Rosemary has that gay glorious nature that takes pleasure in all life – but no man has meant anything to her but you – and it’s up to you to play the game that will win her into your arms. Dear John, my real affection for you prompts me to write this. You can’t kill Rosemary’s critical, independent spirit – but you can grab her heart. Grabbing and deliberate overwhelming is the only way – not waiting on her pleasures! Women are queer! You don’t know this perhaps! They yearn to be dominated rather than be worshipped. They like the ‘Damn you, I’ll die, or get you’ attitude best!
Engagements are difficult things. Once Rosemary is yours, and you can teach her love, you’ll be the happiest in the world – her mocking spirit is surely a pose. She yearns for things inwardly that she confesses not at all outwardly.
Every word of this I mean, John dear. I know exactly what you are struggling with – but if you want her there are no half measures. If you don’t want her, stay away. Bless you always, my feeling of affection for you has never wavered. You may be taking on a difficult task, but you’d never find your foundations if you didn’t dig, would you?!! Marriage is a hard hunt. Rosemary has a heart of gold and the simplest and overwhelming sincerity for natural happiness, which makes her difficult to understand for some.
Your true friend MS
Tear this up.
John, however, knew Rosemary’s ‘mocking spirit’ was not ‘a pose’. The truth was he loved her far more than she loved him. He broke off the engagement because he knew he could never make her happy.
Throughout their eighteen-month affair, as Rosemary refused to commit to a wedding date, John’s agony was compounded by Violet’s loathing of her. He had tried to conceal the tempestuous passage of his relationship from his mother, but she had gleaned the details through her ‘spy system’. In Violet’s eyes, Rosemary – whose striking masculine looks were unfashionable – was neither rich enough nor beautiful enough: lacking any discretion, Violet made her views well known.
By February 1914, the deferred wedding – and John’s humiliation – was the talk of London. Even Daisy, Countess of Warwick, a notorious gossip, had become involved. She wrote to Violet to commiserate, and to tell her she thought it unlikely that even were the couple to agree to a wedding date, the two dukes – Henry, and Strath Sutherland – would never agree to the terms of Rosemary’s marriage settlement:
Darling
I fear I cannot manage this week as governess and tutor are away, and I have the children quite alone with me.
I should have loved a quiet day with you – to talk – and try to be some sort of comfort to you. For, my dear, I know just what you are feeling, with all my heart I understand and sympathise. First – I don’t think Henry will see any charm – he will think her ugly – and all the daughters of your house are beautiful, and those that married into the house also, judging by the pictures! The money is a great obstacle.
The countess had made discreet enquiries through Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, to establish the exact financial position. In the unlikely event the marriage were to go ahead, she told Violet to hold out for as much as she could get:
If I might advise be firm. Unless more is given, the engagement can’t be. Strath is a ‘pincher’ but I don’t think he could risk making Rosemary unhappy.
It is really too bad, because Geordie* has his own independent income, so there are only two children to provide for. I know that Alistair* threatened to leave the Army unless he also was given enough – and it was given. Rosemary can do anything with Strath.
He has an hallucination that he is ‘broke’. What he has is a million† invested in Canada, and he has a million here to invest – so, on the pretext of poverty is having an Empire gamble – being sick of England. He keeps his yacht, costing £20,000 a year, for himself and uses her 2 months! Sometimes he lets her a few months, other times not. His villa at Menton [on the Côte d’Azur] is of use to no one but himself! He keeps it all going there and lives there 6 weeks! He has Dunrobin, and Tongue, and Hook Hill all ‘going’, besides London – so it is all ridiculous. He ought to give Rosemary £3000‡ a year at least and leave her £100,000.§ One thing is, his health is precarious so it would be as well to know what he has ‘left her’? This is how I feel about it, and I repeat to you exactly what Millie said when I spoke to her of finance. You, darling Violet, I wish I could come to you, but you do know how I am thinking of you, don’t you?
Post going so abrupt stop!
Loving Daisy
Determined to prevent the marriage from going ahead, Violet tried to lure John away from Rosemary with other candidates – even those she had previously rejected. One – as a letter to Charlie reveals – was American heiress Mary Hoyt Wiborg, the daughter of a Cincinnati ink manufacturer. Violet called her ‘Hoity’:
Listen – I never thoroughly wanted Hoity. I hated the idea all through the summer and was very worried at the time of the ‘House boat’ party for fear of J proposing! I should be pleased if it happened only if it was to keep Rosemary out. But if she was not on the horizon, then not because I hate the American accent – and could never, were I a man, kiss her mouth! Then came the big fear of Rosemary – and then I said – oh, better better far – Hoity! What a pity she isn’t here now.
About this other fine healthy lovely girl* with a little money and education (‘beautifully brought up’ and in ‘the best society’, as a Paris informant tells me) and a fine breeder of tall healthy sons!! Well, I have an instinct. I have only myself had it once before about a wife for John – that was Margaretta – who has proved perfection! (and now again in slim, perfect looks – and brave sons!) Yes! The instinct that this might be the saving of us all! I will get her to Belvoir hoping John will not avoid her!!
I would give anything to stop R – gt danger. So, dear, don’t go against me and don’t think I am ramming Jacqueline down his throat – John would not be influenced against his wishes and what does it matter if I show her to him while he is there. I don’t want him to avoid her or else it will be like in the Dresel [sic] case – mother and daughter then thought he cared nothing for her – and so quickly married someone else. And I wouldn’t like this one to be lost – snapped up – before he is sure he doesn’t want to attract her!!
Violet had even gone so far as to tell John that Rosemary was barren – information that she claimed to have gleaned from a ‘doctor friend’ who knew Dr Fripp, Rosemary’s GP. When, in early 1914, she heard the engagement was back on, she was forced to back-pedal furiously. ‘I thought it only fair to see Fripp myself,’ she told her niece, Ruby Peto:
I did it well (as I know him rather well) put him in no difficult position – gave him NO questions to answer – but went to him saying that as a mother longing for her son to marry would he advise me to help those 2 [John and Rosemary] to meet – or not unnecessarily to bring them together.
If he had said – as I expected – ‘leave it alone’ I should have begged you to put before John the misery of childlessness as a deterrent from answering a call from Milly. But instead Fripp clearly told me he believed that physically she could at once have children and as many as she was given the chance of having.
I know you will think, as I did, what an odd thing that this should be the same man who had told the opposite to his friend a few months ago!
It was with relief that, in the spring of 1914, Violet learned that John was not going to marry Rosemary after all. ‘Darling – John says “all is off” and is hiding unhappily in Charlie’s rooms,’ she wrote to Diana. ‘Little brute is not caring 2 straws! I may hear why tomorrow, but perhaps not – anyhow we can say if asked there is no engagement at all.’
John, of course, was ‘caring 2 straws’. As his war diary shows, he hadn’t been able to get over Rosemary. Throughout 1915, she haunted him; he was clearly still in love with her. ‘Spent all the evening trying to instil a little organization into the HQ staff servants,’ he wrote from Cassel on 4 March 1915: ‘Then to bed. Picture papers arr
ived with a photo of Rosemary with R – how I hate to see her with anyone … Rothesay says I talked in my sleep last night mentioning “that she is in London”: I wonder who I was dreaming of – I expect I can guess.’
A month later, he drove General Stuart Wortley to Dunkirk, where they had tea with Rosemary and her mother at their hospital for wounded officers. ‘My God I know what misery is when I see Rosemary,’ John wrote: ‘The appalling strain of holding oneself in instead of opening my arms and squeezing her, but why should I be so sorely tried – the darling, God bless her – she was looking jolly, but I think she was thinking just a little about me. The depression I get after seeing her is something dreadful, enough to destroy myself, but I must to bed, hoping to get to sleep. I wonder if she ever thinks kindly of me.’
John, as he told Marjorie, was convinced that he would never fall in love again. He knew when he invited Kakoo to stay at Belvoir in December 1915 that he wanted to marry her. From the moment she arrived, he was on tenterhooks.
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In the record John kept of Kakoo’s four-day stay, the cynicism, the brittleness – and the depression – so often present in his writing, melted away. He seemed happier than he had ever been in his life. There was hardly a minute of her visit that he had left out:
My K. arrived on Dec 18th in the evening in time for tea. I was so excited, and unfortunately Father took me into his study just before she arrived so that when I came into the drawing room there she was.
I did feel funny all over – there was Marjorie, Mother, Bridget Colebrooke,* and Charlie in the Castle. We had a very nice evening. I sat opposite to K – feeling aglow – she looked too lovely. We just did nothing much after dinner. I hardly said anything to K. Then to bed.
The next morning, the 19th, Sunday, we met at late breakfast. Oh, how delicious she looked. I asked her to come out for a walk, which she did. We – at least I – had a wonderful morning, and the same after lunch. We went for another walk all round Frog Hollow and back through the pasture. I did not see K. much from after then till dinner, except for a short while in Marjorie’s bedroom. I sat next to K. at dinner. Oh, I was feeling happy.
I had made up my mind not to propose to her till Monday, as I wanted everyone to have left the Castle. I knew that Father, Mother, and Bridget, were leaving early Monday morning. After dinner, I managed to get a little talk alone with K. just before everyone was going to bed. So I walked her to her bedroom. It was as much as ever I could do not to propose to her then. She was too lovely. Just as we started for bed, I kissed her hand again, and I can’t remember quite what K. said, but something to the effect that ‘I did not mean anything’ and I was quite miserable. I went to bed feeling that even if I did propose, she would say ‘No’ and – as she has since told me – she was dreadfully unhappy too that night. When she shook hands with Mother just before getting into bed, her dear little hand was shaking all over, so Mother told me afterwards.
My darling had come to Belvoir against all the wishes of her family. Her family did not like me, and they had told K. that I was a flirt – and that I would never propose – but K. had come against them all, and then when I did not look like proposing, she felt that her family would be right after all, and she felt, so she told me, that she had made a mistake in coming, but that her love for me had made her come – so we both went to bed quite miserable. She thinking that I did not really love her – I thinking that she did not like me.
Dec 20 – next morning. Father, Mother and Bridget left for London about 10. Then I got K. to come for a walk. We walked down to the lakes across the large open field straight to the middle of the lower lake. Then the wonderful moment came. I asked my darling and she said ‘Yes’. My God, I was happy. I kissed her dear little face all over – we walked slowly back to the Castle in time for lunch. We had made up our minds we would not tell Charlie and Marjorie till after tea. We spent a glorious afternoon and evening in my sitting room. Then – about half an hour before dressing for dinner – I went down to the Nursery and told Marjorie. She was utterly taken by surprise. K. then went and talked to Marjorie, and I went and told Charlie. Soon after that, K. and I telephoned to my Mother, and she wired to her Mother in Scotland. We sat up very late – what a perfectly wonderful evening.
The next morning – Dec 21 – and all day, we just did I do not know what – except send telegrams to say she was not going away today, as she was supposed to before, but would stay till tomorrow.
Then Dec 22nd was a sad day. K. had to go to Xmas at Hyndford, as she had promised to. I took my darling to Grantham and saw her to Scotland, and I took the train to London. I was far too wildly happy to be sad at leaving her.
The day after, John received a worried letter from Kakoo. ‘My happiness is so complete that I am in a state of nerves lest anything should happen to destroy it,’ she wrote. ‘But you musn’t let it will you John? To see you, all such thoughts would vanish. It won’t be long now. Be very nice to Mother. She is rather miserable.’
When Kakoo got home, she found her parents were horrified at her engagement. During a long talk they explained to her that – with the exception of wealthy heiresses – it was virtually unheard of for the heir to a dukedom to marry a commoner. Their branch of the Tennant family was rich, but not rich enough. Annie, Kakoo’s mother, doubted whether John was serious; and, even if he was, she was convinced his parents would oppose the marriage.
A letter from Annie was waiting for John when he arrived back in London. It was the first he had heard from her. She had not written to congratulate him after he and Kakoo had wired from Belvoir to tell her of their engagement:
My dear John
You and Kathleen must forgive me for not replying at once. Her telegram knocked me flat! Frank and I could not feel happy unless your parents approved. It would be so dreadful if they didn’t.
Kakoo’s just what you see and know. I always think of her as the most transparent – perhaps too transparent creation on earth. I have been thoroughly selfish and only thought of myself and so I could not write before. I have been completely shattered since Frances* left and now this seems the end of all things for me and the beginning of what I hope will be a glorious life for you two. But I don’t feel that this can be without your parents’ approval. You would not be happy and if you were not happy Kakoo would be wretched.
Frank breaks down when he thinks of Kakoo leaving as they have made home so wonderfully happy and all the best of the sunshine will go with her.
Now for what I call the horrible part. Kakoo won’t have more than £2000† a year to start with, but she’s so simple in her tastes and not extravagant. But I can’t write any more about her – it’s too upsetting.
I hope you are as happy as Kathleen is – I can see by her letter – Bless you and I will love you.
Annie S. Tennant
I do hope it’s alright with your parents.
John was due to meet Annie, who had come down to London, the next morning. The meeting did not go well. ‘It was a funny morning,’ he wrote in his journal, ‘Mrs Tennant not really liking the thought of K. leaving her by marrying, and also not much liking me.’
Later that day, Annie wrote to John to explain her apparent ambivalence:
Darling John
I fear I was very inarticulate this morning, but I was feeling very deeply all sorts of things. I felt that I wanted to give you everything I possessed! You were so kind to me, and I see that you really do love Kakoo. If only I could make myself believe that your parents were pleased. I can’t help thinking that they are not quite – you see, you are their precious only son and they would want everything for you. But after seeing Kathleen’s face, and now yours, I feel as if the whole thing had been planned by the Almighty, and as if things of the Earth become mundane and dropped away! I wish your father would write to Frank – or, who breaks the ice first!? Frank will be easy enough – all he wishes is that people should be happy and that he needn’t be in London but allowed to remain in the Nort
h of Scotland where he can shoot, fish and golf! He adores his daughters and gives in to them in everything.
Annie needn’t have worried. Violet and Henry were thrilled. They wanted to keep John in England; the fact that Kakoo didn’t have a title or a large fortune didn’t matter. They knew that if John married her in January, as he planned to, he would not go out to Egypt to join his division. They were also keenly aware that if John and Kakoo married early in the New Year, the heir they longed for might be conceived. If so, even if John insisted on going back to the Front, the future of the family would be guaranteed.
Unlike Annie, Violet had replied to the telegram the couple sent her from Belvoir by return:
20 December 1915
16 Arlington Street
Darling John
I am all smiles as if nothing mattered in the whole world to me – because you are so happy!
It was wonderful news – and war and victory fade because I know you are happy – and your little new world is my world too for pleasure thinking of it.
Bless you both
First thing the next day, she sent them a telegram:
Good morning darlings. Mother
Then came an effusive letter to her future daughter-in-law:
My dearest little Kakoo
John is so happy and it makes us all jubilant. He is such a darling – as you know, and will know … How I long to see you. Meanwhile, I want you never never to feel me the ordering ‘Mother-in-law’, but just a second edition of your Mother and a very loving one.
The sun is shining and I am having a divine spell of joy – and freedom from anxiety – with John ‘on sick leave’ and John so absolutely happy.
À bientôt little Kakoo
Your loving VR
Henry had responded to the news equally quickly. As Violet was writing her ‘all smiles’ letter, he was writing his own:
The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery Page 39