As always when royalty was being entertained, the Robert Adam silver was brought up from Kedleston for the dinner party for thirty beforehand. There were two tables, a large round green malachite one for the royal party—the duke of York, his sister Princess Mary and Lord and Lady Lascelles—presided over by Grace, her luscious Gaiety Girl looks set off by a pale pink Vionnet dress worn with pearls and one of Mary Leiter’s tiaras. (To ensure that Gracie always got the seating exactly right, Curzon had thoughtfully provided his wife with a table of precedence.) Baba looked slender and beautiful in a dress of white silk and tulle embroidered with tiny crystals. After dinner a further four hundred guests, including the Prince of Wales, arrived to dance. The number of each dance was propped up on the band’s piano and every girl carried a small dance card with a tiny pencil attached to write down the names of her partners under the number of the dance they had requested.
Curzon, who was recuperating at Broadstairs, had to miss the party. Also absent from Baba’s ball were her sisters. Nancy Astor, who loved the Curzon daughters, may not have been conscious of the schism between Curzon and Irene, since the latter already led a fairly peripatetic life. But she would certainly have discovered that Cimmie, her own favorite and married to a young man whom she also knew well, was no longer seeing her father.
Mistakenly, she attributed it to Gracie’s influence. A month before the dance she went up to Grace at a dinner given by the American ambassador and tactlessly asked: “Why have you turned your stepdaughter out of doors?” As no one else had heard of the breach and Grace complained to her neighbor, Mrs. Lloyd George, at this public rebuke for something that was not her doing, the result was that everyone thought Nancy had once again gone too far.
Irene was not her father’s daughter for nothing: she had inherited much of his strong will, and she was determined to take control of her own life, a difficult goal in an era when, despite their brief foray into wartime freedom, women were still regarded as dependent upon, and subordinate to, men. Hunting was her ruling passion and she was able to devote most of the year to it, but late spring and summer also had to be filled. Anxious not to cause awkwardness during her sister’s season, she turned to another of her loves, traveling, then an altogether more leisurely affair. In Jerusalem she had met Ronald Storrs, who had been appointed governor of Jerusalem and Judaea two years earlier (when the League of Nations granted the British government a mandate to govern Palestine, Jordan and Iraq).
Storrs, then forty, was the first of a number of men to recognize Irene’s potential as wife to a governor or ambassador. Handsome, dignified, with an air of confidence and authority that would later make her into an admirable public speaker and head of committees, she was a strong presence in any room she entered—and she was very rich. Storrs proposed to her so frequently that, worried, she wrote to her father.
Curzon was alarmed: he considered Storrs an undesirable, though more on social than professional grounds (“Did you know he went to the Revelstokes uninvited and had to leave?” he wrote to Gracie). As he still would not communicate directly with Irene, he got Baba to write to her and after a few days inquired casually what had happened. Baba told him that Storrs had proposed to her sister repeatedly, the first time a few days after she had arrived. “But she had already found out he was a bounder and refused. The next morning she got my letter and felt entirely justified.”
Irene seized this opportunity to extend the olive branch yet again. From the Hotel Britannia in Venice she wrote to her father on August 26. So conscious was she of his enmity that she dared neither salutation nor affectionate ending.
I want you to know that I was greatly touched by your care and thought for me in getting Baba to write to me over Ronald Storrs in Jerusalem. My inner repulsion to him anyhow prevented anything happening after his proposal but Baba’s letter reached me the morning after and I took it as a guidance, and I have treasured the thought that you got her to write it. Thank you, Daddy.
Cim and Tom come here next week. I expect you were proud Baba was such a success in London this summer and stood out in every way, in distinction, poise and charm. Gracie was marvellous to her and she realises it profoundly. Those two years of mine abroad before the war have been the background and basis of all this travelling interest I now have for seeing the world. My German has come back quite easily. I wish Cim and Baba could have had it. I am grateful to you for it.
Baba was an immediate success when she came out. Acclaimed as the prettiest debutante of the 1922 season and “the most beautiful brunette in London,” from the first she was noted for her chic and an individual style that led rather than followed fashion. Where the vogue was for hair cut short and waved at the sides with the rest tied up in a small bun at the back, Baba enhanced the proportions of her oval face with long hair drawn back and knotted in a loose bun on the nape of her neck. Instead of the long, loose dresses that embraced the new freedom, her silhouette was crisp and exquisite. “Lady Alexandra, in dark blue, emphasised the attractions of the perfectly tailored suit,” recorded The Lady, and when she began to wear dresses of soft, peppermint-green chiffon that fitted close to her slim figure yet floated as if in a breeze, it was a fashion quickly copied.
It was also observed that the royal princes greatly admired this new young beauty. The Prince of Wales, several years older and deeply in love with Mrs. Dudley Ward, the pretty wife of a Liberal MP, thought of her affectionately as a glamorous golfing or dancing partner for his youngest brother, Prince George. Another link was her friendship with Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the beloved of the Duke of York.
Prince George soon became deeply smitten, sending her little notes and presents from the palace (“Baba dear, here is the bag I promised but you’ll probably think it is too awful. If so let me know and I’ll try and get another”). Baba taught him to drive in her little two-seater—for a young man to take a girl “motoring” was a favorite courtship ploy in those days when cars were still comparatively new, roads were empty, narrow and twisting, and most people were driven by their chauffeurs. With no driver’s licenses, learning to drive was considered the work of an afternoon, and the tutoring took place on the way back from a morning’s golf at Swinley.
“I did so enjoy Saturday and we did have fun even tho’ your poor nerves must have been terribly shaken from my driving,” wrote Prince George on his return to HMS Excellent in Portsmouth. Both of them had been startled, as they stood up to change seats on arriving at the main road, to see a Daimler pass with the stately figure of Queen Mary in the back—the prince was already overdue at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. “We must have some more golf and I hope so much to see you again soon and you are so sweet to me. Please don’t forget the wee photie, will you? . . . I’ll write again soon. Much love. G.”
But Baba’s affections were not engaged. She was very young and she had plenty of other suitors. Most, like Lord Westmorland, could be invited to lunch or dinner at 1 Carlton House Terrace but one, she knew instinctively, had better not be mentioned just yet.
The Prince of Wales—always called by his fourth name, David, by his family—had arrived back a month earlier from an extraordinarily successful tour of India, whither he had been sent to still the disaffection felt after a war in which Indian troops had fought gallantly, laying down their lives for a country which was not their own. “He has brought back from India a young Indian Army officer named ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe,” wrote Frances Stevenson (later Lady Lloyd George) in her diary for June 22, 1922. “The two are inseparable and his family are furious about it.”
Captain Edward Dudley Metcalfe—who had acquired his nickname in his university days—was an Indian cavalry officer who had been attached to the prince’s staff on his Indian visit and who had become the prince’s best male friend. He was tall and good-looking, with reddish hair, blue eyes and a soft brogue he kept until the end of his life. He was completely outside the small network of people who made up what was called “society” (“Who is this ‘Juic
y’ Metcalfe?” inquired the elderly, deaf Queen Alexandra) but he was high-spirited, good-natured and a superb horseman. Although always perfectly respectful and efficient, he treated the prince exactly as he would have treated any other man friend and the prince loved him for his charm, gaiety and naturalness.
Fruity, born on January 16, 1887, was the son of the head of industries in the Irish prison service. His parents led a busy social life, centerd around the racing for which Dublin was famous. He was educated privately and, after leaving Trinity College, had entered Sandhurst in 1907 and joined his regiment, the 3rd Skinner’s Horse, in November 1909 as one of nine squadron officers of whom four, like himself, were subalterns.
In 1914 he sailed with his regiment for France, where they were moved about as reserves and, like most cavalry, saw little fighting. On September 1, 1915, he was promoted captain and in June 1916 sent back with his regiment to India. Told that they would remain there, Fruity and a friend volunteered to serve with the 7th Meerut Cavalry Brigade in Mesopotamia; here they fought the Turks on the Tigris front. In August 1917 he won a Military Cross and shortly afterward was mentioned in dispatches. By May 1919 he was back with the regiment, now involved in the Third Afghan War. When the armistice was signed in September 1919 the regiment returned to Quetta and in 1920 he was seconded to serve successively in three princely states. When the hunting-mad prince arrived in India, Fruity, with his personal friendships with many of the maharajas, encyclopedic knowledge of horses and perfect manners, was a natural choice as an aide-de-camp.
The prince had not wanted to go to India: he was madly in love with Mrs. Dudley Ward, and the tour promised only hard work and unpopularity. He went out on the Renown, which dropped anchor in Bombay early on the morning of November 17, 1921, nervously aware of his responsibilities. With him as companion was his friend and cousin, Lord Louis (“Dickie”) Mountbatten; also in the prince’s suite was Admiral Sir Lionel Halsey, at forty-nine a much older man, sent by the king to keep an eye on his son and act as ballast. To the prince and Mountbatten, Halsey was known as the Old Salt.
Almost immediately, Fruity and the prince became fast friends; Lord Louis, too, liked him immensely. “Fruity Metcalfe, the nicest fellow we have. Poor, honest, a typical Indian cavalryman,” he wrote to his fiancée, Edwina Ashley, the beautiful heiress granddaughter of Edward VII’s friend Sir Ernest Cassel.
Admiral Halsey disapproved of Fruity thoroughly while unwillingly falling victim to his charm. “He is an excellent fellow, always cheery and full of fun but far, far too weak and hopelessly irresponsible. He is a wild, wild Irishman and no one knows anything about his family.” Fruity had entered the prince’s bedroom one afternoon while he was having a siesta and asked him if he would like to play polo because, if so, several of his maharaja friends would like to lend ponies. Twenty-five polo ponies subsequently arrived, necessitating an extra train to transport them.
Fruity provided much-needed relief and relaxation for the prince after the strain of being “on duty” so often. With Mountbatten, they soon became known as a trio. Mountbatten’s diaries of the trip are full of references to things “we three” have done, from early-morning polo practices to paper chases. Nor was Mountbatten jealous of Fruity’s superlative riding (“In the finals I was up against Fruity who of course beat me”); when Fruity took a crashing fall in a polo match Mountbatten was first out on the field to help carry his unconscious body back. After the prince, Fruity was the first person that Mountbatten and Edwina, who had come out to stay in India, told of their engagement.
The prince could not bear to part with his new friend. When he came home he brought Fruity with him. In August 1922 Fruity was gazetted major and awarded the Medal of the Victorian Order; in September he was made an extra equerry to the prince, but he was already an integral part of the prince’s life and circle. With the prince, he was the only other guest at the first dinner party given by the Mountbattens after their marriage in July; with the prince, he went evening after evening to the nightclubs that were springing up all over Mayfair.
These temples to the new religion, dancing, were frowned on by the older generation, led by the king and queen, who deeply disapproved of cocktails, jazz and dancing cheek to cheek. But for the Prince of Wales and anyone of his generation, dancing was as much part of life as cinema-going would be in the next decade. The prince’s favorite restaurant-nightclub was the Embassy, at the Piccadilly end of Bond Street, where he could be seen every Thursday night and quite often other nights as well at his own sofa table by the wall.
Here he would take Mrs. Dudley Ward in a party of his intimates—one or more of his brothers, Fruity, Lord and Lady Brecknock, the Mountbattens and Mountbatten’s older brother Lord Milford Haven and his wife. In Mountbatten’s absence at sea, Fruity would act as Edwina’s escort when the prince arranged a party for the Co-Optimists Revue, the Cabaret Girl or the Midnight Follies, always followed, of course, by dancing, at the Embassy, Kit-Cat Club or Grafton Galleries, where Fruity and Mountbatten were honorary members.
It was after an evening at the Grafton Galleries that the Prince of Wales, his brothers, his friend Fruity and Baba decided that they could not bear to stop dancing—especially as it was the first time Paul Whiteman’s band had played there. The solution, decided Baba, was for them all to go to 1 Carlton House Terrace. Curzon and Grace were away and the only remaining servants slept in the basement, so there was little chance of them being discovered. The Prince of Wales collected some champagne from York House while Baba and Prince George went ahead to the silent, shuttered house. In the dining room they pushed the long table aside and pulled dustcovers from the furniture. Baba fetched tooth mugs from all the bathrooms—the only glasses she could find—and when the Prince of Wales, the band, and the rest of their friends arrived the impromptu party began. It ended at six in the morning. Baba and Prince George, due to stay with Philip Sassoon at Trent, changed in their respective houses into the tweeds suitable for a country weekend and set off at 7 a.m. for the Trent golf course.
All would have gone unnoticed except that Prince Harry, the heaviest of the four royal brothers, sat on Curzon’s superb dining room table and cracked it badly. Baba was so terrified that she told Gracie, who smoothed it over with Curzon. If anyone else had committed such a crime—or anyone else had told him of it—Curzon would have been furious.
9
The Absentee Wife
For Christmas 1922, Gracie and Baba were at Hackwood, Cim and Tom in the South of France, Irene at Melton Mowbray and Curzon in Lausanne for the Peace Conference. With Lloyd George now out of the picture, Curzon’s decision to stay on as foreign secretary was ratified by Baldwin’s recognition of his powers. “I have suddenly been discovered at the age of 63,” he wrote to Gracie. “I was discovered when I was Viceroy of India from 99–06. Then I was forgotten, traduced, buried, ignored. Now I have been dug up and people have found life and even merit in the corpse.”
Unhappily, the creature comforts in Lausanne were not up to those in any of Curzon’s houses. “Having no valet I now have to dress myself,” he wrote plaintively, requesting Gracie to bring or send brandy, soda, a box of cigarettes and a bottle of his favorite shampoo. His back was causing him more trouble than ever. “My new cage is broken and the fractured pieces of steel cut into me and tear my skin and clothes.”
Though Grace wrote her husband letters breathing misery at his absence (“it almost breaks my heart, the thought of Christmas there without you”) she spent as much time away from him as she could. After a series of balls in November she had made one of her regular visits to Paris, where she was feted (“flowers as usual from the Aga Khan, Mme. de Castellane and Charles Mendl [first secretary at the British embassy in Paris]”), with dinner parties and luncheons galore.
Immediately after Christmas she set off for the smart resort of Saint Moritz, giving as her reason fun for Baba, who was joining her there on January 9. “I am so sad not to be able to spend our anniversary with you
,” she wrote from the Palace Hotel. Many might have wondered why, with cars, private coaches on trains, servants to pack for her and accompany her and endless time at her disposal, she could not manage it. But Curzon recognized resignedly that the Saint Moritz whirl had priority, though he wrote wistfully: “It is nice to think that we are in the same country.”
In Saint Moritz, where the season was at its height, Grace was a noticeable figure, wrapped in opulent and becoming furs as she drove about in a scarlet sleigh. To Curzon’s alarm, one of Baba’s suitors, Lord Westmorland, had also arrived in Saint Moritz. When Gracie suggested that Baba, suitably chaperoned, remain there after she herself left, Curzon would have none of it. He was becoming disenchanted even with Baba, the only one of his daughters he still considered loyal. He believed that she was incapable of affection and he constantly complained that she never kept in touch with him (“No good expecting Baba to write”). Nevertheless, he sent her a Christmas check.
According to his lights, he had tried to be a good father, but was uneasily conscious that he had failed. From his women friends among the Souls he received attention, flattery and warm affection; from his stepdaughter, little Marcella, a happy, unquestioning devotion. Why could not his daughters be more like these templates of desirable female behavior? He was far fonder of Marcella than of any of his own children. “To me, the happiest moment in the 24 hours is when darling little Marcella comes in.” It was more, though, a question of Marcella’s personality than her age (she was fifteen): she was gentle, serene and so intuitive that they were always in sympathy. Her undemanding presence was a contrast to the girls who had inherited his own strong will.
The Viceroy's Daughters Page 9
