The Viceroy's Daughters (2 page)

A fortnight before her second child, Cynthia Blanche (always known as Cimmie), was born on August 28, 1898, it was announced that Curzon was to succeed Lord Elgin as viceroy of India. For a man as young as thirty-eight, who had held no senior government position before, it was an extraordinary post to be offered. It was given to him in part because he had asked for it—Curzon believed, with reason, that he could fill it better than anyone else—but chiefly because he was quite clearly the best available candidate. He had visited India four times, his knowledge of its culture, problems and history was immense, he had written about it at length, and he was on terms of friendship with many of its potentates, as well as the emir who ruled its powerful neighbor, Afghanistan.

His triumph was crowned by the award of the peerage considered fitting for the greatness of the office; he was now Baron Curzon of Kedleston (in the peerage of Ireland). But although as viceroy of India he would be one of the most powerful rulers in the world, holding the destinies of millions in his hand, financially he would be worse off rather than better. Maintaining the huge staffs considered essential at Viceregal Lodge in Calcutta and the viceroy's summer palace at the hill station of Simla mopped up the twenty-five-thousand-pound annual viceregal salary; in addition, the Curzons were expected to buy all plate, wine, carriages and horses from the outgoing viceroy, as well as paying their own fares and freight to India.

As vicereine, Mary had to be dressed as befitted a queen in a country where status was indicated by sumptuous clothing and jewels. Her trousseau from Paris cost over one thousand pounds
*
(the average weekly wage of an agricultural laborer then was ninety pence). Levi Leiter gave her a parure of diamonds, including a tiara, and three thousand pounds to the couple jointly. It was at this moment that Curzon, perhaps feeling that once touched by destiny nothing could harm him, decided to buy a twenty-five-year lease on the house at No. 1 Carlton House Terrace. It cost him twenty-five thousand pounds and a further one thousand five hundred pounds was needed to put it in decent repair, which he did not hesitate to borrow from the bank (guaranteed by his long-suffering father-in-law).

On December 10, 1898, Mary, Irene, Cimmie, aged three and a half months, and their nanny (engaged, needless to say, by Curzon) left Plymouth on the three-week voyage for India. Curzon joined them at Marseilles. His departure was known to his coterie of friends as “the passing of a Soul.”

2

Viceroy and Vicereine

On the way to India Mary Curzon made her will. Datelined “The Indian Ocean, 29 December 1898,” it is a pathetically brief document, seemingly written largely to safeguard her jewelry.

I devise and bequeath my four rows of white pearls my large tiara made by Boucheron my second diamond tiara made by the Goldsmiths Co my diamond necklace made by Watherston and all my old laces to my husband George Nathaniel Lord Curzon of Kedleston to be held by him upon trust during his life for my son if I have one or for the eldest surviving of my sons if I have more than one. And upon my husband's death to be similarly held upon trust by my son or eldest son whichever it be as heirlooms inalienable from the Kedleston title. Failing my son I bequeath the above mentioned articles to my husband upon trust during his life for my daughters to be distributed by him among them either during his life or upon his death at his discretion.

She wished the same for her diamond star tiara and diamond brooch.

Moving on to the rest of her jewelry—notably a ring, clasp and brooch of rubies and diamonds, brooches, crescent and belt of turquoise and a sapphire-and-diamond bracelet—she left these to Curzon, to keep or dispose of as gifts as he thought fit, as well as her plate and personal belongings. To her father went a book and a picture by Millet; to her mother, her sables, silver fox, chinchilla and other furs. This will would later add to the conflict between Curzon and his daughters.

In India, as in England, the two little girls led a life with a strict nursery routine. Outside the home, their parents moved through the formalities expected of them. Levees, dances, a Drawing Room, a garden party, official dinners for 120 every Thursday and innumerable smaller dinner and luncheon parties were crammed into the three months spent in Calcutta. Bejeweled princes walked along marble floors past motionless rows of uniformed viceregal guards to where the viceroy, seated on a dais in the throne room, awaited them. If the visitor were of sufficiently high rank Curzon would descend the steps to meet him.

Simla, in the hills north of Delhi, was a different matter altogether. The wives and children of army officers and administrators in the Indian civil service came here to escape the stifling, enervating heat of the plains while their husbands sweltered below, escaping for short breaks to join them, and life was freer and less formal. Young officers flirted with grass widows during early-morning rides, picnics and dances; gossip was rife and the atmosphere frivolous.

The nearest Curzon came to relaxation was at another viceregal refuge, Naldera, a camp seventeen miles from Simla where he could eat and work out of doors. The stream of orders, reports, diplomatic messages and reforms that flowed unceasingly from his pen were varied by letters to friends in England and a copious correspondence with his agent on the need to find a tenant prepared to pay the highest possible rent for No. 1 Carlton House Terrace. Eventually they settled on Joseph Hodges Choate, U.S. Ambassador to London, who offered two thousand pounds a year.

India, with its superabundance of eligible single men, was a paradise for young unmarried women. When Mary's sisters came to stay with the Curzons in 1899 the youngest, Daisy, became engaged to one of the viceroy's aides-de-camp, Lord Suffolk's eldest son (whom she married in 1904).

Mary took her two young children back to England for a visit of six months in 1901, during which time she and Curzon wrote to each other almost every day. He also wrote to his daughters, loving little notes with exactly the sort of news they would like. “My sweet Simmy, Daddy is going to write you a line while he is sitting out under the trees at Naldera,” he wrote on June 10, 1901. “It is so hot that he has got no coat on. Little Fluffy is lying at my feet stretched out on her side pretending to be asleep. She never leaves me and has quite recovered her looks now that she is back in Simla. I am all alone now in the morning when I get up. No itty girls to come in and see me and help me to shave. Isn't it sad? Kisses to Irene and Simmy from loving Daddy.” The letters continued in a stream, from Viceregal Lodge, Simla, and the heat of Government House in Calcutta (“When I came back here little Danny recognized me at once and he came trotting to me and never leaves my side at luncheon and dinner.”)

In England Mary was feted, dining with the king and queen—of whom she became a close friend—and enchanting men like the future prime minister, Arthur Balfour, who described her as “intoxicating.”

She was back in India for the Coronation Durbar (to proclaim Edward VII King-Emperor) held in India's capital, Delhi, in 1902. The viceregal couple entered the city on an elephant, sitting in a silver howdah beneath the golden umbrella of state. The assemblage awaiting them displayed possibly the greatest collection of jewels ever to be seen in one place: each of the Indian princes was adorned with the most spectacular of his gems from the collections of centuries, while the English had been advised that protocol demanded their most splendid, opulent pieces. The only unplanned moment in the magnificence of the proceedings occurred when a fox terrier belonging to one of the bandsmen in a Highland regiment trotted across the great horseshoe-shaped arena, mounted the dais, leaped into the empty throne awaiting Curzon and began barking.

Parades, march-pasts and polo culminated in the State Ball, where Mary outshone everyone in the famous Peacock Dress—cloth of gold embroidered with tiny peacock feathers, each eye an emerald, the skirt trimmed with white roses and the bodice with lace. She glittered with diamonds, pearls and precious stones: a huge necklace of diamonds around her throat, others of diamonds and pearls and a crownlike tiara, a pearl tipping each of its high diamond points. As she walked through the hall, Curzon beside her in white satin knee breeches, the gasps were almost audible.

It was at Naldera, in the summer of 1903, that Mary conceived her third child. She returned to England early in January 1904 for the birth; the Curzons' third daughter was born on March 20, 1904. She was christened Alexandra Naldera, after her godmother, Queen Alexandra, and the place of which Mary had such idyllic memories. Neither of the Curzons regarded their family as complete, however; both were anxious for an heir.

Very
shortly,
Mary
was
pregnant
again.
Curzon,
who
had
come
back
to
England
in
May,
began
to
look
for
a
country
house,
which
had
to
be
reasonably
easy
to
reach
from
London
and
grand
enough
to
suit
his
tastes.
One
day
he
was
taken
to
lunch
at
Hackwood,
near
Basingstoke,
a
beautiful
eighteenth-century
house
set
in
a
finely
timbered
deer
park
of
seven hundred
acres.
Lord
Wilton,
to
whom
it
had
been
leased
by
its
owner,
Lord
Bolton,
was
anxious
to
reassign
the
lease.
With
his
usual
thoroughness,
Curzon,
who
had
been
immediately
attracted
by
the
place,
set
himself
the
task
of
finding
out
as
much
as
he
could
about
it.

In
August
their
hopes
for
an
heir
were
dashed
when
Mary
suffered
a
miscarriage,
followed
by
complications.
In
those
pre-antibiotic
days,
any
infection
was
dangerous,
and
by
September
her
life
was
despaired
of.
She
rallied,
succumbed,
and
rallied
again,
Curzon
distraught
at
her
bedside
and
her
daughters
brought
in
to
say
goodbye
to
her.
Finally,
after
her
life
had
been
five
times
given
up
for
lost,
she
recovered
and
by
the
end
of
October
1904
was
considered
out
of
danger,
though
very
weak.

A month later Curzon tore himself away from his family to return to India. Although no previous viceroy had served a second term, he had requested an extension in order to see through the reforms he had inaugurated and, having gained cabinet agreement, felt he could not renege on this. He missed Mary bitterly (“I have not dared go into your room for fear I should burst out crying”), as she did him.

In February 1905 Mary, her three daughters, two nannies, and a live cow in the hold to give fresh milk for eleven-month-old Alexandra left for India. They went straight to the health-giving air of Simla—where almost at once Mary narrowly escaped death from an earthquake—and, at last, settled down for what they hoped would be a uninterrupted spell of family life at Naldera. It was here that Alexandra was given the name that would stay with her all her life: Baba, the Indian word for
baby
or
little one.

They were there less than a year. Curzon may have been India's greatest viceroy, but his imperious attitude had made him enemies. The chief of these was Lord Kitchener, whom Curzon himself had proposed as commander in chief of the Indian army. Although, ironically, Kitchener was one of Mary's greatest admirers, it was almost inevitable that two men of such dominating character would fall out. In the ensuing battle of wills Kitchener, politically more manipulative than Curzon and soon with the cabinet on his side, became the victor. On August 14, 1905, Curzon resigned. “Today you will see Curzon's resignation in the papers and Minto's appointment,” wrote Lord Esher to a friend. “What a confusion, a new viceroy on the eve of the Prince of Wales's visit.

“Of course it is bound to take the gilt off that, as Curzon would have done the whole thing magnificently. Perhaps, in one sense, from the P. of Wales's point of view, it has this advantage, that he would have played ALMOST second fiddle to Curzon.”

When the Curzons left Simla in October, their carriage was dragged through the streets by the townspeople and they were given a triumphant send-off. By contrast, Curzon arrived home in December 1905 to a cool, shabby welcome. There was no earldom (given to every previous viceroy) and his friend Arthur Balfour, now prime minister, refused to support his candidacy in the various parliamentary constituencies which invited him to stand.

Bitterly wounded, puzzled and humiliated, he retired with Mary and their daughters to the South of France, returning to I Carlton House Terrace the following March. Here, once more, he took over the management of the house, even inspecting all the servants every morning to check that their uniforms were in perfect condition and their fingernails clean. This time, Mary did not mind so much. She had never really recovered her health after her illness eighteen months earlier and it was now steadily deteriorating, so much so that in June 1906 she wrote to her brother: “I fear I shall never be well again.”

Less than a month later she put her final letter on Curzon's pillow. “What causes me such acute agony is that I should be a burden to you whom I worship, just when I would give my very soul to be a help.” Ten days later, on July 18, 1906, she died of a heart attack, with Curzon's arm around her. She was only thirty-six.