Later that month, on 19 July, she undertook what appears to have been the first solo engagement of her public life. She spent the morning with her husband visiting a thousand children from the slums of London who were on a holiday in Epping Forest organized by the Fresh Air Fund. That afternoon she set off without the Duke to visit the children’s hospital in Cheyne Walk.39 A few weeks before, she had tactfully declined an invitation to open the new open-air ward on the roof of the hospital because Queen Alexandra was its president. But she had indicated that she would ‘be very glad indeed to pay a visit to the Hospital’ once the new ward was opened. The Cheyne Hospital was set up for handicapped and incurable children, and in the years ahead she became closely associated with her patronages of similar homes and hospitals.40
Over 24–25 July the Yorks spent two days in Liverpool where, among other duties, they laid the foundation stone of a new wing for the Infirmary. While they were there victims of a serious street accident were brought into the casualty department; most were children. The Duke and Duchess offered to contribute to a relief fund and continued to request reports on the injured after they had returned to London. While there, the Duchess also judged a children’s essay competition. In his letter of thanks, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool wrote, ‘On all hands one hears beautiful tributes to the kindness of the Duke and the wonderful charm of the Duchess.’41
Her particular gift for engaging with individuals was evident privately as well as publicly. Sergeant Ernest Pearce, whom she had befriended when he was a convalescent at Glamis in 1915 and with whom she had kept in touch ever since, had fallen on hard times. With barely enough money to feed and clothe his family as a result of a strike, her letter and gift of £10 came as a ‘godsend’. ‘The children are all rigged out in boots & clothes and I do not care who sees them now – they all look neat & smart and we have just enjoyed the best Sunday dinner we have had for many a bright week,’ he told her, going on to vent his anger at the strike leaders, ‘a d—d rotten lot … – all out for themselves – yet the men has not the blinking courage to shift them … it makes me mad to think these are the men who stop an honest working man from a full week’s work.’ Sergeant Pearce also expressed the hope that she had recovered from her whooping cough, as the papers said she was not looking very well. ‘I’m afraid Richmond Park is not a Glamis Castle – pardon me saying so.’42
*
AFTER THEIR Liverpool trip there was a break from public duties. They spent five days at Molecomb, Lady Doris Vyner’s childhood home in Sussex. ‘So delicious seeing Doris again – the first time since we married,’ wrote the Duchess. They attended the races at Goodwood, played the piano and the banjo or danced in the evenings, and held a married couples tennis tournament, which the Yorks won ‘easily!’43
Wherever she went the Duchess’s appearance was, understandably, a focus of attention. She clearly enjoyed clothes and the press loved reporting on her outfits. She quickly evolved a way of dressing which not only suited her but became instantly recognizable. When she first stepped into the public eye, while slim young flappers dressed in somewhat mannish clothes and sported cropped hair, she was photographed with her hair prettily curled, wearing cloche hats, shoulder-hugging fur collars and long skirts. At Goodwood the Daily Telegraph described her attire each day. One outfit was ‘a café au lait-coloured crêpe marocain dress, with a long straight bodice and draped skirt’ and ‘a brown lace hat over gold tissue … having a bunch of brown grapes shaded to gold at one side’.44 Her preferred colours seem to have been darker than they later became, and she often chose brown or grey, fashionable colours at the time.*
The Duchess’s twenty-third birthday on 4 August had an even greater significance than usual. Not only was Prince Paul of Serbia’s engagement to Princess Olga of Greece announced that morning – ‘so glad’, she noted – but James Stuart and his fiancée Rachel Cavendish had chosen the day for their wedding. The Yorks did not attend it; in the afternoon the Duchess sat for a portrait by Savely Sorine,† while the Duke played polo at Worcester Park. Her diary for the day was melancholy. Of James and Rachel she wrote, ‘hope it will be alright’. She found sitting for her portrait boring and she felt depressed. She did not state the reason, but perhaps memories of past, more carefree birthdays and other times confronted her, particularly after the light-hearted interlude with old friends at Molecomb.45 A sense of sadness does seem to infuse the portrait. Sorine showed her in a white dress on a brownish-red sofa, partly covered by green drapery. A straw hat hangs from her right arm, her engagement ring is prominent on her left hand. Her face is almost square, her eyebrows exaggerated, her eyes have little sparkle.
As usual, she left for Scotland soon after her birthday. But this year, for the first time, Glamis had to share her with Balmoral. She and the Duke went to her home first and the Prince of Wales came to stay. He wrote an unusually cheerful letter to his father shortly afterwards, saying how much he had enjoyed his visit: ‘they are a very happy family there – I’m so fond of Elizabeth; she is too sweet for words & she was the life and soul of the party – I’m so glad she’s going to be at Balmoral.’46
Once at Balmoral, the Duke spent as much time as possible out grouse shooting or stalking. The Duchess had fewer opportunities to escape the house. She wrote to her mother saying, with poetic licence, that most people at Balmoral were over ninety. She and the Duke were looking forward to returning to Glamis. ‘It will be heavenly. There is no “family” feeling at all in this family. They are all very nice to me, & horrid to each other!’47
Her brothers-in-law in particular valued her presence. Prince George wrote to her after she had left saying how much they all missed her. ‘You managed to keep the King in a good temper which was the main thing & which very few people can do least of all his sons.’48 The King and Queen were also sad to see her go. The King wrote to his son, ‘We miss you very much. The better I know & the more I see of your dear little wife the more charming I think she is & everyone fell in love with her here.’ The Queen’s letter repeated the sentiments: ‘the more I see of her the more I love her, we are indeed lucky to have got such a charming daughter in law & you such a delightful wife.’49
*
DURING THE first year of her marriage the Duchess attended three royal weddings and one christening, each increasing her acquaintance with her husband’s extended family. The most daunting, perhaps, was the first, a double celebration in Belgrade. The son and heir of Alexander, King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (the new Yugoslavia), was to be christened, and a day later King Alexander’s cousin and Elizabeth Bowes Lyon’s admirer Prince Paul was to marry Princess Olga of Greece.* The Duke and Duchess of York had agreed to be godparents to the child but had not originally intended to attend either service.
The Foreign Office initially put no pressure on them to do so, but then, at short notice, Lord Curzon persuaded the King that the presence of the Duke and Duchess would be an important way of showing British solidarity with the newly established Triune Kingdom. On 23 September the King telegraphed the Duke, who had just begun a short holiday with his wife at Holwick Lodge. The Duke was incensed not only by the sudden change of plan, but also because he felt that the request did not give his wife enough time to prepare for the trip. He wrote intemperately to Louis Greig, ‘Curzon should be drowned for giving me such short notice. I have written to him for his reasons & also asked him to see me before leaving.’ Referring to his new married status, he added, ‘He must know things are different now.’50
The Duke and Duchess had to make swift preparations. On 27 September the Duchess left Holwick for a brief visit to London to find suitable clothes for the festivities in Belgrade. On the train from Darlington (the nearest station to Holwick) she scribbled a note to her husband in blue pencil on the inside of the dust jacket of a P. G. Wodehouse novel, Psmith in the City. ‘My darling Darlington … I wish you were here, but I’m glad for you to be out on the “mower” instead of in this stuffy beastly train.’ She h
ad had difficulty stopping herself laughing at the extreme politeness of the waiter who served lunch on the train. ‘There was the usual crowd of slightly hysterical females at Darlington, who murmured “Isn’t she sweet,” gazing fondly at Catherine [Maclean, her maid].’51 Later that day, after she had arrived in London, she wrote again, self-mockingly, to ‘Darling Angel’, saying, ‘I’ve really got nothing to say except that all London was decorated in honour of my arrival, and they are having fireworks everywhere tonight, in token of their delight in my return. Isn’t it touching? … Your extremely loving E.’52 In preparation for the trip, the Duchess had a new passport photograph taken, ordered new clothes from Mrs Handley Seymour and bought ‘some very pretty hats’ in Curzon Street.53 A pair of candlesticks was bought from Garrard as a wedding present for Prince Paul.54
From Holwick the Duke wrote saying how lonely he felt without her. He had had an unsatisfactory, wet, cold day’s shooting. ‘Lunch was not a success. There was not enough whiskey to keep us warm & your father’s brandy bottle was filled with Italian Vermouth by mistake!! Poor Barson got it in the neck!! However all is now well & peace is restored.’ He was looking forward to seeing her back at Glamis on the Sunday. ‘Hope you will have a good day for your clothes, hair, teeth and nose. Darling don’t overtire yourself please trying on or choosing clothes as it is so bad for you.’ It was nearly cocktail time as he wrote ‘and there is no you to make them. Mike no doubt will blow our heads off with his concoction.’55
In early October they returned to London and to their public duties. The Imperial Conference – at which the British government recognized the rights of Dominions within the Empire to negotiate and ratify treaties with foreign powers – had opened on 1 October. On 11 October the King gave a dinner at Buckingham Palace for the Dominion and Indian delegates at which the Yorks were present. The Duchess, wearing a tiara and white satin embroidered with pearls, was seated between the King and Stanley Bruce, the Australian Prime Minister. She also talked to the other premiers, notably General Smuts, the Prime Minister of South Africa, whom she described as ‘A super man & a great one’56 – this was to remain her view all her life – and to Mackenzie King, the Canadian Prime Minster. All three were to act as her hosts in the years to come.
Next day they had a rather hair-raising drive (the accelerator jammed and the car ran away with them for a mile) to Northamptonshire. Shaken but not harmed, they looked over and decided to rent the Old House in Guilsborough. It was tiny (by royal standards) but the Duchess thought it was furnished with ‘wonderful taste’;57 it would be a charming place in which to be alone together for winter weekends and would enable the Duke to indulge his passion for hunting with the Pytchley and Waddon Chase, both near by.58
The following week was filled with more fittings of clothes, dinner at Claridge’s, a trip to the theatre to see a musical, Stop Flirting, starring Fred and Adèle Astaire, and a dance at the Savoy. The Duchess loved musicals: ‘I think there is nothing to beat them, & the worse, the better,’ she wrote to D’Arcy Osborne, adding that she thought the Astaires ‘delicious’.59 She was soon to find herself in a real-life musical comedy.
D’Arcy Osborne sent her some books to read on the train to Serbia. He appears, somewhat surprisingly for a confirmed bachelor, to have asked her opinion of the merits of marriage to a young American woman named Isabel. So she gave it:
Is a bell necessary on a bicycle. That’s one point against her poor girl. Now let me see –
Against.
1. Her name.
2. American.
3. Eight millions.
4. Indifferent features.
5. No parents.
For.
Sense of Humour.
Yes, I think you ought to marry her. The sense of humour balances everything.
She ended, ‘I must stop now, and turn over the clocks, wind up the piano, & generally prepare for Adventure in the Balkans.’60
*
THEY AROSE early on the morning of Thursday 18 October to start their three-day journey. They were accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Sir Ronald Waterhouse,* Lady Katharine Meade, the Duchess’s lady in waiting, two valets and two ladies maids, one of them Catherine Maclean. A newspaper photographer, Arthur Ferguson, from Personality Press Ltd, travelled with the group.
The Simplon Express took them from Paris to Milan, where they visited the Cathedral before rejoining the train for Venice and then Zagreb. There, on Saturday morning, their carriage was hitched to a special but ancient train to take them on the long, hot journey over the plains to Belgrade.61 They were attended by footmen in pale-blue liveries with spats and vast silver buttons. At Belgrade station that evening they were met by King Alexander and his sister, Princess Helen, as his wife Queen Marie, known as Mignon, was unwell.
After the formal greetings, the band played ‘God Save the King’ several times and very fast; then they were swept off to the Royal Palace ‘in tiny blue victorias with white horses’. There the Duchess met for the first time the redoubtable ‘Cousin Missy’, Queen Marie of Romania, Mignon’s mother and King George V’s first cousin. She was an effusive and irrepressible lady, granddaughter of Queen Victoria and ever eager to promote family ties with Britain. The Duchess had to change swiftly for a large family dinner, which included most of the Romanian Royal Family, Queen Elizabeth of Greece and Princess Olga’s family. She was seated between the King of Romania and her old friend Prince Paul. After dinner she was taken to see Mignon and her baby, Prince Peter, whose christening was next day. By the time she went to bed at 10.30, she was, she wrote, ‘Tired!’62
The Palace was crowded, the midday temperature was over 70 degrees in the shade, and there was no hot water, but she enjoyed it all. ‘Everything is very funny here, just like a musical comedy!’ Perhaps it was all the more enjoyable because it was the opposite of Palace life in London – everything was delayed.63
On Sunday morning the Duchess was given ‘a sort of embroidered frock’ to wear for the christening. She was godmother (koomitsa) and the Duke was godfather (koom). The Duke’s role was, as she wrote, ‘very complicated’.64 He had to carry the baby on a cushion into the church; the baby’s grandmother Queen Marie of Romania and his aunt Princess John unswathed him and then the Duke handed him to the Patriarch for total immersion, as the Serbian Orthodox rites required. Unfortunately the Patriarch lost his grip on the infant, who fell into the font. The Duke reacted fast, grabbed the baby and returned him to the shaking hands of the Patriarch.65 The Duke, preceded by a deacon, then had to carry the loudly protesting child three times around the altar. He was ‘simply terrified’, according to his wife.66
After the service, at which the Duchess thought the singing was lovely, the royal party appeared on the balcony of the Palace. The crowd below cheered ‘Zhivio Petar!’ (Long live Peter).* That afternoon the Duke and Duchess drove around steaming-hot Belgrade with Prince Paul and Princess Olga and took tea on the Romanian royal yacht in the Danube. Most of the Romanian Royal Family were living on board – because there was no room at the Palace.67
Next day, 22 October, the Duchess wore an embroidered velvet gown for their friends’ wedding. ‘Olga looked lovely, I thought, & it went off very well, and Paul is so happy. He was enchanted at having us there, & otherwise he had no real friends.’ After a late lunch she ‘skipped away’, changed, and went to visit a children’s hospital run by a Scottish doctor, Dr Katherine Mcphail.† That evening they met the British colony at the Legation: ‘Very small and all Scotch!’ Meeting expatriate Scots was to become a constant of her visits abroad.
Afterwards they dined – still in their day clothes, she noted – before driving to the station with King Alexander.68 They had an amusing formal departure ceremony – amusing because they were not really departing. The train was due to leave early in the morning but they had decided to spend the night in their own wagon lit in a siding. ‘So we went through all the usual pomp, & a guard of honour, looking exactly like the male chorus of a re
vue, & a band, & rows of ladies with bouquets, & kisses all round, & then we steamed triumphantly out of the station, for about 20 yards, where we stopped all night! It was so funny, because it was all a sham, & they all knew it too!! You have no idea how odd they are, & so nice!’69 They liked her too: the Duke reported to his father that ‘they were all enchanted with Elizabeth’.70
They arrived back in England on 25 October, having spent five of the previous seven nights on trains. It had been an exhausting but fascinating experience for the Duchess, and one that she had taken entirely in her stride.
*
CHRISTMAS 1923 was politically a difficult period. Stanley Baldwin was facing increasing problems at home and abroad. He wished to introduce Protection to defend British producers against cheap imports and on 12 November he asked the King for a dissolution of Parliament so as to seek a mandate from the nation. The King, who worried about the turmoil across Europe and believed that Baldwin would lose his gamble, attempted to dissuade him, but in vain.
Baldwin’s proposal to impose import taxes raised an outcry against the prospect of expensive food, and the election was fierce. The Liberals, split between Lloyd George and Asquith, reunited under the banner of Free Trade. Lloyd George, in typically spirited fashion, called the Tories ‘tinned crabs’ and ‘tinned salmon’, the sorts of foods on which people were warned they would have to subsist, if tariffs were introduced. The Daily News published electioneering songs which proved popular enough actually to be sung at political meetings. One, a parody of the popular American song ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas’, went:
The Queen Mother Page 27