. He processed the acquisition of Wanjohi Farm from Sir John Ramsden, who had agreed to sell to the de Janzés.
Karen Blixen
Author of Out of Africa. Born Karen Dinesen, she married Baron Blor Blixen. She became Denys Finch Hatton’s closest friend and lover in Africa. Her original house in Karen, Kenya, has been restored and opened to the public as the Karen Blixen Museum.
Patsy Bowles
Married to Dr. Roger Bowles, Alice’s physician. She befriended Alice in 1938.
Roger Bowles
Alice’s sometime physician, although not her principal doctor.
Phyllis Boyd
Alice’s sister-in-law. Married to Henri de Janzé, Frédéric’s younger brother. She studied at the Slade School of Art in London and was a direct descendant of Mrs. Jordan and King William IV.
Alice Boyle
Only daughter of Dr. William Boyle, Alice’s principal physician. She was told by her mother, Ethnie, about Alice de Janzé’s letter, in which Alice confessed to the shooting of Lord Erroll.
William Boyle
Studied at Cambridge and the London Hospital before arriving in Kenya. He married Ethnie Byrne, daughter of Sir Joseph Byrne, governor of Kenya (1931–1937). He was Alice’s favorite doctor and he attended the scene of her death, where he collected her last letters on September, 30, 1941.
Diana Delves Broughton
Arrived in Kenya in November 1940, newly married to Sir Henry John (“Jock”) Delves Broughton. She had become Jock’s mistress at the age of twenty-two, when he was fifty-one. Her maiden name was Caldwell. Diana began her affair with Joss Erroll within a month of her arrival in Kenya, at which point she decided to leave her husband. Diana went on to marry Gilbert Colvile and then Thomas Cholmondeley, the fourth Baron Delamere.
Sir Henry John (“Jock”) Delves Broughton (the eleventh baronet of Doddington)
Known as Jock, he arrived in Kenya in 1940 and became the prime suspect in the murder of Lord Erroll. He was married to Diana Delves Broughton, who left him after beginning an affair with Lord Erroll. Jock was tried and acquitted of the murder. He committed suicide in December 1942 at the Aldephi Hotel in Liverpool, England.
R. W. Burkitt
Famous Irish surgeon renowned for his treatment of malarial patients. He diagnosed Frédéric de Janzé when he contracted blackwater fever.
Geoffrey Buxton
Arrived in Kenya in 1910. Born in Norwich, England, and brought up at the Buxton family home, Dunston. He acquired 2,500 acres in the Wanjohi Valley and was the first settler to own land there. At his Tudor-style house, he introduced Raymund de Trafford to Alice de Janzé at a dinner party in 1926.
Sir Joseph Byrne
Governor and commander in chief of Kenya (1931–1937). He readmitted Alice to Kenya and permitted her renewed residence there in 1933. His daughter Ethnie married Dr. William Boyle, Alice’s doctor.
Marquis de Casa Maury
A Cuban-Castillian count (full name Pedro José Isidiro Manuel Ricardo Mones Maury). He married Alice’s great friend Paula Gellibrand in 1923 in London. Divorced in 1928, he married Freda Dudley Ward, former mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1937.
Noel Case
At age twenty, she visited the Wanjohi Valley and located Alice’s farm, which was for rent. After Alice’s departure due to an expulsion order, Noel moved into the farm with her parents. Noel Case became Alice’s housekeeper in 1933, when the latter returned from exile. She later married Tom Eaton-Evans.
Father Casey
The priest in Chicago who initiated Alice into the Catholic faith before her marriage to Frédéric de Janzé on September 21, 1921.
Emery David Chapin
Married Marietta Armour, daughter of Danforth Armour. The two daughters from this marriage were Juliabelle (mother of Alice) and Alice “Tattie” Chapin, aunt of Alice and guardian of Nolwen and Paola.
Simeon B. Chapin (Uncle Sim)
Successful financier and stockbroker on Wall Street and Alice’s uncle. Took the lead in making Alice a ward of the court.
Hugh Cholmondeley (the third Baron Delamere)
Lord Delamere, better known as “D,” was a pioneer Kenyan settler who developed cattle ranching and wheat growing in the Rift Valley. Made close friends with Alice de Janzé in 1925.
Flo Crofton
Became Alice de Trafford’s housekeeper after Noel Case retired to get married. She was the daughter of General Northey, a previous governor of Kenya. She married Dick Crofton, a white hunter living near Gilgil.
Bill and “Bubbles” Delap
Owners of Rayetta Farm in the Wanjohi Valley and neighbors of Alice and Frédéric.
Gaston Doumergue
President of France in 1927. Alice’s sentence for the attempted killing of Raymund de Trafford was six months in prison (suspended sentence), but a total pardon was granted by President Doumergue in 1929.
Edward
Sent to France by Alice’s aunt Tattie, he served as butler to the de Janzés at Parfondeval. A skilled photographer and conjurer.
Derek Erskine
Friends with Alice, Joss Erroll, and Jock and Diana Delves Broughton. Successful grocer and entrepreneur in Kenya. Firm advocate of multiracialism. Knighted by the queen of England at the request of Jomo Kenyatta (first president of Kenya).
Phyllis Filmer
Occasional mistress of Joss Erroll and wife of Percy Filmer, the managing director of Shell in East Africa. Lived with Idina Sackville at Clouds after Lord Erroll’s death in 1941.
Monsieur Fredin
Alice’s examiner in the twelfth chamber of the Police Correctionnelle court on December 23, 1927, during her trial for the attempted killing of Raymund de Trafford.
Monsieur Gandel
One of two attorneys representing Alice at her trial. He pleaded for Alice “indulgently.”
Paula Gellibrand
Close friends with Alice in Paris. Fashion icon in the 1920s. Photographed by Cecil Beaton, and often described as the most beautiful woman in Europe. She married the marquis de Casa Maury and then William Allen. Later she went to Kenya, where she married “Boy” Long.
Prince George (the duke of Kent)
Fourth son
of King George V. He made friends with Alice at the Embassy Club in London in the late 1920s. His black-and-white bulldog mated with Alice’s bulldog Jimmy in Paris.
Robert Graves
Author of numerous books, including Good-bye to All That and I, Claudius. Befriended Raymund de Trafford, who went to live with him in Dejà, Majorca, after his second marriage collapsed.