The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery
Page 40
December 20
16 Arlington Street
Dear Boy
From what your mother tells me I gather you have made up your minds to get into double harness – my sincerest congratulations and I trust you will be very happy.
May I venture to send my affectionate greetings to the future Lady Granby?
And I am
Your affectionate father
Rutland
All that remained was for the Duke and Duchess to sort out the terms of the engagement with Mr and Mrs Tennant.
It was Henry who ‘broke the ice’ by writing a letter to Kakoo’s father. He replied straightaway:
My dear Duke – I am delighted that you are pleased with dear Kakoo and I feel convinced that John will be a most considerate loving companion. I will do everything in my power to further their happiness.
This terrible war haunts me daily as my eldest boy is in the Flying Corps who is now in France and being shot at every day. I marvel at our apparent cheerfulness.
I am so glad you play golf and hope to have many a match with you.
Yours ever
Frank Tennant
Henry wrote back to suggest a meeting to discuss the details of Kakoo’s marriage settlement:
‘My dear Duke,’ Frank replied:
Thanks for your delightful letter. I will let you know when I am in London, which I dislike very much at present.
I intend to settle on dear little Kakoo £10,000* in good securities also give an allowance of £1500† per ann. My English solicitors are Stow Preston and Bob Lyttleton, 35 Lincolns Inn Fields …
With every good wish and prosperity for the New Year
Yours ever
Frank Tennant
Annie Tennant had also written. Evidently, she was still mystified as to why the Duke and Duchess had so readily agreed to the marriage:
27 December 1915
My dear Duke – thank you so much for your very kind note. I feel very bewildered – it all seems so sudden. Kakoo is my child and I love John too and I could not have been happy if you and his mother had disapproved and this seems to sum up everything.
As John is your precious only son and so adorable, I thought you might not be pleased somehow as my darling Kakoo has not all the things that are sometimes valued most in the world – like great wealth etc. but she has the qualities that make for enduring happiness, utter selflessness, and great joyousness and a high sense of honour. John’s name and fame will be in safekeeping for ever. They are somehow a wonderful couple in their amazing happiness. Frank adores her and I know how he will love John and how he will help them and how generous he will be to them.
I dare not think of Home without her. John was so good to me and I have taken him into my heart forever.
Yours very truly
On 28 December, John went to stay with his future in-laws at Innes House, a remote Scottish castle near Elgin, which Frank Tennant used for shooting. His visit was a great success. Soon after he arrived, he wrote to his father:
Father dear
Just a line to say we are both well and very happy. How very nice you were to Kakoo and me at Belvoir – I did appreciate it so much.
Just going out shooting – blowing a gale – and they have sent me Charlie’s guns instead of mine, so I shall have some difficulty in impressing my future papa-in-law with my power of killing birds.
Love, your affectionate Son
The absence of enmity was striking. It was the first time in his adult life that he had ended a letter to his father with love.
A month later, on the afternoon of Thursday 27 January 1916, John and Kakoo were married at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster.
‘It really was the most movingly lovely sight,’ Cynthia Asquith, Kakoo’s close friend, noted in her diary. ‘It made one cry to think they would ever be old or dead. John looked a like a glamorous knightly figure with perfect technique: he held her hand and everything in the most inspired way. She looked divine in the best wedding dress ever seen.’
The wedding was organized by Violet and Margot Asquith, the prime minister’s wife. They had not allowed the war to overshadow it. The one concession to the events taking place across the Channel was that John was dressed in his service uniform. In every other respect, it was a glittering social occasion. The following day, a full-page report appeared in the news section of The Times:
The bride, who was given away by her father, wore a Venetian gown of white satin with a gold brocade train four yards long and a short mantlet of old Venetian family lace; the sleeves were long and close-fitting, and she had a long white net veil with a wreath of orange blossoms. Lady Diana Manners, who was one of the bridesmaids, designed the bridesmaids’ gowns in the medieval manner; they were of white chiffon belted in silver worn with flowing veils of blue tulle held by silver bands. Each of the bridesmaids carried a tall branch of almond blossom. The Hon. Stephen Tennant, who wore a Romeo suit with a jewelled belt, was the page.
SOME OF THE GOWNS
The Duke of Rutland was among the first to come to the church, and most of the guests were there early. The Prime Minister arrived with Mr and Mrs Bonham-Carter, and Mr Balfour [Prime Minister 1902–1905]. The Duchess of Rutland wore gold charmeuse with gold tissue in her hat and rose pink velvet cloak bordered with fur. The Marchioness of Anglesey, in white box-cloth, brought her little daughter, Lady Caroline Paget [aged 2] in a little ermine coat and hat. Mrs Asquith wore a black charmeuse gown made with a ruched cape and trimmed with chinchilla; her hat was black with emerald feathers.
Mrs Tennant wore black and white embroidered taffetas; Lady Robert Manners had a long mauve coat trimmed with skunk; and the Countess of Wemyss was in black and white. Lady Tree had a pervenche panne long coat made tight-fitting and a plain black sailor hat. The Countess of Drogheda wore black and gold, Lady D’Abernon grey chinchilla furs with a black coat and skirt, and Lady Arthur Paget a musquash coat bordered with skunk. Mrs Hwfa Williams and Lady Randolph Churchill (who was with Mrs Churchill) both wore black velvet.
THE GUESTS
Among those present were:-
The Italian Ambassador, the Spanish Ambassador, the Duchess of Buccleuch, Countess Nadia Torby, Prince Bibesco, the Marquis de Soveral, the Marchioness of Bristol and Lady Augustus Hervey, the Earl and Countess of Chesterfield, the Dowager Countess of Arran and Lady Winifred Gore, the Countess of Lanesborough, the Earl and Countess of Albemarle, the Countess of Dundonald, and Lady Marjorie Cochrane, the Earl of Wemyss, the Countess of Lytton, with Viscount Knebworth, the Countess of Essex, the Dowager Countess of Clarendon, Viscount Valentia, Viscount and Viscountess Gladstone, Baroness d’Erlanger, Lady Nunburnholme, Lord and Lady Knaresborough, Lord and Lady Glenconner, Lady Wantage, Lord and Lady Manners and Lady Islington.
The newspaper also listed the main wedding presents:
Bridegroom to bride, large aquamarine chained with diamonds; Duke and Duchess of Rutland, jewels of diamonds and aquamarine-diamond ring, lace veil, canteen of silver and cutlery, travelling suitcase, and cheque; Mr and Mrs Frank Tennant, rope of pearls and diamond star, diamond and emerald brooch, old Japanese lacquer and four silver candlesticks; Lady Diana Manners, diamond watch; Marchioness of Anglesey, cheque; Lord Robert Manners, early silver salts; Mr Asquith, books; Mrs Asquith, black lacquer chairs; Captain Charles Lindsay, old manuscript; Lady Wantage, yellow lacquer sidetable; servants at Belvoir Castle and 16, Arlington Street, George III silver salver; employees at Belvoir, silver gilt Ambassador’s inkstand; villagers of Rowsley, Queen Anne walnut and gold mirror; Derbyshire tenants, William III dressing table silver.
Following the wedding, a reception was held at Lord Glenconner’s house at Queen Anne’s Gate in Westminster. After an hour, John and Kakoo left to catch the train to Belvoir, where they were to spend their honeymoon.
‘It was all too wonderful – travelling down with my Kakoo and feeling her to really belong to me,’ John wrote in his journal. ‘Mrs Tennant had told me that my dar
ling had started her monthly two or three days before and that she was in the middle of it – so I knew what to expect which I was very thankful for, so that I should not bother my darling when I got into bed with her for the first time. But the following night it was all right – so we did things together. I did my best to hurt my darling as little as possible. We had the most glorious 3½ weeks at Belvoir that could ever be. Then we went to London – to 28 Eaton Terrace.
‘My darling felt a little sick on Feb 1st and I knew that she had started a baby – but I did not tell her. She only knew when the time for her monthly in Feb. was passed. Then she knew – and we were so happy about it.’
PART VIII
60
We are now back in the Muniment Rooms in the early hours of the morning of 21 April 1940. John lies, shrouded under an oxygen tent, on the sofa in Room 1. A fire burns in the grate, the light from the flames reflecting on the tall glass cases that surround him. For two years, he has barely left these rooms. His days and nights have been spent sifting through his mother’s papers. They are almost in order, but not quite. He can do no more. He is dying.
One last letter from Violet, which was in the trunk of correspondence that John was working on before he died, explains what happened after his wedding in January 1916.
Two weeks after he married Kakoo at St Margaret’s, Westminster, dressed, for all the world to see, in his service uniform, he asked his mother to write to Field Marshal Lord French, the new Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces.
It was not an easy letter to write – as Violet’s draft reveals. She was having to go cap in hand to the man whose offers John had repeatedly spurned:
Dear Lord French
I am again in great anxiety about my boy/son. If I didn’t think this alone would excuse me in your eyes, I don’t know how I would dare to write/appeal to you again for help after all your very great kindness to me and to him last year, which indeed neither of us are likely to forget.
He goes before a Medical Board about March 2. I can only say how greatly/wildly relieved and happy I should be if something could be found for him by that time. Something, however humble/subordinate, but that would be under your own particular wing and protection.
I know quite well it is where he has wished to be, always, even when over loyalty to his General made him throw away so great a chance/opportunity.
You will think it ‘Mother’s talk’ but it is this very loyalty and faithfulness to those he serves which is so strong a trait in his character and upon which you, of all others, could absolutely and for ever depend. I fear his Staff experience has been too short to tell much in his favour, though he did very well, his General always praising him and relying upon him.
My great fear now, is that after the Medical Board (which is very unlikely to pass him for anything but light duty) the state of unrest and uncertainty in which he has been for some months, may drive him into taking some unwise and hasty course, which I shall not be able to prevent.
I do hope you will forgive me. It is indeed a very poor way of showing you how really grateful I am for all you have already done for me.
Early in March, John was appointed ADC to the field marshal – a post he held for the rest of the war.
John’s position as one of the most privileged young men in England gave him a choice and he took it. From the perspective of the twenty-first century, his reasons for doing so are compelling: he wanted to be with the woman he loved and to see his unborn child. But in the context of his time, his decision was unforgivable. The four million British men who served in the Great War, 673,375 of whom were killed, had no choice but to fight.
One last mystery remains. John has left nothing to tell us when he came to regret his decision. After March 1916, the war lasted for another two and a half years. He could have gone back to the Front at any time. But he didn’t. Whether the conflict between desire and obligation tormented him while he was in London, we cannot know. If he had confided in Kakoo, these letters are also missing from the Muniment Rooms.
The tragic irony is that, but for his brother’s death, he would not have been faced with a dilemma.
Haddon was the dagger in his back. Had he lived, John’s life would have followed a different trajectory. He would not have become Duke: the choice he made in the winter of 1916 would not have been open to him. Some 1,500 members of the aristocracy served in the war. Two hundred and seventy were killed in action, or died from their wounds. The heirs to Britain’s dukedoms were the exception; of those eligible to fight, more than a third had escaped the trenches. But their younger brothers had fought with distinction. Had John been a second son, I was sure he would have been among them.
Throughout the first year of the war, this gentle, sensitive man had tried, in the face of all temptation, to do the right thing. He had resisted every one of his mother’s efforts to keep him back from the Front. When he made his choice, he knew he was in the wrong. It was why he had held out against his mother for so long. Yet what he could not have known was the extent to which his decision would come to haunt him.
When that moment came, we don’t know. But after 1918, the source of his shame was all around him. Two hundred and forty-nine men from the Belvoir estate were killed in action. For the remainder of his life, John had had to look the families of these men in the eye. Every year, on Armistice Day, he had marched at the head of the columns of veterans that had paraded through the village streets. On becoming Duke, his position determined that he was the first to step forward to lay a wreath of poppies on the war memorial. The congregation in the remembrance service that followed had risen to their feet when he came to take his place in the front pew. All the while, he had kept up the pretence that he had served honourably in the war. It was no wonder he died in an agony of guilt.
The names of the war dead are carved on the memorials in the villages below the castle. It was this lost generation – ‘that mysterious army of ploughmen, horsemen and field workers’, as the historian Ronald Blythe described them – that had brought me to Belvoir in the first place. In obliterating the records in the Muniment Rooms, John had prevented me from following their stories.
It seems fitting to end by remembering them.
George Allcroft Belvoir
W R Allen Scalford
Charles Allis Bottesford*
Harry Armstrong Goadby Marwood
Albert Asher Bottesford
Cecil Frederick Asher Croxton Kerrial
C Attewell Scalford
H Attewell Scalford
Charles Bailey Stonesby
J T Bailey Clawson, Harby and Hose
Sidney Bailey Stonesby
Charles Baines Clawson, Harby and Hose
Cyril Barrand Bottesford
Frank Eric Barratt Plungar
Sidney Jackson Barratt Plungar
Joseph Thurlby Bass Croxton Kerrial
Thomas Bass Croxton Kerrial
Alfred Beet Granby and Sutton
William Beet Granby and Sutton
James Beeton Waltham on the Wolds
Frederick Bell Harston
Harry Bemrose Branston
Charles A Bend Bottesford
Bertie Benham Redmile
Charles J Bird Eastwell
Henry Bishop Waltham on the Wolds
W Booth Stathern
Harry Bottrell Goadby Marwood
V Boulton Waltham on the Wolds
Walter Low Braithwaite Redmile
Frederick W Branston Stonesby
W Broom Scalford
Henry Brown Wycomb and Chadwell
George E Brumble Eastwell
A G Bryett Stathern
J Buckingham Muston
Charles C Bullimore Woolsthorpe
W Bullock Muston
Thomas Burrows Croxton Kerrial
Walter Burrows Croxton Kerrial
Albert E Bursnall Stonesby
Noel Butler Knipton
G Alfred Calcraft Bottesford
John Campbell E
aton
Thomas Chambers Knipton
Charles William Chettle Redmile
Reginald Claxton Saltby
A C Clove Scalford
H Clover Scalford
George Clower Redmile
Ed Cook Clawson, Harby and Hose
T Harold Cooper Bottesford
Arthur Coy Knipton
W H Coy Muston
J E Dakin Stathern
Frederick Darby Bottesford
Albert Pickard Day Redmile
Walter Day Redmile
E Dewey Clawson, Harby and Hose
George Henry Dewey Croxton Kerrial
Robert Dolman Bottesford
B Draper Sedgebrook
B Draper Sproxton
Percy Draper Woolsthorpe
Walter Draper Woolsthorpe
C J Driver Scalford
J William Edwards Bottesford
Gerald Edgar Ellis Goadby Marwood
Albert Essery Goadby Marwood
Arthur Etterley Woolsthorpe
George Edward Etterley Woolsthorpe
Campbell Victor Farnsworth Croxton Kerrial
Wilfred Flake Thorpe Arnold
Cecil Thomas Foister Goadby Marwood
J R Furnival Muston
Cyril Gale Muston
Albert Gibson Knipton
Arthur Gilding Bottesford
George Arthur Goodacre Granby and Sutton
Christopher Goodband Knipton
David Goodband Knipton
Jesse Goodband Woolsthorpe
Reginald Goodband Woolsthorpe
Bernard T Goods Eastwell
B Goodson Clawson, Harby and Hose
W Goodson Sproxton
George Grass Branston
W H Greaves Clawson, Harby and Hose
G J Hall Stathern
H Hall Clawson, Harby and Hose
B Hand Clawson, Harby and Hose
Walter Hardy Bottesford
James Harper Woolsthorpe