At that point the Nineteenth Amendment to the American constitution needed only one more state to ratify it to gain the requisite number – three-quarters of the states – to give women the vote in America. It was no longer a matter of if, but when, and so with her crusading passion spent Alva decided to sell up in the USA and move to France too, to support Consuelo. Consuelo wryly observed that part of the attraction was the opportunity for Alva to build herself yet another grand house.
Consuelo returned to London in August 1920, put Sunderland House and Crowhurst on the market and tidied up her life in England before moving permanently to France. She leased a villa near Alva’s property at Èze-sur-Mer, but she also had a town house in Paris, given to her by her father before his death, which made a convenient base when she travelled to England to visit her sons and to attend the divorce hearing, held on 9 and 10 November. For this event she dressed entirely in black but for strands of pearls around her long neck, and before she left the court she pulled a black silk scarf from her muff and tied it over her head, concealing her hair and face from the photographers waiting outside. The divorce was duly granted, although it would not become absolute for six months – in May 1921 – and Consuelo retired to the South of France to live quietly in the meantime.
On 1 June Gladys moved into Ivor Guest’s Paris house and Marlborough inserted a betrothal notice in The Times. The press had its usual field day: all of Gladys’s personal and family history – her father’s manslaughter charge, her own rumoured relationship with the German prince as well as other ‘engagements’ attributed to her – was splashed about and commented upon, as was the canard that Gladys had been Consuelo’s bridesmaid. Marlborough might have taken fright at this, but it was Gladys who hesitated, and this steadied him. Up to a point, being Marlborough’s mistress had suited her perfectly; she enjoyed defying convention and she was not at all sure that she wanted to be his wife despite their having been happy together for so many years. Surprised, he commented that she had surely had enough time to make up her mind. On reflection, she decided that, after all, she would like to give the Duke a son – she was forty, but there was still time. The marriage went ahead in Paris.
Gladys had been raised a Roman Catholic and insisted on both a civil and a religious ceremony, even though the Catholic Church did not recognise Marlborough’s divorce. There was some difficulty getting a clergyman to conduct the service in a private chapel at the Paris home of one of Gladys’s friends. Five priests declined, but at the eleventh hour Sunny brought over the Blenheim chaplain. On 25 June the civil ceremony was held at the British Consulate, just as Randolph and Jennie’s had been nearly fifty years earlier. Gladys knocked five years off her age on the marriage certificate, but this would not have fooled Sunny for it would have made her ten years old when he first met her. The church wedding was attended by over four hundred guests including Gladys’s sister Princess Dorothy Radziwill,* the King of Greece, the Maharajah of Kapurthala, Marshal Foch, Anatole France and Elsie de Wolfe.† Sarah Wilson, who was also there representing the Churchills, reported that the bride was ‘very beautiful’, but not that the word ‘obey’ had been removed from the responses, at Gladys’s insistence.
Anxious to avoid the publicity circus that had surrounded Sunny and Gladys’s wedding, Consuelo and Jacques were married quietly in London a week later, on 4 July. At 9 a.m. there was a religious service in the Savoy Chapel, followed (to comply with French law) by a civil ceremony at Covent Garden register office at which the American Ambassador and Consuelo’s cousin Cornelius Vanderbilt (banned by Alva from attending Consuelo’s first marriage) were witnesses. Alva had remained in the United States so as to lull journalists into assuming the wedding was not yet imminent.
Did Consuelo think of the contrast between this quiet, happy day and her first joyless wedding? Of herself as little more than an unhappy child, walking up the aisle weeping behind her veil? At this second marriage ceremony she was no longer young – her hair was silver now and her sons were present. The small family party went on afterwards to Blandford’s house at No. 1 Portman Square for the wedding breakfast. Consuelo discarded all the privileges of her rank and title with grace, and without a trace of regret. As Madame Louis-Jacques Balsan she looked forward confidently to many years in France with the man she adored and would continue to adore until his death. They left England for Paris soon afterwards – appropriately enough, travelling by air. The house overlooking the Eiffel Tower, given to Consuelo by her father, was to be their main home there. Only one factor marred the total happiness of the newly-weds: their marriage was not recognised by the Catholic Church, which meant that the Balsan family were unable to receive Jacques and his bride.
17
1921–4
Black Times
The year 1921 would prove to be a dark one for Winston and Clementine. A series of family losses and ill-omened incidents began with the death of Clementine’s ninety-year-old grandmother, the matriarch Blanche, Countess of Airlie, in early January.
In February Winston was offered the post of Colonial Secretary – which looked promising, though it also included a poisoned chalice in the form of the newly created Middle East Department responsible for the affairs of the British-mandated lands in Palestine and Iraq. Early in the 1914–18 war, the Hashemite patriarch and Sharif of Mecca, Hussein ibn Ali, had allied with the British and French against the Ottoman Empire. His decision to do so was based on a written promise from the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon,* which agreed that if the Arabs were successful in driving out the Turks from their lands the British government would support the establishment of an independent Arab state under Hashemite rule stretching from Damascus to the Arab peninsula.
The consequent Arab Revolt against the Turks in 1916, led by Hussein’s son Sheikh Faisal and T.E. Lawrence, supported by the British and French armies, was successful. But the British had also made other agreements, which were allowed to override the promises made by McMahon. First, in 1916, the British and French made a secret deal known as the Sykes–Picot Agreement, whereby if the Ottomans were driven out, those areas formerly occupied by the Turks would be divided between themselves. Second, Foreign Minister Balfour declared British support for the establishment of a Jewish ‘national home’ in Palestine (known as the Balfour Declaration). This was later ratified in order to appease leading Jews who had financially supported the war in Europe.
The former Ottoman lands were divided into two and nominated as ‘mandated land’. There were few natural borders in the form of rivers or mountains, so on the map straight lines were simply drawn across the desert, no account being taken of Arab tribal homelands. After the San Remo Conference of 1920, France took control of modern-day Syria and the British took the mandate of Palestine (consisting of Jordan, an area of Palestine which is now the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Israel and Iraq). The Arabs were justifiably furious at this breach of promise by the British, which brought with it the loss of their right to self-determination. They were also concerned at the growing number of Jewish immigrants arriving from Europe and the threat of the establishment of a Jewish state, supported by the Balfour Treaty, to the disadvantage of their own influence. The Jewish National Fund subsequently purchased large swathes of land from absentee Arab landowners, and many Arabs who had lived for decades on the land were summarily evicted. It was this hotbed of Western political chicanery, Arab fury and Jewish ambition that Winston inherited, along with Colonial Office and responsibility for British dominions throughout the world.
In January, after the funeral of Clementine’s grandmother, the Churchills had holidayed in Nice at the invitation of Sir Ernest Cassel. Winston returned to London, leaving Clementine to rest and regain her energy in the sun. They had moved to 2 Sussex Square by this time, and as well as his own ministerial work he was overseeing work Clementine had set in train before they left and keeping an eye on the children. ‘All the kittens are for the moment blooming,’ he wrote reassuringly
to her. Randolph was at a boarding prep school, doing well. There would be no letters from him begging his father to visit: Winston made a point of visiting his son regularly, as often as he could. The two elder girls Diana and Sarah, now aged twelve and seven, attended day school in the city. And he wrote fondly about baby Marigold, the ‘Duckadily’ as he called her, in the nursery with Nanny. It is evident that within the constraints of his work Winston was a fond and attentive father.
During February he kept Clementine up to date with all the news. He had loaned Nellie £500 to open a hat shop. At that time he was responsible for three state departments, Air, Colonies and War, a record never beaten. He was writing a piece for the Strand Magazine about painting to earn money to pay off some debts.
And there was good news about his mother. Montague Porch, taken aback at how fast Jennie could get through money, had decided to return to the Gold Coast. He never remonstrated with her, but had merely decided quietly that he must go back to West Africa to boost their finances. This region was then spoken of as ‘the white man’s grave’, and it was clear that an isolated life in the style of a memsahib would never be right for Jennie. Montague would go alone, then after he had built her a suitable house she would join him, for a while at least. Now Winston wrote that Jennie had managed to sell the refurbished house in Berkeley Square for £35,000 – ‘A clear profit of £15,000,’ he wrote admiringly. ‘She has already taken a little house in Charles St. No need [now] to go abroad. All is well. I am so glad.’1 But even Winston had little idea of the real extent of Jennie’s debts.
He wrote to Clementine, about this time, that at a party held for the Prince of Wales he had noticed that the Prince was as besotted as ever by his long-term mistress Freda Dudley Ward, and had gazed adoringly at her. But people were generally bored with the relationship, he said: ‘They think that a door should be open or shut.’ His workload was obviously not proving too much, for he advised that he was ‘booked almost every night for one of these tiny parties’. There was some good news too, when an unexpected inheritance* provided him with a capital sum and a potential annual income of £4000. To the eternal worrier Clementine this windfall came as a tremendous relief; now, no matter what happened they would always have this basic income on which to live.
Winston had been busy appointing staff to the new Middle East Department and was especially pleased to have persuaded T. E. Lawrence to join him, along with other more conventional experts such as Curzon. He had called a British–Arab Conference, to be held in Cairo in March, at the Mena House Hotel, at the foot of the Pyramids, and Clementine was to join him and the others on their ship at Marseilles, whence they would all continue on to Egypt.
The Cairo Conference was an important historical milestone, and Winston had gathered as many knowledgeable delegates as he could. Along with T. E. Lawrence he had invited the Middle East traveller Gertrude Bell, former Army officer and diplomat Sir Percy Cox, British Civil Commissioner in Baghdad Sir Arnold Wilson and Sir Kinkaid Cornwallis, British Ambassador to Iraq. He also called the Iraqi War Minister Ja’far Al-Askeri and the Minister of Finance Sasun Heskay to join them. At Lawrence’s urging Winston recognised that the British had made certain promises to Sharif Hussein and that if they were to have any future credence in Arab countries they had to be seen to have kept at least some of them.
It was in this spirit that decisions were reached at the Cairo Conference that would form the basis of British administration in the Middle East for decades to come. First, the Hashemite sons of Sharif Hussein were made rulers of the regions in the British-mandated areas: Sheikh Faisal (who had led the Arab Revolt with Lawrence) took the throne of Iraq, and his brother Sheikh Abdullah was given Transjordan. Second, it was agreed that the British Army presence in Iraq would be reduced and the role of protection mainly overseen by Air Force squadrons. It has been stated in several biographies of Churchill that the decisions reached at this Conference have underlain the problems of the Middle East ever since, but in fact Churchill merely made the best of a bad job. His hands had been tied from the start by the promises, machinations and commitments already made by a bungling Foreign Office during the 1914–18 war.
The conference ended on 22 March when the Churchills and some of the delegates travelled on to Jerusalem, where Winston had meetings with other Arab and Jewish leaders. They travelled home slowly, stopping at Alexandria, Sicily and Naples, and arrived in London on 10 April relaxed after hard negotiation. Nothing could have prepared them for the events that were to occur. They had scarcely unpacked when, five days later, on 15 April, Clementine’s brother, Nellie’s twin Bill, shot himself in a hotel room in Paris. After the war he had left the Navy and gone into business, which had failed. He was a gambler, as were his mother and Nellie – it had been a way of life at Dieppe in their circle and all three had been sucked into it. Clementine alone had avoided the lure of the tables.
Lady Blanche’s cousin Sydney Mitford (later Lady Redesdale) was staying with Blanche in Dieppe that month with her son Tom and her six daughters: Nancy, Pam, Diana, Unity, Decca and baby Debo. The first telegram merely spoke of Bill having shot himself. Clementine and Nellie were sent for and hurried over to Dieppe. They found Blanche ‘so brave and dignified, but I do not think she will recover from the shock & the grief,’ Clementine wrote. ‘She sits in her chair shrunk and small. When we saw her she did not yet know that Bill had killed himself, but I saw by the look of agony & fear that she half guessed – Then she said, “No one must ever know – Winston will keep it out of the papers won’t he?”’2
The younger Mitford children always remembered the pall of sadness that hung over their holiday with Aunt Natty. They were sent out on an excursion with their Nanny on the day of the funeral. The family had a struggle to find a clergyman who would allow a suicide to be buried in consecrated ground, and to help them Winston sent a letter by official messenger to affirm that Bill had been a hero and much loved, rather than a scapegrace disowned by his family. So a clergyman was found who would allow Bill’s body to lie in the church and be honourably interred. ‘Oh Winston my Dear,’ Clementine begged, ‘do come tomorrow & dignify by your presence Bill’s poor Suicide’s Funeral.’3
Many years later when asked by her daughter Decca, Sydney would state that Bill had shot himself because of gambling debts. In fact no evidence of any gambling debts was ever found, but such debts are seldom written down, and Sydney said that Winston had bailed Bill out on a number of occasions. When, soon afterwards, Nellie begged Sydney to loan her £8 to pay a gambling debt, Sydney refused and went straight to Lady Blanche to report the matter. The debt was honoured, Nellie was castigated and sent back to England. The younger Mitford children thought this was very mean of their mother, never connecting Bill’s death and Nellie’s small debt. Suicide was a deeply shameful subject and never spoken of.
Jennie, having sold her house for such an enormous profit, had paid the most pressing of her debts. Montague Porch left as arranged for West Africa on 8 March without her, and she went off to Italy to stay with friends. After he sailed, Porch found a note that Jennie had slipped into his pocket. It was addressed to ‘My darling’ and wished him ‘au revoir’. She wrote that she loved him more than anything in the world and would try to accomplish all those things he wanted her to do in his absence. ‘Love and think of me,’ she finished.4
In Italy, with her new sense of relief from debt, Jennie was the star of the party, dancing the young to a standstill, going to the races and – as usual – shopping. With a dashing young husband and money in the bank, she was at her brilliant best. Before leaving England, she had gone flying with a young RAF officer in his biplane – she could easily understand Winston’s fascination with aviation, she said. In those days foreign tourists often bought handmade shoes when in Italy, and among her purchases in Rome was a pair of pretty high-heeled evening slippers. She wrote to her sister Leonie that she was having such fun and Rome was very gay.
When she returned to England s
he went to stay with the Horner family at Mells Place. It was there, while hurrying down the stairs to dinner, wearing the new shoes, that Jennie slipped and fell, breaking the same ankle she had fractured many years earlier on a grouse moor. It was just a silly accident: the family blamed Jennie’s maid for not roughing up the new leather soles, but Jennie was cross with herself. A doctor set the compound breaks, and after a few days she was able to travel to London to recuperate. Porch was advised by cable. ‘My own darling – I am so terribly distressed,’ he wrote. ‘Your poor darling little foot…you will never be able to dance again…but I shall love you very very much to make up for all the pain & anguish you have suffered…Darling I am ready to come to you any day – this I have cabled to you. But my business would suffer v. much – my business* that has turned out an amazing success.’5
He had finished this letter but had not sealed it, when he received another cable from Winston telling him that blood poisoning had set in, followed by gangrene, and it had now been decided to amputate the leg. ‘Jennie darling,’ he added at the bottom of his letter before assuring her that the loss of her leg would not change his feelings for her, though he had been very shocked and made miserable by the news. ‘I will help you to bear all this. How can I ever love you enough – I will be very good to you, considerate & faithful…Bless you sweet Darling – I send you all my love & kisses & more kisses for the poor little place where the stitches are.’6
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