My curiosity as to what became of Pepita’s children began several years ago when I was writing Inheritance, the story of Knole and the Sackvilles, who have lived there for the past 400 years. But whereas Inheritance chronicled a fairly well-documented family – there is, for example, a family tree at Knole that traces the Sackville lineage back to the early Middle Ages – The Disinherited tracks down figures far more fugitive, people who left just wisps of themselves behind. The evidence consists not of heirlooms – those portraits and objects, freighted with emotional and historical associations that are a feature of Inheritance – but of certificates of birth, marriage, divorce and death, of censuses and court reports, newspaper accounts, diaries, and letters.
Some of these documents are to be found in the town halls of France, the staff of which have been unfailingly helpful in providing copies; others in magnificent repositories on the fringes of Paris and London: the Archives des Affaires étrangères et européennes at the Centre de la Courneuve; the Service Historique de la Défense at the Chateau de Vincennes; and the National Archives at Kew. The papers at Kew, on which much of this book is based, have survived as the result of a technicality. Because the family saga culminated in a court case in which a title – that of Lord Sackville – was at stake, the court reports were preserved with the records of the Treasury Solicitor at the National Archives. I have my friend Guy Philipps QC to thank for pointing me in that direction and for providing me, unwittingly, with the key that unlocked this story. He could not have prepared me, however, for the excitement of finding that it was not just the transcripts of the court proceedings that were preserved at Kew, but all the supporting depositions, too, and boxes containing dusty bundles of personal letters and photos. From suburban Kew, I was transported to the slums of Málaga and the stately homes of England, the convent schools of Paris and the music halls of London, the South African veldt and the diplomatic world of late nineteenth-century Washington.
I am also grateful to the staffs of the London Library and the British Library, particularly the keepers of the newspaper archive at Colindale; to Christopher Whittick of the East Sussex Record Office in Lewes; and to the Lilly Library at Indiana University, Bloomington, where the diaries of the turbulent Victoria, Lady Sackville, found a peaceful, final resting place.
The internet has transformed research into the lives of those ordinary people, whose stories cannot be found on the shelves of libraries, but who can be traced, for example, on the General Register Office site (for records of births, marriages and deaths); on Gallica, the digital library of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, for access to over a hundred years of French newspapers; and on any number of genealogical sites.
After all these virtual encounters, it has been a great pleasure to meet and correspond with real people. Françoise Cottin stayed in the Villa Pepa for a month in the summer of 1963, sleeping in Pepita’s room as she cared for a convalescent son. The villa had been in her husband’s family since 1876, and the interior, including some of the furniture, had barely changed since Pepita’s day. Françoise’s husband had grown up in the Cottin family house in the Rue de Monceau in Paris, and as young boy attended the Cours St Louis at No. 17, on the site of the convent school where Pepita’s daughter, Victoria, had been sent to board. The Cottins subsequently lived for fifty years in the Rue de Monceau. No wonder that Mme Cottin, having followed so literally in the footsteps of the family, felt such an affinity for Pepita. She has been a great source of information on life in Arcachon and Paris in the 1860s and 1870s.
The Sisters of St Joseph in Lyons shared with me the few surviving archives of the convent in the Rue de Monceau. Brigitte Petit Archambault went far beyond what could be expected from a friend – even one of my oldest friends – in chasing arcane requests for information from France. Jesus Rivera-Rosado, a Spanish balletomane, helped me acquire some letters of Flora’s written over a hundred years ago; and Maxine Park returned some of Amalia’s that had gone astray. Dr Judith Beniston, a lecturer in German at the University College of London and an authority on the history of German and Austrian theatre, gave me fascinating insights into Pepita’s professional career. The Mooi River Farmers’ Association in South Africa helped me to understand the world into which Max was dispatched; and Jenny Duckworth conducted research for me at the Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository.
Thanks, as ever, to Caroline Michel, my literary agent, for encouraging me to write this book and finding for it the perfect publisher. Michael Fishwick at Bloomsbury is an exceptional editor, combining an eye for both the broad sweep of a story and for the tiny, telling detail. Once again, I cannot think of a single suggestion he has made with which I have disagreed. His team, notably managing editor Anna Simpson, have handled the project at all stages with great good humour and efficiency.
The family in which I grew up is similar in structure to Victoria’s. I am the oldest of five children, like Max (and born exactly a hundred years later), and am then followed by three sisters, with the youngest of us, like Henry, a boy. But there the similarities end. I am grateful to my parents for the loving and supportive environment in which they raised me and my siblings. And, above all, I thank my wife, Jane, and our three children, Freya, Arthur and Edie, who live at Knole, and share an inheritance that has troubled many previous generations, with such equanimity and grace. May they never feel disinherited.
A Note on the Author
After studying History at Oxford University, Robert Sackville-West worked in publishing, founding Toucan Books in 1985, which creates illustrated non-fiction books for an international market. He now combines that role with chairing Knole Estates, the property and investment company which runs the Sackville family’s interests at Knole. In 2008, he and his wife and three children moved into the house, which has been occupied by the Sackville family for 400 years. His history of Knole and the Sackville family, Inheritance, was published by Bloomsbury in 2010.
Also available by Robert Sackville-West
Inheritance
The Story of Knole and the Sackvilles
‘The definitive modern account of a great house and family ... A gripping read, as good as a novel’ Literary Review
Knole and the Sackvilles – one house, one family, their destinies intertwined in a story four centuries long. Warriors and artists, hedonists and rebels, a family described by Vita Sackville-West as ‘a rotten lot, and nearly all stark raking mad’, their spirit fills every nook and crannies of this grand mansion house at Knole. Every portrait holds a story of historical grandeur or private misery; all the rooms, and the objects that fill them, are touched by an emotional significance that has been handed down from generation to generation.
Inheritance is the story of this house through thirteen generations of Sackvilles, as told by its latest inhabitant. Follow the current Lord Sackville on a private tour of this very public place, through the memories and memorabilia of his extraordinary family.
‘Knole is not merely a house. It is an embodiment of history. If you knew no English history, a visit to this place, followed by reading Robert Sackville-West’s fascinating account, would tell you the story in its essential outlines ... Astounding’ A. N. Wilson, Country Life
‘Sackville-West wears his historical research lightly ... and succeeds in breathing humanity into Knole’s forbidding Kentish stone’ Sunday Times
‘A graceful and thoroughly researched history’ Miranda Seymour, Guardian
‘Witty, English and crisp, with a poetic lilt that not only makes one want to read about Knole ... but move in ... Gripping’ Sunday Telegraph
‘Inheritance is not only a family history. It is a contribution to the history of the English aristocracy’ Raymond Carr, Spectator
Order your copy:
By phone: +44 (0) 1256 302 699
By email: [email protected]
Delivery is usually 3–5 working days.
Free postage and packaging for orders over £20.
Online: www.
bloomsbury.com
Prices and availability subject to change without notice.
First published in Great Britain 2014
This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © 2014 by Robert Sackville-West
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Images are from the author’s personal collection except where credited otherwise
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
(including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,
printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the
publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material
reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers
would be glad to hear from them. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements
on page 293 constitutes an extension of the copyright page
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square
London
WC1B 3DP
www.bloomsbury.com
Bloomsbury is a trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN 9781408843413
To find out more about our authors and their books please visit
www.bloomsbury.com where you will find extracts, author interviews
and details of forthcoming events, and to be the first to hear about latest
releases and special offers, sign up for our newsletters here.
The Disinherited Page 28