When I went down to the Pugs’ Parlour I saw Mrs Vidler. I went up to her and said that I was sorry her ladyship had spoken the way she did. She laughed it aside. ‘It’s all in the day’s work,’ she said, then went on to say that she was leaving Lady Astor anyway as she had decided to go to America to seek her fortune.
‘Would you like my job?’ she asked.
Without really thinking, I said, ‘No.’
‘Miss Wissie wants a maid, why don’t you come to her?’ Miss Wissie was Lady Astor’s daughter, the Honourable Phyllis Astor, later Countess of Ancaster. She was then about eighteen. In a way I would be dropping in status back to a young lady’s maid. ‘Would it’, I thought, ‘be worth it?’
‘What’s the money?’ I asked.
‘Sixty pounds a year.’ That did it; status, like love, flew out of the window. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I shall apply for it.’
I had reckoned without Lady Cranborne. I told her my intentions and asked for a reference. ‘It’s not convenient for you to leave, Rose,’ was her reply. She had me over a barrel: I needed her reference. I’m not the kind that argues in a situation like that, nor do I resort to tears to try and win sympathy. I went away and thought for a bit. I was astonished when I saw her ladyship next that she brought the matter up. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said, Rose. I haven’t changed my mind, I won’t recommend you for Miss Wissie but I will for Lady Astor. I understand she wants a maid.’ ‘This was downright duplicity,’ I thought.
‘Not me, my lady, I don’t want to serve Lady Astor,’ I said, ‘and that’s an end of the matter.’ I wasn’t to be daunted though. I’d got a reference from Lady Ierne. I didn’t think it would be enough, but I wrote to Lady Astor’s head secretary, Miss Kindersley, and put in my application. To my astonishment, two days later she replied and told me I had got the job. What’s more I’d struck a blow for freedom, my freedom of choice at any rate. The next day I gave in my notice. Her ladyship accepted it as though I had just passed a remark about the weather. When it came for me to leave she shook me by the hand, thanked me for all I’d done and said she hoped I would get a nice position in the future. She didn’t even ask if I had got a job to go to.
3
Meeting the Astors
I went to Cliveden on 14 August 1928, the day after Mr William Astor’s twenty-first birthday, to take up my duties as Phyllis Astor’s, Miss Wissie’s, lady’s maid. It was a red-letter day in my life because, as I’ve said, though I didn’t know it at the time, I was to serve the family for the next thirty-five years. Therefore, while this isn’t intended to be a book about the Astors or Lady Astor, my life in service was inevitably focused on the family, and particularly on her, as indeed was everyone’s around her no matter who they were supposed to be working for or what they were doing. She dominated the scene. ‘Satisfy Lady Astor and everyone will be happy,’ seemed to be the universal creed. I nearly said ‘please’ Lady Astor, but that was impossible: no matter what you did for her, she never let you see she was pleased. It was as though she thought it your bounden duty to serve her. Therefore my life, and the lives of the others whom I shall be writing about, will seem to revolve continually around her ladyship, and this may give the impression that my picture of domestic service is a special one and not a true reflection of the times. It’s not the case. In general other servants lived as we did and other houses were run as ours were. It’s only the personalities and the details that were different.
I was no stranger to Cliveden, as I’ve said, but it’s one thing to visit a place and another to work in it. You see it through different eyes and of course distances become more important, that is the time it takes to get from one place to another. Attitudes towards the staff alter too. It is important to learn to understand their abilities, limitations and temperaments, and relationships have to be carefully developed. It was necessary at the start to learn something of the history of the family, and for this I turned to the man whom I suppose more than any other was to be the important and dominating figure in my life: Mr Edwin Lee, the butler. His Christian name was the most unimportant thing about him; I can hardly ever remember it being used; he was known to everyone who visited us as Lee or Mr Lee. Even royalty never had to be reminded of it. There were other great butlers at that time but Mr Lee I think would be acknowledged by almost all as the greatest. Mr Charles Dean, at one time under-butler to the Astors, later butler to Miss Alice Astor, Mrs Bouverie, Lady Nancy Astor at Eaton Square and the British Ambassador in Washington, although a great figure in his own right, still considers himself puny compared with Mr Lee. Behind his back, in the servants’ hall, he was known as ‘Skipper’ or ‘Skip’. To his face he was addressed as ‘Sir’ by male and female staff alike. I called him ‘Father’. How, when or why this happened I can’t remember. I still marvel that I had the courage to be so familiar and that he allowed it. He never called me by my Christian name and though we are still the greatest of friends today, he addresses me only as Miss Harrison.
Anyway, one evening soon after my arrival, he found time to tell me about the family. The first Astor he thought to be of any importance was John Jacob, who emigrated from Germany towards the end of the eighteenth century, first to England and then to America. He it was who founded the Astor fortunes, through dealing in furs and later buying land around New York Harbour on which the present city stands. His estate was passed on for two generations, increasing in value all the time, until it came in the hands of William Waldorf, my lord Astor’s father. He was an eccentric and a bit of an intellectual. After his father died leaving him all his fortune, he decided to settle in England. This made him unpopular with Americans. Mr Lee thinks it was because he was making his money over there and spending it over here; a sort of absentee landlord. I could see the Americans’ point of view because he really did spend. He bought Cliveden, two houses in London and a ruined castle at Hever which he had repaired. Then he built a mock Tudor village around it, where his guests stayed. He later also bought a title off Mr Lloyd George. A viscountcy was given him for ‘political and public services’, but the size of the cheque was never mentioned. Apparently, although he was hoping that his eldest son Waldorf would marry into the English peerage, he didn’t mind when he met my lady even though she was a divorcee and had a young son. He took to her at once; he must have done because when they were married he gave them Cliveden and several million pounds besides.
Mr Lee met his old lordship shortly after he went into service with Mr Waldorf. Despite his funny ways (he used to sleep with two revolvers by his bed, being in permanent fear that someone wanted to do him in), he seemed to Mr Lee a good-natured and generous sort of man, and not only to his family. He had a butler, a Mr Pooley, who over the thirteen years he was with him started taking to the drink. Eventually the old man could stand it no longer and he decided to sack him. ‘Pooley,’ he said, ‘because of your bad habits when you’re in the drink, I’ve got to ask you to leave, but because of your good habits when you’re out of it and the time you’ve served me, here’s something to take with you,’ and he handed him a bank note.
When he left the room Mr Pooley looked at it and saw it was for a thousand pounds. As he said to his friends in the pub that night, over the drinks that he’d bought them, ‘That’s something worth getting drunk for.’
When he came to speaking of our ‘Lordy’, as he was familiarly called in the servants’ hall, Mr Lee of course did not pass any opinion or judgement. I was left with the view that his character must be near-flawless, otherwise Mr Lee would not have stayed in his service. Don’t misunderstand me, by that I don’t mean that ‘Father’ was pompous or priggish, but he had his standards, those of his position, and he kept to them. It stood to reason that if his employer didn’t measure up to them, he would prefer to work for someone who did. He would have been able even when I first knew him to have picked any job in the land. In the event I found Waldorf Astor what I can only describe as the epitome of an English gentleman. However extra
ordinary his father may have been, he had seen to it that his son was brought up as an Englishman of his rank, wealth and times should be. He went to Eton where he was Captain of Boats, while at New College, Oxford, he represented the University at polo, and got an honours degree in history. He grew up with the British and foreign nobility, hunting with them and staying in their country houses or castles. His manners were easy and gentle; there was nothing assumed or false about him. He had his moral and religious standards but he didn’t expect everyone to live in his way and showed wonderful understanding of human frailty in others. He loved and was proud of his beautiful wife and showed it in his every action all through his life. One knew that he couldn’t have approved of many of the things she said or did, but he never showed it. If only she could have returned half the affection he gave to her he would have been a rich man in every way. I used to long for her to do it and I went as far as I could to tell her of my longing. It wasn’t any good. She wasn’t equipped to show love. He was a wonderful father; he tried to anticipate everything his children might want, though he didn’t spoil them. Mr Michael, one of his sons, has written a book called Tribal Feeling about his family. Although most of it concerns her ladyship, it’s my opinion that ‘Lordy’ was very much the head of the tribe.
Of Lady Astor’s family, the Langhornes, there was not much Mr Lee could tell until he came to her father and mother. Chiswell Dabney Langhorne was born into a family that owned a tobacco estate in Virginia which was run with slave labour. The victory of the Northerners ruined him and others like him. While fighting in the war he had met and married Nancy Witcher Keene, another Virginian, whose family was of Irish extraction. The first fifteen years of their life together in the ruined Southern states was a struggle. He had a variety of jobs, among them nightwatchman, piano salesman, tobacco and horse auctioneer. Insecurity didn’t prevent raising a large family, my lady being the seventh of eleven. Her birth seemed to bring him luck. A general whom he’d known during the Civil War employed him to handle his coloured labour constructing railroads. He quickly advanced to become a contractor himself and within a few years he had made a lot of money. He moved from Danville, where her ladyship was born, to Richmond, the capital of Virginia. He lived there until she was thirteen, and then with the philosophy that, as he would say, ‘Only niggers and Yankees work,’ he bought a large estate and house called Mirador near Charlottesville in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and retired.
My lady loved all the places of her youth and I was later to visit them with her and share her affection. She left home when she was seventeen and went to a finishing school in New York. She later stayed with her eldest sister Irene, who was by then Mrs Dana Gibson, wife of the celebrated artist. It was she who inspired him to create the famous Gibson Girl pictures. Through Dana, Nancy, my lady, met a Bostonian of good family, Robert Gould Shaw, and eventually married him. According to Mr Lee he was a ‘wild one’ and much given to the drink. So much so that after the birth of her son my lady could stand it no longer, and left him. It was Mr Lee’s opinion too that it was Mr Shaw who gave her her lifelong hatred of alcohol. During the next few years and while divorce proceedings were taking place, she visited Europe and England. She enjoyed a hunting season here and it was on a journey for another visit in the autumn of 1905 that she met his lordship, then Mr Waldorf, who was on the same ship. They were married in 1906.
When he spoke to me about Lady Astor’s character Mr Lee was guarded, choosing his words very carefully. He told me later that he hadn’t wanted to say anything that might influence my opinion of her. He described her as a character, a great personality in her own right. ‘She is not a lady as you would understand a lady, Miss Harrison,’ I can remember him saying. By that he meant that she didn’t conform to what society thought a lady’s behaviour should be and to what had been my experience of ladies in service up till then. ‘You won’t find her easy,’ was his final remark, but it was not a criticism. I understood him to mean that she was a challenge and that if one was able to meet it, it would be rewarding; or am I perhaps being wise after the event! Anyway I don’t propose to sum her ladyship up, as I have Lord Astor, because it would be beyond me. What I felt about her can only come out as I write.
After this Mr Lee told me about the children: Mr Billy, twenty-one; Miss Wissie, eighteen; Mr David, sixteen; Mr Michael, twelve, and Mr Jacob, nine – Jakie, as he was known to everyone. The ages I’ve put by them were their ages at the time I joined Lady Astor. ‘You’ll like them,’ he said, ‘and they’ll like you.’ One of the best things about being in service for any length of time is growing up with the children. He was right, for although I came so much later to the Astors than he did, this was something I shared with him. As I’ve said, her ladyship had another son by her first marriage, Bobbie Shaw. ‘He’s not an Astor,’ Mr Lee said, meaning by this that he was different from the others. I found him different. He was the stormy petrel. It is my opinion that he felt he never quite belonged in their world and resented it. Some unkind things have been said and written about him, though never by the family. Some of the criticisms he has perhaps deserved, although, as I hope to show later in the book, no one demonstrated greater love or devotion to his mother than he did, particularly towards the end of her life.
That then was Mr Lee’s outline, embellished by some remarks of mine, of the family that I was to serve. I say family for although I was employed to work for Miss Wissie, and shortly afterwards for Lady Astor, I had the feeling that I belonged to them all. Indeed, I did serve them all, because by keeping her ladyship happy, I made their lives a lot easier, and they used to tell me so.
It’s difficult to understand about my job and my life without also knowing the places where I had to work, their size and the scale on which they were run. Cliveden, although the largest and the most famous, was only one of the Astor houses. The others were: 4 St James’s Square, a great town house; Rest Harrow, Sandwich, Kent; 3 Elliot Terrace, Plymouth, what might be called their political house, which his lordship bought when he first stood for Parliament there; and Tarbert Lodge, on the Isle of Jura in the Inner Hebrides, where the family went for deer-stalking and fishing holidays. I’m glad to say I only went there twice. That kind of isolated, open air life did not appeal to me.
I suppose we looked on Cliveden as the hub of the Astor estates although possibly more of my time in my early years was spent at 4 St James’s Square. Cliveden may not be one of the most famous, but it is certainly one of the most magnificent country houses in England, and its setting on steep wooded heights looking down on the Thames from the north and on to an immense terrace and gardens from the south makes it one of the loveliest. It was only thirty miles from London which meant that it could be easily and regularly used every weekend as a home.
The house was composed of a centre block with east and west wings. On the ground floor of the centre block there was a huge front hall, the long drawing-room overlooking the river, the library with its panelling of rare Sabicu wood, the Louis XV dining-room, Lord Astor’s study and Lady Astor’s boudoir. Above were the main bedrooms with names like the Tapestry, the Rose, the Orange Flower, the Snowdrop, the Lavender; also the day and night nurseries. In the east wing were guest rooms for about forty visitors. In the west wing were the offices and staff bedrooms. The basement contained the kitchens, the servants’ hall, the Pugs’ Parlour, the men’s brushing-rooms where all the visitors’ clothes were pressed and cleaned, the china room, the wine cellar, the butler’s pantry where the silver was washed in teak sinks before being polished and the silver safe. Along the passage were railway lines on which the food used to be wheeled from the kitchens to the service lift. This practice had stopped before I joined and the food was carried by the odd men on butlers’ trays to the lifts and transferred to the large hot-plate in the serving room next to the dining-room. Considering the distance travelled, it’s amazing that meals were eventually served piping hot.
My room at Cliveden was large, well
decorated and comfortably furnished with a bed, two easy chairs, a couch and two big wardrobes. Unfortunately there was nowhere near at hand I could hang bits of washing, for although there was a laundry there were still some things I preferred to do myself. So I rigged a clothes-line across the room. It was like my childhood days, I always seemed to have underwear looking at me. All my lady’s clothes were pressed and cleaned in my room so I was constantly dashing between floors with armfuls of things.
The inside staff employed to run the house were Mr Lee, the steward/butler, a valet, an under-butler and three footmen, two odd men, a hall boy and a house carpenter; in the kitchens the chef, three kitchen-maids, a scullery maid and a daily; a housekeeper, two stillroom maids, four housemaids and two dailies; four in the laundry, two ladies’ maids for Lady Astor and Miss Wissie, a telephonist and a night watchman. The outside staff was much larger, with estate maintenance men, gardeners, farm workers for the stud and home farms and chauffeurs. These men lived in cottages and rooms on and around the estate. Unmarried gardeners were housed in two bothies. A bothy provided dormitory-like sleeping quarters and a dining-room and sitting-room. Cooking and cleaning was done by the housekeepers, but the food was ordered and paid for by the men.
During the week the majority of inside servants would move to 4 St James’s Square. In this way they were responsible for the running of two houses. It was a system that worked well and everyone was kept happy with the mixture of town and country life.
No. 4 St James’s Square was a large and elegant town house of the eighteenth century. On the ground floor there were two large halls leading on to the Square, the morning room, the lower dining-room, Lord Astor’s study, the controller’s room and the menservants’ quarters. Lord and Lady Astor’s bedrooms and dressing-rooms were on the first floor and so was my lady’s boudoir, also there were two drawing-rooms, the large dining-room and the ballroom. Above were staff and visitors’ bedrooms and at the top of the house a squash court. In the basement were the kitchens which faced on to Regent Street, the Pugs’ Parlour, the stillroom, the wine cellar, the butler’s pantry and silver safe and countless other rooms, many of which were stored with furniture. There was a service lift to the top dining-room, but the food was carried to the lower one.
Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor Page 5