Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey

by The Countess of Carnarvon

  Miss Butler, the school’s principal, was assisted by Miss Soper, another qualified teacher, Miss Cowley, a teaching assistant, Miss Clarke, a nurse, and four trainee assistant nurses. Miss Butler was keen to establish a routine for the children as quickly as possible, to try to get them settled in and prevent the worst effects of homesickness. A schedule of lessons, meal and play times was drawn up, and the staff watched their charges closely for signs of unhappiness.

  The children were aged between two and five and had left their families at a moment’s notice when the first stage of the evacuation of London was ordered. Their mothers had time only to pack a change of clothes and a beloved toy or two in a small bag before they delivered their children, gas masks in boxes slung across their shoulders, to the train station for evacuation. Mollie Panter-Downes described the London mothers, ‘left behind, standing around listlessly, waiting at street corners for the telegrams to be posted up in the various schools, telling them where their children were.’ Some mothers could not bear to be separated from their children and insisted on travelling to the countryside with them. That doesn’t seem to have happened at Highclere, perhaps because the Curzon Crescent school had been billeted before the declaration of war, and so the families at least knew where their children were going. They were assured that if it were at all possible, they would be welcome to visit in due course.

  One imagines that some of the evacuees must have been distraught at the separation but, as Miss Butler and her colleagues quickly observed, most of the older ones seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. For these north London children, who only saw the countryside once a year on a church outing or a trip to visit family, the big house and its huge parklands were an exotic playground. There must have been tears in the middle of the night when a child woke in one of those unfamiliar turret rooms and looked around for its mother, but during the daytime there was also fresh air and fun in abundance.

  Porchey and Tilly had little to do with the day-to-day running of the school, but they crossed paths with children and teachers from time to time, in the Saloon or out in the gardens. Porchey was always genial and was known to the children as ‘King Carnarvon’, on the grounds that, as one little boy pointed out, only a king got to live in a castle. There are crayoned drawings by the evacuees depicting him as a skinny stick man with a crown and a big smile. One little girl particularly wanted to meet the queen, who she was sure lived somewhere in the house, and could not be persuaded otherwise. For the young teachers and nurses, Lady Carnarvon was even better than the queen. They joined the housemaids in hanging around on the Gallery at night, hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous former Miss Losch.

  Porchey’s immediate thought was that he should volunteer for service with his old regiment. He presented himself for assessment and was promptly declared unfit. His back problems, sustained from years of falls, had worsened, and he now had severe arthritis. He had suspected that he would not pass the medical but was nonetheless terribly disappointed. He set about writing to friends and acquaintances at the War Office, offering his services as an unpaid attaché. For a while he had high hopes that he would be appointed adjutant to Alan Breitmeyer, commanding officer of the 7th Queen’s Own Hussars at Shorncliffe, a major army base in Kent, but a serving officer, Lord Amherst, was given the role instead. Porchey added his name to the list of reserve officers and tried not to give way to frustration.

  Catherine and Geoffrey had been at home in Ovington Square when they heard the news of the outbreak of war. They had just returned from a morning stroll in Hyde Park to enjoy the Indian summer heat. As Chamberlain’s radio broadcast ended, the air-raid sirens started up their wail. It was a test, they knew, but it sounded different from the tests of the previous weeks now that the country was truly at war.

  Geoffrey wrote to his former naval unit to volunteer and had more luck than Porchey. At forty-one years old he was at the very upper age limit for active service and was instructed to report to Dartmouth Training College in a month’s time to relieve the physical training officer. Geoffrey was slightly taken aback. He was fit and well but hadn’t served in the Navy since he was twenty-one and felt he was out of touch with modern methods and past his physical peak. Surely he was not the best person to train 750 young cadets? His commanding officer countered with the argument that he would be required to teach combat skills, not a basic fitness course, and with his experience of naval battle he was as well placed as anyone. Geoffrey set off for Dartmouth still unconvinced. There was no suggestion that wives were welcome, and Catherine remained in London.

  If Porchey and Tilly’s timing was unfortunate, Catherine and Geoffrey’s was not much better. They celebrated their first wedding anniversary two weeks after the declaration of war, having just heard from Dartmouth about Geoffrey’s posting. Catherine, like millions of women all over Europe, had to find resources of stoicism to sustain her as she said goodbye to her husband.

  Geoffrey wrote often, chatty letters in which he told her that the people he had met ‘couldn’t be nicer, all excellent fellows’. He missed her terribly, longed to hear the sound of her darling voice, but there was no point in her coming to visit him as he wasn’t even allowed out for dinner. He was hopeful that he would not be in Devon for much longer as he was looking for another post. It was an excellent job but he was more sure than ever that he was not the right man for it. He simply didn’t have the technical expertise to be instructing anyone on naval warfare in 1939 and he didn’t want to be a liability.

  Before long, it seems, someone agreed with him. In November he was transferred to Harwich. The port had been requisitioned by the Navy as a key point of defence for the eastern coast and was to be established as the base for a fleet of minesweepers. Geoffrey assisted with setting up command headquarters and awaited further orders. He knew they could not be long in coming. There was no land offensive imminent but the war had already begun for the Navy, with the declaration of a blockade of Germany’s seaports and a counter-declaration by the Germans. The Battle of the Atlantic was underway. It was a relief to feel he was finally being useful and could also spend the occasional weekend with Catherine, but for Mr and Mrs Grenfell, as for the country as a whole, the relief was tempered with an uneasy sense that this relative calm couldn’t possibly last.

  Catherine, like Porchey, was worried about the war’s impact on her children. Steeling herself not to think about what might happen to Henry if the war could not be won quickly, she decided that the most urgent priority was Penelope’s safety. Henry was at Eton, close to London but beyond the area considered most vulnerable to bombing raids. Penelope was at school in town, though, and Londoners lived under a canopy of giant silver barrage balloons that were a constant reminder of the potential threat from the air. Catherine’s anxieties for her daughter were calmed when the principal at the school attended by both Penelope and her cousin Patricia informed her that there were plans afoot to evacuate to Dorset.

  When Penelope went to visit her father in October, she told Porchey that the move was imminent. Pen thought it sounded rather fun (this, after all, was the child who had remained unruffled by the fire that destroyed three bedrooms while she was staying at Highclere). All her friends would be there and she could return to the castle for some weekends and the holidays. Porchey promised to send the girls’ two favourite ponies, Velvet and Robin (and Archie the groom, to look after them) to the school’s temporary home at Lord Shaftesbury’s requisitioned house in Dorset. It seems to have done the trick as both Penelope and Patricia settled quickly. Like the little Londoners billeted at Highclere, they welcomed the adventure of the change of routine.

  Life for the residents of Highclere was settling into a form of ‘business as usual’. The first few months of the conflict, which have come to be known as the ‘phoney war’, were relatively uneventful. Until the Germans pushed into the Low Countries and France in May 1940, for most British people the war seemed peripheral, like a threat not seen clearly, lurking in the sh
adows.

  Porchey continued to cast around for a role with the Army but he was distracted by a series of problems with his household staff. In early October Smith, the butler, tendered his resignation. The extra work that came along with the nursery school meant that his long-standing health problems had finally got the better of him. It wasn’t an easy moment to recruit men to non-essential positions, but a neighbour’s retired butler declared he was ready to help out. Mr Pell arrived, slightly doddery but charming, and was duly engaged on a salary of £150 a year.

  Just as he thought things were under control, Porchey had a rather more delicate situation on his hands, albeit one with a simpler resolution. His valet, George, was a charming, handsome and self-confident type, as befitted his position. Porchey found him good company and, as a result, had overlooked his tendency to overstep the mark on several occasions. The gravest of George’s previous misdemeanours had occurred when he had passed himself off as a first-class passenger during a voyage with Lord Carnarvon in the Mediterranean. George had had a fine old time, right up until the moment he had docked and had to confess that he had spent His Lordship’s entire cash float on wine and gaming. Somewhat incredibly, he was not dismissed for this, on the grounds that he had at least owned up. But in the autumn of 1939, his luck was about to run out.

  In the interval between Smith’s departure and Pell’s arrival, George was acting butler. This seemed to have slipped his mind, however, for on the Saturday he invited several friends to lunch with him in the steward’s room. Unfortunately for George, his festivities coincided with a lunch party upstairs. When he hadn’t appeared in the Saloon by 1.30p.m., Robert Taylor was despatched to look for him. He found George hosting a party in full swing and very much the worse for wear. ‘You go up, Bob—I’m enjoying myself down here,’ said George, full of bonhomie.

  ‘Luncheon is served, my lord,’ Robert announced as he returned to the Saloon. Lord Carnarvon looked rather shocked as he realised that Robert, the first footman, had stepped in. Later, during the meal, Lord Carnarvon quietly enquired after George’s whereabouts. ‘He’s downstairs, my lord, but I’m afraid he is not available,’ replied Robert.

  Miss Stubbings, Lord Carnarvon’s secretary, was sent to investigate. Her reports of the uproarious situation in the steward’s room were enough to seal George’s fate. He was asked to leave immediately, and Robert was promoted to start straight away as Lord Carnarvon’s valet.

  Porchey’s most pressing concern in the autumn of 1939, though, was to watch anxiously over Tilly for signs that she was happy in her new life. Partly in a bid to amuse her, he invited several groups of people to stay. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor had been expeditiously collected from France on 12 September by Lord Mountbatten and were staying in Sussex. Porchey immediately offered them Highclere’s hospitality but the Duke regretfully declined the invitation. He wrote to say that he expected any day to be appointed to a military mission and sent back to France, which Porchey, the Francophile and fluent French-speaker, must have envied. The Duke of Windsor hoped that the outbreak of war would furnish him with a way to serve his country, which might in turn bring about a rapprochement with his family. This was not to be. At a time of heightened pressure and, given the persistent suspicion that he and his wife had been too close to Nazi Ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Windsors were more of a diplomatic problem than ever.

  Randolph Churchill and his girlfriend of just a few weeks, Pamela Digby, did come, however, and announced their engagement to the assembled house party at Highclere on 26 September. Pamela was a nineteen-year-old debutante, the daughter of Lord Digby. She was flame-haired, pretty and confident, and had so captured Randolph’s heart that he had asked her to marry him on their first date. There was not actually anything terribly unusual in that. Randolph was an inveterate proposer; one night he asked three women to marry him. But this time it was different, though probably more because of his fear that he would be killed in the war before he had acquired an heir than any of Pamela’s admittedly considerable charms. Pamela might not have known the extent of Randolph’s reputation for drinking and womanising, but she was surely not blind to the fact that he had a huge ego, derived from his sense of being the son of a great man. That was precisely his appeal to Pamela, who went on to have a long and illustrious career as the consort to powerful men.

  Porchey was delighted at the happy news and promptly invited the young couple to return the following weekend so that Pamela could meet her fiancé’s uncle and Porchey’s dearest friend, the Duke of Marlborough. Porchey was fond of Randolph and was happy to help, but one can’t help suspecting that he was probably also thrilled that his house guests were providing such good entertainment for Tilly. His new wife was an urban creature who required constant diversions. She had told him before their marriage that she was worried the country would be dull. Now here was amusing company, some of the grandest connections in the land and a love story to boot.

  The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough were charmed by Pamela. Winston and Clementine Churchill were also thrilled, but principally were relieved at the news that their wayward son was finally settling down. The wedding had been planned quickly and the couple married on 4 October at St John’s Smith Square, in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament. Lord and Lady Carnarvon were invited and the occasion presented Tilly with her first big opportunity to perform in her new role.

  The setting was exquisite indeed: after the ceremony the guests made the short journey up Whitehall to Admiralty House. The tradition that stipulated the bride’s family should host the reception was set aside on this occasion, in recognition of the exceptional loveliness of the groom’s parents’ home. Alfred Duff Cooper had lived in Admiralty House during his time as First Lord of the Admiralty; he described it as the most beautiful residence in London, complete with paintings of sea battles and gilded mermaids swimming on the ceilings. On the day war was declared, Chamberlain had ended Churchill’s ten long years in the political wilderness by appointing him First Lord of the Admiralty, the post that Duff Cooper had resigned in protest the previous September. It was an admission that Churchill’s consistent petitioning for a more bellicose foreign policy and rearmament had been proved right.

  Tilly could not fail to take pleasure in her first society wedding, and Porchey felt cheered as he watched her talking to his old friends, captivating them with her beauty and grace. Perhaps everything was going to be all right after all. He hoped so, but he had not been feeling that confident these last few weeks. Tilly had installed herself in East Anglia bedroom, a corner room with glorious views to the south and east of the park. It was one of the prettiest bedrooms in the house and the most comfortable, with a dressing room and bathroom attached, but Porchey wasn’t fond of it. He couldn’t shake the memory of the time one of his father’s house guests had suffered palpitations brought on by some particularly unsettling events at one of the séances the 5th Earl conducted in the room. It also had the considerable disadvantage, from Porchey’s point of view, of being the full length of the Gallery away from his own rooms.

  At home, Tilly was often quiet and withdrawn. She had told her husband all about her health problems and her stay at the Swiss sanatorium. Porchey was beginning to develop the sort of hearty respect for his wife’s nerves that Jane Austen’s Mr Bennet professed. In truth, it was hardly surprising that Tilly should feel nervous. They were nerve-racking times and her recovery from depression had been very recent when she and Porchey rekindled their acquaintance and took their speedy and fraught decision to marry.

  But though Porchey was sympathetic to Tilly’s anxieties up to a point, he longed for some more signs from her that she was making a sincere effort to adapt to her new circumstances. There was a war on, it was true, but for Porchey, their evacuees were the perfect model of how to face up bravely to the challenges it posed. There was also the fact that Tilly did not always set aside her sophisticate ways and throw herself into the requirements of being Lady Carnarvon. The loca
l newspaper, the Newbury Weekly News, reported delightedly on a charming entertainment given for Highclere wives of men in the armed services, which took place in the Armoury Room in Highclere village. Lord Porchester and his sister Lady Penelope were both involved and opened proceedings by singing the ‘Lambeth Walk’, in tribute to the London evacuees. Their cousin, Miss Patricia Leatham, followed with a recitation, and then they were joined by several of the children from the village in putting on a show of charades. The paper reported that the glamorous new Countess of Carnarvon enjoyed the whole thing but, to Porchey’s mind, Tilly had seemed very strained in her reaction to the children’s theatrical efforts. He knew she was a professional, but still, he didn’t appreciate her reticence, especially when two of the enthusiastic amateurs were his own children.

  On 26 September, Tilly received a letter from a former acquaintance, another escapee from London’s theatrical world. Marie Rambert, the pioneering champion of ballet in Britain, had decided that since most of her male dancers and students were likely to be called up, she would move what remained of her company out of London for the duration of the war. She had settled at Grey House in Burghclere, the neighbouring village. ‘I have suddenly discovered that we are near neighbours—how amusing and unexpected,’ she wrote. ‘Shall we meet and chat?’ It took Tilly nearly five weeks to reply and, when she did, she was evasive, claiming ill-health and preoccupation with the evacuees. Perhaps Marie’s letter had reminded her of her time with Les Ballets in 1933, when it was whispered that some of Madame Rambert’s dancers rather outshone Miss Losch, the supposed star of the show whose powers were beginning to wane.

  The bigger reason for Tilly’s tardy reply was that she had been caught up in making a decision about her future. As she explained to Marie, she had such poor lungs and her doctors had advised her not to winter in England. She thought she might try Arizona, where the air was dry.