American Duchess

by Karen Harper

  “No, and she is our secret. I am so proud and happy you have part of my name and I believe ghost Sarah is, too.” I leaned down to kiss her soft cheek. I had to talk to Bert about Gladys.

  I went downstairs and found him at his desk with a whiskey, reading a letter. I knocked on the open door.

  “Mother,” he said, popping up. “I thought you’d be turning in since you are off to see Ivor again tomorrow.”

  “I do want to tell you how much this visit has meant to me—to see the children and Mary, but especially you, too.”

  He bit his lower lip, either in emotion or to keep from a rejoinder, but he took my elbow and ushered me in to sit in one of the leather club chairs that were pulled up before his big desk.

  “Bert, I am proud of you, and it has nothing to do with the fact you will be the next duke.”

  “I know,” he said with a shrug as he twisted toward me in his chair. “An accident of birth, an honor and yet a burden. Look at Father. Listen, I try not to so much as mention him around you, but—”

  He stopped mid-thought and turned away, staring at the large photograph of Blenheim on the wall behind his desk.

  “But what?” I prompted. “Bert, Sarah says that Duchess Gladys screams and throws things, and—”

  “It is more than that,” he interrupted. “That is more or less what I was going to say. They both shout at each other, bicker before guests even. I’ve had a real row with Father over the children not spending time at Blenheim right now. I know he can be moody, but she is, well, I had no intention of telling you this, but she is—unstable. Frankly, she’s officially moved out of Blenheim, though she keeps going back, but now she’s gone to live in London for a while, I take it. I think he is bloody well relieved that she’s gone for now, because she made it a living hell there.”

  “I am sorry to hear, after all the grief and publicity he has been through, that he is unhappy—really.”

  “Mother,” he went on pivoting toward me, “she breeds dogs she calls Blenheim spaniels, which wouldn’t be so awful but she keeps them right in the Great Hall! She had the space divided into dog pens, and the smell was horrible! Her trust fund, I hear, was ruined in the crash in twenty-nine, and they’re still fighting over the money. Worse, she kept a revolver in her bedroom and told Father she would shoot him if he ever came to her bedroom door again. Damn, I’m sorry, for I did not mean to tell you all that, and we’re terrified the papers might find out, even if she’s in London lately, because she comes back—for the dogs.”

  “But then she is doubly dangerous!”

  “Father doesn’t even stay there when he goes home now from London, but puts up at the hotel in Woodstock. I think . . . I am pretty sure he is going to find some way to permanently evict her. Sorry to dump all of this on you, but Mary and I . . . we trust you. I used to hope they would calm down and get back together, but it was and is a battlefield there—perfect for Blenheim, right?”

  “I see you are worried for your father, but above all you must think of your children first, that they steer clear of all that. Bring them to us in France next holiday instead of Blenheim, even if Gladys has been sent away.”

  “I would like to, but Father would, well, you know.”

  “Yes, he would protest or sulk or worse, but he will have to see this is best for the children. You know, I used to believe Gladys was my friend, but she turned on me, had plans all along to take my place, and I was too naïve to know that at first. If I had not left of my own accord, who knows what she might have done. This knowledge of her screaming and a revolver in hand, well, above all, protect your children.”

  He sniffed hard and pressed his lips together in a straight line. “I will not tell Father we had this talk, but I will tell Mary. I do see why you left him.” He said this in such a rush I had to almost read his lips. “Children sense things, the truth, early, even if they are told something else. I know that, I remember that.”

  “Dear Bert,” I told him as we both rose, “you are tall in stature and tall in my heart. Remember that, whatever happens.”

  He nodded, sniffed again, and stooped to hug me hard.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Sadly, we were still at times stalked and spied upon by European and even American journalists. It somewhat tarnished our love for Lou Sueil and made us wary in Paris. We began to think we should find an even more secluded place for a summer escape, close to Paris, not one on the busy Riviera.

  Jacques and I clung close to our friends who enjoyed visiting us in Paris or especially at Lou Sueil in the winter months. We loved hosting people from all walks of life, including having open houses for our neighbors. At either of our homes, we mixed pilots, French dignitaries and generals, and British friends with artists or even entertainers like Charlie Chaplin. We often had Winston and Clemmie, for they had remained loyal friends, though they still saw much of the duke.

  This Saturday through Monday we had them with us, Ivor was visiting, and our longtime friend George Curzon was here, and I was tending to them all. Ivor always needed encouragement in his endeavors, and poor George was ailing but so appreciated the winter sun. A government servant and longtime Member of Parliament, he had been devastated when he was overlooked for prime minister, but he had physical problems, too.

  I walked down to the first terrace near the mimosa trees where he was drinking tea at a small table. I sat on the other side of it, and he looked over to smile at me.

  “I did not know if you were taking a nap,” I told him.

  “Just enjoying the view and the warmth. And watching Winston argue with your husband.”

  “So I see,” I said, glancing over the boxwood hedge at the terrace just below us. Ivor was with them, too. He had always loved being with Winston. Ivor sat back a ways, but I saw wild gestures from Jacques and gyrations of both the cigar and the paintbrush from Winston. “I do hope they are getting on.”

  “Winston is peeved over Herr Hitler in Germany, the new chancellor. He says that heir, as in inherits the power in the country, is just a few steps from becoming dictator and causing trouble with his rampant nationalism.”

  “Surely not after Germany was so shamed and devastated in the Great War.”

  He shrugged, and I saw him flinch in pain. He had a childhood spine injury that had kept him from athletics all his life, so perhaps that is why he excelled in intellectual ways. He was a charming though driven man and lately a mere shadow of himself, which was why I was so glad he was here resting. He had been quite melancholy, and that was rubbing off on me. Now with Winston on this anti-German rant, it did not make for the most restful of weekends.

  “Consuelo,” George said, “though I will, of course, thank you when I leave, I want you to know how much your friendship has meant to me. Your entertaining, your kindness—even though you turned me down for more than that when you and Sunny were first having trouble.”

  “You both insulted and honored me by that proposal. It worked out that we could just be friends.”

  He sighed so hard his body heaved. I fancied he might collapse but for that iron brace he wore. I sympathized greatly. My thoughts flew to my mother. She had suffered a slight stroke, and though she had mostly come back from it, finally—finally—something had slowed Alva Vanderbilt Belmont down.

  “I had best walk down and calm them,” I told George and patted his shoulder as I rose. It seemed bony. So much of the old days was passing away, the Victorian and Edwardian eras as they are called now, looking back. And what era was this? Surely not one between two German wars.

  I walked down the flagstone steps. “That will be a lovely painting of the sea,” I said to interrupt what appeared to be a Winstonian tirade, one I hoped was not aimed at Jacques. Ivor stood to give me his seat, but I put my hand on his shoulder and remained standing.

  “Wonderful light here,” Winston said, obviously changing the topic from whatever he had been saying.

  Jacques stepped close and put his arm around my waist, so I stoo
d between my dearest of men. If anyone here was upset at the other, it did not show, for Jacques, despite a flamboyant personality at times, could calm himself in an instant.

  “I thought, perhaps,” I told them, “you two were disagreeing about the view—or something.”

  “Winston is predicting another war, a German one again,” Ivor said.

  “Surely not!” I repeated the protest I had made to George. “They were beaten down by the loss and the treaty they signed.”

  “And,” Winston said, blowing out a smoke ring the breeze ripped away, “that’s part of the problem. They are bloody bitter and coming back hard under that Hitler fellow. Trouble on the horizon, though, thank God, not this one,” he added and went back to painting on his canvas where the sea met the sky.

  “I like the way Winston blends his colors,” Ivor said, stepping closer to watch the man I considered his mentor. “His style has a touch of French impressionism but with a sheen of reality.”

  “You have always had a good eye for art,” I told my son.

  Jacques put in, “Ivor is thinking of investing in some paintings and promoting fledgling artists.”

  “That sounds like an excellent way to use your interest and talents,” I said.

  “Ha!” Winston put in with a guffaw. “Here is how I would like to use my interests and talents. I must get stubborn Parliament to name me P.M. soon! If not, I shall just resign and peddle my paintings.”

  “And ‘ha’ to that fairy tale!” I responded. “Ivor,” I said, pulling away from Jacques just enough to peck a kiss on my son’s cheek, “I do think that dealing in art is a marvelous idea and plays to your strengths.”

  “Wish I had a few more of those,” Ivor whispered so wistfully that my heart went out to him again. He was still pale and a bit frail with headaches and a constant cough, but the doctors only diagnosed it as “weak constitution” and could find no real malady.

  “I had best go find Clemmie,” I told them, quickly blinking back tears that threatened despite the beauty of this place. For with all this talk of Germany again, I felt a cloud cover this sunny day. It was a strange foreboding, the most oppressive feeling I had felt since I had spoken with Czar Nicholas, and look what had happened to him.

  WE FINALLY FOUND the place for the summer escape from Paris we had longed for, especially since we were still easy game for international journalists and wanted a getaway to hide out in privacy. On one of our weekend drives, we came upon the little town of Saint-Georges-Motel near the border of Normandy at the edge of the forest of Dreux. The town was small, with a population just over three hundred fifty we soon learned. We also learned a walled and gated château with a good piece of land was for sale by an owner who had thirteen children. The family had quite outgrown the main house, let alone the small cottages also on the property. The meadows of the estate bordered on the River Avre, which fed the water in our moat, then flowed into the larger River Eure.

  We loved the area, the town, and the estate, which we promised to purchase that very day.

  I was thrilled to see many children playing in the village street, the Cour d’Honneur, and the fields just outside our walls. Very few of the youngsters looked well-to-do. Ponies for a few but hoops and tops and balls tossed in the air for most. Ah, I could see it now, a yearly fete for the village children. All would be welcome, but especially those ill or less blessed, which I must admit—as happy as I was—would be almost everyone.

  “WE BOUGHT THIS the way I fell in love with you—at first sight,” Jacques told me the day we took possession of the property. He reached over to squeeze my knee before he drove us through the gates the groundskeeper opened for us with a nod and a grin. Massive linden and chestnut trees seemed to guard the entry gate, which fronted the village itself. We had discovered the name of Louis XIII stamped in the iron gate.

  “We will love the summers here and so will our guests—the invited ones, not those crashing in for a sensational news story,” he assured me.

  “Seclusion and safety,” I said with a sigh. “We shall make some changes inside and out of this old château, but I love the pink brick and bluish slate roof. And to have a moated home with two towers, so romantic and another barrier against intrusions.”

  I gazed round with a sigh, thinking of our solitary walks here, planning to invite all the people we loved.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” Jacques broke into my silence.

  “What I want to do here for our new home and the people will cost a bit more than a penny.”

  “Do send me an invitation,” he said with a little laugh as he pulled our motorcar to a halt before the front door. “Look,” he said, pointing, as he came round to open the car door for me, for his charming manners and tender care for me had never ceased.

  I turned to look where he pointed. A stag drank from the water of the moat, then lifted his big head crowned by the proud rack of antlers. He gave us a condescending stare as if to say, This place is really mine, you know, then trotted off toward the thick trees beyond.

  “Magical—and so quiet here,” I said as Jacques produced the key with a flourish as we walked toward the front door.

  We went through the rooms to the back where I had planned so many pleasures and posies. I would plant hydrangea, iris, and lupine within trimmed bushes of fresh-smelling boxwood. Jacques had agreed we would add fountains and terrace the gardens. Strangely then, I thought of the duke, forever working on the terraced gardens at Blenheim. How was he faring now since Gladys’s trust fund had been pinched by the American stock market crash? Had he evicted her from Blenheim as Bert had predicted?

  “This place has been rather neglected,” Jacques’s voice cut into my agonizing. “Especially the little cottages but this château, too, which we will soon put to rights.”

  “Besides envisioning games and food tables out here to welcome our friends and local guests—the children, especially—I am thinking we could sponsor writers and artists, when the scattered cottages become livable again, for them to have a sort of summer sabbatical here.”

  “I am sure our favorite amateur artist, Winston, will set up shop here with Ivor advising him—if, that is, Winston has time to stop haranguing England about the threat of the new Germany.”

  “I regret that his colleagues and the newspapers think he is a bit of a crackpot. No one wants to hear war is coming after what Europe has been through. I hate to say it, but the best way to have him elected P.M. is to have some of his dire warnings come true, which I dread. Jacques, if there is a war, you would not go back into service would you, I mean at your age?”

  “Ah,” he said, turning me to face him, “am I ready to start walking with a cane now and lose my teeth?” He squeezed me hard and patted my bum.

  “Hardly. But I— You have started flying more again, not just teaching others.”

  “Just to keep up with the innovations of the aeroplanes. If there is another war, it will be bombs away.”

  “Do not joke about that!”

  “I am not, my love. Just being realistic as, I fear, is Winston. Hopefully the British and French, too—even your American countrymen—will get their heads out of the ‘peace in our time’ sand. Meanwhile, we shall love this new place and each other, yes?”

  I turned to smile into his eyes. “Yes!”

  THE BRISK, CHILLY autumn in Paris that year seemed to creep into our home and my bones. Fallen leaves skittered across the street as I gazed out my sitting room window, missing both Saint-Georges-Motel and Lou Sueil. And missing Jacques, who was working late at his family’s business today.

  Though we had closed up our greatly renovated new château for the winter, I was still mentally there, for I had been making notes and sketching the layout for the first fete I hoped to offer the local folk next September before we closed up the château again. It would take a lot of planning, but I reveled in that.

  I sighed and drank some of my tea, but it had gone lukewarm. I had not been in the kitchen for a while to
talk to Cook, so I thought I would not ring for it but walk down for a chat. But when the telephone jingled, I picked up the wood and ivory voice receiver.

  “Bonjour,” I said. “Consuelo Balsan here.”

  “Consuelo, I have found a lovely little cottage just on the other side of your new village, so we will be neighbors again!”

  My mother. How like her to just announce, and not ask! Once she saw how lovely the area around our new château was, she had hired an agent to look for a nearby place for her. She was not walking well after her stroke and had actually found a wheeled beach chair that she had been assured had once been Queen Victoria’s. Considering it was my mother, I believed that.

  “That’s wonderful!” I told her, though with her age and health, I rather wished she would stop buying property.

  “Of course it needs redoing, much as your house did. If you two want to take an autumn jaunt some weekend, I will go along and give you a tour. My dearest, I do not know what I would do if I did not have a house to decorate. Sarah, first duchess, of Marlborough, has nothing on me for building, building. I must run now—well, you know what I mean. I must walk or be wheeled and quite carefully at that. Give my love to Jacques.”

  “Yes, of course. You can help me with the fete I am planning for the villagers when I see you next.”

  “And we can have a special event or two for women only, wake up those rural Frenchies to their femmes’ rights!” she said, and the line went dead.

  I did not know whether to laugh or cry. Perhaps I should suggest to Winston that he simply send Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont to deal with Hitler and get everything over with right away.

  I stood and went out into the downstairs hall to head for the kitchen to talk to Cook. But there, stepping out from underneath the staircase, ripping off her veiled hat and holding a revolver pointed directly at me in a shaking hand was Gladys, Duchess of Marlborough.

  Chapter Thirty

  My heart began to pound. Gladys, after all these years. With a gun!