American Duchess

by Karen Harper

  My having been in Europe these years gave me an objectivity about things in America. So what if manners had changed here at home and men no longer doffed their hats to women? I was blessed with a man who spoiled me and adored me. I got on with both of my very different sons and was thrilled to be a grandmother. And, after everything I had been through, I treasured all that.

  AFTER THE FUNERAL, I cherished some time with family and friends, especially the week we spent with my brothers Mike and Willie, even some Vanderbilt relatives Mother had been at war with since her divorce.

  We also spent a lovely week with Mike’s family at his magnificent new house at Manalapan near Palm Beach, Florida. It was there I heard, quite indirectly, some advice that Mother had shared with a friend but not with me.

  “Look here, on this condolence card,” Mike told me as I sat with him and his wife under a big umbrella on the beach. “It is from a friend of hers, Elsa Maxwell, see?” he said, thrusting it at Jacques and me and then pulling it back to himself and removing his sunglasses to squint at it. “She says Mother wrote her that her trouble with life was that she was born too late to fit into the old days and too soon for modern times, so that she wanted to change the next generation. If you want to be happy, Mother wrote this woman, live peacefully with your own dear ones in your own era.”

  Peacefully! I thought. Not Alva V. Belmont. Not if you stood in the way of something she wanted. But perhaps I was more like her than I wanted to admit. Because right now, I wanted to fund and build a children’s hospital near Saint-Georges-Motel, and I was going to do it!

  ON A HILL just outside the village, I bought property and retained an architect, plumbers, and electricians to build the children’s hospital and tuberculosis sanitarium. Jacques supported this project of my heart both morally and financially, and, once finished, it housed eighty youngsters, mostly aged one to five years, although several of the initial patients, like dear Katrine from the village, were older.

  They were calling it “state of the art,” and it boasted wards, playrooms, and nursing staff facilities. I made certain there was also room for outside activities and play, as the young patients’ strength permitted.

  I was certain there was nothing more innovative or up-to-date in Paris or London. In the sanitarium—our first patient was young Katrine and one of her brothers from the village—patients lived in separate, glass-walled rooms instead of wards. Each chamber had a built-in bath and each patient had toys galore.

  “How is my dear Katrine today?” I asked as I stopped by her bed where she was cuddling a cloth doll. A bedspread of Balsan “blue-horizon” color was draped over her.

  “Still coughing, madame. And my Dolly is too, see?” she said, giving the doll a few jerks. “But when I am well, must she still be ill and stay for the next girl in this place?”

  “No, for you will get well together!” I promised her and squeezed her toes through the bedcovers. “Of course you will take her home with you to keep an eye on her just the way the nurses do you here.”

  Her face lit in a smile. “Then I must get well soon, so she will too!”

  A nurse bustled in. “Your cousin is here, madame, the one who paints and talks so much,” she told me as I scribbled in my ever-present notebook to buy more dolls so that they could go home with girl patients. And something likewise for the boys? I would have to ask around, but you might know Winston was here. Not my cousin exactly, but he always made such a stir.

  I blew a kiss to Katrine and went out through my office and the back door, without finding Winston. Shaking my head, I strolled quickly back toward our gate, but saw only Clemmie coming out to meet me. I hugged her, and she told me, “He could not wait to get painting and found out you were what he calls ‘nursing’ again. He is painting the moat, fashioning it into a pond but is quite distressed there are no waves in it today,” she added with a little laugh as the two of us headed toward the château together. “But he has solved that handily and said to tell you that necessity is the mother of invention. He insists that is a Churchill quote not one from old times.”

  “So what has he done now?” I asked as the moat came in sight. Was he clear around the back of it?

  But I spotted him, sitting with his easel at the very bend of it around the side. “Consuelo, my dear,” he called out when he saw us coming. “I had to catch the light just right to make waves.”

  “You are ever making waves!” I teased as we joined him, and then I saw what he meant. He had his valet—who was secretly also his bodyguard—sitting in an old rowboat in the moat, making waves with an oar.

  “Cannot hug you right now, or I would smear you up with this off-white color I need for whitecaps,” he told me and bent back to his work. “When the time is right, carpe diem.”

  “My,” Clemmie said, “but you are just chock-full of old Latin sayings today.”

  He ignored that but soon turned toward me with a not only serious, but stern and sad look on his face. “Consuelo, we cannot stay long this time. Sunny’s ailing—actually, from cancer.”

  I gasped. “I heard he was ill, but—neither Bert nor Ivor told me.”

  “He just told them, as I am telling you—so that you can be of support to the boys, I mean. I asked Clemmie not to tell you so that I could. That is why,” he said, looking back at his half-finished painting, “the inland seas are rough today. Hell’s gates, if that little hospital of yours was not for children, I would admit myself straightaway. A psychiatric ward for me. I am blue in the face from arguing that Germany is out for blood and land again—France’s and ours.”

  “I am sorry about the duke—Sunny—and the new threat to peaceful times,” I told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. Clemmie just shook her head as if she had had enough of all this nonstop German raving.

  He put his free hand over mine, though that seemed to have blue paint on it. “I will tell Sunny that you said that and meant it,” he said with a sniff as he put his brush down on the easel tray. He shouted, “You may stop making waves now, Thompson! Come get one of these damned cigars as thanks!

  “The thing is,” he said, turning again to face me, “Sunny still misses you, especially after the debacle with—with his second marriage. Well, all water over the milldam now. Time marches on, and death waits for no man, which is what is scaring me about Hitler and the return of the Huns.”

  His voice broke, and a tear streaked down his cheek. Clemmie put her arm around his ample waist. Pressing his lips hard together, he nodded at me, then flashed me that V sign of his that meant valor or some such. I made the same sign back and hurried inside to find Jacques.

  EIGHTEEN MONTHS AFTER my mother died, Bert telephoned me at Saint-Georges-Motel to tell me the duke was dead of cancer at age sixty-two. He raised his voice so I could hear and was almost shouting.

  “I know you will not come for the funeral, Mother, but please come soon after—to Blenheim. I need you here, at least for a little while. Of course Jacques is welcome too—always. Besides, your little namesake needs you to talk her out of fearing the ghost, since we will mostly live here now with the boon and the burden of Blenheim.”

  “Of course we will come,” I promised. Tears stung my eyes. I tried to keep my voice steady. “Blenheim will be different now that you are duke, in good and beautiful ways. After the service, when things calm down a bit, including the newspaper coverage, of course we will come.”

  “There is one other thing. Needless to say, there were several commemorations in the papers as well as the formal obituary. Lord Castlerosse wrote a memorial in the Sunday Express, which was terribly critical and cruel, but that is such a sensational rag. Winston wrote for the Times something about your marriage, saying it was unhappy and unsuccessful, but that both Father and ‘his first wife, had amazing gifts of charm and kindliness.’ I want you to know I love you, and I believe Father, in his own way, did too.”

  “I will thank Winston later for his kind words and I cherish yours, my dear, so let us just say that.
You do not need to mend bridges for your father.”

  “Righto. Well, of course Ivor misses you, obsessed with his art collecting as he is.”

  “I am glad you called me with the news, however sad,” I told him as tears slipped down my cheeks. “I am proud of the new duke and my firstborn son.”

  I guess I was crying audibly now, for he said, “I cried too. For all he should have done, could have been. But the water terraces here will be his legacy.”

  A name and a past writ in water, I thought as I replaced the receiver. One man passed, one era past, and a new one begun.

  I started to walk away, but just leaned against the wall. My knees began to shake, all of me. Whatever Marlborough—Sunny—had not been to me, he had been the father of my beloved children. He had given me the opportunity to reach outside myself to his dear people, so that I could be to them their “Angel of Woodstock.” Poor man, never truly happy, clinging to a past way of life. A difficult first marriage and pitiful second one: I could almost forgive him now that I had someone to truly love, someone who loved me.

  Poor man, going soon to dust among the long line of dukes he so venerated who had once held Blenheim. But I had hopes for our Bert’s leadership, hopes for the dear people there whom I would always love and cherish in my memory and heart.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Granny, I am so glad you’re here!” my beautiful eighteen-year-old granddaughter greeted me with a kiss and a hug and then hugged Jacques, too. “Everything is so exciting!”

  The grand staircase she had hurried down to meet me had never looked so lovely or filled with light. The marble bust of the first duke over the Saloon door might even have been smiling, and I felt a great weight lifted to be happy to be back for this event, though we’d visited Bert’s family here before. Yet this day with Sarah seemed special. I doubt that the vast building had changed, but with Bert’s family here, returning seemed like a homecoming.

  This July 7, 1939, we were at Blenheim for Sarah’s debutante ball, which was called by some in society the event of the summer season. It was almost like the old days under King Edward, I thought, as Sarah rattled off the names of guests who would be here. “Oh, and Father is so excited that the Duke of Kent has accepted. Royal family, but then I guess you knew them all!”

  “He is one I do not know, so that will be lovely.”

  As both Bert and Mary greeted us and words flew fast, I was hoping this would all indeed be lovely. Jacques was worried for France, because his countrymen were trying to ignore the German threat, and he had seen that all before. Winston, who would be here soon for this event, was ever dour over Adolf Hitler, who was dictator now, despite the fact that his title Der Fuhrer meant leader or even guide.

  We settled in our room, then had iced coffee and cakes with Bert’s family on the terrace overlooking the parterres the duke had worked so hard to build. Ivor had joined us now. He was here for the event, too, taking precious time from the art purchasing business he was building. I knew he was still itching for me to fulfill my promise to him, which I had reneged on twice before. He wanted me to visit his father’s grave with him. Jacques had said he understood, but I was reluctant.

  It was enough to be back in this massive palace with all the memories. At least Bert’s family’s living here helped to erase the hard times and sad legacy of Gladys, who, we had heard, was still in psychiatric care. We came here several times a year to see the children, and they came to visit us, but each time before this, the huge house itself oppressed me. At least we were outside now, for the views were always grand.

  “So, how is the new property you two bought in Florida?” Bert asked. “We shall love to visit you some winter, if we can get away.”

  Jacques said, “You do know your mother named it Casa Alva, yes? A fitting tribute to someone who was always buying and decorating, part of her mother’s heritage, since Consuelo does the same thing.”

  I reached out to playfully smack his arm. “As if you are an innocent bystander in all of that. Yes, we brought photographs to show you now that Casa Alva is all put to rights. We fell in love with the area—for the winters—when we were visiting my brother. It is a villa fronting the ocean about fifteen miles from Palm Beach with white stucco walls and graceful wrought iron. I must admit I shipped some of my most prized possessions there from Paris and Saint-Georges-Motel in case—well, in case things change,” I said with a sideward glance at the younger children who were kicking a football around on the grass while Sarah sat with us adults.

  Ivor said, “Wait until Winston gets here tomorrow if you want to hear carping that the British people are not alert to foreign dangers.”

  “Same with France,” Jacques said with a sigh. “Our officials want compromise with Berlin—no more war—but you cannot make friends with the devil. People go about saying ‘C’est la vie’ instead of realizing war could come again.”

  “Let’s just talk about tomorrow!” Sarah said, frowning and pouting. “Granny, you should see all the magnums of champagne that are here, the orchestra will be here soon and you simply must see my gown. You had a grand coming out, didn’t you? I mean way back when, in America.”

  “I did,” I told her, and described a bit of that day, but my mind skipped to the first time I met and danced with Jacques. And I recalled being here, at Blenheim, when the duke was so thrilled at the Prince of Wales’s and Alexandra’s first visit. It was hard to believe that my dear friend Alexandra had died fourteen years ago. So many of the important people who had been here then were . . . were simply gone.

  I blinked back tears but smiled at Sarah. “It will be a wonderful, memorable event, especially for you, so remember and cherish it always.”

  Bert beamed proudly, and melancholy Ivor even smiled.

  “I promised I would take a walk with Ivor, and so I shall,” I told them and stood. “Jacques, would you like to come along?”

  “I am dying to tell Bert about the new innovations on the planes,” he told me. “The Germans may have their Luftwaffe, but we will not be left behind! So you may leave me behind now, my dear.”

  Sarah popped up when the motorbus with the orchestra arrived and the others bustled off. It had been a hot summer, so I borrowed a parasol from Mary, took Ivor’s arm, and we started out.

  “I DIDN’T MEAN to insist,” Ivor said as we walked the lane toward Bladon church and its graveyard.

  “I know it means a lot to you for me to see his grave.”

  “Not so much that really, as I just want you to know that I mean to be buried there.”

  I gasped and turned him to me. “You are not keeping something from me? Your health—”

  “As up and down as ever, but no. I did not mean I have an imminent demise on the horizon.”

  “You would tell me if you did?”

  “I swear! Well, you mean that Father kept his cancer a secret.”

  “I was not part of his life then. He did not have to tell me. Listen, Ivor,” I said as we began to walk again toward the gate, “I want you to know that your father loved you very much. I think since you were sickly at first—”

  “And now.”

  “Do not say that. It scared him that he might lose you, so he pulled back a bit, perhaps did not treat you the way he did Bert.”

  “Bert the bold, Bert the heir—now duke. You know, I have found my own purpose in life, to encourage artists, preserve and even treasure their art, and if I had been the rough-and-tumble sort like Bert, perhaps I would never have seen the beauty in art—in life.”

  We walked across the road and went into the graveyard through the simple wooden gate that stood ajar. An elderly villager was cutting grass with a scythe around the farthest, oldest tombstones. He almost looked like those drawings of Father Time. Evidently, recognizing us, he snatched off his cap and stopped to stare.

  “I vow, ’tis the good duchess, one they used to call the angel,” he said.

  “It is indeed,” Ivor said, “just come to pay respects.”r />
  I would have talked to the man and asked his name, but he scurried out. I felt bad about that, but I appreciated his thoughtfulness. How long ago it seemed that I had visited the poor and ill roundabout Blenheim and had spent hours with dear, blind Mrs. Prattley.

  The 9th Duke of Marlborough’s grave was not grand or great, so I was surprised at that. The stone was fine, though, cleanly incised. Green turf covered it like a blanket. He had been gone six years already, I realized, as I read the dates. Perhaps I should have come sooner.

  As if Ivor had read my mind, he said, “If I lie here someday, come and visit. Sit down and stay a while with me.”

  “Pray God, if you lie here someday, I will be long gone for I wish a full life for you, my dearest. And you must not be so melancholy,” I said, squeezing his arm to my rib cage. “You have a long life ahead, and I hope you will find a wife and have a family of your own, for that is something that really matters as well as your pursuit of and love of art. But you know, it is so peaceful and beautiful here . . .”

  He bent to kiss my cheek. “Let’s go back,” he said. “I am grateful, though I do not live at Blenheim, that you are willing to come back. Come on, then, for this is Sarah’s special day, and you are special to her—and to me.”

  We went out the gate to the road. At least a dozen people stood there with more hurrying up. A woman I did not recognize called out, “So glad you come out of the big house to see us like you done years ago. I was Lizzie Millbank then, Your Grace . . .”

  Others called out their names or greetings, calling me duchess or Your Grace. Several said something about my being the good duchess. I shook everyone’s hands. Of all the accolades and honors I had been given lately, including the Legion of Honour award in Paris for starting my children’s hospital and helping with one in Paris, this moved me deeply. So why did I see doom on the horizon and still fear what was coming next?