Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey

by The Countess of Carnarvon

  Frederick Smith was just ten years older than Robert, extremely young for such a prestigious job. He had only been in his post for six months. As far as Robert was concerned, though, Mr Smith was cloaked in all the dignity and authority conferred by his position and the grandeur of the establishment. He felt apprehensive. Would he be out of his depth? Robert knew nothing at all about his new employer, or his household. He had accepted the post on the basis of Almina’s letter informing him of the change of plans. Neither side had seen any references. Robert was grateful when Mr Smith told him, ‘Once you have had your tea I shall show you the house. There is no need for you to come on duty tonight; be ready to start in the morning.’ He breathed a little more easily as the second footman showed him to his room to leave his things.

  After tea, Robert accompanied Mr Smith on his tour of the state rooms and principal bedrooms. Emerging from the back stairs, they first looked into Lord Carnarvon’s study and then a small and pretty pink room. ‘This is Lady Carnarvon’s sitting room though, of course, as you know, her ladyship is no longer living at Highclere.’ Robert nodded, and the subject of recent tumultuous events in the household was not mentioned again.

  The two men stepped into the Saloon and from there passed through the top door of the Library into the small, ornate Music Room with the beautifully painted ceiling and priceless embroideries. Smith took Robert through the tall gilded double doors into the elegant Drawing Room hung with green silks. Robert thought he had never seen such beautiful rooms and was particularly taken with the transition from one to another through a sequence of hidden or linen-fold panelled doors.

  The following morning, work began in earnest when Mr Smith showed him the series of rooms downstairs where Robert would spend a great deal of his working days. Smith took him to the strong room and swung open the heavy steel door to the safe. He produced a long list and handed it to Robert. ‘This is the Bretby service, that’s the Chesterfield one. This one here is used for luncheon, that for breakfast. I will let you know if the silver is to be required of an evening. This is entirely your responsibility, so please take good care of all of it.’ ‘Yes, Mr Smith,’ replied Robert.

  Several days elapsed before Robert had occasion even to see his employer. Lord Carnarvon was only just back from his trip to the States. The return from the sunshine and distractions of Florida to the reality of his life without Catherine at Highclere, and the absence of Tanis, was taking its toll. The pattern of his days at this time of the year did not vary. He rose every morning at six and breakfasted on fruit and a cup of tea before climbing into the Rolls-Royce and setting off to Harry Cottril’s yard in Lambourn to ride work. Donald Alder, the chauffeur, had to go to collect the post and would hand it to Lord Carnarvon as he climbed into the car. Porchey developed a habit of skimming through the correspondence looking for the letters he wanted, most particularly those from Tanis, and dropping anything that looked like a bill or something similarly dull through the car window onto the gravel as he sped off. Robert Taylor would then have to scrabble around collecting up the discarded letters and deposit them on His Lordship’s secretary’s desk.

  Robert weathered his first mornings with Lord Carnarvon but ran into trouble a couple of days later when he answered the telephone downstairs. The lady explained that she was calling for Lord Carnarvon about plans for the weekend, and rattled off a long list of names of people coming to stay including a Mrs Saunderson. Robert desperately tried to keep up as he scribbled them all down but, before he knew it, she cheerily hung up. Robert went to consult Mr Smith who thought that, since Mrs Saunderson was in fact the name of the housekeeper, it would be wise to confirm the list with His Lordship. When Smith broached the subject with Lord Carnarvon later that afternoon, his employer’s response was, ‘If this new chap can’t take a message, sack him.’

  Smith made no comment, merely withdrew and, having put two and two together, deduced that the lady must have been Lady Evelyn, whom he telephoned to clarify arrangements. He was highly amused by the whole thing and did his best to reassure Robert, who nonetheless was quaking in fear that he would be sent back to his mother in Wales. But as he subsequently observed, Smith knew how to handle Lord Carnarvon and there was no more said about the matter.

  Lady Evelyn, Sir Brograve, Miss Patricia, her nanny and Patricia’s beloved dog Tom Thumb duly turned up for the weekend, followed by several more guests, all of whom were settled by Smith and Mrs Saunderson into the rooms that had been prepared for them. Robert encountered His Lordship again that weekend, when he rang the Red Staircase bell to alert the staff to the fact that he was retiring for the night. Whoever was on duty would run to bid him goodnight and see if there was anything he required.

  On the Saturday, His Lordship, who had taken to retiring earlier than he used to, rang at half past ten. Robert attended and exchanged his first words with his employer.

  ‘Please ensure my guests have everything they need.’ Porchey might have been feeling somewhat less the soul of the party these days, but he was still anxious that everyone have fun.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ replied Robert, thankful that His Lordship seemed to have overlooked the telephone message incident.

  As Lord Carnarvon climbed the stairs to his bedroom, Robert headed for the Drawing Room that he so loved, to clear glasses and return with more drinks. Every drink was still served in a fresh glass. Standards would be maintained. Once the last guests had gone upstairs he could clear and tidy and head for his own bed. He retired to sleep exhausted but happy in his new life, which was more than could be said for Lord Carnarvon.

  11

  Two Divorces and a Wedding

  On 22 April 1936, Lady Carnarvon was granted a divorce and custody of her children on the grounds of her husband’s adultery. Catherine was just thirty-five years old and had spent almost all her adult life with Porchey. Now that period was practically over, though it would take another few months for the divorce to be declared final.

  Porchey was relieved that progress was being made and telephoned Tanis to tell her the news. She was pleased for him, but still evasive about what would happen next in their relationship. The only concrete thing she said was that she was heading for Hollywood, leaving New York in a few weeks’ time.

  If Porchey fretted over his love’s steady progress away from him, he tried not to let her know it. Besides, he was also genuinely pleased for her and delighted to be able to ask her to give his regards to Bing Crosby, with whom he’d recently played golf at Everglades. The flat-racing season was about to start and he had high hopes of a Derby winner. Life was looking up.

  That summer Tanis sent letters full of detail about her charming Hollywood house and how much she loved the beautiful roses that Porchey had been clever enough to send her, but very little in response to his suggestion that he come out to join her. She signed off, ‘You sound awfully sure of yourself and of your own mind. I wish I could say the same for myself.’ She was tossing and turning but sent ‘as ever masses of love’.

  Months passed with little shift in relations. In July Porchey went to Baden-Baden to take a cure for his back injury. Tanis’s letters referred to the furious reaction of her father, Mr Benjamin Guinness, to certain rumours that had started to circulate about her lifestyle in Hollywood. Tanis was at pains to stress to Porchey that, though she might once or twice have stayed up all night hosting her parties, she was otherwise living a model existence. She had finally succeeded in getting her script to Mervyn LeRoy, a director at MGM, and was on tenterhooks waiting to know what would happen next. She mentioned in the same letter that she was distressed by the news she’d had from her brother, Loel Guinness, about their friend, Hugh Lygon. Apparently Hugh had been killed in a freak accident on a motoring trip to Germany. After everything that had befallen the unfortunate family, it was a terrible loss, and Tanis commented to Porchey that they must both write to poor Sibell immediately.

  Sibell Lygon, Hugh’s sister, had spent a lot of time with Catherine and Porche
y at Highclere in 1931. She was one of four clever and rather racy Lygon girls who delighted in throwing decadent parties at Madresfield Court, the ancient family seat, much to their starchy eldest brother’s disgust. The Lygons had become the subject of a huge society scandal when their father, William Lygon, the 7th Earl Beauchamp, had been ‘outed’ by his brother-in-law as a homosexual; a criminal offence at the time. Lord Beauchamp had to flee Britain to avoid prison. His children were devastated. Although some society hostesses refused afterwards to receive his daughters, Highclere proved a sanctuary. Now Sibell was suffering once again. Porchey wrote immediately to offer his condolences and invite her to stay, but it was to be another year before Sibell returned to Highclere.

  Porchey’s cousin by marriage, Evelyn Waugh, was devastated by Hugh Lygon’s death. The two had been great friends and possibly lovers at Oxford, and afterwards Waugh spent a great deal of time at Madresfield. Of all Waugh’s many adopted country houses and aristocratic families, it was the Lygons of Madresfield Court that came closest to capturing his heart. Hugh’s death planted the seed of anguish that led to his great novel Brideshead Revisited, about a scandal-hit family of Anglo-Catholic aristocrats in desperate self-destructive decline.

  Perhaps the news of sudden death made Tanis reflective. Towards the end of the month she wrote to thank Porchey for his recent letter, seemingly a rather serious declaration of love and purpose. It had made her cry, she said. Why didn’t he come out to New York in early November and they could discuss things? She, meanwhile, had tired of waiting in Hollywood for a signal from Mervyn LeRoy and was embarking on a trip through Mexico to Havana and thence back to New York.

  It was precisely the news that Porchey had been waiting almost a year for. He was jubilant and set off to London at once, to buy a ring. He spent the next six weeks at Highclere entertaining on a lavish scale, all gloom forgotten. On one particular weekend in October he invited a collection of close friends to celebrate his absolute belief that the woman he loved would soon be his wife, and a new phase of his life was beginning. He was joined by Prince Ali Khan, by his old chum Blandford, who had succeeded his father to become the 10th Duke of Marlborough two years previously, by Alfred Duff Cooper, and Prince George, Duke of Kent, among others. It is safe to say that for the duration of their visit, Porchey did not ring the bell to inform the staff that he was retiring to bed until a great deal later than half past ten.

  Robert was by this time familiar with Highclere’s code of spectacular hospitality, but he had never seen anything like this. The house was merry again and packed to the rafters with guests, their wives, their valets and ladies’ maids. When it came to dress for dinner, the Gallery thronged with hovering valets waiting to be called in to assist with ties, coats or shoelaces. The ladies’ maids fluttered around their mistresses and between their rooms, begging extra hair clips from one another en route. That weekend the kitchen had to provide dinner for ninety-five: twenty-five upstairs, seventy below. At Highclere, every courtesy was extended to visiting staff as well as to their employers.

  Over cigars in the dining room, the Duke of Kent leant in to Porchey to ask him whether he could rely on his support should matters come to a head with David, as his brother the King was called by intimates. Startled, Porchey replied that he could indeed. The Prince said no more about it on that occasion, but his evident worry confirmed what Porchey had heard from Duff Cooper and Lady Diana on a previous occasion. The Duff Coopers had, somewhat to their surprise, been invited to join the King and Mrs Simpson on what became a notorious cruise around the Adriatic aboard the yacht Nahlin, over the summer. They had both found it rather trying. The King and his mistress were crabby and tense with each other by day, and caroused by night. Duff Cooper, who was himself an inveterate drinker and bon viveur, was nonetheless irritated by the King’s preference for lunchtime cocktails and card games over visits to any of the treasures of the ancient world that surrounded them. Diana found Mrs Simpson’s lack of courtesy, both to the assembled company and the dignitaries they encountered along the way, hard to stomach. It had been a spiteful, drunken, claustrophobic catastrophe, and they had been relieved to leave.

  It had also become perfectly clear to them that David intended to marry Wallis. Rumours to the same effect had been circling for months by the time the Prince spoke to Porchey at Highclere. If the King’s indifference to matters of state was a worry for his government, his lack of interest in the traditional rituals of court also generated friction. The coveted presentation at court, whereby young girls made their official entrance into society by being presented to the monarch at the debutantes’ ball at Buckingham Palace, was that summer brushed aside. Edward VIII decided to use a garden party for the occasion. Halfway through he got bored and told those debutantes who had not yet performed their curtsey to consider themselves officially presented. He then took off to play golf with Mrs Simpson. On one hand it might seem understandable to prefer the direction of one’s own time to the stuffiness of ancient ritual, but it was also a dismissal of the dreams and aspirations of a great many people. Society was not impressed.

  A week after PG’s quiet word, Porchey set off for New York. On 2 November his divorce from Catherine became absolute. That very day he steamed past Staten Island amid a flurry of newspaper reports on both sides of the Atlantic announcing that he had sailed to America to marry the Hon. Mrs Tanis Montagu. Porchey had not been at all circumspect about his conviction that his happiness was almost a settled thing, and consequently British society had been speculating about a new Countess of Carnarvon for weeks. He would come to rue his lack of discretion, bitterly.

  Porchey made straight for Tanis’s hotel. It had been six months since he’d seen her and he could barely contain himself in the cab. Tanis’s maid, Serena, opened the door of the suite to Lord Carnarvon and curtseyed. Porchey bustled in, all smiles, only to be told by an embarrassed Serena that, yes, Madam was indeed returned from Havana, but that she was not currently at home. Porchey was somewhat deflated but even more so when Serena admitted, at some prompting from him, that Madam was out with another gentleman. Porchey was astounded, and left without a word.

  An hour later he received a call at his hotel. Tanis was desperate to see him, could he come over? He was thrilled at the sound of her voice and rushed round, all anger momentarily forgotten. Tanis admitted that she had been feeling doubtful, but they spent a wonderful evening together and she seemed to be swept away by Porchey’s enthusiasm and charm. ‘So you’re feeling sure now?’ Porchey asked her. ‘I’m fairly sure now,’ came her answer. ‘Fairly?’ Porchey exploded.

  They talked long into the night, getting more and more exasperated, and each claiming that the other was quite impossible. Finally they agreed, and toasted their decision in champagne. This was more like it, but still hardly what Porchey had been hoping for. They retired for bed that night feeling exhausted rather than romantic.

  Porchey spent the following day making arrangements. He acquired a special licence for them to be married in Baltimore, from the British consulate. He and Tanis had agreed that getting married there rather than in New York might minimise the number of journalists. Porchey also booked a suite at the Lord Baltimore hotel for the night before, and their wedding night. That evening they gave a small drinks party for their New York friends. Though the couple had hoped to keep them secret, the press reported details of the wedding plans.

  When Tanis arrived at the hotel in Baltimore on the eve of their wedding day, she appeared to be in a bad mood. Having dined with Porchey, she insisted on sleeping on a different floor of the hotel, with Serena, and left him to his own devices. Disgruntled, he took himself off to bed. Barely had he fallen asleep than the door opened and there was Tanis, fully dressed and brandishing a torch.

  ‘I can’t do it, Porchey. I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you.’

  He sat up in bed as she flung the ring he had just given her and various other pieces of jewellery, pearls, brooches, in his general directio
n. They whistled past his head and landed on the counterpane. ‘I’m going now. Don’t look for me, just go back to England and forget all about me.’

  With that, she turned on her heel and left an astonished Porchey reeling. He felt desperate. His reception in America had been less satisfactory than he’d wished for, it was true, but he felt that if only they could marry, everything would be resolved. He called the night porter for coffee and set about gathering the jewellery together. What now? Feeling dreadful, he called his sister.

  It was breakfast time in London. Porchey was cheered a little the moment he heard Eve’s familiar tones, full of affection and sympathy. She listened to his account of events and then announced, ‘Well, it’s really too early here but I shall do it nevertheless: I’m going to open a bottle of champagne and toast your good fortune with a full glass. You don’t know how lucky you are!’

  ‘How can you say such a thing when you know I love her?’ asked a plaintive Porchey.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Eve, who was on occasion very like their mother, Almina. ‘Tanis was right about one thing: you’ve got to forget her. Now, get on a train to New York and come home.’

  Unfortunately for Porchey, he didn’t follow either his ex-lover’s or his sister’s advice. He made it back to New York and booked himself into the Ritz-Carlton for a night, planning to buy a passage back to Southampton the following day. He took the precaution of informing the concierge that he would accept no calls, but hadn’t banked on the ‘plumber’ who came to repair a basin turning out to be a journalist interested in his side of the story. The press were in full cry, of course; it was a wonderful story. Overwrought and tired, Porchey lost his temper. ‘Everyone’s very sympathetic,’ insisted the reporter. ‘Besides, I can tell you where she is.’

  When Porchey rang a certain hotel in Washington looking for Tanis, he discovered that the reporter hadn’t lied. Tanis sounded contrite about her behaviour but was adamant that she would not change her mind. ‘Could we talk about it in a civilised way,’ she asked, ‘over lunch? I’d like to say goodbye properly.’