The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery

by Bailey, Catherine

  On this basis, General Stuart Wortley was easily dealt with. If he was subtly made aware of the clerical error, and if it was hinted that he would incur the displeasure of both the Duke and the commander-in-chief were he to dissuade John from joining the brigade, he ought not to put up any obstacle.

  Then and there, they drafted a letter to the general:

  My dear Eddy,

  Many thanks for your letter. I can’t help thinking it was a pity John should have been so modest and diffident about himself.

  His friends, at any rate, have always given him the credit for a good deal of ability and intelligence in the direction of inventions and contrivances, such as might conceivably have been of some value in these times.

  In any case, his interest in such things as bomb-throwers and catapults, and the time he has spent, or wasted, over them is undeniable.

  But what troubles me most is that I understand Sir John, who, as you say, had heard of John’s interest in these things, is rather surprised at his decision, and naturally ascribes it to a disinclination to help him.

  I have just heard this from one of Sir John’s intimate friends here. I think, if you can spare him, John ought to go to see Sir John, if only to make it clear that it was a want of confidence in himself, and not a want of willingness, that induced what may have been rather a hasty decision.

  Yours ever, Rutland

  John was last on the agenda. After much discussion, the four of them decided their only option was to tell him that he must do as he was told.

  It was left to Charlie to issue his nephew with firm – and elaborate – instructions.

  In the letter he wrote to John later that evening, Charlie did not tell him that the strategy he was proposing had been devised over the course of a long, conspiratorial dinner with George Moore – and his parents:

  Dear Jacko

  I have got – again – to write to you upon the subject which I know bothers you very much, but it is simply out of the question that I should shirk it.

  I have had another interview with Mr Moore whom I believe will be in France within a day or two. It is his wish that I say what I do in this letter, and as it is upon him that all rests in this matter, there is no use in weighing our own opinions against his as to what is best and what is not. You must use your own judgement and do what you think is right.

  Your father is writing to your General by this post. In this letter, he says he thinks it was a pity you were so modest about yourself, that your friends, at any rate, have always credited you with keenness and interest in inventions, contrivances, catapults etc. He also says that he hears Sir John ascribes your decision to your unwillingness to come and is a bit sad, as he has been told that you take interest in these things. Your father suggests that if you can be spared, you should go over and see Sir John, if only to make it clear that it was really from want of confidence in yourself that you declined.

  It is expected that your General will now suggest to you to go over there, and you are not to throw any obstacle in the way. In fact you are to add that you also have heard of Sir John’s feelings in the matter, and that you think as a matter of fact that you ought to go and make peace. As a fact, what I have said of Sir John is true – he is a bit sad and surprised at the failure of his little effort.

  In the unlikely event of your General suppressing the whole matter, you are to try and revive it by saying you have heard a good deal from England, or from Mr Moore (who does not mind being mentioned) about Sir John’s sadness. If by ill fortune you read this letter after your General has spoken to you, you are to revive the matter as explained. When your General shows you, or reads you, your father’s letter, you are to say – “oh yes, it’s those catapults, I understand it all now” – and then say something about your having worked at them, or interested yourself in them, and talked about them [with Sir John].

  If you go back to see Sir John you are to take the line that you are far from being an expert, though always interested, and that you are willing to make yourself useful and do all you can with suggestions etc, however little confidence you have in being of use.

  Mr M says that that part is the least to be feared of all. He is convinced that without any real knowledge at all, you are certain to be of use, and I am absolutely certain of it myself. Remember nothing is expected of you.

  This is what I was to tell you, and this is the way Mr M wants it done if possible. If it can be done without Sir John having to give deliberate orders, it is far best.

  John evidently thought the notion that he should join a top-secret weapons establishment as a leading expert in projectiles was as laughable – and as unethical – as it was. To mollify Charlie, he wrote back to tell him that he would make an appointment to see the commander-in-chief. In truth, though, he had no intention of doing so.

  What he did not know was that, at 16 Arlington Street, his family were monitoring his every move.

  53

  ‘Darling C, I am in pieces!!! Can’t you send a telegram to say he must see Sir J??’

  Violet was writing to her brother from Belvoir. A week had passed since Charlie had instructed John to make an appointment with the field marshal and word had come from George Moore that he had not yet done so. ‘Why is he so stubborn???’ she fulminated: ‘Look at the sons of other Dukes!!’

  There was some truth in her remark. In March 1915, the heirs to seventeen of Britain’s thirty dukedoms were of military age. But only ten – the eldest sons of the Dukes of Argyll, Atholl, Devonshire, Grafton, Leinster, Marlborough, Portland, Roxburghe, St Albans and Somerset – were serving in the trenches. The remainder were attached to Home Forces, or assigned to staff positions behind the lines.

  Yet as Violet recognized, there was very little she could do. She dared not intervene for fear that John would get wind of the fact that she had engineered the job at St Omer. She decided to remain silent and to pretend that she was sanguine about his decision to remain with the North Midlands. The face she intended to present to him was of a loving, anxious mother who had only his interests at heart. This way, she could exert the maximum amount of emotional blackmail.

  ‘Darling, How I wish you were here, here, and not there,’ she wrote the morning after she and Charlie had sat up late into the night composing the letter from the Duke to General Stuart Wortley:

  It’s very hard to bear – and I have to be quite sensible with Charlie.

  I wish I had more to do for you, shopping etc. Do you want warm underclothing of Father’s, which are so lovely and warm? Are the socks right? We long to know your days and do take stupid extra care of yourself – some people are too silly.

  I think of sending you a spoon for making a cup of tea – and some Grey’s mixture tea. If ever you are chilled to the bone it is supposed that a large boiling cup of tea is the best of all things. Do you like compressed soups – and the compressed tea and Bovril I sent you? And the ‘sweeties’?

  Tell me this – do any of your men, officers, Doctor, want any gloves or socks? People ask a lot after you at Belvoir and they want your photographs perpetually, and Shannon is in despair that you never got painted. How I love you, my dear, my dear.

  Yr most loving VR

  Violet deluged John with provisions. With Easter coming, she commissioned Charbonnel and Walker to make him some special chocolate eggs. From the outside, they looked like real eggs:

  My darling,

  I have sent you some Easter eggs! (I thought them a novelty – Diana says rubbish!) Anyhow, I thought you might like to play a practical joke and place them for breakfast in egg cups to ‘take on’ the ‘greedy for boiled eggs’ lot on your Staff.

  I sent some of our best tea from another shop! And some eatables in case any are divine and you want to order more.

  Except for those poor ships torpedoed, London seems pleased with the war. Isn’t it funny that Neuve Chapelle is considered a gt victory (and as the Germans admitted, surely it was?) We heard through Lady Essex spreading it – she
heard it at the prime minister’s Saturday to Monday – that 5 Generals were sent home and that 500 of our men were killed by our own guns.

  It is wicked – wicked – for any in authority to give such things into the hands of Lady Essex – to rumour abroad on good authority. So cruel for those in trouble, a thing forever to be hushed up and if ‘bad luck’ and ‘bad judgement’ should have come their way – why a soothing veil or good excuse of health or Breakdown could have been used to hide up mistakes.

  Now I hear everything is smooth – no one sent home – and only 15 wounded by our guns instead of 500 killed!!

  Private

  Oh, keep way west in your motoring with R* – go see Bouch† west of Hazebrouck.

  John’s sightseeing trips to Ypres and to other places of historical interest terrified Violet. Her bedroom at Arlington Street resembled a military headquarters: pinned to the walls of the room were maps of Belgium and northern France. As soon as the morning’s newspapers came, she would scour them for reports of fighting in John’s sector. After checking to see there were no battles in his area, she marked up the fighting in other parts of the front line. Then, enclosing sketches, she bombarded John with instructions on the places he should avoid:

  Don’t go to Armentière for fun and such near the-edge-of-battle places when you have joy rides. Go west I implore – there are lovely things to be seen surely. Maresquel, between Montreuil and Hesdin and visit L’Abbaye de Valloires.

  John replied to just one of Violet’s letters. She could see he was keeping her at arm’s length:

  Mother dear

  All well – and really don’t want anything at all – I will write when I do.

  Yes – I know of your Generals who have been sent home over that failure – and a certain quantity of our men were killed by our guns, but that is inevitable.

  Goodnight, John

  Two weeks passed and Violet heard nothing from him. Then, on 12 April, she received a letter that threatened to sever all communication between them.

  Mother dear

  My General saw George Curzon today. Curzon said that you had asked him to try to get me back to near St Omer, but he said he would not interfere. I tell you this so that you may know what your confidants say. I personally would not trust Curzon one inch. He may have a wonderful brain but certainly no common sense. I don’t mind one little damn what you do to gain whatever object you have – but I do not like people whom you confide in to tell everyone – and laugh at you at the same time. This is what Curzon has done.

  I should give him 10 minutes of Hell for laughing at you – damned piece of machinery.

  John held back from directing his fury at his mother. Her inveigling had humiliated him: ‘people’ were laughing at him too. But the mores of his time, and his class, dictated that he confine his attack to Lord Curzon.

  Curzon was of course referring to his meeting with Violet the previous autumn, but John thought he was referring to the move to get him to go to St Omer.

  His letter was proof to Violet that he suspected her of being behind the commander-in-chief’s offer. In replying to John, she went through hoops to exonerate herself:

  Darling Boy

  Your letter just received (written Sunday) worries me – re G Curzon. Someone must have got it all wrong. Either you have misunderstood your General, or your General misunderstood G Curzon.

  The last time I saw G Curzon was end of Sept. The last time he has written to me, or I to him, on the subject of anything but Belgian soldiers was end of September.

  The rest of her letter was a complete fabrication. The previous October, she had expressly asked Curzon to meet her at Arlington Street; prior to the meeting, she had been pestering him to see her for weeks. But when it came to putting her side of the story, she denied it.

  ‘This is how it was,’ she continued: ‘I have been looking through a bundle of letters and found one from him [Curzon]. It said’:

  ‘I was passing by your Bottesford yesterday – saw your castle on the heights and wondered how things are going with you and yours – do write to me.’ So in writing, I remember saying, ‘Oh you lucky man to have no son – this is the day for sonless parents!’ Then he arranged to give me dinner that same week. Was very interested in you – and said, ‘Why don’t you get him under the Red Cross – the very thing for him with his good driving etc. Or why don’t you get him on French’s staff – that’s what I should have done had I had a son!’ I told him it was out of the question. I had never thought of it – for I was no friend of his – and that it was not likely at that distance from the beginning of the war that there was any room on his staff, and that I was happier your being at home with a chance of never going out at all!! And from that day to this I have not seen him! Or written to him on the subject of you. So, dear, someone has made a mistake!!! Haven’t they?

  It was not the only lie she told her son. At the end of her letter, in a veiled reference to Bethune’s efforts to keep him back from the Front, she claimed she’d had nothing to do with it:

  I know you suspected the fuss from the W.O. about your health came from me – I knew it didn’t – and wrote a letter to your General which I did not send to tell him that I could only think it might come through Lady Wantage speaking to Lord Grenfell – but that I could not investigate it as she would most surely deny it!! Now, I begin to suspect Lord Curzon, and yet I don’t believe he would have had time to think of me and mine!! He was so busy.

  If he did say what you say he did, I really think he must have muddled me up with another mother. I should never let my heart out to G Curzon!! He does not possess sympathy and one should never ask for it or expect it.

  As Violet was lying to John to conceal the moves she had made behind his back, she was in the midst of manoeuvring behind her daughter’s back.

  Diana, after completing her training at Guy’s, was looking for a nursing job out on the Front. Violet was no less opposed to her going than she had been the previous summer. Determined to stop her, the plan she had come up with was to ask the Duke to turn Arlington Street into a hospital for wounded officers. If he agreed, she could convince Diana that her first duty lay at home.

  Other dukes had loaned their London residences for wartime use: the Devonshires’ house in Piccadilly was the headquarters of the Red Cross; Harcourt House, the Duke of Portland’s house in Cavendish Square, was a hospital; Grosvenor House in Park Lane, the home of the Duke of Westminster, was being used by the government. But Henry was resistant to the idea of giving up his house. He thought it would be ‘knocked about’ and that it would cost him too much money.

  Recognizing that she was unlikely to convince her husband, Violet asked his former mistress, the actress Maxine Elliot, to persuade him. Since their affair had ended, Maxine and Henry had remained close friends. Violet, who had had several lovers of her own, had turned a blind eye to the affair, and was also friendly with Maxine.

  Maxine negotiated a compromise: only half the house would be converted into a hospital and Henry’s part of it would be reserved for his use.

  Mindful of Henry’s capriciousness, Violet wrote to thank him and to reiterate the case that Maxine had pressed on her behalf. Whether she felt guilty about sacrificing Diana to George Moore, or whether she simply wanted to tighten the reins she had loosened, she did not say. But Diana’s probity was evidently uppermost in her mind:

  Darling

  This is a very sweet kind thing of you to do – and a surprise to me.

  Since I discovered that you minded it so, I have hunted high and low for some other house. But for all my ‘running about’ looking, I have found nothing suitable.

  My extreme anxiety is first of all for Diana. In a week or so, I may lose her forever, and the expense to you of more illnesses she may get, and the over freedom she will have, will cause you much more expense and anxiety! I do look ahead over this and tremble – most genuinely. You don’t think I am doing it out of philanthropy, do you? But in the world’s eye
s it is good for her, and for you, Dear too – to give up a beautiful healthy house.

  I wouldn’t suggest it unless I knew it would not get hurt – the house I mean. I have seen your architect to talk it over. With his advice, there will be nothing structural, only the bath put into my bedroom, and where the bath is now, an active emptying sink.

  My full intuition is that I should be able to make your expenses less in this house than usual. In fact similar to what they usually are during our entire absence from London. Housemaids and Mrs Seed are there. I will pay for every other servant.

  But my dear don’t, I pray you, be turned out. Try it first and see how perfectly it can be made comfortable for you. I would never have designed it unless I had known for sure that you could have lived in the house as usual, and in perfect comfort. Better than usual. Dear, promise me that you will anyhow try it. Please do. For you know I am if anything practical.

  I will take down the curtains in Diana’s bedroom and in mine. Those in the Ballroom are so common they can be left. And I will cover up the walls everywhere – 7 or 8 feet high. I shall have a writing-table in the dining-room. Diana will have my sitting-room, and I shall have the bedroom next yours. That is our only change.