Those Wild Wyndhams (64 page)

12
. Laura Tennant to Lady Frances Balfour, October (
1885
), Whittingehame Papers, NRS GD
433
/
2
/
477
/
4
f.
10
:
13
r. Laura’s reference is to a man armed ‘cap-à-pie’: meaning from head to foot.

13
. Pamela Tennant to Mary Elcho,
16
August
1892
, Stanway Papers.

14
. Ibid.

15
. Osbert Sitwell,
Laughter in the Next Room
(Macmillan,
1949
), p.
100
.

16
. Pamela Tennant to Mary Elcho,
25
August
1893
, Stanway Papers.

17
. Pamela Tennant to Mary Elcho,
16
August
1892
, Stanway Papers.

18
. Paget is remembered now as the inventor of sign language for the deaf and dumb, but his ‘engaging personal qualities’ – his geniality, sympathy and ‘deep affection for the young and old alike’ – as well as his eccentricity receive almost as much attention as his achievements in the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
: see Harry Lowery, ‘
Paget, Sir Richard Arthur Surtees
, second baronet (
1869
–
1955
)
’, rev. John Bosnell,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
, online edn, May
2008
[
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/
35358
, accessed
23
October
2013
].

19
. Pamela Tennant to Mary Elcho,
31
August
1892
, Stanway Papers.

20
. Ibid.

21
. Mary Elcho to Madeline Wyndham,
5
September
1892
, Stanway Papers.

22
. Percy Wyndham to Mary Elcho,
30
November
1892
, Stanway Papers.

23
. Ibid.

1
.
Nicola Beauman,
Cynthia Asquith
(Hamish Hamilton,
1987
), p.
6.

2
. Asquith,
Haply May I Remember
, p.
59
.

3
. Mary Elcho to Evelyn de Vesci,
16
January
1891
, De Vesci Papers, DD/DRU/
87
.

4
. Ellenberger, ‘The Souls: High Society and Politics’, p.
216
.

5
. Lambert,
Unquiet Souls
, p.
78
.

6
. Fingall,
Seventy Years Young
, pp.
179
,
182
.

7
. Hugo Elcho to Evelyn de Vesci,
20
March
1895
, De Vesci Papers, DD/DRU/
102
.

8
. Ettie Grenfell to Constance, Lady Wenlock,
8
December
1892
, quoted in Davenport-Hines,
Ettie
, p.
54
.

9
. Tynan Hinkson,
Years of the Shadow
, p.
15
.

10
. Mary Elcho to Arthur Balfour,
13
August
1890
(
Letters
, pp.
71
–
2
).

11
. Ibid.

12
. Ibid.

13
. Arthur Balfour to Mary Elcho,
16
July
1891
(
Letters
, pp.
73
–
4
).

14
. Mary Elcho to Arthur Balfour,
30
October
1912
(
Letters
, p.
291
).

15
. Asquith,
Haply I May Remember
, p.
134
.

16
. Beauman,
Cynthia Asquith
, pp.
6–7
; Mary Elcho to George Wyndham,
3
January
1892
, George Wyndham Papers.

17
. Pamela Tennant to Sibell, Countess Grosvenor,
28
December
1892
, George Wyndham Papers.

18
. Madeline Adeane to Madeline Wyndham,
28
December
1892
, Adeane Papers.

19
. Jalland,
Women, Marriage and Politics
, p.
181
.

20
. Asquith,
Haply I May Remember
, p.
135
.

21
. Arthur Balfour to Mary Elcho,
9
January
1893
(
Letters
, pp.
89
–
90
); see also Mary Elcho to George Wyndham,
3
January
1893
, George Wyndham Papers.

22
. Mary Elcho to Madeline Wyndham,
21
April
1893
, Stanway Papers.

23
. Wemyss,
Family Record
, pp.
50
–
2
.

24
. Lambert,
Unquiet Souls
, pp.
64
–
5
,
78
; Beauman,
Cynthia Asquith
, p.
15
.

25
. Adams,
The Last Grandee
, pp.
34
,
126
.

26
. Arthur Balfour to Mary Elcho,
16
August
1893
(
Letters
, p.
14
).

27
. Madeline Wyndham to Mary Elcho, quoted in Dakers,
Clouds
, p.
160
.

28
. Percy Wyndham to Mary Elcho,
6
September
1893
, Stanway Papers.

29
. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Secret Memoirs XVI,
9
November
1893
.

30
. Pamela Tennant to Mary Elcho,
25
August
1893
, Stanway Papers.

31
. Pamela Tennant to Mary Elcho,
16
August
1893
, Stanway Papers.

32
. Pamela Tennant to Mary Elcho,
25
August
1893
, Stanway Papers.

33
. Paget,
In my Tower
,
1
.
5
–
6
.

34
. Pamela Tennant to Mary Elcho,
25
August
1893
, Stanway Papers.

35
. Wilfrid Blunt, Secret Memoirs XVI,
16
October
1893
.

36
. See Mary Lovell,
The Churchills: A Family at the Heart of History – from the Duke of Marlborough to Winston Churchill
(Little, Brown,
2011
), pp.
49
–
50
.

37
. Longford,
Pilgrimage of Passion
, p.
298
.

38
. Wilfrid Blunt, Secret Memoirs XVI,
9
November
1893
.

39
. George Wyndham to Ettie Grenfell,
30
September
1893
, Desborough Papers, HALS DE/Rv/C
2800
/
39
. All others found in NRS GD
433
/
2
/
482
ff.
1
–
19
r.

40
. Wilfrid Blunt heard the story from two different sources. Once the immediacy of the crisis had passed, George Wyndham gave him the fundamentals of the entanglement. Shortly afterwards, at what was doubtless a gossipy lunch with Lewis (‘Loulou’) Harcourt at
11
Downing Street (Loulou being the son of the Chancellor, Sir William Harcourt), Loulou, who had been present at the Derwent house party, told Blunt that George Curzon, upon receiving anonymous telegrams at the Derwent house party from a lady in distress, ‘very foolishly shewed [them] around’, thinking they signified a crisis in Violet Granby’s marriage. On then receiving a telegram from Harry Cust, at Sheffield, who had just seen the pregnancy certificate sent to him by Nina and Violet Granby, Curzon hastened to him, returning only briefly to enlist George Wyndham’s help, before the two hared off again to Harry (Secret Memoirs,
16
October
1893
and
9
November
1893
). Ridley and Percy have Harry himself receiving letters from Nina Welby and showing them around as a joke (
Letters of Arthur Balfour and Lady Elcho
, p.
103
), but it is likely that this is an example of the way in which the tale mutated as it filtered through society. Harry could be cruel, but he was surely not foolish enough to incriminate himself so completely as that. As subsequent events demonstrated, the Souls’ morality could not extend to seducing unmarried women.

41
. George Wyndham to Ettie Grenfell,
27
September
1893
, Desborough Papers, HALS DE/Rv/C
2800
/
38
.

42
. Pamela Tennant to Sibell, Countess Grosvenor, n.d. (September
1893
), George Wyndham Papers.

43
. Mary Elcho to Madeline Wyndham,
20
,
21
November
1893
, Stanway Papers.

44
. Harry Cust to Arthur Balfour,
15
October
1893
, Whittingehame Papers, NRS GD
433
/
2
/
482
f.
4
r.

45
. Pamela Tennant to Mary Elcho,
13
March
1928
, Stanway Papers.

46
. Harry Cust to Arthur Balfour,
15
October
1893
, Whittingehame Papers, NRS GD
433
/
2
/
482
f.
4
r.

47
. Madeline Adeane to Madeline Wyndham,
19
November
1893
, Adeane Papers; see also Madeline Adeane to George Wyndham,
4
October
1893
, George Wyndham Papers.

48
. Sitwell,
Laughter in the Next Room
, p.
99
.

49
. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Secret Memoirs XVI,
7
October
1893
.

50
. Ibid.

51
. Ibid.,
16
October
1893
.

52
.
The Times
,
16
October
1893
.

53
. George Curzon to Arthur Balfour,
16
October
1893
, Whittingehame Papers, NRS GD
433
/
2
/
482
f.
6
r.

54
. Charles Welby to Arthur Balfour,
16
October
1893
, Whittingehame Papers, NRS GD
433
/
2
/
482
f.
8
r.

55
. Quoted in Ellenberger, ‘The Souls: High Society and Politics’, p.
214
.

56
. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Secret Memoirs XVI,
27
June
1894
.

57
. Harry Cust to Arthur Balfour, n.d., f.
5
r; Charles Welby to Arthur Balfour,
31
October
1893
, f.
14
r, and
3
November
1893
, f.
15
r, all Whittingehame Papers, NRS GD
433
/
2
/
482
.

58
. Quoted in Ellenberger, ‘The Souls: High Society and Politics’, p.
214
.

1
. Pamela Tennant to Mary Drew,
13
January
1894
, BL Mary Gladstone Papers, vol. XXXIII, Add. MSS.
46251
.

2
. Percy Wyndham to Mary Elcho,
20
October
1893
, Stanway Papers.

3
. Ibid.

4
. Harry Cust to Sibell, Countess Grosvenor, quoted in Egremont,
The Cousins
, p.
164
.

5
. Pamela Tennant to Madeline Adeane, n.d. [October
1893
], Stanway Papers.

6
. Pamela Tennant to Sibell, Countess Grosvenor,
12
November
1893
, George Wyndham Papers.

7
. Ibid.

8
. Madeline Adeane to Madeline Wyndham,
19
November
1893
, Adeane Papers.

9
. Pamela Tennant to Mary Drew,
13
January
1894
, BL Mary Gladstone Papers, vol. XXXIII, Add. MSS.
46251
.

10
. Madeline Adeane to Mary Elcho,
19
December
1893
, Stanway Papers.

11
. James,
Rise and Fall
,
pp.
233
–
4
.

12
. Pamela Tennant to Mary Drew,
13
January
1894
, BL Mary Gladstone Papers, vol. XXXIII, Add. MSS.
46251
.

13
. Madeline Adeane to Madeline Wyndham,
7
December
1893
, Adeane Papers.

14
. Ibid.

15
. Madeline Adeane to Madeline Wyndham,
14
March
1894
, Adeane Papers.

16
. Quoted in Hoare,
Serious Pleasures
, p.
4
.