With his lordship’s death the title and Cliveden passed to Mr Billy. He had infinite thought for her ladyship. He remembered Lord Astor’s last words to him: ‘Look after your mother.’ Thinking that the loss of Cliveden six years after losing St James’s Square would be more than she could bear, he immediately told her that she could run it for as long as she wanted. She tried for a short time, but soon realized it was too much for her. Hill Street and Rest Harrow from then on were our only two real homes.
Let me not though become too introspective on her behalf. She still had plenty of spirit and fun in her and she remained a formidable lady to serve. She and I continued to battle on together. She didn’t give up trying to outdo and better me till the end. I have a letter she wrote me only three years before her death in which, after giving me a bit of praise and urging me to return before the end of my holiday, she went on to say, ‘There’s one thing I feel I must ask you, Rose, and that is not to interrupt me before I’ve finished speaking. It’s a very bad habit of yours, you know.’ That after thirty-two years of my doing it!
Although as I’ve said we were out of public life my lady had a few memorable occasions of which probably the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip was the first in the post-war period. She went with her son, his lordship. A royal wedding is a testing-time for a lady’s maid. The slightest thing wrong and it reflects on you. It’s like getting a horse ready for the big race: there are a lot of things to be considered. First there’s the style of the outfit. While that is decided between a lady and her dressmaker (in Lady Astor’s case, Madame Rémond of Beauchamp Place), a maid’s opinion may be asked for. Although this can cause trouble, it must be honestly given. Some dressmakers go for an effect for their own sakes and don’t always fully consider what suits the customer. Such occurrences were rare with my lady since she knew what she wanted, and said it. Anyway our tastes seemed always to tally, except for the occasional outrageous hat that I think she sometimes bought just to spite me.
My lady’s outfit was plain, neat and smart and very effective. She wore a black velvet suit, to which were pinned her medals, her black sable stole, black patent shoes and a black hat with pink ostrich feathers and of course some of her most precious jewels. She was easy to dress. We had a trial run the day before so there was no question of last-minute panics like buttons coming off or zips going wrong. Then, unlike some other ladies, she always got to the course in the pink of condition. She took it easy a day or two before, early nights so that her skin was at its best. There were no tantrums about ‘Where have these wrinkles come from?’ that some ladies’ maids had to endure and couldn’t answer truthfully, ‘The gin bottle and late nights on the tiles, my lady.’ So she enjoyed these occasions and graced them because she looked good and felt good. Many people think that ladies like Lady Astor buy clothes for things like weddings and receptions and never wear them again. This in all my experience is untrue. I know that that velvet suit was worn so many times that eventually I had to pronounce it unfit for further service. It was the same with most of my lady’s things.
One of the last large-scale parties that my lady gave was at Hill Street. It was for Davina Bowes-Lyon, a niece of the Queen Mother, who later married the Earl of Stair. It was for about seven hundred people. The house itself was of course too small, so at Mr Lee’s suggestion a marquee was erected in the garden, linked to the ballroom. It really was a triumph of organization and the supper party and ball went with a swing. It turned sour on poor Mr Lee though. About halfway through the proceedings, while he was serving soft drinks to the guests (her ladyship had made this a stipulation when offering to give the party), Mr Bowes-Lyon, who was with a circle of people talking to the Queen, turned to Mr Lee and asked for a large whisky and soda. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he replied, ‘that would be going against her ladyship’s orders. If you get her permission I’ll gladly fetch you one.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Lee, I don’t need her permission. Go and get me one.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, I’m only a servant here and I have one mistress to whom I’m responsible. I must refuse.’ And Mr Lee moved away.
It was obvious to my lady from Mr Bowes-Lyon’s expression that something had gone wrong. She questioned Mr Lee, who told her what had happened. ‘You should have told him to go out and buy himself one,’ she said, indignantly. ‘Never mind, I’ll do it.’ And she did.
‘It didn’t end there,’ he told me. ‘After this party Mrs Bowes-Lyon gave me £5 for the servants. Naturally I thought it was for the menservants and divided it out accordingly. It wasn’t much in all conscience for the hours and work they’d put in: it came to about £1 each. Mrs Hawkins, the housekeeper, heard that there had been some form of handout and was indignant that the maidservants had not had anything. She spoke to Lady Astor who in turn spoke to me about it. I explained the situation to her ladyship and when I mentioned the amount I’d been given she nearly exploded. I offered to share it round further, but she refused to allow me to do so. “Leave everything to me, Lee,” she said, and stalked off. It was really all a storm in a teacup, Miss Harrison, but it had unfortunate consequences. She must have had words with Mr and Mrs Bowes-Lyon because from then on they were both always ill-at-ease in my presence.’
I have already mentioned our hasty return from America for the Coronation. It caught me unawares, as had the Queen Mother’s invitation, and there was a lot to do in a little time. My lady’s robes had been in a tin trunk since before the war and needed a deal doing to them: cleaning, restyling and refitting. All right, some peeresses didn’t bother much, robes were robes and there was little you could do about them except to get the smell of mothballs out. This was not Lady Astor’s attitude; she had to look just so, and I’m glad that she did, otherwise I could have had little pride in my job.
Then the jewels had to be selected and the Astor tiara cleaned. I must say my lady looked an absolutely perfect picture. She understood how to carry costume and how to move in it. It was the actress in her. She practised too, not leaving anything to chance. It has always astonished me how few peers ever managed to look anything in robes. They’re supposed to add dignity to the occasion, but more often than not they do the opposite. Men seem to approach wearing robes self-consciously, as if they are convinced they’re going to look foolish, and so do end up looking like idiots. If any footman had the same attitude towards his livery he wouldn’t have lasted two minutes with Mr Lee.
Ten days before the Coronation came the news that contrary to my expectations I had to visit Rhodesia with her ladyship, and that I was to travel on the afternoon of the Coronation. I remember it as one of the days of my life. Up at five, dressing my lady, getting her away on time – she had to be in her seat in the Abbey by eight-thirty – seeing that all her luggage was packed for a three-month tour, then putting my bits together. No wonder I needed a large brandy when I finally got on that Comet.
One thing I had missed in my life in service was a visit to a royal palace in Britain. I was anxious to see at first-hand how the staff were treated. One of the housekeepers from Cliveden had left us to go to Buckingham Palace, but she had been there before my time and though Mr Lee had remained friendly with her and had indeed visited the Palace on several occasions, I didn’t just want to take his word about conditions there. I was therefore delighted when in May 1957 my lady had an invitation to stay at Holyroodhouse, Her Majesty’s Edinburgh home. My lady’s room was everything I expected it would be, but my own left much to be desired. It was a tiny place at the top of the Palace with an iron bedstead, an old washstand and a nasty brown jug of cold water standing on it, a rush-bottom chair which I dared not trust myself on, and a threadbare mat on the linoleum floor.
The servants’ hall was little better. If there was a Pugs’ Parlour I wasn’t invited into it. There was no one to welcome me, the food was of the ‘cookhouse door’ kind, and served like it. There was one pat of margarine per person to be spread on a doorstep slice of bread. ‘If this i
s life inside a fairytale palace I want none of it,’ I thought as I pushed my plate away. When I dressed my lady I spared her none of the details. She was attending a banquet there so it was the full treatment: sparklers, the lot. As I was getting her ready and explaining my discomfort I asked her if she thought the Queen knew of the servants’ conditions. ‘I don’t suppose so, Rose,’ my lady said in that resigned voice of hers that she put on when she was tired of a subject.
‘Then I shall write and tell her,’ I said. ‘It’s high time she did. I’m sure she’ll be glad to know so that things can be put right.’
This jolted my lady out of her complacency. ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort, Rose,’ she declared indignantly. We spent the next quarter of an hour having a battle royal!
I must say that before my lady went down to the banquet she looked particularly beautiful in a wonderful pale lavender taffeta dress which her diamond tiara and earrings shone over like glistening stars. It was as if she was a delicate piece of china. As I looked at her my mood changed to one of sweet sadness and I felt the tears behind my eyes. For the first time I realized that she’d grown old. It had at last become noticeable to me. When later I heard the pipers playing outside the Palace their plaintive notes matched my feelings. ‘I shall remember Holyrood for more reasons than the discomfort,’ I thought.
When on my return I told Mr Lee about the conditions that I’d found there he was not surprised. ‘Service with the royals,’ he said, ‘is on too big a scale so it becomes less personal. It’s like the factory floor, you have your particular duties to do, you rarely go outside them; it’s a narrow sort of life. I once employed a footman from the Palace, but he had to go. He’d been used to set duties and resented doing anything that he thought was outside them. No initiative and no real interest in the purpose of the job.’
By 1958 it had become obvious that the house at Hill Street was an unnecessary responsibility. We were no longer entertaining on any scale and were only ever there for a few months in the year. It was sold and we leased a flat at 100 Eaton Square, part of the Duke of Westminster’s estate. It was spacious enough, on the first floor and running the length of four converted houses. We had an excellent staff of the old school. Charles Dean, one-time footman, valet and under-butler at Cliveden, was now butler, Mrs Hawkins the housekeeper, the old and trusted William, odd man, an Austrian chef, Otto Dangl, who came to us from Lord Allendale and was to prove a wizard in the kitchen, and myself. There were of course under-servants, two in each department, a chauffeur who lived with his Rolls in Belgrave Mews and dailies to do the rough work.
So with Lord Billy’s instructions that her ladyship was to want for nothing, we lived well and happily. We were now reaping the rewards for our years of service. The greatest of these was the complete trust shown in us by the Astor children. It’s easy to say we deserved it; so had many others in our position who never got it from the families they’d served. It was something quite exceptional and something I shall remember until my dying day. It was given in the same manner by each of the children, even by Mr Bobbie Shaw, who hadn’t quite the same ‘tribal feeling’ as the others.
Apart from the frailty that I had first noticed at Holyroodhouse, there were now other signs that my lady was growing old. Her memory, on which she’d so prided herself, began noticeably to fail on occasions and this made her tetchy. I also realized that my own attitude towards her had changed. I was more tolerant in a patronizing, ‘there-there’, sort of way, like a mother with a petulant baby. Not all the time of course, she would in some moods have resented it, but I found it was creeping in. She now became resentful if I was away from her. My mother had died and I’d now taken possession of the bungalow I had bought for her, and enjoyed spending some time there working on it, getting it the way I wanted it to be. My lady didn’t like it. On my return I would be cross-examined as to where I’d been and what I’d done, and I’d be accused of neglecting her.
The other servants suffered too with her constant inquiries: ‘Where’s Rose? What time is she coming back? Why has she gone and left me?’
Perhaps as I write it, it seems I was conceited and that I considered myself indispensable; believe me, it wasn’t that. I got so that I couldn’t enjoy myself on my time off. I wondered what she would be getting up to and how the other servants were coping with her. Eventually I decided that for everybody’s peace of mind it would be better if I confined my visits home to the Wednesday of each week from one-fifteen to nine p.m. It wasn’t unselfishness on my part. It made life easier and for a greater happiness all round.
Now too I had to see my lady into bed. She was quite capable of attending to herself, but she developed the habit of getting half undressed, then thinking of something else she wanted to do and either getting into a dressing-gown or dressing again and busying herself around the flat. I couldn’t sleep while she was doing this so I got into the way of being with her until she was in bed, tucking her up and putting her light out. Once again just as one would with a child. Unfortunately it was always past midnight before she could be persuaded into her room, so it was late nights for all of us, since neither Charles nor Otto would go to bed until I had. We got to enjoy our chats over hot drinks when my lady was safely stowed. It seemed the one time of day we could safely relax.
Our travels hadn’t ceased; indeed it seemed we were away somewhere every weekend. When I put my lady’s things out for packing I used to feel like saying to them, ‘Now you all know where to go so why don’t you just pop in.’ Another sign of my lady’s age was her sudden change of attitude towards money. She began to imagine she was poor. ‘We must be careful, Rose,’ she’d say, ‘I’ve now only got four thousand a year to live on.’
This was a nonsense of course, it was nearer forty thousand, but it became quite an obsession with her. It didn’t cure her foolish generosity towards others. I now had another duty: mistress of my lady’s purse. We had found, and so had some of the scroungers who haunted Eaton Square, that she was still an easy touch and would often go out with a purse full of money and come back with it empty and nothing to show for it. It was obvious where it was going. At first when I took control she was allowed £5 to take with her, but I later cut it to £2. Her cheque book was also taken from her when it became obvious that the scroungers were not all of one class.
There were two great events which regaled my lady’s last years: her eightieth birthday party and the bestowing on her of the Freedom of the City of Plymouth. Why the citizens had waited so long to give her this was something none of us could understand, but then in my experience city councillors are a rum, self-seeking and self-important lot. They even make me feel snobbish. Not quite out of the top drawer, many of them, and going out of their way to make this apparent. Some members showed how they felt about democracy by refusing to attend. It was one of the early symptoms of a disease which has now become widespread. However my lady managed brilliantly without their presence. She rose to any such occasion and gave a glimpse of her old energy and spirit. She also gave the city a splendid present, her diamond and sapphire necklace, to grace the bosoms of future mayoresses. I hope they’ve found some at least half as worthy of it as she was.
Naturally our visit there was not without incident. On the way to the dinner in her honour (she was wearing the necklace at the time), she lost part of it, a pear-shaped diamond drop with two shamrock shapes, valued then at £500. She had to apologize that it was incomplete, but since it was insured she was able to promise them that it would eventually be made whole. She also announced that anyone finding it would receive ten per cent of its value.
When she returned from the ceremony she told me about the loss. I searched everywhere and eventually discovered it in the gutter outside 3 Elliot Terrace. My efforts were applauded, but needless to say when I mentioned my right to the reward it fell upon deaf ears.
My lady’s eightieth birthday party was organized by the children. It was a gathering of the tribe given in the style that could be exp
ected. My lady was honoured by her family. They were all there, and so were her immediate friends and relations, and the people like myself who had served her. She was given a solitaire diamond ring by the children, a real beauty it was. It delighted her. In a way I felt a little responsible for the choice since for years it had been the habit of Miss Wissie and the boys to ask me what I thought their mother would like for Christmas or for her birthdays and I’d always suggested a diamond ring, and afterwards given alternatives. It had become a sort of family joke. This time she got it. Diamonds were her favourite jewels. I remember once when she was dressed up to the nines for some function, she turned to me and said, ‘What do I look like, Rose?’ Quick as a flash it came to me: ‘Cartier’s, my lady.’
The last years passed, I won’t say easily, but without much incident, and with only one illness, the quinsy which I have described earlier. Physically and mentally she grew weaker but there were never any signs of senility. She was in possession of all her faculties, and was a handful to the last. Death in old age when it approaches is so often pathetic. It’s like a tree falling. It cannot be raised, the leaves gradually wither and die. It was like this with my lady. In the middle of April 1964 I went home to Walton-on-Thames for the weekend, knowing that while I was there her ladyship would be with Miss Wissie at her home, Grimsthorpe.
On the Saturday she had a slight stroke while sitting in the drawing-room and was put to bed. On the Monday morning a car arrived for me at Walton and I was driven to Grimsthorpe. I was not shocked by her appearance when I saw her. Her speech was generally slower than it had been, but there were periods when there were flashes of her old spirit. I think she knew she was dying but she didn’t give up, nor did she struggle against death. She had a doctor and eventually a day and night nurse. She didn’t resent them but she wanted people around her whom she knew.
Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor Page 26