In August, Lord Sackville fell down the stairs to his bedroom, but insisted on keeping that room, despite being barely able to crawl there. Lionel returned to Knole a week later, followed by his younger brothers, Charlie and my grandfather, Bertie. Downstairs, Bertie’s vivacious wife, Eva, my grandmother, shocked Victoria by playing polkas and waltzes – behaviour she found most casual, while upstairs, the old man lay in bed, feverish and in pain every time he was moved. He died on 3 September. In her diary, on a page headed ‘Papa’s Death’, Victoria gave a detailed description of her father’s last hours, as his mind wandered, his speech thickened, and his breath slowed. She was holding his hand in hers when his breathing stopped. ‘In his last look,’ she wrote, ‘he seemed to beg my pardon for all the harshness and unfairness he had often shown me. I forgave him from my heart . . . I shall never forget the beating of my heart & the awful feeling I had in front of Death, the first time I saw anybody die. But it was such a peaceful Death & I could not have wished it differently.’
Victoria spent the day after her father’s death in bed, ‘feeling quite deadbeat’, while her husband made arrangements for the funeral and sent telegrams to close friends and family members. The list of recipients included Flora and Amalia, but pointedly omitted Henry and Max. Victoria got up on the Saturday and spent the weekend planning a new regime of household economies and answering letters of condolence. One of these was from the King, expressing his ‘deep sympathy’ and asking whether Lord Sackville had been ill for some time. The letters to Victoria from Violet Keppel, daughter of the King’s mistress Alice, were more direct and focused on the court case that would inevitably follow her father’s death: ‘Of course I know it will be all right but all the unnecessary expenses of lawsuits, it is maddening.’ The King, she revealed, was particularly interested in the case, and Violet hoped ‘to get all his sympathies on your side where indeed they are already’.
Victoria lost no time in writing to the newspapers, asking them not to cover the impending court case. The editor of the Daily Mail replied that although he would be very sorry to publish anything likely to cause her pain, he would be obliged to report the proceedings if the matter came to court. ‘In the meantime,’ he wrote, ‘I have every desire to comply with your request and have given instructions accordingly.’
Vita had been sent to stay with Seery and his sisters in Scotland during her grandfather’s final illness. She supposed that ‘Mother and Dada knew he would die and wanted [her] out of the way’. He died while she was there, as she later described:
One of Seery’s sisters – the big one, whom her family called the Duchess – came to my room before breakfast with the telegram; she had on a pink flannelette dressing-gown, and no false hair, and I remember noticing how odd she looked. She kissed me in a conscientious sort of way, but I wasn’t very much moved over Grandpapa’s death just then; it only sank in afterwards . . . Then I went downstairs to Seery’s room, and never to my last moment shall I forget the sight he presented, sitting at his dressing-table perfectly oblivious, the twenty-five stone of him, dressed only in skin-tight Jaeger combinations, and, dear warm-hearted old Seery, crying quite openly over the telegram.
The sight of Seery weeping unrestrainedly, his sobs shaking ‘his loose enormous frame like a jelly’, so overwhelmed the sixteen-year-old Vita that she could not cry herself.
On Sunday night, Old* Lionel’s coffin was placed in the private Chapel at Knole, where my father’s coffin rested, too, the night before his funeral, and Victoria summoned the courage to visit it there. Just after 11 o’clock the following morning, Monday 7 September, she watched from her bedroom window as ‘the sad little procession’, carrying the coffin, left the private apartments and crossed the Green Court. Her husband walked bareheaded immediately behind the coffin, which was covered with wreaths, with his brothers Charlie and Bertie on either side of him. Victoria could not help noticing how very strange it seemed now to be called ‘My Lord and My Lady’ – just as, shortly, Vita was to observe how swiftly ‘Dada takes his new role very seriously’. At the porter’s lodge under the entrance tower, the coffin was placed on a hand-bier and drawn by members of the estate staff across the park to the main gate, where a large crowd was waiting, and into the church of St Nicholas.
On behalf of the Sackvilles, Percy Leigh Pemberton had asked Henry’s lawyer, Mr Fellowes, to discourage Henry from coming to Knole or attending the funeral. Fellowes assured Pemberton that Henry would not go to Knole, although he would attend the funeral itself at St Nicholas’s ‘as an ordinary individual’ and would leave as soon as it was over, and that he would make no attempt to seize possession of Knole after the service (Fellowes took the further precaution of warning his client that the Sackvilles had ‘evidently got a posse of Police’ at Knole to prevent such an event). Nevertheless, Fellowes told Pemberton that ‘they intended to fight for all they were worth’, and that the only reason for the delay was that ‘the material to be dealt with was so immense that it required time to digest’.
In the event, Henry did not attend his father’s funeral. Of the five children, only Amalia went to the church (Victoria stayed behind at Knole) and plonked herself in the front pew, where, according to Victoria, Lionel left her alone. After the service, Amalia insisted on walking out of the church immediately behind the coffin and in front of Lionel, which Vita later recorded ‘shocked everybody fearfully’. The body was interred in the graveyard beside the church, the only incumbent of Knole – from Thomas Sackville, the 1st Earl of Dorset in 1608, to the 4th Lord Sackville in the 1960s – not to be buried in the family vault at Withyham.
Old Lionel’s death was followed by a flurry of letters from Victoria’s sisters. Writing in purple ink on black-edged mourning paper, from a rented villa on the coast of Brittany, Flora was very upset that Papa had died without her having seen him again, and anxious about the ‘bouleversement sa mort va assurer pour tous’. She hoped that ‘toutes ces vilaines histories de famille’ would resolve themselves, adding in a veiled threat, ‘sans trop de scandale’. She was particularly interested, however, in what provision had been made for her: although she found it distasteful to raise the matter at ‘un aussi triste moment’, she wondered ‘quelles sont tes intentions a mon égard?’
Old Lionel had never had much money, and, on his death, his personal estate consisted only of life insurance policies worth £7,100, which he left to his five children, and a few personal effects. ‘Oh, what a mess poor O’Mann [as Victoria described her father] made of everything,’ Victoria wrote to Seery, ‘but I do forgive him as you know. It is rather dreadful not to provide for his children properly, and to leave it to me to do, alas!’ His fecklessness was another reason why Victoria continued to be torn in her affection for her father: ‘Just a week since my dear old Papa died. I feel all the time I wish I had been kinder to him in his lifetime, altho’ I really did try hard to make him happy, but he had such a reserved and hard nature, so difficult to fathom, poor O’Mann.’
As part of Victoria’s economy drive, several of the Knole employees were ‘sent away’, and plans were made for the family to leave Knole for the duration of the case, leaving only a skeleton staff to ensure that proper care was taken of the house. A couple of weeks after her father’s death, Victoria started saying goodbye to her neighbours. The local shopkeepers were particularly cross with Henry for the effect the departure of the Sackvilles would have on trade. Towards the end of October, the family left Knole for their ‘long exile’. ‘We hated it,’ Victoria wrote in her diary. ‘I should be very happy there if I did not have the show-rooms to worry me! But I was sorry to go, especially for Lionel & Vita’s sake.’ Every now and then, the Sackvilles would pop back to Knole. On 3 December 1908, when Victoria returned to pick up some presents, the whole place looked ‘very dreary’, as I know only Knole can in the depths of winter, and in January, when Lionel and Victoria motored down to Knole with Vita, they found the place ‘so cold and bleak . . . We only keep the little s
itting-room going.’
Apart from the money from the life insurance policies, which provided his daughters with a lump sum on his death, Old Lionel had made little provision for his children. What Flora and Amalia wanted to know – and they needed a swift response – was what would now happen to their allowances. If these were to be stopped, Flora observed, she would have to give up her plan to get married, as she did not ‘have a sou to her name’, and she had no idea what would become of her. So would Victoria continue her allowance for the time being?
Lionel outlined the new proposals in a letter to Amalia. In addition to whatever income the girls received from the lump sum left by their father, Lionel and Victoria were each prepared to give them an allowance of £100 a year, totalling £200, so long as ‘you will understand that this is entirely voluntary on our part’. Flora was at first much relieved that Lionel and Victoria had agreed to continue her allowance, albeit at a slightly reduced rate, and apologised for ‘tous ces détails au milieu de tes préoccupations personelles’. But it was not long before Flora and Amalia’s tone changed.
They addressed their letters pointedly to ‘Lionel West Esq.’ and ‘Mrs West’, despite the fact that Lionel had signed the cheques to them in the name of ‘Sackville’. As Flora informed Victoria, she was doing so because she believed that Henry’s wife, Emélie, was Lady Sackville, ‘& added many nasty remarks, too long to copy’ for good measure. ‘I am keeping her letter,’ wrote Victoria, ‘like many others where she had said she “had nothing to do with Henry.” Oh! the ingratitude of them all.’ Because Flora insisted on addressing Henry as Lord Sackville, her letters to her brother occasionally got forwarded to Lionel instead, and the extent of her collusion became apparent. She referred to meetings in London of the syndicate backing Henry, and upbraided her brother for becoming demoralised: instead, she begged Henry to ‘bien cuisiner le Monsieur’ (literally, to cook Lionel good and proper).
Despite the allowance, Amalia kept on claiming that she received no money from the Sackvilles, and that she was forced to live on charity. Like Flora, she continued to support Henry’s case, spreading rumours, based on nothing more than the description of Victoria in her birth certificate as the daughter of a ‘père inconnu’, that Papa had picked Victoria up somewhere in Spain and installed her at the legation in Washington. This was the first time, Amalia claimed, that Victoria had ever met Amalia and Flora. No wonder that Victoria found the situation galling and complained at the injustice of supporting siblings ‘who have done everything to oust us!’
Victoria considered appealing to Henry’s better judgement, and got so far as drafting a letter to him:
It does seem such a pity that you should not listen to your conscience & to reason, in connection with this sad case you want to bring against Lionel. It is such a hopeless case for you, my poor Henry and I should like you not to be blind [an unfortunate choice of word, given that Henry had just lost the sight of one eye, due to an abscess] to the hopelessness of the whole thing, before you finally settle to throw mud at our Father’s memory. There are still so many people living, who were his friends & his colleagues & to whom he never introduced our Mother or spoke about her, you must know, in your heart of hearts, how hopeless it must be to establish the reputation of marriage. Do think well before you act. It is for your own good that I ask you to act rationally. As with the evidence we have got, there is only one possible end to the Trial.
She was, however, dissuaded by the family solicitors from sending the letter. Pemberton argued that the risks of doing so were too high. ‘It is pretty certain, I think, that any such communication would at once be taken as an indication of weakness on our part, besides the danger that the opportunity would be taken to circulate statements in the public press that you feared a trial, and were trying to compromise.’ Pemberton was also of the opinion that, since Henry had obviously made various assignments and commitments to the people backing his case, he was obliged to pursue the matter to the end, rather than reaching a compromise, and to that extent he was no longer a free agent. In addition to rumours that a French priest had financed Henry’s case, there were also reports that the Sackvilles’ old butler, Williams, was trying to raise money on Henry’s behalf, at seven per cent interest. ‘Wills’ had borne the Sackvilles a grudge for more than twenty years, ever since he claimed an unpaid commission on some tapestries that Victoria had exhibited, on Béon’s behalf, in the legation ballroom in Washington.
Max had been out of touch with the family for some time, but soon after Old Lionel’s death he wrote to Victoria. She was sceptical at first about his motives. Although he claimed that he had nothing to do with Henry, she could not forget a letter he had written to Henry a decade before, saying he was ‘heart & soul with him & he would do the same, were he in Henry’s position’. ‘My Brothers & sisters are such liars,’ wrote Victoria, ‘that one does not know what to believe’ and, as a result, she answered Max ‘very cautiously’. It was not long, however, before she was attempting once again to engage him on her side.
Max, for his part, was flattered by the attention and desperate for news of the family. ‘What is Amalia doing,’ he asked on 13 December, ‘and how does she live? And Henry? What does he do for a living? What was the reason of Flora’s divorce? Her fault or her husband’s? Is she living quite alone by herself? Is Henry really married, and is it his wife’s money that is carrying him through all this [it was not]? Give me some news.’ Max felt that his ‘poor little sisters’, Flora and Amalia, had been dragged unwittingly into this ‘dreadful’ business. Even when he heard that Amalia was ‘taking active steps in conjunction with Henry’, he asked Victoria not to be too ‘rough on her, she is a girl, and our sister, and I feel very sorry for her. It’s a different matter with Henry, he knows what he is about.’
Max disassociated himself from his brother’s stand and, when asked by Henry’s solicitors, Nussey & Fellowes, whether he would be willing to help their client in his claim, he ‘absolutely’ declined. Indeed, he even sent Victoria a letter, addressed to Henry, for her to forward, encouraging him to see the folly of his ways and to give up the case. Once again, Pemberton advised the Sackvilles not to send the letter, ‘as it would look as if we had squared Max which we have not done’.
Max’s generosity of spirit was reciprocated. ‘My dear Max,’ wrote Lionel on 12 June, ‘I have often thought of writing to you and telling you how much I have always felt for you in your position but until lately have never quite liked to do so as I have always had the feeling, that although it is of course not my fault, I have in a sense reaped the advantage of your misfortune. You have however now shown yourself such a good friend to Victoria & me that I hope you will not think it an impertinence if I write to thank you myself.’ Lionel proceeded to blame Béon for inciting Henry in his ‘misguided’ behaviour, and Amalia for encouraging him.
Lionel’s ‘generous’ letter affected Max deeply. ‘It is the letter of an honourable man,’ he replied on 13 July,
and it breathes such true feeling and, if I may be permitted to say so, such genuine honesty, that it comes as a most welcome relief after that atmosphere of lies we have all been living in lately . . . Of course I knew all along that the inheritance would come to you, in the ordinary course of things, but I have never owed you a grudge for it . . . I have become reconciled to it long ago. I bow to the inevitable, and I do so without rancour . . . It was only natural that my heart should go out to my sister in her trouble.
He promised to support Lionel and Victoria against his brother. ‘What brotherly love I have felt, or might feel, for him, he has alienated from me by the low tricks to which he has stooped.’ He had had no idea that proceedings would degenerate into such a sordid, ‘and I might say criminal’, affair, and blamed the evil influence of Salanson and Béon, the latter having been the only man, besides his father and mother, to know that some of the children had been registered legitimate. ‘I have always had deep love and respect for my father,’ he continue
d, ‘and I am sorrowful that he should have died without our being reconciled.’ As the eldest son, of an albeit dysfunctional family, Max took his responsibilities seriously – not just to his sisters, but also to the memory of his parents. ‘When I came to reflect upon his character,’ he wrote to Victoria of their father, ‘which had made such a deep impression upon me even as a little child, I came to see that in spite of his failings and weaknesses he could not be guilty of the charges Henry was levelling against him.’ As for Pepita, he wrote on 8 August: ‘Poor mother! I think she was more the victim of circumstances than the author of the cross her children have to bear. She threw away the substance for the shadow, and she exchanged sterling gold for the glitter of brass.’
Over the summer, Max ploughed through all the depositions that Henry’s solicitors had taken in June. In September, he addressed the issues raised in these, and gave his own interpretation of events in a series of letters to Pemberton, that amounted to fifty foolscap pages. He was worn out. These letters to Pemberton had ‘killed’ him. ‘My eyes are the colour of red flannel and I am suffering terribly,’ he told Victoria. ‘My head feels quite queer and sore, in fact I am quite stupid.’ Poor Max often comes across in his letters as the dutiful and conscientious oldest child, with more than a touch of the barrack-room lawyer about him. ‘I consider that I, as the eldest son, am morally bound to afford you every assistance in my power,’ he wrote to Victoria; ‘I think Henry is doing you a grievous wrong, and I must stand by you.’ He was as keen as Victoria that the proceedings should be confined to establishing the fact of Pepita’s marriage to Oliva, rather than the broader issues of a marriage by reputation to Old Lionel, in which their mother’s name would inevitably be tarnished, and attention drawn once again to Max’s paternity. Max gave no credence at all to Henry’s depositions – ‘the idle gossip of the riff-raff of Arcachon’ – particularly those accounts of what Pepita had told people about the King of Bavaria. He reassured Victoria that she was her father’s daughter: ‘Good gracious, of course you are! I have not seen you for many, many years but I often saw the likeness when you were small.’ The sooner the case was finished, he felt, the better.
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