by Anand, Anita
Some thirteen miles away at Hampton Court, there was no sign of such serenity. The florist had arrived early at Faraday House to deliver three enormous white bouquets. An atmosphere of hysterical activity reigned behind the heavy front door, as dress fitters, ladies’ maids and hairdressers from London’s finest salons all fought for space to do their work. Lady Winifred, who had arrived early, attempted to calm the mounting chaos. Once Sophia, Catherine and Bamba had bathed, like all debutantes, they struggled to consume breakfast, torn between the knowledge of the unforgiving whalebone corsets and the thought that this might be all they would eat all day. With no refreshments served at the palace, they were unlikely to get as much as a glass of water until later in the evening.
Breakfast was dealt with quickly and without relish, as the sisters fussed over their accessories. Each had an ornate Chinese fan in a delicate cream silk, embroidered in silver and white filigree. All would wear pearls, although in very distinctive styles. Sophia opted for two chokers, one of which contained a central pearl the size of a gooseberry, sitting tight at her throat. Catherine and Bamba selected long, loose ropes of smaller pearls, which wound extravagantly around their throats and hung low over their bosoms. All three wore white satin shoes on their uniformly tiny feet.
By ten o’clock the three sisters were in their gowns, great voluminous dresses whose starched and embroidered silks billowed out at the waist and stretched down to the floor. Just as their jewellery and bouquets were unique, so too were their dresses: Sophia’s was cinched tightest at the waist and a white rosette of silk sat on her right hip. In the last year she had grown in height and shed the remnants of childhood plumpness. Her waist was now the tiniest of her sisters and her arms and legs were slender and graceful. Sophia’s dress was embroidered with beads and sequins which caught the light and made her shimmer when she walked. Great puffed and pleated sleeves which capped her upper arms were also ornamented by thin silken gauze decorated with white beading. Diaphanous fabric flowed down her bodice like water. Bamba’s dress in contrast was made of heavier, more luxurious fabric and had exquisite cream embroidery. Intricate pleats of satin ruched across her chest and upper arms. Catherine’s dress, the plainest of the three, had fine touches of delicate detail. Gossamer-like lace ran across her chest and onto her heavy white skirts. Silver embroidery and beading crept down alternate panels of her tight bodice, giving her the look of a mermaid disappearing into waves of white foam.
Each of the princesses had a high and ornate headpiece pinned to the crowns of their heads. These comprised great puffs of gathered lace, silk, ostrich feathers and fresh white roses, with long veils flowing down their backs to the floor. Their hairdresser, who had been at work since dawn, had neatly pulled back their long dark tresses, securing them in tight and tidy chignons which disappeared beneath a welter of white. Not even Sophia’s unruly curls had a chance of escaping. Long white gloves stretched up over each of the girls’ elbows and they practised walking up and down the hallways of Faraday House in nervous rustles, clutching their fans and flowers, attempting as much grace as they could muster in the clammy heat of the May mid-morning.
They had followed the guidance issued to debutantes faithfully, and as the photographer charged with capturing their image for an official portrait that morning revealed, all three princesses felt themselves beautiful. Sophia looked fearlessly down the lens of the camera, exuding confidence.
The rented landau which would take them to Buckingham Palace arrived just after eleven. Together with Lady Winifred, they crowded in, consumed by the voluminous layers. As the carriage clattered its way across London, Sophia knew she would have to sit like this for hours. Even when they reached the palace, the carriage would have to wait at the gates for a considerable time until the guests were allowed in. It was uncomfortably hot by noon and Lady Winifred dabbed furiously at the beads of perspiration gathered on top lips and temples. The sweet smell of talcum powder mixed with acrid sweat as nervous stomachs churned. After what seemed a lifetime, Sophia heard the sound of the band of the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards drifting down The Mall. The music cheered and revived her, although progress to Buckingham Palace was painfully slow. The length of the wide avenue was jammed with carriages, horses and footmen, jostling for space.
As they drew closer, the Duleep Singh coachmen, dressed in their vivid livery of deep maroon with golden flashes, leapt off the landau and rushed to the police constables on duty at the gates. Producing their invitations from the Lord Chamberlain, they waited to be welcomed into the quadrangle. The gates opened on the stroke of two and the crush to get in began. Although Sophia had taken tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace before, never had the great arches seemed so intimidating. As they entered, the guard of honour of the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards lined the route, their scarlet coats and heavy bearskin hats making them every bit as hot and uncomfortable as the arriving debutantes.
The Queen’s Mistress of the Robes, the Dowager Duchess of Atholl, waited in the Grand Hall beside other ladies-in-waiting. A frequent guest at Elveden, the duchess had been photographed with Sophia’s mother at the staid tennis parties which the Maharani Bamba had come to dread. The duchess and the other older women who waited on the Queen were dressed in gowns of white, ivory or black. Pageboys darted between them in their uniforms of red and gold.
Sophia girded herself, looking at the crimson carpet of the Grand Staircase, which, in her tight bodice and heavy trailing gown, she would soon have to scale. She and the other debutantes were then informed that the Throne Room was filled with dignitaries: the day had been billed in the London newspapers as ‘a Drawing Room which promises to be the most brilliant Royal function of the Season’. As well as the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, the Duke of Connaught, and the Duke and Duchess of York were all present. The ambassadors of Russia, Germany, Turkey, Austro-Hungary and the United States, along with the heads of twenty-two other diplomatic missions, had assembled round the Queen.
The afternoon was proving difficult for the seventy-six year old Queen too. Her health had been fragile for the last few months, and she found long periods of time in the public eye an ordeal. It was with a clear sense of relief that she noted in her diary that it was her last Drawing Room of the season.
Shortly after three o’clock Victoria entered the Throne Room accompanied by the Prince of Wales, his wife and children. The future King George V and his wife Queen Mary followed behind and took their positions around the monarch. The Queen looked tired and older than most people remembered her. The court reporter for The Times refrained from commenting on her frailty, instead describing her dress in detail: ‘Her Majesty wore a dress and train of black brocaded grenadine, trimmed with lace and fine jet and bows of satin riband. Headdress and a veil of Honiton lace surrounded by a diadem of diamonds. Ornaments – diamonds and amethyst. Orders – The Star and Riband of the order of the Garter, the Victoria and Albert, the Crown of India, the Royal Red Cross, and the Coburg Family Order.’ Slowly and painfully, the Queen made her way to the centre of the Throne Room and awaited the first of her debutantes.
Victoria later wrote in her journal: ‘I remained for an hour, but could not stand beyond a few minutes.’30 A chair was brought for her to sit in, which meant the debs brought before her had to stoop even lower than usual to kiss her hand. On the outskirts of the royal circle, silent and deferential, stood the stern and dark-suited figure of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Rt Hon. Herbert Henry Asquith. Next to him was the Rt Hon. H. Campbell-Bannerman, the Secretary of State for War.31 When it came to her turn, Sophia walked as delicately as she could, through the heat and scrutiny of the room, to her godmother. Curtsying low, as she had been taught, Sophia rose and kissed her godmother on both cheeks. Then, without a word, she backed out of the room. Like all the debutantes who went through the ordeal that day, Sophia was carried out on a wave of euphoric relief.
Sophia’s Drawing Room was clearly a su
ccess, for the weeks that followed were filled with one glittering engagement after another. Heavy, embossed invitations came in thick and fast. The parties and balls thrilled Sophia as she began to drink in the rarefied atmosphere of high society. In the years that followed, Queen Victoria made sure the princess was included on all important social lists, and Sophia’s life became an endless round of balls, parties and banquets. Often she would be accompanied by her brother Frederick, who enjoyed the pomp and pageantry of such occasions every bit as much as his sister.
It was now that Sophia developed an appetite for attention; she positively revelled in the spotlight. In photographs taken after her debut Sophia no longer looked away from the camera but directly and challengingly into the lens. As the society columns began to notice her it was not long before newspapers were dissecting her developing sense of style. As the century drew to a close, Sophia became an integral part of the circles that had once embraced and then shunned her father. The princess spent her nights dining and dancing with the aristocrats of England and her days furnishing Faraday House. At first, Sophia relied on her brother Freddie’s tasteful cast-offs for her furniture and décor, but soon she learned for herself all the places where a stylish young lady might procure the latest trends. She commissioned bespoke furniture from the exclusive shops in Grosvenor Square, and bought linen and crockery from Harrods, which had just opened its most impressive store on London’s Brompton Road.32 It was while she examined their wares that Harrods unveiled one of the world’s first escalators. The experience proved so invigorating for some customers that they were offered a brandy at the top of the moving staircase to revive them after the ascent.33
Sophia bought her butter from the exclusive White’s, the gentleman’s club (which Freddie belonged to) and which prided itself on giving its coveted label only to the finest luxury items. Her drapes and silks came from D. H. Evans, an exciting new department store which had just opened in Oxford Street, and flowers came from Gerard and Pie Ltd, ‘Florists to the Queen’. Sophia also ordered tartans and woollen weaves from the Highland Tweed and Tartan Warehouse, which declared its royal patronage proudly on its masthead.
Desiring the best of everything, Sophia subscribed to the new breed of fashionable ladies magazines to ensure she knew what the best looked like. As a result her tastes became dangerously expensive. From the moment she was given rein of her own budget, Sophia began to spend vast proportions of it on clothes and accessories. She bought only the finest: her ballgowns and more ostentatious hats were designed and made for her by Marescot Soeurs on the Avenue de l’Opéra in Paris. It was an establishment with links to Mme de Pompadour, the stylish eighteenth-century mistress of Louis XV. Her day wear came from the ‘Maison Valerie Urner’ on the rue Saint-Honoré; gloves from a variety of exclusive and expensive boutiques around Paris; and her shoes from the American Shoe Company in London’s Regent Street. Sophia spent a fortune in Madame Mole’s boutique on the Avenue de Friedland, buying accessories and embellishments for her more dazzling evening creations.
Sophia also took great pains to ensure that her servants were the best dressed in London. Her maids wore distinctive uniforms of deep burgundy, with starched, snowy white aprons and caps. Her male servants wore tailcoats in the same colour, with embroidered gold and burgundy waistcoats and gold flashes at the neck and collar. All buttons, brassy and gleaming, were engraved with the princess’s monogram, ‘SDS’. Sophia also paid for her stationery to be printed with the Prince Consort’s design of a five-starred coronet as the letterhead and her initials and address underneath. She had similar paper printed for both her sisters, personalised in their names, but omitted the Hampton Court details, knowing how little time they intended to spend with her there. They had already made clear their disdain for the place by moving most of their belongings to Freddie’s house in the country.
Sophia’s endless extravagances made her sisters despair, and they constantly urged her to wear clothes for longer than just one season, but it did little good. She had developed a taste for expensive furs and quickly acquired an impressive collection, including a striking long, white, fox fur coat with matching hat and muff. The papers soon began to notice and praise the distinctive style of the Indian Princess of Hampton Court. At the height of Scotland’s social season, the papers toasted the ‘brilliant success of the Northern Meeting Ball’ and under the headline ‘Some Pretty Girls’ described Sophia’s unusual use of traditional jewellery: ‘Princess Sophie Duleep Singh was in white satin with a rope of pearls twisted in her hair.’34
Sophia and her sisters possessed an impressive collection of spectacular jewels inherited from their grandmother Jindan, including pearls, large diamond rings and a number of ruby and spinel necklaces. Sophia also had intricate earrings and chokers which contained emeralds ‘larger than scarab beetles’. An American publication went as far as to credit the princess among a handful of women who made the emerald a popular gem in fashionable society. If Jindan had lived to see Sophia’s rise in society, she might have been struck by the irony of her granddaughter’s situation. Sophia’s gems, which now drew the gasps of British aristocracy, had been seized from Jindan along with the boy-king Duleep in 1847. It was only Jindan’s stubborn refusal to bow down to the British which led to her ultimately reclaiming both her jewels and her son.
Part II
The Revolutionary Years, 1898–1914
8
A Thoroughly English Girl
In the spring of 1898 preparations were under way for the marriage of Sophia’s brother Victor to one Lady Anne Blanche Alice, the youngest daughter of the 9th Earl of Coventry. The capital was abuzz with excitement: the event would attract some of the world’s most celebrated aristocrats and their very best jewels would be on display. The Princesses Sophia, Bamba and Catherine were to be bridesmaids, and Prince Frederick was to be the best man.1 The sisters sifted through the finest items in their grandmother’s collection, deciding who should wear the diamonds, and whose dress would best offset the emeralds and rubies. That Victor was at last to find some stability was a huge relief to them all, not least because the previous ten years had seen him lurching dangerously from one embarrassment to another.
Echoing his father’s behaviour, Victor had spent a fortune on drink, gambling and doomed love affairs. In 1887, Queen Victoria had made attempts to turn her godson towards a more settled future by sending him to Sandhurst after his graduation from Cambridge. However, reports of his conduct thereafter had been lukewarm at best. After leaving, Victor had served as a lieutenant with the 1st Dragoon Guards, but his persistent gambling and astronomical debts had led superior officers to seek a post for him far away from temptation. In consequence the army had sent the prince some 3,000 miles away to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the prince was made an aide-de-camp. Yet even in this damp and sparsely populated outpost of the British Empire, scandal was never far from Victor’s door.
In Halifax, Victor had continued to carouse, playing high-stakes card games with his fellow officers and courting glamorous women. Then, while on leave in New York, he met a pretty American heiress and wooed her. Jeanne Turnure reciprocated and a romance blossomed. After a brief but intense period, Victor proposed, but any joy was short lived. Jeanne’s father Lawrence Turnure, a prominent Wall Street banker, forbade his daughter to marry. The Indian prince had a bad reputation and little fortune, and so determined was Lawrence Turnure to end the affair that he went to the New York Times, giving them an interview in which he emphatically denied that there had ever even been a relationship between his daughter and Victor: ‘He said that it was absolutely untrue, and that it had caused his daughter and himself much annoyance. The Prince had been his guest at his house in Newport last summer for a few days, but nothing had occurred to warrant any such report.’2
If Turnure had any doubts about wrecking his daughter’s romance, by February he felt vindicated. An article appeared describing Victor as an absconding debtor who had escaped the authorities and wa
s fleeing to England. He owed money for goods or gambling debts and creditors had been chasing him around the wastes of Nova Scotia for months. The sum he owed was around $50: ‘This state of affairs has provoked much talk, and society is greatly shocked and surprised, as it was generally believed the Prince was well off. Among his unpaid bills are those of a tobacconist and confectioner.’3
Unable to pay for even his sweets and cigarettes, Victor returned to London in disgrace. During the seven miserable years that followed, he found himself mocked and unhappy. The prince borrowed money only to drink and gamble away his cash in a pattern of self-destruction. His English creditors also began to lose patience and bankruptcy loomed. However, just as matters seemed to be reaching the point of no return, a chance reunion with an old flame saved Victor from his trajectory towards total insolvency and disgrace.