Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey

by The Countess of Carnarvon

  One particular practical problem was just the same for Catherine and her mother as it had been for Almina and hers. Tradition dictated that after the marriage service, the wedding should be celebrated in a house belonging to the bride’s family or friends. Mr and Mrs Percy Griffiths’ house in town was comfortable but not magnificent or spacious enough to host the wedding breakfast of the future Earl and Countess of Carnarvon. Almina must surely have recalled the sensitive enquiry undertaken by Elsie, in far more delicate circumstances. Almina’s mother, Mrs Wombwell, had not been received by the Carnarvons on account of the rumours about Almina’s paternity, and it was therefore quite impossible that she should host the occasion in her own home. With the minimum of fuss, Elsie had secured the use of a friend’s house in Mayfair, a neutral space for the celebrations. A generation later and the motivation was different but the need was the same. Almina enquired among her many friends, and Lord Leigh very generously offered Mrs Wendell the use of his house in Grosvenor Square.

  Three days before the wedding, Almina hosted a show-stopping ball for her daughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert, and Miss Catherine Wendell, at Seamore Place. The Times reported that 1,000 people were invited, including HRH Prince George, Lord Louis Mountbatten and his fiancée Miss Edwina Ashley, dukes, marchionesses, earls, ambassadors and all who were considered amusing in the summer of 1922.

  On Monday 17 July, Catherine dressed for her wedding in her bedroom at cousin Gertrude’s house. She was attended by her mother, cousin and younger sister, Philippa, who was one of her nine bridesmaids. Doll, her maid, bustled in and out of the room, fetching flowers and more hairpins and endless cups of tea. Catherine made use of these moments to prepare herself. The marriage would be celebrated at St Margaret’s Westminster, the very same church where, twenty-seven years previously, her soon to be mother-in-law, Almina, had married the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. Many of her own family had made the voyage from the United States and her mother had invited numerous London friends. Nevertheless, most of the 700 guests were connections of the Carnarvons’. Alongside her excitement at the prospect of marrying the man she adored, there was nervousness at being under the spotlight. The press would be there at her entrance and exit from the church and Catherine knew that every detail of her attire and demeanour would be scrutinised, first by the wedding guests, then by the readers of the following morning’s papers. But she also knew she had many supporters in Porchey’s family and intimate circle. She was especially pleased that Prince George had agreed to be the guest of honour. He was a particular friend of hers and his presence was an honour that gave her confidence a considerable boost.

  Catherine’s exquisite wedding clothes must have reassured her that she was looking her very best. She wore a softly draped pale ivory satin dress, with wide chiffon sleeves and silver filigree and pearl-encrusted embroidery, and a four-yard-long Court train, complete with a veil of the finest silk tulle, five and a half yards long, which was held in place by ‘a classical bandeau of silver and diamond-centred orange blossoms’. Mr Reville of Hanover Square was her couturier, and his skills with draping were declared genius-like by the press. The first articles covering her fashion choices were rushed out to appear in that same day’s evening editions, illustrated with one of Mr Reville’s sketches.

  Catherine was accompanied to the church by her elder brother, Jac, who was to give her away. He had just become engaged to Miss Eileen Carr, by now a great friend of Catherine’s, and one of her bridesmaids. He must have allowed his own good mood and Catherine’s evident happiness to silence any doubts about his future brother-in-law.

  They were met at the church by all nine of Catherine’s bridesmaids and her single pageboy, Master Rennie Maudsley. He was the small son of a family friend, whose nominal role was to assist her with her train but whose main purpose was to look terribly sweet. It was a blustery day, to judge from a candid photo of the bridesmaids assembling, their skirts of canary-yellow georgette over satin whipping about their legs. They all wore magnificent broad-brimmed hats trimmed with flowers and yellow ostrich plumes, and carried large bouquets of yellow roses. The lavish flowers had been purchased by Almina at vast expense from one of London’s most fashionable florists. Catherine’s bouquet was a long trailing creation of yellow and white roses and delicate sprays of foliage that reached almost to the ground.

  The bride arrived at the church door to the sound of the 7th Queen’s Own Hussars’ regimental call and made her graceful progress up the aisle on Jac’s arm to greet the groom, who was wearing morning dress. If she felt nervous as she took Porchey’s hand and prepared to assume her new role, then the nerves had dissolved by the time she emerged, a married woman, scarcely forty-five minutes later. In the photo of Catherine and Porchey leaving the church after the service they are both laughing, apparently full of that euphoria that results from the combination of great happiness and release from tension.

  They proceeded to 31 Grosvenor Square where they and their 700 guests assembled to celebrate. Lord Leigh’s house had been filled to bursting with magnificent arrangements of the same yellow roses that were featured in the bridal party’s bouquets.

  There is a beautiful menu card, festooned with a bower of pink roses, that records the sumptuous wedding breakfast. Guests were served a feast of classical French cuisine, including salmon cutlets and a lobster salad Parisienne, noisettes of lamb, crèmes de volaille and truffles, before sandwiches and patisserie. It was all prepared by a small army of staff, an assembly of Lord Leigh’s employees and the Seamore Place and Highclere staff, who had been drafted in to provide extra support.

  The party was a triumph for Almina, who had masterminded it, as much as for Marian, who was its official hostess. Judging from the expressions of its principal participants, the bride and groom enjoyed themselves immensely. In between all the chat and the artfully prepared delicacies, the wedding party had some official photos taken, many of which appeared in the press the following day. Porchey stands amidst the multitude of behatted bridesmaids with a proud and contented expression. Prince George, an extremely handsome young man, stands beside him as guest of honour wearing the ever so slightly diffident look of a person who is asked to attend—and be photographed at—many of his friends’ most important social occasions. Catherine is seated in front of Prince George and smiles radiantly, like a woman filled with joy and excitement.

  The following day saw the wedding, also at St Margaret’s Westminster, of Lord Louis Mountbatten, great-grandson of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and Miss Edwina Ashley. Miss Ashley was the heiress to her grandfather Sir Ernest Cassel’s vast fortune. Sir Ernest had been Britain’s greatest financier of the Edwardian age, so Edwina was virtually the richest girl in England. Many of the guests at Porchey and Catherine’s wedding, including the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and the Marquess of Milford Haven, stayed in town to attend the Mountbatten–Ashley nuptials. It was an even glitzier occasion than the previous day’s, with the Prince of Wales standing as best man.

  Lord and Lady Porchester did not attend this wedding. The previous afternoon, even as their wedding guests enjoyed the last of the ices and coffee and petits fours, Catherine had slipped into her going-away costume. She and Porchey set off to motor down to Highclere, where she would spend her first night as a married woman.

  Streatfield, the house steward, a tall, venerable, bewhiskered man who remembered when Porchey was in his cradle, was too old to be dashing up to London to assist at the wedding. He stayed at the house in order to welcome the newly-weds. It was not the first time Catherine had been driven up the gravel drive, handed out of the car by the house steward and then crossed the Saloon to take some supper in the Dining Room. But never before had she afterwards ascended the imposing Oak Staircase in Porchey’s company. Streatfield showed them himself to the East Anglia bedroom and left them there to begin their married life in earnest.

  4

  From Honeymoon to Highclere

  On Christmas Day 1922, Porchey and
Catherine sailed for India from Tilbury Docks, arriving in Bombay some ten days later. They had spent five months at Highclere after their wedding, but now Porchey was keen to return to his regiment, which had been posted back to Mhow. They left everyone at the castle in a state of tremendous nervous excitement. At the beginning of November, Lord Carnarvon had received a cable from Howard Carter, who was in Luxor, starting on what the men had reluctantly agreed would have to be the last season of excavations. They had spent years searching for a lost tomb, a royal burial site in the Valley of the Kings that had escaped the attentions of grave robbers and held all its secrets and treasures intact. But archaeology was expensive and the Earl was becoming worried about money. He could no longer afford to fund the works, hoping against hope that their efforts would pay off. On 6 November Carter cabled his friend and patron. ‘At last have made wonderful discovery in the Valley. A magnificent tomb with seals intact. Recovered same for your arrival. Congratulations.’

  Highclere immediately erupted into a frenzy of activity as a jubilant Lord Carnarvon made hasty arrangements to travel to Egypt. He was almost beside himself. If this really was the untouched tomb of a pharaoh, it was the biggest discovery in the history of archaeology and the vindication of everything he had spent the last sixteen years working for. Almina had almost always joined him on his trips to Egypt, but this year she was suffering from chronic pain in her jaw and opted to stay at home. Eve was also an enthusiastic supporter of her father’s investigations, and decided to accompany him. Porchey, by contrast, had never shared his father’s passion for Egyptology, never been much interested in the artefacts or the endless poring over scholarly reference works. When the telegram announcing Carter’s breakthrough arrived, he was pleased for him and for his father but essentially unmoved.

  The festivities in Luxor when Lord Carnarvon arrived were magnificent; he threw a lavish party at the Winter Hotel, open to everyone. The scale of the job was becoming apparent, though. Not only were there months’ worth of highly technical excavations to carry out, there was also a fund-raising and publicity drive to coordinate. Lord Carnarvon left Carter dealing with the archaeology and returned to England to deal with the press and promotion. He was summoned to Buckingham Palace to tell King George and Queen Mary in person about the implications of the find.

  Christmas was spent quietly at Highclere; Porchey and Catherine’s departure was something of a sideshow. It seemed probable that the family wouldn’t all be together again for at least a couple of years. As it turned out, that was the last time Catherine ever saw her father-in-law. The next time she embraced Eve, both women were in mourning and Catherine had become Lady Carnarvon.

  Porchey and Catherine, like the rest of the world, read the newspapers over the next few months as the story spiralled into a media sensation. The tomb was unsealed on 16 February 1923, and readers from New York to Tokyo marvelled at the beautiful objects that were revealed. As the men who had discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb, the Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter had become as close to overnight global celebrities as was possible in the 1920s. Catherine devoured Eve’s letters, fascinated by every description of the latest artefact.

  Porchey was thrilled for his father, but his attention was focused on getting settled back into regimental life and helping Catherine to adjust to the new reality of being a soldier’s wife overseas. He had assured her before they left that his posting would not be in the slightest bit onerous, but Catherine had no experience of India, its climate or its people’s customs. She had admitted to a certain nervousness on the voyage over. For this child of the New World, it must have been rather odd to fetch up in one of the Old World’s most politically important dominions.

  The 7th Hussars were posted on a three-year tour to India that Porchey expected to be a return to the pre-war idyll of polo, parties and endless gin and tonic on the veranda, interspersed with the occasional bout of military exercises. All his life Porchey was a fanatic for horses, racing and polo, and he couldn’t wait to get back to the company of his friends and the familiarity of his regiment.

  There are photos of Porchey and Catherine, newly arrived, visiting Government House, Bombay. She is elegant in the ankle-length, dropped-waist dress and attached cape that was the height of fashion, worn with a cloche hat trimmed with a trailing scarf, a string of pearls around her neck. Porchey is in the three-piece lounge suit of an off-duty officer, with slicked-back hair and neat moustache. They both look rather uncomfortable, perched on the floral armchairs of the Governor’s official residence.

  From Bombay they travelled by train to Mhow to join the regiment. Marcelle, Catherine’s maid, and His Lordship’s valet had gone ahead with the luggage, to help the local staff to prepare the bungalow for their arrival. Marcelle had been with Catherine since she was fourteen years old. She was the daughter of Gertrude’s French hairdresser, and had been bestowed with the pet name ‘Doll’ in the early days, when she herself was still a teenager. Doll was as much a confidante as she was a lady’s maid.

  If one had been a guest at Porchey and Catherine’s bungalow, Bronx Hall, with its grand piano, tiger-skin rugs and carefully watered croquet lawns, one might have been forgiven for thinking that the British were living just as they had thirty years previously. Alongside this sense of continuity with the past, though, was a very different future moving ever closer. The impact of the war on India’s sense of itself, and on its position on the world stage, had been dramatic. Thousands of members of the Army of British India had fought and died bravely for the Allied cause, alongside Britons, Canadians, Australians and soldiers of other Commonwealth states. In 1920 India had been one of the founding members of the League of Nations, the great postwar political project that was designed to ensure that such a calamitous conflict could never happen again. The long slow process of movement towards independence for India was gathering steam. But on the ground, little had changed. British India was to all intents and purposes still at the height of its pomp and Porchey and Catherine were at the social pinnacle of the Raj.

  There are numerous photos taken at the racetrack, polo cups and picnics. Scraps of information in Catherine’s flowing hand tell us that Porchey played polo at the Ezra Cup in Calcutta, Rajpipla Cup in Bombay and the Subaltern’s Cup in Meerut. There is a snapshot of Porchey and his three teammates dressed in their striped colours and bright white jodhpurs, on horseback, sticks held easily upright in their right hands. In one photo, presumably taken at a picnic, an Indian boy of perhaps fourteen stares straight at the camera, bare-legged, as two Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets lean over a fire on which a pan of water boils. They seem to be supervising the making of tea.

  Catherine appears in some pictures, always with a parasol and a hat, a spectator at endless polo games. She rode herself, of course, and is seated side-saddle in one shot, as Porchey holds her horse’s head. In another photo he has his arm around her waist and the two of them stare at the camera with the air of people who are not yet accustomed to having snapshots taken together. It is noticeable that when he stands alongside his wife, his face is habitually set in a firm and serious expression, as if he were feeling the weight of his responsibility as a husband. With his friends he seems more at ease, pipe clamped between grinning teeth. Catherine sometimes smiles tentatively.

  For all the luxury and gaiety, it must have been a challenge for her—all that heat and new people and new customs. The wife of a soldier stationed abroad is forced into a small world, with other military families for most of her company. The wife of a British Army officer in India in 1923 was further isolated from her surroundings by class, caste and the full weight of the Empire. Barely had Catherine started to get used to it when Porchey had to rush to his father’s sickbed. Ten anxious days later her husband’s telegram confirmed her worst fears and told her she had a new name, a new role and a new home. Catherine consoled herself with the thought that she would soon see her beloved mother, Gar, and her sister Philippa. She had missed them both terribly an
d now, more than ever, she longed to have her family around her.

  On a sunny day in August 1923, four months after the 5th Earl’s death, the new Countess of Carnarvon sat in the Morning Room at Highclere enjoying a moment of calm. It was a lovely pale pink room with delicate plasterwork on the ceiling, the smallest and cosiest on the ground floor. Catherine loved it, and had already started to call it her ‘sitting room’. She typically spent the first couple of hours each day there, sitting on one of the comfortable sofas writing letters and planning or revising the day’s meals. The only worry that morning was that her cook, Mrs Oram, had just handed in her notice. She would write to Mrs Hunt’s agency for domestic staff and ask them to interview some candidates.

  Catherine crossed to the corner of the room and pulled the bell, which was connected to the bell board on the wall of the staff hallway. Downstairs a red disc appeared, identifying the room in question, and the steward’s room boy, Marceau, ran off at high speed to find a footman. When Charles appeared she asked him to please bring some coffee. She wanted to finish the most urgent correspondence before her mother and Philippa, who had come to stay, joined her. Though there was probably no real hurry. Her mother in particular had never been the earliest riser.

  Catherine finished her letters and began pasting wedding photos and letters into her personal scrapbook. The heavy, leather-bound album was embossed with the letters CP for ‘Catherine Porchester’ and had been a gift after her wedding. Now, since her husband’s succession, the initials were no longer correct; not that it mattered very much. She looked up as the door opened and her sister appeared.