Mr. Arthur James Balfour, statesman, scholar and philosopher, who was then leader of the Conservatives in the House of Commons, became one of my truest friends, a friendship I remember with humility and gratitude for there has, I believe, never been anyone quite like him. When I think of him it is as of some fine and disembodied spirit. The opinions he expressed and the doctrines he held seemed to me to be the products of pure logic. Invariably he sensed the heart of the matter and freed it of sordid encumbrance, and when he spoke in a philosophic vein, it was like listening to Bach. His way of holding his head gave him the appearance of searching the heavens and his blue eyes were absent, and yet intent, as if busy in some abstract world. Both mentally and physically he gave the impression of immense distinction and of a transcendent spirituality. He could talk on nearly every subject with equal distinction and I have heard him baffle scientists, musicians and artists with his intimate knowledge of their subjects. He was gifted with a breadth of comprehension I have never seen equaled. Unemotional and serene, he was rarely disturbed by human strife; but, when it was necessary to impose stem measures, he could be both tenacious and courageous.
Accompanied by these two great leaders I entered the luncheon tents where three thousand delegates greeted their appearance with cheers. It was Mr. Chamberlain who received the greater ovation, and I noticed that in spite of his immaculate appearance, the orchid in his buttonhole and the monocle in his eye, he did not seem to mind the enthusiastic and somewhat rough greetings his admirers gave him as he passed through the crowd.
In addition to the delegates who had come from various parts of the country, one hundred members of Parliament had accepted our invitation. We gave them luncheon in the great hall, after which we proceeded to the north terrace overlooking the courtyard which was flanked by the two wings of the house. Here the delegates and a huge crowd had assembled to hear the speeches. In the distance, up a grassy slope, stood the high column on which John Duke surveyed the domain a grateful country had by Parliamentary grant given him and his heirs in perpetuity, and as we listened to my husband and to Mr. Balfour's addresses I could almost detect a satisfied smile on John Duke's countenance. It was somewhat different when Mr. Chamberlain spoke of social measures that in the distant future would still leave the Duke on his column but might drive his heirs from the Palace the nation had bestowed.
Whatever was said on that day, it was all a great success. Comments in the depleted House of Commons on the absence of a hundred members at what the opposition was pleased to call the Blenheim Garden Party only added to the savor. In 1899 Marlborough was named Paymaster General to the Forces, a post his famous ancestor had found lucrative, but which no longer held the same perquisites, unless attending service in Christopher Wren's lovely Chapel of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea could be considered such. This was, however, but the first step in my husband's political career. In 1900 he went to South Africa as Assistant Military Secretary to Lord Roberts; and the following year became Under Secretary of State for the Colonies under Alfred Lytdeton, better known as a great cricketer.
In the autumn of 1896 we were invited to Sandringham by the Prince and Princess of Wales. Partridges and pheasants were plentiful, and since Marlborough was a good shot I realized he would enjoy himself; but for my part I rather dreaded four long days in such august society—for the guests were expected to stay from Monday to Saturday. We sent our servants ahead, and on our arrival I was shocked to hear that my maid had lost a bag containing quantities of small jewels, such as brooches, rings and bracelets, which I prized more for their associations than for their intrinsic value. Luckily the jewel case with my more valuable possessions had escaped the attention of the thief who at Paddington Station had disappeared with the loot. Although a full description of every jewel was given to the police not one was ever recovered.
Life at Sandringham was simple and informal and the Prince and Princess proved to be delightful hosts. The more stringent protocol of Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace was relaxed here and in the intimate atmosphere of family life one might almost forget the prerogatives of royalty. Nevertheless the Prince's stout but stately presence made rare any such lapse as that of which a friend of mine was guilty: in a moment of forgetfulness she addressed him as "my good man," to which with a somewhat frigid intonation he replied, "My dear Mrs. B., please remember that I am not your good man." In spite of this, he was always accessible and friendly and knew how to discard ceremony without loss of dignity.
In the mornings we sometimes walked to York Cottage, a small house in the park where the Duke and Duchess of York (the future King George V and Queen Mary) lived with their children, delighting in the rest from functions and formalities. The ladies would join the men for luncheon, which was served in a tent, and afterward we stayed to admire the skill of the fine sportsmen whom the Prince had assembled. The Duke of York was a beautiful shot, and it was a pleasure to watch the clean way he killed his birds. I hated to see birds maimed, but a high pheasant plummeting to the ground or a partridge winged as it passed was exciting. It was cold, however, sitting behind hedges when the north winds blew straight from the sea and I was glad to walk home to the roaring fires and copious teas that greeted us.
The Princess showed me her rooms, which were cluttered with small tables on which were quantities of photographs in costly frames. A unique collection of bejeweled flowers and animals cut in semiprecious stones and another of miniature Easter eggs in lapis lazuli were arranged in cabinets. They had been gifts from the Dowager Empress of Russia to her sister and were the work of Faberge, the famous St. Petersburg jeweler. These rooms are best described by the word cozy, with its suggestion of nooks and comers. The Princess's good taste was more apparent in her wardrobe, for she was always suitably attired, with a quiet distinction that enhanced her beauty. Her costumes would at her death have supplied a history of fashion for nearly eighty years, for she could not bear to part with a dress.
I grew to love Princess Victoria, the lonely Princess who never married because of loyalty to her mother, to whose selfishness she became a slave. Princess Maud who had recently married Prince Charles of Denmark, later King Haakon of Norway, was there and the Princess Royal, already married to the Duke of Fife, lived nearby. They were all simple and kindly and their family life was a model of virtue—though the Prince of Wales, if rumor was to be credited, found many pleasures outside the family circle. He was a shrewd man of the world and longed to have a voice in the policies and destiny of his country. Everyone recognized the fact that, in spite of Queen Victoria's determination to exclude him from all affairs of State, he was the best informed person in the kingdom. Viscount Esher, who was appointed by King Edward VII as one of the editors of the Letters of Queen Victoria and who later wrote The Influence of King Edward and Cloud-Capp’d Towers has in the latter work an interesting appraisal of Edward VII. He says:
At the age of 22 he showed such independence of spirit that he braved the Queen's wrath by welcoming Garibaldi to London.
And again:
Before he was thirty he was in the habit of requesting interviews from Ministers and begging for explanations of their policy. His intercourse with foreign Ambassadors was no less intimate. When thirty-four years old, in an outspoken talk with the French Ambassador, he had already suggested an Entente with France as the only means of restraining Bismarck and preserving the Peace of Europe. This was anticipating by many years that day when Gambetta said of him, "He loves France gaily and seriously, and his dream is an Entente with us."
It was not therefore surprising to find him, even while still Prince, influencing the affairs of the day, gradually turning the direction of English policy away from the German trend given it by the Prince Consort's influence and toward the Entente Cordiale with France.
During our visit the Prince expressed a wish to come to Blenheim, and we at once began the rather onerous preparations such a visit entailed. Our proposed list of guests having been submitted and approved, we became engrossed in p
lans to make the visit agreeable and memorable. A great amount of staff work was involved and there were endless details to be discussed. I faced this, my first big shooting party, with trepidation for I had no experience and no precedent to guide me. Fortified, however, by the thought that American women were considered adaptable I tried to still my apprehensions.
A ball to give the County families an opportunity to meet our royal guests was planned. But an untoward event occurred. My grandmother, Mrs. W. H. Vanderbilt, died suddenly. I first saw the news on a poster in the London streets a few days before the royal visit and realized that our mourning might prevent its taking place. After consulting my father by cable it was agreed that we should receive the Prince and Princess as arranged but that the ball should be canceled and replaced by a concert, which was at once a concession to our mourning and to the feelings of our County neighbors, who would have been greatly disappointed had there been no festivities.
There were, I remember, over a hundred people in the house, including thirty guests among whom were not only the Prince and Princess but Princess Victoria, Princess Maud and her husband, Prince Charles. Our rooms on the ground floor were given over to them, and we retired to crowded quarters upstairs.
Our party lasted from Monday to Saturday, and each day I had the Prince as my neighbor for two long meals. This was a terrible ordeal for one so unversed in the politics and gossip of the day as I was, since he liked to discuss the news and to hear the latest scandal, with all of which at that age I was unfamiliar. The Princess of Wales, gay and animated, with an almost childish interest in everything, was easier to cope with. She was full of fun. Gossip and stories about people delighted her. She made us laugh, telling us how she had to use a ladder in order to get into my bed, which was on a dais, and how she kept falling over the white bear skins that were strewn on the floor.
Years later I was amused to read some of the impressions made by this party on Arthur Balfour, one of our guests. In a letter to Lady Elcho* [* Mrs. E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour (London: Hutchinson & Co., Ltd., 1936)] he writes:
There is here a big party in a big house in a big park beside a big lake. To begin with (as our Toast lists have it) "the Prince of Wales and the rest of the Royal family—"or if not quite that, at least a quorum, namely himself, his wife, two daughters and a son-in-law. There are two sets of George Curzons, the Londonderrys, Grenfells, Gosfords, H. Chaplin, etc., etc. We came down by special train—rather cross most of us—were received with illuminations, guards of honour, cheering and other follies, went through agonies about our luggage, but finally settled down placidly enough.
Today the men shot and the women dawdled. As I detest both occupations equally I stayed in my room till one o'clock and then went exploring on my bike, joining everybody at luncheon. Then, after the inevitable photograph, I again betook myself to my faithful machine and here I am writing to you. So far you perceive the duties of society are weighing lightly upon me.
The "inevitable photograph" can be found in this book.
This visit was a tiring and anxious experience for me, since I was responsible for every detail connected with running the house and ordering the pleasures of my numerous guests. The number of changes of costume was in itself a waste of precious time. To begin with, even breakfast, which was served at 9:30 in the dining room, demanded an elegant costume of velvet or silk. Having seen the men off to their sport, the ladies spent the morning round the fire reading the papers and gossiping. We next changed into tweeds to join the guns for luncheon which was served in the High Lodge or in a tent. Afterward we usually accompanied the guns and watched a drive or two before returning home. An elaborate tea gown was donned for tea, after which we played cards or listened to a Viennese band or to the organ until time to dress for dinner, when again we adorned ourselves in satin, or brocade, with a great display of jewels. All these changes necessitated a tremendous outlay since one was not supposed to wear the same gown twice. That meant sixteen dresses for four days.
On Friday I awoke with a sense of exultation that the last day of what had seemed an interminable week had finally dawned. I was exhausted and hardly able to face the endless questions that had to be settled for the culminating reception and concert that evening. So much had still to be discussed. There was the Prince to be consulted on the people he wished to meet, the royal procession into supper to be arranged, and a hundred household details to be reviewed. As I went on a last round of inspection before dinner I thought the state rooms, which we had redecorated in Louis XIV hoiseries of white and gold, were a splendid setting for such a festive scene, and the long suite of reception rooms filled with orchids and malmaisons looked to me truly palatial. Later, as the royal procession wound its way through the throng of bejeweled women and men in knee breeches and uniforms and stopped here and there for a word of greeting, I realized that the Crown stood for a tradition that England would not easily give up.
The Christmas festivities loomed as the next social event. Two of my husband's aunts, besides his sisters, mother and grandmother formed the nucleus of a party of friends. I felt somewhat isolated in this clannish company since my family in America could hardly have been expected to take so long a voyage to be with us. The grandmother, the Dowager Duchess, proved somewhat of a trial. It is not always pleasant to look back on a past perhaps less brilliant than the present and to reflect on things left undone from necessity rather than from choice. It was perhaps for this reason that the Duchess's comments were somewhat jaundiced and that, in giving advice, she forgot my nineteen years, expecting me to conform to a dignified decorum even then considered old-fashioned. It was no doubt annoying for her to contemplate that my duties sat so lightly upon me, and that the dignity of my position as her successor did not oppress me. Trailing her satins and sables in a stately manner, she would cast a hostile eye upon my youthful figure more suitably attired in tweeds, and I would hear her complaining to my sisters-in-law that "Her Grace does not realize the importance of her position." She did not perhaps realize that a little relaxation was necessary after my lengthy conversations with her, which were rendered difficult by being conducted through her ear trumpet. Nevertheless, I was not neglecting my duties, and there were Christmas trees for the schoolchildren and teas for the older people, and every morning, with my sisters-in-law and the housekeeper, I made up bundles of clothing and gifts to be taken to the poor.
Marlborough and the other guns were always shooting, for there were pheasants, rabbits, duck, woodcock and snipe to be killed. I remember a record shoot one autumn when seven thousand rabbits were bagged by five of the best English shots in one day. They had two loaders and three guns each, and every one of them had a violent headache on reaching home. At least for a time the High Park was free of rabbits.
In the first months of the New Year we moved to a small house near Melton Mowbray, since my husband wished to hunt with the various fine packs of hounds Leicestershire boasted. He was a good horseman and looked well in his pink coat, his gray horse—for we had only grays—conspicuously in the lead. As I was then expecting a baby I was unable to hunt, but Lord Lonsdale, who was Master of the Quom, drove me in his buggy on days when he was not hunting. His knowledge of the lie of the land and the ways of the fox enabled us to see many good hunts and to be present at the kill more often than I would have thought it possible. We drove at a great pace over the ridges and furrows of the grass fields and through gates opened for us by yokels who received his pleasant greeting with a grin and a hand to the cap. The Earl of Lonsdale was as popular a person with the farmer over whose fields he rode as he was in sporting circles, for he was a good fellow and a thorough sportsman, genial, generous and gay. His imagination sometimes got the better of his veracity but it always contributed to the fun of the occasion. He had a complete outfit of reindeer skins made up for me as a coat and a carriage rug, informing me that he had shot the lot; but when I repeated the story it was received with incredulous laughter. I found a few days spent h
unting the fox on wheels sufficient initiation and decided to discontinue hunting until I was able to ride. Meanwhile, I read German philosophy with a teacher who came from London. This, to my surprise, consigned me to the company of blue stockings and I realized that I had shown more courage than tact in advertising my preference for literature. Only this interest, however, got me through the first depressing winter, when my solitary days were spent walking along the high road and my evenings listening to the hunting exploits of others. Whenever there was a frost Marlborough went off to London or to Paris, but since it was considered inadvisable for me to travel in my condition I remained alone. From my window I overlooked a pond in which a former butler had drowned himself. As one gloomy day succeeded another I began to feel a deep sympathy for him.
This winter was succeeded by a memorable summer for it was the year 1897 and the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The number of royal personages assembled in London proved a tax even on proverbial English hospitality. Sumptuous and lavish were the receptions, balls and dinners given in their honor. To the Marquess of Lansdowne, Minister of Foreign Affairs, fell the brunt of official entertaining and I remember a dinner at Lansdowne House where Prince Ferdinand, who in 1908 became Czar of Bulgaria, was the guest of honor. We had already met at Buckingham Palace and for the second consecutive time he chose to spend the evening with me and to make me the confidante of his disappointment at not having received the Garter, hinting in his cynical manner that the German Emperor would no doubt be more responsive to his advances. I was interested in the ambitious schemes he unfolded, for at that time—and for many years thereafter—the Balkan question was to harass the statesmen of the great powers. An ugly man with the long Coburg nose, he had a passion for decorations and precious stones. Had he not been in uniform scintillating with decorations (all but the Garter), he would have appeared as the rather mean little bourgeois his spiteful resentment against all things British proved him to be.
The Glitter and the Gold Page 12