American Duchess

by Karen Harper

  Forever your Jacques, whether or not you wish it to be so.

  A captain in the new French air force, but you are captain of my heart

  The lines of the letter blurred as I blinked back tears. I read it again. It was so emotional, so open. That was one thing about this man. He shared his intense feelings, always had. It was a heady thing for a woman who had longed for love all those years I had lived with the duke. I clasped the letter to my breasts. He was right that we had far to go to really be together. I prayed so hard then and thereafter that we would have our chance.

  I KEPT VERY busy to cope with fear and looming destruction. I quickly became involved with the Women’s Emergency Corps, which promoted women taking over the work of enlisted men. I feared conscription, for that would involve dear Ivor, too, and he was never really strong. In school at Eton, he failed his medical tests for the army. On occasion, Winston used him for office work, for which I was so grateful. When Ivor could, he spent much time with me.

  I also became chairman of the American Women’s War Relief Fund, which supported a military hospital in Devon. When I had time, I scoured areas outside London for a pied-à-terre like Jacques had mentioned, not only for my safety lest London were hit by Zeppelin or aeroplane bombs but for my own sanity—an escape for the soul. But nothing right had turned up yet.

  Meanwhile, I volunteered Sunderland House as a shelter should there be a Hun aerial attack on London. I had thought it could become a nursing home for wounded soldiers, but it proved unsuitable for that. I learned it was considered unpatriotic for one person, or even a few, to live alone in so huge a house when the nation was at war.

  However, it was known in the neighborhood that the sturdy building with its extensive cellars would accept on immediate notice people off the streets who needed a safe haven during an attack. I prepared the cellars, which mostly stored food and wine, with lanterns and seats of various kinds. My women servants were mostly working in munition factories now, so, as exhausted as I was, I did much of the preparations myself, but nothing happened, except some Zepp attacks out by the docks.

  And then it did. Not the huge floating, gas-filled airships, but on May 31, 1915, horrible, buzzing aeroplanes.

  IN LATE AFTERNOON, the neighborhood sirens screamed, screamed, screamed as people ran to my front door. As my last maid and I welcomed them in, I glanced up to see three of the evil metal birds overhead, then I felt the vibrations and the muted boom, boom of bombs somewhere nearby. Why bomb such a residential neighborhood? Perhaps the Huns thought important people were here—and so they were. Yet people of all classes and ages streamed in, and I guided them quickly down to the cellars. The crump, crump of bombs was more muted here, and I prayed they would not come closer.

  Huddled in the dim light of lanterns, no one said much at first, though several children and one baby cried. I took a little boy, perhaps two years old, onto my lap and bounced him a bit.

  “We are so grateful,” a man next to me said. I strained to hear him. “Hope a hit here will not harm all this wine.”

  I suddenly felt guilty. Sunderland House, like Blenheim, was so elegant, so massive and well stocked, but at least it had been used for important causes, helping, saving—I hoped—people.

  “As soon as the noise stops,” I declared, “we shall open some bottles and toast our fighting forces.”

  “And hope the Yanks get in the war.”

  “Yes!” I said. “I am sure they—we—will.”

  We sat there on edge for a good hour to be sure the attack was over. Rather than breaking out the wine here, I gave each family or lone adult a bottle as he or she left. Several of the woman curtsied to me as if I were Queen Mary. Many thanked me heartily. I hated to hand the little boy back to his mother.

  Outside, as I stood in the door to the street, I felt so lonely. How I wanted to find a rural retreat, someplace small, someplace Bert and Jacques, too, could love when—if—they came back from the horror and madness of this war.

  I turned to go back inside the mansion. It suddenly seemed a ghost house to me now, haunted by what might have been.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Soon after, I found the country home of my dreams. A friend told me of a Tudor-era farmhouse for sale in the gentle hills of Surrey, a two-hour motorcar ride from London. I contacted the family who owned the house but hardly used it. And so, on a sweet summer day, I met with the Reverend Mr. Gainsforth to look at the property that had been in his family for four hundred years, quite outdoing the lease the Marlborough dukes held on Blenheim.

  “We truly do not want to sell, Your Grace, but when I heard it was you, well.”

  “Because you think I will pay a pretty penny for it?” I asked him with a little laugh.

  “Why, no,” the portly man said, as he drove me in a carriage toward the property. “I mean . . . the duchess connection. You did not know that the first duchess, Sarah, briefly owned Crowhurst? Well, that is, she leased it to house some veterans of the first duke’s campaigns.”

  “No, I did not. How wonderful,” I said, craning to look down the lane for the first glimpse of the house and barn, but I was remembering what surely was Sarah’s ghost at Blenheim, and I had wondered if she missed me there. I had a feeling she had not wanted me to leave.

  The night I was overseeing the packing of my things in my bedroom, items had kept falling on the floor, and my maid had not known why. Twice the door to the hall had opened of its own accord to bring in a chill draft, and someone had turned down the covers on the bed when the maid was downstairs and I was undressing in the next room.

  “Duchess?” Mr. Gainsforth broke into my reverie. “Are you quite all right? Crowhurst is its original name and bad luck to change it, family lore says. You can see the tall yews up ahead,” he said pointing. “The lane just beyond that.”

  “Oh, it is just lovely!” I cried as we turned down a curving lane. I realized that was no way to get a reasonable price for a place, but I did not care. Charming, secluded—everything I had wanted, and, no doubt, Jacques had wanted for me.

  The old barn was ready to fall down, but the ancient, half-timbered manor house looked sturdy and welcoming. It had a steep, slanted roof with stone chimneys. Thick windowpanes sealed with lead glinted in the sun. And the frame for the house was terraces of flowers in wild bloom, honeysuckle and roses, phlox, lavender Canterbury bells and purple iris. Around the back, lay a sunken herb garden, and beyond, a pond with four swans swimming!

  The housemaid who lived in a room at the back, Hatherly, came out to greet us, a charming young, blond woman with rosy cheeks and none of that worried, gaunt look so many London girls wore now.

  “Just cutting flowers for the table, Your—your Duchess!” she said and bobbed a curtsy after we briefly chatted. She went about her business in the herb garden as Mr. Gainsforth took me inside.

  Clean flagstone floors and creamy white, unadorned plastered walls greeted me. The great hall reached upward to the raftered roof, and an oak staircase led to a great chamber upstairs with smaller bedrooms, too. A large oriel window threw light inside. I could instantly picture where an oriental rug would go, my French paintings, velvet draperies, and my chintz-covered easy chairs.

  I knew I must have this place. I not only pictured escaping here on weekends and longer visits, but also inviting my London friends and my sons, but especially Jacques when this wretched war was over. I did not even fret that Duchess Sarah might haunt Crowhurst, the first property, at age thirty-eight, I could really call my own, here in my new home.

  CROWHURST BECAME MY salvation. I loved being there, entertaining or just alone. Hatherly stayed on, and I needed only two local gardeners beyond that, even when I entertained, for things seemed so much simpler and safer here. I paid some local men to tear down the rickety barn and extended the stone patio. I spent much time in London at my war work, but fled to Surrey whenever I could manage.

  Besides my literary and family friends, two of my favorite weekend or Sund
ay guests, not counting Winston and Clemmie, were Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer. The duke was now in the House of Lords, an aristocrat to his toe tips, the very group that Asquith was attacking to lessen their power. I suppose the duke knew Asquith was a friend of mine since I now leaned closer to the Liberal left. Getting along with the duke no longer mattered to me except for our not upsetting our sons.

  I only hoped that when this dreadful war ended everyone would be so relieved that, if I asked for a divorce, the duke, who seemed ever swayed by his longtime lover Gladys, would be happy to oblige. I had realized far too late that her goal from the first was to be Duchess of Marlborough, and she was quite welcome to the duke and the title, though that would mean going through the grueling steps for a divorce.

  I regretted that this September Sunday, H. H. Asquith had brought his wife Margot with him, not because I had designs on him, but because that woman completely annoyed me. She had nasty opinions of everyone, so I wondered what she said of me behind my back. She was the most skilled woman I had ever known at subtle or blatant digs.

  “Those wretched little owls are back up there in the very tiptop of your ceiling,” she told me, covering her wineglass with her hand as if their droppings would plop into her martini when they stayed way over in their little niche. “Really, Consuelo, how can you live out here like this? You had best have those creatures caught and tell that country girl of yours to bring in a man and a ladder to toss them out.”

  “I do get an urge to toss people out sometimes,” I told her, straight-faced. “But the owls are wise little things and only observe and do not give a hoot.”

  “Oh, well, that reminds me of a comedy routine I saw the other day in London at a theater, the same one your eldest attended with that sort of chorus girl. My, your Blandford does have a good eye for beauty, skin deep at least, and he looked so fine in his uniform. I heard Sunny said simply—about Blandford chasing chorus girls—‘It’s his common American blood.’”

  I chose to ignore that jab, for it was her bread and butter, though I would have much liked to have forced it down her throat.

  “Bert is home for a brief leave,” I told her, keeping calm, “and you are right about his appreciation of beauty. His good taste is why he likes Crowhurst so much—owls and all. He suggested I change the name to Owlhurst, but Ivor enjoys it here, too, just the way it is. I do think there is something so clean and pure here, unsullied by critics or all sorts, at least until recently.”

  The moment that was out of my mouth I regretted it, but the woman irked me to no end. Oh dear, now I might lose H.H., too, and he was such a brilliant conversationalist, especially with brandy in his hand and a week of fighting the House of Lords behind him. I imagined he rather liked being with people he did not have to argue with—except for Margot, that is.

  “Well!” she huffed. “Do let me know if you ever take another suggestion from me, let it be that you rid yourself of Sunny. You do not even feign to be married anymore, and he has that other American on the string. I would give the heave-ho to H.H., lord of all wartime parliaments of the world, if he did that.”

  “I thank you so much again for your advice,” I told her, my voice dripping honey. At least I kept from splashing my glass of wine in her face. “I shall remember that next time the owls call out Who, who, and I shall tell them, Margot Asquith, that is who needs your wise words.”

  “Really!”

  “Time to head back, Margot,” H.H. said, coming up and putting his arm around my shoulder instead of hers, but he still had brandy in his right hand.

  “Margot does not like my pet owls, or a few others either.”

  “Ah. News to me,” he said rolling his eyes. “I thank you, Consuelo, for this respite from the war. I fear we are going to have rationing soon, probably of sugar, even bread, maybe after that meat, but your food and drink has been excellent today. The conversation, too, most of it,” he added with a quick glance at Margot behind her back. I nearly burst out laughing but bit my tongue.

  “I just bet your government never rations brandy,” Margot said.

  He ignored that, but I had to laugh at last. I accompanied him to the door, and Margot followed, scooping up her purse and another drink.

  What would I do without my friends during these war years, these years of separation from the duke and from Jacques, waiting for the right time to say I wanted a divorce, despite all the shenanigans we must go through with the damned newspapers on two continents all looking our way. But like a wise owl at the ripe old age of nearly forty, as soon as this dreadful war ended, I was ready.

  IT HELPED SO much when my American countrymen finally entered the war in April of 1917. Mother had been predicting they would, but then, she had also predicted American women would get the vote. She was the perfect rabble-rouser for that, marching, giving speeches, and making a general ruckus in the American press, something she had been skilled at for years.

  I spent some of my beautiful days at Crowhurst fretting for the safety of my loved ones: Bert, who was now in France; Ivor’s health; and certainly for Jacques. Despite not being fit for service, Ivor had been taken onto the staff of the Quartermaster-General at his headquarters at the War Office—so the duke finally got his wish that a son of his served there safely. Also, Winston was kind to take Ivor with him on one of his tours to inspect the front in France, and he wrote to me—perhaps to the duke also—how well Ivor had acquitted himself in the war zone.

  I seldom attended social functions now and had closed and vacated vast Sunderland House, taking a small place near Regent’s Park where Ivor lived with me. I was so busy with war work that it was a rare delight to snag more than one or two days at Crowhurst.

  King George declared the royal family would no longer be designated by its string of German names but henceforth be known as the House of Windsor. I imagined old Queen Victoria was rolling in her tomb at that, but it was best to cut all ties with the demented Kaiser.

  The dreadful Spanish flu that was sweeping the civilized world hit both America and England hard, and, once again, Crowhurst was my refuge. With the “Yanks’” help, armistice was declared and the Treaty of Versailles was signed June 28, 1919. And later that year, when autumn turned the deciduous trees around Crowhurst glorious colors, Jacques was sent on a mission to England, and Papa telephoned to say my long-lost love would call on me at Crowhurst.

  I did not know the exact time he would appear. Waiting, pacing, I looked out my windows toward my swans huddled together in the chill wind at the edge of the pond. With my pair of owls cuddled in the ceiling boards far overhead, I made two decisions: I wanted Jacques in my life forever; and despite the legal hoops we both must jump through, after nearly fifteen years of separation, I would ask the Duke of Marlborough for a divorce.

  Part Four

  Wife and Benefactor, 1919–1938

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jacques had telephoned to say he would drive to Crowhurst to see me. I wanted to tell him so much, to see him here, on English soil. I was nearly hysterical with joy and went on and on at first as to how grateful I was he was safe, was here . . .

  “Dearest,” he interrupted me. “We have been apart too long for too many damned reasons. Just give me the directions for when I get close, and I will be there as soon as I can.”

  I explained the twists and turns of the lane, then made him promise to drive carefully. He laughed. “If I told you the places I have been and things I have done these last few years, you would not worry for a motorcar drive to peaceful Surrey. Your father gave me the directions out of London—twice—but I needed to know which lane to turn in, that is all. If I could, I would fly and drop myself right in by parachute, but I hear there are no good farmer’s mown fields nearby. I will see you soon, hold you soon, my too-long long-distance love.”

  And he was gone—but coming soon. I paced a rut in the flagstone floors waiting, waiting after all this time. I walked outside in the b
risk autumn afternoon air, then back inside, out again. I had forgotten to so much as get a warm wrap, so went back in and up to my bedroom and stared at myself in the mirror, still hearing his words, his lovely voice in any language, for we had spoken in English just now.

  Give me the directions . . . when I get close, he had said. What direction would our lives take? I had felt he was close to me for years, for so many difficult years, and now it was almost real.

  Here I was forty years old, and he forty-nine. I had several silver strands in my dark hair and worry lines at the edges of my eyes. How would he look after the horror of the war? We both had long lives behind us but what was ahead?

  I went back downstairs to rearrange the bowls of asters and dahlias yet again. “Mrs. Marlborough?” Hatherly called, coming in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She knew to get right in front of me when we talked. “You be sure you want me to go, and you do the serving and all for your guest? You can just leave the dishes.”

  “Perhaps I shall. Yes, I will be fine and thank you for preparing that lovely shepherd’s pie, salad, and trifle.”

  “All right then. Be here tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I do not know what I would do without you,” I said, and gave her a quick hug.

  Beaming, she went out the back door. I saw her go by the window, as she rode a bicycle and had only two farmhouses to go to her big family, though she lived here. But she was grateful for the time away because her father was ill.

  I don’t know what I would do without you, my own words rang in my ears. How had I done without a man to love all these years since, well, since I lost Win? And that was girlhood infatuation. Papa had mentioned that Win had been married for years. But there were big barriers to Jacques and I really being together, at least as man and wife. I was sure he wanted that and I did, too.