Gabriel fanned the flames of any quarrel at every opportunity. Victoria was particularly ‘revoltée’ by the stories he circulated about the sales of three pictures from Knole in August 1890 for £50,000: the Gainsborough portrait of Giovanna Baccelli, and the paintings by Reynolds of Mrs Abington and The Fortune Teller. According to Amalia, Gabriel claimed that Victoria had pocketed the proceeds herself, a supposition that is hardly surprising given the question of where on earth Victoria’s money came from. Victoria was an illegitimate young woman, the daughter of an impoverished lord, and married to a man without either a job or prospects. Yet there always appeared to be money for home improvements, for shopping trips in Paris – the jewellers in the Rue de la Paix, evening dresses from Worth or Redfern, and a ‘jacquette d’astrakhan’ from the Ville de Bombay – rented flats in London for the season, or gambling in Monte Carlo. A typical winter’s trip to Monte Carlo, such as the one they completed on 30 March 1895, cost £500, ‘tout compris’. Nevertheless, Amalia was persuaded by Victoria that Gabriel’s claims were a complete lie, and agreed to explain so to him on her return to Paris, at which point Gabriel denied ever having made such an accusation.
Lionel and Victoria never forgave Gabriel for this calumny. Although Victoria eventually accepted Flora’s apologies, and claimed not to bear her a grudge, she wrote that the relationship between the two couples could never be the same again and that they could never all be at Knole at the same time. What tended to happen from then on was that Victoria would visit Flora in Paris every spring on her return from the South of France.
Flora’s young son was welcome at Knole, however, and came there for the summer of 1893, where he played sweetly with his baby cousin Vita, giving much pleasure to their otherwise grumpy grandfather. The following summer little Lionel came again, offering his hand ‘si solennellement’ in formal greeting to his two-year-old cousin. ‘C’etait trop drôle,’ wrote Victoria. Together, they recited nursery rhymes and went up to London to have their photographs taken. When it was time for bed, Vita would utter a cry of despair on being separated from the infant Lionel.
Money was always at the root of tensions between the Sackville-Wests and the Salansons. Not long after his marriage to Flora, Gabriel had needed money to tide him over the coming accouchement of his pregnant wife. His bank would not accept, as security for a loan, the title deeds from some properties his mother had left him, and advised him to consult his wealthy sister-in-law. In February 1890 – four months before her wedding – Victoria guaranteed a bank loan to Salanson by remitting 2,000 francs to her own account at the same bank as collateral. Gabriel then presumed to draw this money directly from Victoria’s account, to her consternation, making her the lender rather than the bank.
Given this unsatisfactory experience, it is surprising that Gabriel succeeded, later the same year, in persuading Victoria to invest 5,000 francs in the Société Pégat, a small investment bank recently founded by a friend of his. Gabriel took the liberty of enclosing a mandate for Victoria to sign, authorising him to purchase the shares and to receive the dividends on her behalf: ‘You have absolutely no reason to feel obliged to me on this account. All I am doing is rendering a service to a friend.’ Within months, she was fretting that she had received no receipt from Gabriel for the money; over the next three years, there was a steady stream of letters to Victoria from Jean Pégat and Gabriel, attempting to reassure her that her money was safe, despite the evident lack of income from the funds. By 1894, it became obvious that the company had gone bust and that Victoria had lost her 5,000 francs.
Gabriel was always jealous of Victoria’s wealth. Their dealings were characterised by misunderstandings and complicated by the maintenance payments made by Victoria and her father towards the upkeep of Amalia in France. It particularly irritated Victoria, for example, when Flora implied to people such as Lady Anglesey that she was looking after Amalia out of the goodness of her heart (rather than being paid to do so), and that Amalia did not receive a sou from Papa. At the same time, Gabriel was trying, ‘en des termes pleins de sentimentalité’, to persuade Lord Sackville to increase Flora’s pension. ‘Quel homme faux & double,’ Victoria noted in her diary. Lord Sackville obliged – to the tune of 5,000 francs a year – but was furious when he heard that Gabriel had tried to borrow money on the strength of a life insurance policy that would provide Flora with 30,000 francs on her father’s death. Not only was he offended by the fact that Gabriel was anticipating his death with such alacrity, but also indignant because this money formed Flora’s inheritance, not Gabriel’s.
Relations were just as difficult in 1896. In October, Gabriel told his wife not to see Victoria at all because he believed that she had been spreading lies about her: Flora, for her part, seemed very ‘bitter’ and envious of the luck Victoria had had in life. ‘My sisters are so jealous of me!’ wrote Victoria, ‘Hélas! And I do everything I can to be nice to them. I brought masses of things for the children and I’m not even allowed to see them.’ The so-called ‘lies’ which Victoria was alleged to have spread concerned the paternity of Flora’s second child, a daughter, Elie, born in 1895 (who died soon after). Victoria is supposed to have suggested that Gabriel was not the father.
In retrospect, Lord Sackville’s surprise inheritance in 1888 marked a turning point, not just in Victoria’s relations with her sisters, but also with others with whom she had previously enjoyed happy relations. As Victoria took charge of Knole, the others felt excluded. They also scented the existence of money, where previously there had been very little. The tone of everyone’s letters begins to change. Béon wrote furiously soon after Victoria’s wedding that he had not been pressed more energetically to come to Knole, and, a year later in June 1891, he wrote to Lord Sackville to say that he had not been properly compensated for all his care of the children during the 1870s and that he was owed 110,000 francs. ‘What blackmail!’ wrote Victoria. ‘It’s disgraceful and disgusting of him; he who has stolen our furniture and to whom Papa has given so much! Quelle ingratitude & quel mensonge.’
The family solicitor, Mr Lawrence, advised Victoria’s husband that there was nothing to fear, that there was no proof of such a debt, and that even if there was, it would be too old. Béon, on the other hand, took to writing to members of the family including Aunt Mary, threatening to reveal ‘some rather nasty stories if he didn’t get paid’. ‘Béon’s conduct towards Papa is too vile for words,’ Victoria wrote to Max in November. He was behaving ‘like a pig’ and Papa was ‘broken-hearted over it’. ‘He wants to extort a lot of money out of Papa, and threatens to say all sorts of mean things about our mother. Is it not too mean of him?’ When Victoria, Lionel and Papa left for Europe in December 1892, en route to Egypt, letters from Béon demanding money followed them.
By the beginning of 1893, Béon realised that his claims were unlikely to be successful, and that threats of court proceedings were therefore empty. He threw himself on his old friend’s mercy: ‘I beg of you, my dear Sackville . . . to generously forget that past quarrel . . . You cannot imagine all the terrible troubles and torments I have just gone through . . . If on your side you can oblige me with those 15,000 francs which I have asked you for, you will render me a great service.’ Lord Sackville sent 10,000, for which Béon signed a receipt, accepting that this payment was in ‘full satisfaction and settlement of all claims and demands’.
Victoria wrote in her diary that she often thought fondly of ‘poor’ Max and Henry, and was relieved that the expense of maintaining her brothers was rather less than that of supporting her sisters: some chickens for breeding one year, money for buying a fine Shorthorn bull the next. To begin with at least, Papa too was pleased with the cups and prizes Max won for his cattle. In 1893, however, Max was £530 in debt and wrote to his father, setting out the financial case: ‘I have got into difficulties regarding money matters and my creditors are pressing me.’ He had already mortgaged his cattle; the farm itself was in trust and could not be mortgaged; and the c
reditors had to be kept at bay. It was not extravagance on his part, he insisted: ‘I had no labour not a soul for five months and was unable to put in crops for my stock and those crops had to be purchased. My wife and myself had to do everything, from doing up the house, to cleaning the stables, in fact I have never had such a miserable time before, everything going wrong and helping to make matters worse. My luck has been bad and as soon as I tried to improve my stock . . . the bulls have died, bulls which I valued and which cost me all my spare hard earned money.’ Papa sent £500 to stave off the creditors – but Victoria could not help complaining to Max’s wife that Max had never written to thank him. Privately, she thought that Max had far too many fads, and that they would be the ruin of him.
Henry, too, was running into difficulties and wanted to build himself a house. In November 1893, he wrote to his father asking him to advance in immediate cash the remaining instalments on his farmland purchase, and to let Henry then pay them off as they became due:
You must not think that I am in any way dissatisfied – I am very much indebted to you for what you have done; I only hope you will live long enough to see that your kindness has not been thrown away. It has been a hard lot for us boys, especially for me, who has felt and can still feel that my presence would not be at all appreciated in England among my own relations. It is a cruel blow to my pride; however, I will endure it for your sake to the bitter end. I will leave aside a subject which is as much painful to you as it is to me. I only hope we will see each other some day after such a long time of separation.
His father would not give him the last five instalments in cash, but obliged with a string of small loans and gifts – including £30 for Henry’s share of some imported rams he had bought with a neighbour.
One of the reasons for Henry’s repeated requests for money was that he was saving up for a trip to Europe, ‘irrespective of support from any one’. As he wrote to his father in November 1895, he was doing this for his own good, ‘as I consider the change utterly necessary as I am sinking fast into a state which might lead to my ruin should I continue to lose further interest in my business. You cannot blame me for wishing once more to see my own relations . . . You may rely upon me to be careful when in England as I fairly grasp my position there.’ Henry hoped to find lodgings with Amalia in London, and then go to France to stay near Flora. ‘I sincerely hope you do not feel against my coming. I am sure I would feel very much disappointed to find that you were, considering the hardships and troubles I have gone through. It has always been my wish to see you all again.’
He also very much wanted to see Knole for the first time. Although he had only the sketchiest conception of the house, he wrote knowledgeably – even proprietorially – about it to his father: ‘Knole must be looking itself again now that winter is over’, and ‘Knole must be commencing to look cheerful now summer has set in’. He had professed himself delighted to hear of the birth of his niece Vita in 1892, but ‘at the same time I am sorry that it is not a boy, for it is my greatest wish that Knole may some day belong to one of us [by which he meant one of Papa’s direct descendants], and hope that I may live to see it’.
Papa did object to Henry’s plans, however, replying from Knole: ‘You know very well that I do not wish you to come to England for reasons which you are perfectly well aware of, and if you persist I shall stop your allowance . . . Understand therefore that I forbid your coming.’ Victoria added her persuasion:
Dearest Boy, I am sure he would love to see you, but I am afraid you have offended him very much by taking the law into your hands like this. I should like so very very much to see you, but you know how difficult and painful it would be for Papa. The sad story of his life is hushed up quite so your coming will bring it about again. Take pity on him in his old age dear boy, and submit yourself to his wishes and don’t make him unhappy. I am sure you are grateful to him for all that he has done. So many might have given us up altogether and he has done all he could for us all and you in particular.
As a result, Henry delayed his departure until the following year, but wrote to say that he was upset: ‘What you have against my coming I am very anxious to know, it seems hard after all these years out here spent in wilderness and solitude [that] I should be stopped from accomplishing an object so long in view.’
At the beginning of 1896, old Lionel relented – possibly because Amalia had told him that Henry would kill himself if he did not see him. He now accepted the fact that Henry was going to travel to Europe at all costs. Towards the end of February 1896, Henry arrived in Paris. It was here that he learned from Flora and Béon more of the circumstances surrounding his birth in Arcachon – and the fact that he had been registered as a legitimate son. This revelation was to prove a turning-point in the relationship between the siblings.
Henry did not keep his first appointment with Victoria, but met her at Flora’s in March. It was an unsatisfactory meeting at which, according to Victoria, Henry was ‘at his most disagreeable and aggressive’. Although Henry ‘never mentioned the question of his legitimacy’ at his meeting with Victoria, she recorded how ‘he complained bitterly of being kept in Africa, whilst I was living in luxury in England, and that my father was nothing but a cad and “a cochon”. Upon this I said that unless he withdrew these expressions, I should never speak to him again; he not only refused to do so but said he should like to put a match to the old shanty at Knole and burn the lot of us.’ In a letter to his father after the meeting, Henry denied having said anything against the old man, and blamed Victoria instead.
In early April, at last, Henry met his father in London before returning to Natal later in the month. It was the first time they had seen each other in ten years. The interview appeared to go well, although when Victoria saw Henry afterwards, she was surprised, after what had passed between them in March, that her brother made no attempt at an apology and simply spoke ‘with affected refinement about the weather’. ‘I had such a heavy heart on parting from him without a single loving word. I have done all I can and he has not responded to my overtures.’ On 12 May, Victoria started to write her diary in English rather than in French, a sign perhaps of the significance of 1896 in the history of the family.
As a result of the meeting between father and son, Lord Sackville attempted to settle the purchase of Henry’s other two farms, Hall Cross and Burgundy, as swiftly as possible. On 16 June, he wrote to his son that he had now sent him the full amount (just over £3,000) he had promised him ‘for your start’, and told him that he must now distinctly ‘understand that I can no longer be responsible for any further payments whatsoever in connection with instalments or other arrangements. I shall continue our allowance as usual.’ On his return to South Africa, Henry promptly sold his farms – and prepared to launch his claim to be recognised as Lord Sackville’s heir.
* Bedints were servants in the Sackville family slang – from the German bedienen, to ‘serve’ or ‘wait upon’. The term gradually came to embrace anyone the Sackvilles considered common, not just the ‘lower classes’, but even people of their own acquaintance whom they considered vulgar. It was a term, ironically, that they would soon apply to their own cousins. ‘Counter-jumper’ was a contemptuous term for a ‘shop salesman’.
See Notes on Chapter 5
6
Laying Claim to Knole
By the 1890s, the Sackvilles’ year had settled into an established pattern: February and March in Monte Carlo, the summer season in London, July at Knole, grouse-shooting and fishing in Scotland in August, and shooting weekends at great country estates around the country in the autumn. It was an era in which, as Vita later described, ‘genealogies and family connections, tables of precedence and a familiarity with country seats formed almost part of a moral code’.
Towards the end of October 1896, Lionel and Victoria were invited to stay by the Iveaghs on their Suffolk estate. Lord Iveagh, the great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, who had founded the brewery, had bought Elveden Hall just two
years before, after the death of its previous owner, Prince Duleep Singh. Elveden in 1896 was much as the ‘Black Prince’, as he was known, had left it: an Indian maharajah’s palace, superimposed upon a Georgian country house in the heathlands of East Anglia. Singh’s architect John Norton had been instructed to ‘decorate the interior with pure Indian ornament’, copied from the palaces of Lahore and Delhi. Plaster ornamentation decorated the arches like sculpted icing sugar; a tracery of foliage fashioned from coloured glass and mirrors festooned the ceilings. There was underfloor central heating, and the walls were hung with the tapestries and paintings brought by the new owners (which would later form part of the Iveagh Bequest at Kenwood House in London). The writer Augustus Hare described a similar house party almost exactly a year before the Sackville-Wests stayed: ‘the house (with the kindest of hosts) is almost appallingly luxurious, such masses of orchids, electric light everywhere, & c. However, a set-off the other way is an electric piano, which goes on pounding away by itself with a pertinacity, which is perfectly distracting.’ In her diary, Victoria remarked on all the fine furniture ‘et une armée de bedints’.
The Disinherited Page 12