Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt

by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart

  It quickly became apparent to Consuelo that Sunny’s aunt Lady Sarah Wilson was far less kindly than his mother, and that there was a feud between the Churchill side of the family and the Hamilton side, represented by ‘Goosey’. When Lady Blandford regretted that she had been unable to come to New York for the wedding – because Sunny had refused to pay her passage – Lady Sarah tittered and remarked: ‘But the Press did not spare us one detail’ – making the new arrival feel ‘that the word “vulgar” had been omitted but not its implications’.62 Lady Sarah seemed hard and sarcastic to Consuelo, and plainly showed that she considered Alberta Blandford a fool. ‘To me she was kind in an arrogant manner that made me grit my teeth, for I had no intention of being patronised,’ Consuelo wrote later.63

  She found the half-American side of the family much more appealing. Cousin Winston, a ‘young red-headed boy a few years older than I’, struck her immediately as ‘ardent and vital and seemed to have every intention of getting the most out of life’, although she wondered how he and his mother would react if he were displaced as heir to Blenheim. Lord Randolph Churchill had died a terrible and protracted death from syphilis fifteen months earlier in January 1895. His widow, Jennie, remained ‘a beautiful woman with a vital gaiety … Her grey eyes sparkled with the joy of living, and when, as was often the case, her anecdotes were risqué it was in her eyes as well as in her words that one could read the implications. She was an accomplished pianist, an intelligent and well-informed reader and an enthusiastic advocate of any novelty. Her constant friendship and loyalty were to be precious to me in adversity.’64

  There were three further calls to be made before the Marlboroughs proceeded to Blenheim. One of them was to Lansdowne House, the London home of Sunny’s Aunt Lansdowne, whom Consuelo had met while she was still Vicereine of India in 1894. Sister of Lady Blandford, and unwitting role model, Lady Lansdowne now joined the ranks of those determined to lecture the former Miss Vanderbilt on how to behave like an English duchess. She must remember that she should not walk alone in Piccadilly or Bond Street; or sit in Hyde Park unless accompanied; or take a hansom cab; or travel in anything other than a reserved compartment; or visit a music hall; or dance more than twice with the same man at any ball. It was essential to know her place in the social hierarchy, and learn the ramifications of both the socially prominent families into which she had married. ‘One must, in other words, memorise the Peerage, that book that with the Almanack de Gotha in Europe and the Social Register to a lesser degree in America establishes pedigrees and creates snobs. I found that being a duchess at nineteen would put me into a much older set and that a measure of decorum beyond my years would be expected of me. Indeed my first contact with society in England brought with it a realisation that it was fundamentally a hierarchical society in which differences in rank were outstandingly important. Society was definitely divided into castes.’65

  However, this lecture paled beside the one delivered by Sunny’s intimidating grandmother Frances, the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, wife of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. Duchess Fanny was ‘a formidable old lady of the Queen Anne type’ – by which Consuelo meant that she could be arrogant and familiar by turn and in baffling succession. The Duchess sat in an armchair in the corner of her drawing-room in Grosvenor Square, dressed in deep mourning and armed with an ear-trumpet. After bestowing a kiss ‘in the manner of a deposed sovereign greeting her successor’, she inspected Consuelo closely, before embarking on her own lecture about good behaviour, expressing the view that it was now Consuelo’s duty to restore Blenheim to its former glory and to uphold family prestige. She then cut to the chase: ‘“Your first duty is to have a child and it must be a son, because it would be intolerable to have that little upstart Winston become Duke. Are you in the family way?” Feeling utterly crushed by my negligence in not having insured Winston’s eclipse and depressed by the responsibilities she had heaped upon me, I was glad to take my leave,’ wrote Consuelo.66

  The Duke of Abercorn, who was Lady Blandford’s brother and Sunny’s uncle, was almost as bad, looking Consuelo up and down and saying: ‘I see the future Churchills will be both tall and good-looking.’ She decided to take this as a compliment, however, since Sunny was pure ‘Hamilton’, similar to his uncle in that he was small, fragile, and restless with many of the same fussy mannerisms. The Duke of Abercorn was also quite eccentric. ‘He insisted on removing my coat, which was of green velvet entirely lined with Russian sables. “What a wonderful coat, what priceless furs!” he exclaimed. “I must send for my sables to compare them.” Whereupon he rang the bell and had his valet bring his coat. To his deep concern, it did not equal mine!’67

  This fabulous garment played a walk-on role the day that the Marlboroughs finally arrived at Blenheim. ‘How fortunate that the day we left for Blenheim was cold since Marlborough had decided that I must wear my sable coat,’68 wrote Consuelo bitterly. The Duke can hardly be blamed for this, however, for he had some sense of what lay ahead and wanted her to look her most magnificently elegant in front of crowds of interested spectators. (Neither of them would have been very pleased that a reporter from the Oxford Times described her coat as ‘fox’, though he was much more taken with Consuelo’s pearls which, he wrote, were ‘as large as small marbles’.69) On the afternoon of Tuesday 31st they left London from Paddington station in a special saloon carriage attached to the 1.30 express train. When the train arrived at Oxford station an hour and a half later, the Duke and Duchess alighted onto the platform to be greeted by Mr Davis the stationmaster and others, and received the first of a number of pleasant surprises.

  Blenheim Palace is close by the small town of Woodstock in Oxfordshire, about seven miles from Oxford. The Woodstock branch engine, Fair Rosamund, now chugged into view specially decorated with evergreens and Stars and Stripes, bearing the words ‘Welcome Home’ on its front. Fair Rosamund was then coupled to the private saloon carriage and as the train pulled out of Oxford station bearing the Duke and Duchess, it transpired that a fête de joie of detonators had been placed on the track which exploded noisily as it departed, to the great pleasure of the many cheering spectators. In fact there were cheering spectators all the way along the line with large groups massing to wave at Walton Well Bridge and Wolvercote as the train passed on its way to Woodstock. Fair Rosamund stopped again at Kidlington station. Here, the Duke and Duchess not only found themselves being greeted by another unexpected reception party of railway officials but that the down platform had been artistically decorated for the occasion. Consuelo was given a bouquet of roses by Florence Cooke, the stationmaster’s daughter, while the Duke was presented with a ‘handsome red morocco case’ designed to hold the local train timetable. As the train moved off on the small branch line from Kidlington to Woodstock, more spectators emerged from their farmhouses and cottages to wave, and flags fluttered from trees the whole way down the track and ‘reminded the Duchess that she was at last nearing home’.70 She was also nearing a welcome for which nothing could have prepared her.

  At 3.13, according to Jackson’s Oxford Journal, the ringing of the bell in the stationmaster’s office indicated that the train had left Kidlington and five minutes later it steamed into Woodstock station amid cheers from local school children assembled on the opposite platform. There were more loud explosions as mortars were discharged in the park to announce the train’s arrival, whereupon their graces were welcomed by Mr R. L. Angas (steward at Blenheim), the Mayor and Mayoress, the Town Clerk, the Rector (Reverend J. Farmer), the Reverend Dr Yule (chaplain at the Palace) and Mr Higgs. Salutations were exchanged and Miss Nellie Mabel Clarke (daughter of the Mayor) presented the Duchess with a magnificent bouquet of pink roses. His worship, the Mayor, was wearing a new scarlet robe specially presented to him for the occasion by members of the Woodstock Town Council. Consuelo received another bouquet of red roses and lilies of the valley from four local school children (two girls, two boys) as the Duke raised his hat to the crowd.

  To
Consuelo’s dumbfounded astonishment, the horses were then unhitched from the Duke’s carriage and amidst scenes of great excitement, the ducal carriage – bearing the Duke and Duchess – was dragged from the station to the town hall by several able-bodied men of Woodstock, escorted by the Witney troop of the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars. The same thing had happened on Lady Randolph Churchill’s first visit to Blenheim as the bride of Lord Randolph in 1874, and she thought it was rather fun. Although Consuelo’s ‘democratic principles rebelled’,71 she did her best to play the role of duchess in a fitting manner, and smiled and waved at the cheering crowds. The warmth of the welcome was undoubtedly most touching.

  There was a large crowd at the town hall where discipline was maintained by the Blenheim and Woodstock fire brigades. Those who lived nearby watched from windows. The carriage was pulled up to a platform outside the town hall to the strains of ‘Hail Columba’ from the Oxford Volunteer Band. The Town Clerk read a speech of welcome from the Corporation. Then the Mayor of Woodstock had his turn. ‘Every inhabitant of the ancient town of Woodstock was anxious to welcome the Duke and Duchess back,’ he declaimed. ‘It was a self-governing body forty years before America was discovered, and 200 years before the first settler set foot in New York.’72 The rest of the speech wishing them many years of wedded happiness was rather lost on Consuelo, who was already sensitive to being patronised after only three days in England, and now seethed inwardly.

  The Duke then rose to make a speech of thanks. He had no idea when he left Blenheim the previous summer that he would be gone so long nor that when he returned it would be ‘the occasion of such good feeling and so kind a reception on their part’. He went on to say that one of the first sentiments Consuelo had expressed to him ‘was that she might be able to become the friend of the people among whom she was going to dwell, and might succeed in endearing herself to their hearts’.73 He felt sure that she had never anticipated such a warm reception, which he was sure was chiefly designed for his wife rather than himself. The Duke finished his speech of thanks with a splendidly feudal flourish. The Oxford Times reported: ‘He thought he might say without assuming any tone of exaggeration, that his aim had always been to ameliorate the condition of Woodstock and its population – (hear, hear) – and he would conclude, thanking the Mayor for the kind address which he had presented to him, by expressing the hope that what had taken place that day might be the means of binding them more closely together in a common bond of sympathy, and that the good fellowship and esteem of all classes might be united (hear, hear).’74 This was greeted by prolonged cheering.

  Meanwhile the procession to the Palace was forming in Market Street. Elaborate floral arches that had taken days of work had been erected at intervals down the street. The procession now passed beneath them, watched by hundreds of people who had come from Oxford and the surrounding villages. The Blenheim and Woodstock fire brigades were followed by the local band playing ‘Welcome Home’. They were followed by a deputation from the National Fire Brigades Union, the Olivet Friendly Society, the Foresters, estate employees, estate tenants, the Mayor and Corporation in carriages, and finally the Duke and Duchess in a landau, escorted by the Oxfordshire Hussars yeomanry. Visitors from the surrounding villages were already lined up along the road in the park, and school children from Bladon were mustered at the gate, where little Ethel Goodall presented Consuelo with bouquet number four.

  When the procession finally arrived in front of the Palace they were received by Mr Angas, the Chief Steward, (who must have departed swiftly from the station) and Mrs Ryman the housekeeper to the strains of ‘Home Sweet Home’ from the band. Consuelo was presented with bouquet number five. Tenants were grouped on one side and employees on the other with a further crowd of ticket-holders stretching back to Blenheim Park. Mr Angas told the Duke that it was his fervent hope that he would never be away so long from them again. ‘He estimated that the Duke had travelled during those seven months 15,000 miles by land and water, and he assured his Grace when storms were blowing at sea they thought of him. It was a happy moment when he saw that the steamship Fulda had touched at Gibraltar.’75 Consuelo was assured they would all do their best to make her happy. Mr Nash, the Clerk of the Works, endorsed every word that Mr Angas had said on behalf of the employees; Mr Scroggs was deputed by the tenantry to say it all again; and Mr Gamble of the National Fire Brigades Union presented them with another address in pen and ink. The prize for unctuousness, however, went to the Reverend Farmer, rector of the parish of Bladon and Woodstock. ‘The Duke had presented him with the living ten months ago, and he could safely say that in every single house in Woodstock and Bladon his Grace’s name was as ointment poured forth, that was to say, it always led to the expression of some words of kindly goodwill and love from men of every creed and every phase of politics.’76

  The Duke thanked them all, on behalf of them both. If Consuelo felt that the proceedings thus far were feudal, her husband’s speech of thanks to Mr Nash who had spoken for the employees would have made her gasp. ‘I feel sure that it will always be your wish to endeavour to promote the welfare and happiness of everyone connected with Blenheim,’ said his Grace. ‘And I think I may say on this occasion that the employees on the estate may look to you as their head to represent their interests as well as the interests of your master.’77 But the chances are that no-one else noticed, for according to Blenheim hallboy Gerald Horne, they were all entranced by the new Duchess. ‘It was a great thing for me to stand there and see them brought home in such style and when the Duchess stepped down from the carriage you might almost have heard us gasp at how young and how beautiful she was,’ he said later. ‘And she was as good as she was beautiful too.’78

  She may have been good and beautiful but deep down, the Duchess felt close to tears. ‘As I stood on the steps listening to the various speeches, I realised that my life would be very strenuous if I was to live up to all that was expected of me. My arms were full of bouquets, the fur coat felt heavier and heavier, the big hat was being blown about by the winds, and I suddenly felt distraught, with a wild desire to be alone.’79

  Once she stepped indoors, Consuelo remembered that ‘my maid was waiting for me, a tea gown of satin and lace laid out, a hot bath ready, and I dressed for the ritual of dinner such as Marlborough, the chef and the butler had decreed it to be’.80 There were further celebrations starting with a champagne luncheon for 350 people involved in the welcome in the audit room, with overflow tables in the laundry. The Duke paid them an impromptu visit while it was in progress, and thanked everyone again, saying that he had never seen anything better done. That evening there was a grand display of fireworks, which the Duke and Duchess watched from a tent in the park, and afterwards they drove through the streets of Woodstock and admired the illuminations. Though it had been an ordeal, Consuelo rallied. ‘Everyone was charmed with the gracious and winning manner of the Duchess, who won the hearts of all who had the privilege of seeing her,’ said the Oxford Times.81 Peals were rung in churches for miles around, money from their graces was distributed to the poor of the parishes of Charlbury, Coomb, and Stonesfield, and in Wooton the villagers gave themselves a holiday. That evening special trains were laid on from Woodstock to Oxford, taking home more than thirteen hundred onlookers.

  In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, David Cannadine suggests, British patricians were ‘highly conscious of themselves, their families, and their order in time. More than any other class, they knew where they had come from, they knew where they were, and they hoped and believed they were going somewhere. This is what Edmund Burke meant when he spoke of “partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born”.’82 Sunny expressed precisely this view when he talked of being a ‘link in a chain’, and after arriving at Blenheim, Consuelo understood better what this involved. ‘When Marlborough spoke of a link in the chain he meant that there were certain standards that must be maintained, wh
atever the cost, for what was a generation but such a link? – and to him it was inconceivable that he, given the greatness of his position, should fail to uphold the tradition of his class. The English countryside was still rural, the farmers and labourers loyal to their landlord, the standard of living possible for those whose needs were elementary. It was not for me, with my more democratic ideals, to upset the precarious balance. I should have to adopt the role expected of me by my marriage and fulfil its obligations as conscientiously as possible.’83

  6

  Success

  AT NINETEEN-YEARS OLD, Consuelo’s only experience of running a house had come during playtime in La Récréation at Idle Hour. Otherwise, she had barely been permitted to move her own hairbrushes. As soon as she arrived at Blenheim, however, Consuelo was required to take charge of a palace where she never succeeded in counting the number of rooms, though an inventory prepared for the 4th Duchess suggests there were almost one hundred and seventy, with forty on the bedroom floor alone. She also became responsible for an indoor staff of more than forty servants. ‘Marlborough had given me the supervision together with the financing of everything pertaining to the house, while reserving the administration of the estate for himself,’ she wrote, a division of labour for which she should perhaps have been more grateful since the outdoor staff in Blenheim’s self-contained world included a hunting department, stable staff to take care of forty grey horses, a fire brigade, lodge keepers and a cricket coach. Consuelo’s new husband did not provide her with much guidance in her daunting and unfamiliar task, and disappeared to London soon after they arrived to make arrangements for the season. ‘Unfortunately he was more inclined to criticise than to instruct and I had to trust to observation to ensure the continuity established by past generations of English women,’1 she wrote.