American Duchess

by Karen Harper

  But while there at their château, more than once I dreamed I was flying, looking down at the ground passing under me. I soared with the birds, hearing the lovesick songs of a canary named Golden who perched on the rim of the woven basket of the balloon. Below me I saw children on the playgrounds I had promoted in the slums of cities and saw Grace waving good-bye to me. I was looking for a country house, a place away from London, a retreat, but where was it in the fields and forests below? And I was trying to plan the Sunderland House Conference to help protect the poor working women, where they bent over dim tables making lace or matchboxes or chains all day with so little pay.

  Chains . . . were my balloon and basket still chained to the ground, or was I lost? My fantasy turned to nightmare for I was all alone, and the balloon was drifting I do not know where, and Jacques was not there to save me.

  I sat up in bed, sweating, my heart pounding. “Oh, a dream, good and bad!” I said in the silent guest room. It was already daylight. I remembered that Jacques had telephoned my father to say he would try to visit me here before I went back to England tomorrow. He and other pilots were preparing for war if worse came to worst with the terrible Kaiser and the Huns, but I was certain that could not be.

  If Jacques did not come today, I would be gone. I had to leave, for I had scheduled the conference organized by two trade union charities, both headed by women, this time to convince people to protect women in the sweated trades. I was going to be daring in my methods. If the attenders accepted my invitations either to just see the inside of my London home or to hear some pretty speech from me while my helpers passed a basket for donations, they were in for a surprise.

  “Surprise, madame!” a housemaid called out after she knocked on my door and opened it, carrying a breakfast tray. “Your papa, he says you have a visitor downstairs, Monsieur Jacques, the airman, yes, did land his aeroplane in a field near here, only can stay a little while.”

  I threw the covers off and scooted out of bed. “Leave the tray, please, and call my maid at once,” I told her in French. “Time, you know, flies too!”

  “I AM SO proud of you!” Jacques told me the moment we were alone after spending a few minutes downstairs with Papa and Anne. He had already praised me for how well I was doing with my new hearing aid. “You are making a life for yourself, stepping away from a man who did not deserve you!”

  He had borrowed Papa’s motorcar to take me to the nearby field to see his aeroplane. The rural road was bumpy, and I bounced against him. “Much smoother in the air,” he told me as my hip seemed to stick to his, “but this has its advantages! And there she is, my other passion.”

  Did he mean other than me? I dare not ask as he stopped the motorcar, and we got out in the rutted entry to the field. “At least the people who gathered have gone away for now,” he told me, taking my hand and pulling me after him into the grassy meadow with bobbing daisies, though there was a mown path he must have landed on that stopped at the very edge of the uncut area.

  “But is . . . is it dangerous for you?” I asked as we approached the silver aeroplane, glinting in the midmorning sun.

  It had double wings, two front wheels and one small back one and a large rotor kind of thing on its nose. The pilot had no covered place to sit, so I could see his head must be out in the air behind a short windscreen. Still holding my hand, Jacques turned and looked at me, his gaze so intense.

  “Everything worth having—and possibly losing—makes flying and other things in life precious. Consuelo, I did not trust this thought to writing in my letters in case you were, well, being watched, but I am hoping you are considering the final step to end your unhappy marriage. Granted, my strict Catholic family would never want me to wed a divorced woman and a Protestant, but I would risk all that if, well, if I could court you, see you. If you would allow me to come to England—or wherever—I do not care, to see you.”

  “But I thought you are married to . . . I mean . . . to this metal lady here,” I said, with a gesture at the silver creature sitting so solemnly alone in this French field.

  “So,” he said, lifting my hand and kissing the back of my fingers, “you will never have to be jealous of her. My dear, that first night we met and danced so briefly, long ago, I went home and told my mother I had met the girl I would like to marry. Yes, I swear I did!”

  He put an arm around my waist, kept my hand in his and tried to turn us as if on a dance floor. But a few steps away from the aeroplane, the grass snagged our feet and a clump of daisies nearly toppled us. Laughing, he took me closer to the aeroplane, and we leaned against its metal skin in the shade of one wing. He held me to him. How famished I had been for the intense attention of a man, all those years of marriage when I was duchess indeed but the duke was so cold. And since then, too, as busy as I had kept myself. But this man, when he looked at me, listened to me, spoke to me—I swear time stood still and I felt all that clear down to the pit of my belly. If Jacques had proposed it, I would have lain down with him in the meadow and loved him forever.

  “So,” he said, “the bold crusader who speaks out for downtrodden people’s rights I have heard about and read about has nothing to say for now?”

  “I am cherishing each moment. I do not want this—us—to end.”

  “Then I believe that is a yes that when I can I shall visit you, court you. I swear I shall win you!”

  I almost told him he already had, but this was too quick, too brief, as had been all of our encounters. Was this even real? For I had dreamed of him, wanted something like this. And if war with Germany became a reality, that would mean Jacques would be gone to fight to protect France, or that I could even lose him before he was really mine.

  We kissed and caressed until some farmer’s boys shouted that the “pilot man” was back and everyone should come see.

  “I must take you back before I go,” he told me, frowning at the growing crowd we had not noticed along the fence of the field.

  “I can drive back. I know how. I want to see you fly your other lady.”

  Despite the cheers and a few hoots from the farm boys, Jacques kissed me hard again and climbed up into the well that must hold his seat and the controls.

  “Oh!” he said down at me. “I forgot the key to the motorcar!” He tossed it down to me. “Consider it the key to my heart!”

  He put on a leather cap, goggles, and a scarf. The rotor on the nose started to turn, and the engine hummed. I moved away and stood in the staring crowd of rural French folk as the aeroplane rolled away onto the cut strip and rolled faster, faster, then took to the blue sky, sailing over an orchard.

  “Long live love, yes?” one of the farm women said in French with a wink at me.

  I just nodded and kept shading my eyes to look up toward the sun. Jacques made one pass above, a circle with a dip of both wings, then disappeared into the heavens. The little crowd cheered. I did too, but when would I see him again? And if war came to this lovely, peaceful land, would I ever?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I did not know what was coming next in the European political situation, but then neither did the nearly five hundred guests know what was coming the next morning at my Sunderland House Conference. I imagine the engraved invitations and the tea and strawberry delights had made them think this would be a lovely, proper social occasion.

  With Winston’s help, I had invited important people who were kind but complacent. My friend was quite the liberal then in his political beliefs, but I noted even those of the conservative bent were here. As the program began, I could see my true purpose was dawning on the brightest of the churchmen, parliamentarians, business owners, and newspapermen and even some of the aristocracy who were here today: I had something not only entirely serious but shocking in mind.

  I took the stage at the podium, but from behind the curtain out came six elderly working-class women from each side, a total of twelve, to sit in chairs. They were women I had chosen because they had labored long in the sweated trades, b
een paid little and treated nearly as slave-laborers here in the heart of England and throughout the Empire. I introduced each by name, but they boldly did all the speaking.

  “Gents and ladies,” the first silver-haired, frail-looking speaker said, “I been twenty years hard working in a factory what makes confections for sweet tooths, if you know what I mean. Eight shillings a week I made and from that provided for schooling and food of my child, since my husband been sent to prison. All those years I never eaten a dinner costing more than a penny.”

  An eighty-four-year-old, bent-over woman with a Cockney accent talked of being fifty years as a shirt maker in a factory and at home. “This here is a shirt I made and right proud of it, too,” she told them, holding up the item. Her arms shook, but her voice did not. “Mrs. Marlborough says just tell true, so here’s the end of it. Last week me and my husband worked from five-thirty morn till eleven at night at home after a day’s work in the factory and made fourteen dozen of these, earned us ten extra shillings, but got to pay ten pence for cotton.”

  So on it went. Some of the crowd kept silent, some murmured or fidgeted. A few women wept, and some men blew their noses. I imagine some were offended that I had dared to bring in the old ladies to tell their own tales, but my dear friend Mrs. Prattley had done that so well. A few of my guests looked askance at me thereafter, a few thanked me. But the donations for the charity for Silver Haired Women of the Trades went as sky high as, well, as Jacques could soar in his silver aeroplane.

  THEN, ON JUNE 28, 1914, a Serb named Gavrilo Princip shot to death Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, the Archduchess Sophie, in Sarajevo. This destabilized the delicate balance of that city, that country, and Germany, just lying in wait for a trigger to attack, took advantage. From those few bullets of an assassination came what was soon called The Great War or The War to End All Wars as fighting and destruction spread like wildfire through Europe. I was soon doing war charity work and fighting another battle, since, for the first time in our separation, the duke and I became engulfed in a face-to-face dispute.

  “Bloody hell, Consuelo!” he shouted the moment he entered the library at Sunderland House, a place he so seldom visited. He stalked to the window and stood there frowning out as if he could not bear to look at me. “How dare you tamper with—even advise—Blandford on which regiment he should become attached to in this damned war! I fear England will too soon jump in with both feet and then it will not just be sharp uniforms, patriotic posters, and parades!”

  I sat on the settee not far from him. “He is my son, too. And I am only looking out for his best interests. You are the one who approved of his leaving Eton for a course in officer training at Sandhurst, so he had that idea of joining the guards in his own head already.”

  “Don’t try to shift this off on me as you have everything else. You’ve swayed most of my friends, even convinced Winston, to believe that the failure of our marriage was my fault.”

  “I have never said such a thing about you, except to myself!”

  I almost feared he would strike me, but he only pierced me with a frown and stood his ground.

  “Besides,” he went on, finally turning to look fully at me, “did we not have an agreement that I oversee the upbringing of the next duke and you supervise Ivor?”

  “Hardly! The only agreement I had with you about Blandford is that I can finally call him Bert, and only then because the boy insisted he prefers that he not be called Blandford.”

  “Never mind all that. What’s important is that after I had arranged everything for him to serve in the War Office, where he would be safe, that he suddenly prefers the First Life Guards where he could well go into battle. He was perfectly content with my arrangements a week ago, and then you and some high-ranking friend talked him into changing to a second-rate regiment!”

  “Marlborough,” I countered, “if you would just listen to Winston, he believes there will be a conscription if things get bad when we get in this war, so why should Bert be cowed into serving in some office here, which he does not want?”

  “I swear, I will have Winston’s head, too, if he has advised you on this! He’d best stick to his royal navy work as First Lord of the Admiralty—a political position in a London office!”

  “He has not advised me, at least not on this. But I have learned that the Kaiser is building aircraft called Zeppelins that could drop bombs on England—and so, no doubt, they could target the War Office where Bert would not be safe. None of us will be safe.”

  “Nonsense. Come clear over the channel, drop bombs, and make it back to German bases? But do not try to get me off the topic of Blandford.”

  “All right then, look at it this way. The Life Guards appointment is what he desperately wants. To serve with honor, to be with his friends. Do I want him in harm’s way—never. But if you believe an appointment to the Life Guards is second rate now, surely your son and heir will soon make it first rate!”

  “If you were any sort of mother, you would beg me to lock him up during this bloody war mess. I believe we will go to war against those greedy Huns and the damned Kaiser. I am going now to try to undo the mischief of your meddling!” He stormed out just as the tea I had ordered came in on a rolling cart.

  I imagined the duke was even more livid the next day, for I soon heard that Bert had already signed with the 1st Life Guards as a second lieutenant. And, Albertha said, that Bert had told his distraught father that he was old enough to make his own decisions as a loyal British citizen and next Duke of Marlborough.

  To make the memory of that visit worse, I shortly thereafter received the first communiqué from Gladys in years, in which she dared to inform me that, Sunny is so distressed over this, and it will be on your head if anything happens to his heir in this dreadful war that is surely to get worse if England jumps in with both feet and that is surely coming.

  SADLY, GLADYS WAS right about us getting into the fight as King George, the deceased King Edward’s son, four years now on the throne, declared war on August 4, 1914. Winston had already ordered a test mobilization of the Royal Navy Home Fleet.

  France especially came under German attack, which added Jacques to the long list of those I endlessly worried about. My dear Frenchman’s letters had stopped, making me wonder if he was somehow fighting in that aeroplane of his.

  When Papa and Anne came to stay with me in London, able to travel across the Atlantic since the United States was still neutral, Papa said he had word that Jacques was doing “reconnaissance.”

  “What does that mean?” I demanded. “Tell me right out. I want to know.”

  He glanced at Anne, who nodded, so she must already know. My insides twisted even tighter. Surely they had not come to tell me Jacques had been . . . been lost.

  “He has volunteered for duty to fly over enemy forces and report their positions and strength,” Papa told me, putting a firm hand on my shoulder. “And he is going to serve in Morocco to take part in early tests of aerial bombardment. He has become a captain in the new French air force, and he asked that I give you this,” he added, taking a folded envelope out of his suit-coat pocket. “He was not sure how well the mail would get through from France to England right now and so sent this to me—sealed.”

  I held the letter in my hand. Though warm from Papa’s coat, I imagined it was because Jacques had held it, maybe kissed it.

  “Thank you, Papa, for telling me the truth and for bringing this. I shall continue to worry for Bert and Jacques and that Ivor does not get conscripted. I will be back in a moment, if you do not mind.”

  Anne—no wonder Papa had fallen in love with her—put her arm around my waist and whispered, “Take all the time you want, dearest Consuelo. We understand. As we grow older,” she said with a glance at Papa, “the head and heart work together to know what and who one really wants.”

  I kissed her on the cheek and fled to my bedroom. I had known from the first, even in my youth, that I did not love the duke, and, strangely, kno
wn from my first time with Jacques, that dance, that he was special. I broke the seal on the envelope and pulled out the one-sided, one-page letter. Was it my imagination he had hastily written this? That he longed for me, but his mind was elsewhere, for he was already in love with his dear France?

  I sat on the divan at the foot of my canopied bed and read:

  My dearest Consuelo, I am writing this in haste, but, sadly, I fear our entire relationship so far has been in haste. I long for this war to be over and fear it has barely begun. I long to be with you, to formally court you, to win you. Granted, there are many obstacles to that, but we can win. We can win this dreadful war and we can win the right to be forever together.

  Be very careful, even in London, for the Huns have their own deadly big balloons called Zeppelins that can drop incendiary bombs, and they will send aeroplanes in the near future. Perhaps find a small place of your own in the nearby countryside for a refuge, but I hope you will not return to Blenheim.

  Lest I do not return from my part in this tragedy, know that I have admired and loved and wanted you from the first and that will never change, no matter what happens. I pray we will have our chance to be together, if you are willing, for I am more than ready.

  I must tell you one thing. Eleven years ago I was married briefly, in a civil ceremony because the bride was going to bear my child. I never loved her, a fling with sad consequences, for the child died and there was nothing but that to keep us together. The marriage was never truly sanctioned and is long over. But I long for a true, a real one we both choose for the right reasons, if I can earn your care and trust.