Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor (10 page)

That was that, so I did. To my amazement I found a grey stockinette dress with delightful grey pearl buttons decorating it. It cost three pounds, nineteen and six. When I took it back I didn’t sing its praises, I presented it to her and said, ‘I don’t know whether it’s going to suit you, but if you don’t like it or it doesn’t fit, I can return it and get the money back.’ That seemed to please her. I unwrapped it and she liked the look of it, then tried it on. It fitted her to perfection. When she heard how little it had cost, she seemed to like it even more. She almost wore it out; it was literally threadbare, something she never did with her other clothes. She’d come back and tell me that her friends had admired it and asked her where she had got it from.

‘Did you tell them the truth, my lady?’

‘No, of course not, Rose, they’d never have believed me anyway. I told them Jacqmar made it.’ Jacqmar was a shop she used in Grosvenor Street. ‘I expect they’ll be round there tomorrow, trying to get one like it.’

The success of the Marks & Spencer’s frock sparked off her ladyship’s enthusiasm for the shop. I was never able quite to repeat our first success but I came near to it with some golfing skirts which also fitted perfectly and were much admired.

Hats were a big thing. I remember once when we’d been travelling in America and had returned to New York, where we were spending the night before sailing, she announced her intention of going to look round Bergdorf Goodman, the big store on Fifth Avenue. ‘Don’t you come back with any more hats, my lady,’ I said. ‘The luggage is all packed and the hat boxes are full.’ She waved me a perky goodbye and I knew then it would have been better to have said nothing, that my remark was now a challenge to her. True to form, back she came laden with parcels.

‘I hope those are not hats you’ve got there,’ I said.

‘Rose, I just couldn’t resist them,’ she replied. She should have added, ‘After what you said,’ because that’s what she meant.

‘You’ll have to carry them yourself,’ I said, ‘my hands will be full, as I told you.’

And she did carry them and when we got to Southampton I told her she must declare them at the customs. ‘Oh no, Rose, I’m not going to pay any duty on them. They’ve cost me enough already. If they ask for it I shall tell them they can keep the hats.’

But they did ask for it and she did pay it. Mind you, give her her due, she could wear hats and I think to some extent she influenced fashion. There was the case of Miss Welham who opened a hat shop in Knightsbridge. Lady Astor was one of her first customers. Not only did she go there regularly but all her friends did the same until Miss Welham had a very thriving business. She paid her debt to Lady Astor because when she died she left her £IOO; and how her ladyship appreciated it. It was to her in a way the widow’s mite and as greatly to be treasured. Shoes and gloves were also a mania with her and whenever she went to Paris she’d come back laden with them. I’m glad to say she was very careful with gloves, I wasn’t left with a box of odd ones as some ladies’ maids were. I remember one saying to me, ‘I must have thirty single-handers stored away and I am not allowed to get rid of them. My lady is certain she will be able to make a pair one day. At the rate she is going on I wouldn’t be surprised. If there was a society for one-armed gentlewomen perhaps she would let me give them to it.’ I could guess how she felt.

Lady Astor wasn’t too good with umbrellas, particularly in later life. She would meet a friend in the street, start chatting and hang her brolly on an iron railing if there was one nearby so that she could use her hands for gestures. When the conversation was over she’d often walk off and leave it there. Many’s the journey of hers I’ve had to retrace looking for one.

Another accessory that was in constant use when I first joined her was fans. She had a beautiful collection from many countries. The feathers that looked so gorgeous with their tortoiseshell handles needed great care to keep them fresh and clean. It seemed a shame when they went out of fashion. I think her ladyship missed them because she used them to great theatrical effect when she was talking to visitors and friends. Eventually, I’m glad to say, she gave them to Miss Joyce Grenfell, the actress, who is a niece and a friend as well. Yet another accessory of that time which also followed fans into retirement was lace. Lady Astor had a most beautiful collection which I was able to learn from. It was eventually all boxed up and put away though I did keep some to use on her black velvet dresses, coffee-coloured collars and turned-back cuffs, rather as they were worn in King Charles’s time. Lace had to be cleaned most carefully and ours was always sent to a specialist cleaner.

Of all the things committed to my charge the jewellery caused me the most concern. When I first joined her ladyship I was given a list of all that she owned and I had to sign for it. It ran to about five pages of foolscap; I’ve got it to this day and nothing will make me part with it. It now shows where every piece went to and to whom it went. It has proved very useful even since her ladyship’s death and it will always serve to give me a clean bill of health. It really is extraordinary when you think that I, a servant earning £75 a year, should be given the care of jewels whose value ran into hundreds of thousands of pounds. I alone knew the combination number of the safe. I expect there was a copy of it kept in the office but her ladyship could never remember it, which was fortunate for me since she couldn’t take anything without my knowing about it, and although she wouldn’t thank me for saying so she had a very poor memory over certain things. The very valuable pieces were of course kept in the bank in St James’s Square; this was a condition imposed by the insurance people, but I was sent to collect anything as it was required, and again had to sign for it. What would have happened if I had lost anything I don’t know, it’s something I don’t like to think about, but it would have been a long time before they could have got its worth back out of my wages; I should have had to have lived to be as old as Methuselah!

Perhaps the most valuable of all her ladyship’s jewellery was the Sancy diamond. Its history fascinated me as much as the diamond itself. It was bought in Constantinople in 1570 by the Seigneur de Sancy, French Ambassador to Turkey; an almond-shaped beauty faceted Indian fashion on both sides. When Sancy became French Ambassador in Britain, King Henry IV of Navarre asked to borrow it. Sancy agreed and sent a messenger with it. He never arrived. His body was found, but not the diamond. Sancy, believing in the boy’s loyalty, explored further, and it was discovered that he had swallowed the jewel. It was later sold to James I of England, then to Cardinal Mazarin and then to Louis XIV. After the French Revolution it went to Russia and finally William Waldorf Astor bought it for her ladyship. When I used to handle it I thought of all the places it had been, particularly the messenger’s stomach. Talk about Jonah and the whale! It caused a bit of excitement while it was with the Astors, and me a few anxious moments. When war was declared in 1939 his lordship decided that everything of value should be moved from London to Maidenhead. Mr Lee came to me and said, ‘I’ve just had a message from Lord Astor saying would you take the Sancy diamond to Cliveden when you next go.’

‘It’s in the bank,’ I said.

‘No it isn’t. His lordship’s cleared the bank and he says you must have it.’

Well, I was nearly out of my mind with fright, yet I knew I was right. After all I wasn’t likely to forget whether I’d got a few hundred thousand pounds’ worth of diamond in my possession, was I? I phoned Miss Jones, Lord Astor’s secretary. ‘Oh, he’s just spoken to me about it, Rose,’ she said. ‘He put it in his pocket and forgot that it was there.’

‘Put it in his pocket and then said that I’d got it,’ I shouted down the phone. ‘Wait till I see him, I’ll give him a piece of my mind!’

‘You can do it now, Rose,’ came the reply in his lordship’s voice. He’d taken the phone from Miss Jones. ‘It was very naughty of me.’

‘Naughty, my lord?’ I said, ‘it was criminal. You nearly murdered me, I was just about to have heart failure.’ I must say that for the next few days whenever he saw me he put his head in his hands and turned away.

I wasn’t the only one to have suffered through that diamond, Mr Lee informed me. ‘It happened,’ he said, ‘some years before you joined, Miss Harrison; there was a ball at St James’s Square and Lady Astor had lent the diamond to her sister, Mrs Nora Phipps, to wear on a gold chain. In the early hours of the morning her ladyship came up to me and whispered, “Mr Lee, the Sancy diamond is missing.”

‘“Missing, my lady, do you mean Mrs Phipps has lost it?”

‘“Yes,” she said. “Who do you think has taken it?”

‘“If you mean do I know who the thief is, my lady, it’s a question I can’t answer, but aren’t you jumping to conclusions?” She was.

‘“What about your men?” she said, knowing I’d hired some additional staff for the evening. “Do you think they’re honest?”

‘I looked hard at her. “Be reasonable,” I said, “What would the likes of us do with the Sancy diamond? The moment we tried to get rid of it we’d be arrested.”

‘“What about the band?” she said.

‘“The band has nothing to do with me, my lady, it was booked by your secretary.” It was Ambrose and his orchestra who were so popular at that time that they were engaged for all the big society balls; hardly likely to have wanted to combine rhythm and crime. “If it’s a question of theft, my lady, it would more likely be one of your guests; they would be in a better position to dispose of the diamond. If you believe it to have been stolen I suggest you ring Scotland Yard.”

‘She went to his lordship but he wouldn’t hear about calling in the police. It was just as well. I informed all the staff that it was missing and the next morning at seven one of the under-housemaids came to my room with the Sancy diamond in her hand. “Mr Lee,” she said, “is this the thing there’s all the fuss about?” She’d found it under a carpet. It had probably been swept under by the ladies’ long dresses. And that, Miss Harrison,’ said Mr Lee, ‘was the mystery of the Sancy diamond.’

Mr Lee always spun his stories delightfully, and I must say I liked the housemaid’s reference to the famous diamond as a ‘thing’. It seemed to put it in its place. Once Mr Lee got into his stride he was a hard man to stop. He went on to tell me about the time her ladyship’s pearls were missing. ‘It was in 1919, Miss Harrison, just about the time society was getting into gear again after the First World War, and when her ladyship had won her seat in the Commons, for Plymouth. There’d been a party at the house in Elliot Terrace and the morning following Lady Astor sent for me and said, “Lee, my pearls have been stolen.”

‘“I’m sorry to hear that, my lady,” I said. “When and by whom?”

‘“It must have been last night,” she said, “and I don’t know who took them.”

‘“Then you mean they’re missing, my lady.”

‘“I’ve searched everywhere and so has Miss Samson.” Miss Samson was her lady’s maid though she’d only been with her a short time. “They must have been stolen. Ring the police.”

‘“Very well, my lady.” I tried to convey that she was being a little hasty, but I had to do as she said. The sergeant came round and true to form he started off with, “What’s her maid like?” It was always the staff that came under suspicion. I tried to explain that it was unlikely that she could have taken them because she’d have no means of getting rid of them, but he still wasn’t convinced.

‘“She’s the one most likely to have done it; I’ll question her first.” He interviewed her in the library. Poor Miss Samson, she came out blazing with fury and with tears running down her cheeks, just in time to hear her ladyship say, “We’ve found them.” Apparently her secretary, Miss Jenkins, had turned out the wastepaper basket in her room, and discovered that the pearls had dropped in there. When I next saw Miss Samson I thought it only right to express my sympathy for what had happened, and she told me her story. Apparently, that bullying sergeant had written out a statement for her to sign admitting that she’d stolen the pearls. When she wouldn’t he insisted on searching her.’ Then Mr Lee’s voice dropped to a horrified whisper: ‘Do you know, Miss Harrison, she told me that he had even put his hand inside her breeches.’ I must say I found it hard to keep a straight face, not at what the sergeant had done to Miss Samson, but because Mr Lee found it impossible to refer to her undergarment by its familiar name of ‘knickers’.

We did have a real burglary at Cliveden while I was there. It was during the summer; a painter had left a ladder at one of the bedroom windows and the thief managed to get into my lady’s room and take some small pieces of jewellery which were lying around. I think he must have been disturbed because there were a number of valuables left behind and none of her drawers had been opened. The police and the insurance people came and investigated but they weren’t able to find whoever had done it. A few days later his lordship called me in to see him. ‘We think it would be a good thing if we changed the safe, Rose. Instead of a combination we shall have an ordinary type of lock, and there will be two small keys, one for Lady Astor and one for you. They’ll be a gold colour and we’ll buy you a gold bracelet and you can carry it on that.’

I had to think very fast. ‘That won’t do for me at all, my lord,’ I said.

‘Why, what do you mean, Rose?’ He wasn’t used to having his decisions challenged and it was the first time I’d done it.

I said, ‘I’m the only person who knows the combination of the safe at present, but only you and her ladyship know that I’m the only one. If I’m seen carrying a key on my wrist everybody will realize what it’s for, and if a wrong ‘un finds out I may end up with my wrist cut off. Oh no, my lord, that won’t do for me at all.’ He laughed a bit but I could see that what I’d said had gone home.

‘All right, Rose, we’ll leave things as they are for the time being.’ He had to allow himself a loophole as regards time, but nothing further was ever mentioned about it after that. Now I don’t want you to think that I was a coward and that I was really afraid about my wrist, but I knew that if her ladyship had access to the safe I would never be able to keep track of where her jewellery was, and my life would have been made a misery. But I couldn’t very well tell his lordship that, could I?