CHAPTER 14

“I REGRET TO INFORM YOU”

On November 18, the day that her son would reach Pretoria as a prisoner of war, Lady Randolph Churchill threw one of the most celebrated social events of the year in London. As the chairman of a fund-raiser to refurbish the Maine, a hospital ship that was scheduled to sail to South Africa the following month, she had designed a party so lavish it stunned even this jaded, society-weary city. The venue was Claridge’s, but the everyday splendor of that legendary hotel was not sufficient for Lady Churchill. As a reporter covering the party for the Daily Mail would write, although Claridge’s had “always been noted as the resort of kings and princes, [it] was really Royal in its preparations for this great occasion.”

As Jennie’s guests stepped into the hotel that afternoon, the vast entry hall was filled with the bright, lilting music of pipes, played by a contingent of Scots Guards, who, in their vibrant red dress jackets, lined the hotel’s sweeping central staircase, tucked in among a lush array of potted palms and enormous flowers. As they were ushered inside, they found that the dining room, with its soaring ceilings and paneled walls, had been transformed for the afternoon into a magnificent concert hall. A large stage had been erected at one end of the room, over which two flags had been draped—not just the Union Jack but, to the surprise of some guests and the indignation of others, the Stars and Stripes of Lady Churchill’s own country as well. The rest of the room was filled with an elegant arrangement of tables, each topped with a vase of yellow and pink chrysanthemums, perfectly matching the shades on the lamps, which cast a soft, golden glow over the dazzled guests.

Although Jennie had billed the event as a “Thé-concert,” this was still her party, which meant that there was quite a bit more than tea for sale. “Pretty women wearing the prettiest frocks moved deftly about to wait upon every newcomer,” the reporter for the Daily Mail wrote, “and in the Royal room especially very high prices were paid.” Guests could buy everything from alcohol, including a particularly strong drink that had been named for the Maine, at the “American bar” in the adjoining room, to cigarettes, five hundred boxes of which had been donated by the Virginia-based Pasquali Cigarette Syndicate, to souvenir programs bound in white vellum. On the program’s cover was a striking portrait of a woman whom everyone in the city, let alone the room, would have known at a glance. Sketched in chalk by the most famous portrait painter of the Victorian era, John Singer Sargent, were the dark curls, heavily lidded eyes and famously full, sensuous lips of the hostess herself.

As beguiling as it was, however, Sargent’s sketch was the only glimpse Jennie’s guests would have of her that day. Nearly everyone she knew, or deemed worth knowing, was there, a glittering crowd that included the most prominent and powerful members of British society. Everyone from the Prince of Wales, who had arrived with the Duchess of Marlborough, dressed in ruby red and wearing a chic, narrow-brimmed black hat, to Sir Arthur Sullivan, who had written the music for two of the biggest theatrical hits of the century—H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance—filled the concert hall. Only Lady Churchill herself was nowhere to be seen.

Two days earlier, a telegram had arrived at Jennie’s home in London. It began with the five words that every mother fears most when her son is at war. “I regret to inform you,” it read, “that Mr. Winston Churchill has been captured by the Boers.” Although the author of the telegram, Oliver Borthwick, Churchill’s editor at the Morning Post, had been able to assure Jennie that Winston had “fought gallantly,” he could tell her nothing more. Nor could anyone else. Her younger son, Jack, who had been the first to see the telegram, had quickly written to her, hoping to stem her fears. “He is not wounded,” he told her. “Don’t be frightened. I will be here when you come home.”

By the day of the benefit at Claridge’s, news of the attack on the armored train was in every newspaper in London. From South Africa, Buller had referred to the decision to send out the train that morning as an example of “inconceivable stupidity.” In London, however, there was far less interest in the attack itself than in Churchill’s actions during it. He had become not only the talk of the city but the subject of widespread praise and admiration, something he had long felt deserving of, but had certainly never before been.

The wounded men who had been able to cling to the engine as it lurched back to Estcourt had told everyone who would listen of the heroism of Winston Churchill. In fact, on the same day as the attack, the platelayers had asked the railway inspector to write a special letter of tribute to the newspaper correspondent who had led the effort to free the engine, thus enabling them to escape, and quite possibly saving their lives. “The railway men who accompanied the armoured train this morning ask me to convey to you their admiration of the coolness and pluck displayed by Mr. Winston Churchill,” the letter, which was reprinted in newspapers across England, read. “The whole of our men are loud in their praises of Mr. Churchill who, I regret to say, has been taken prisoner. I respectfully ask you to convey their admiration to a brave man.”

Churchill’s bravery was not just mentioned in every article about the attack on the train, it was the heart of the story and, usually, the headline as well. Instead of commenting on the fact that five men had been killed and nearly sixty taken prisoner, the headline in the Yorkshire Evening Post had shouted, “MR. CHURCHILL’S HEROISM.” The Standard had reported that “Mr. Winston Churchill is said to have behaved during the skirmish with the greatest coolness and courage.” He had “rallied the party frequently, and fear lessly exposed himself,” the Daily News wrote, and the Daily Telegraph informed its readers that this “young man of brilliant promise” had not just helped to free the train but “manfully help[ed] to carry the wounded.”

Churchill’s own paper, the Morning Post, had not let the opportunity go to waste, boldly broadcasting the heroism of its man in the field. Its headline on the day of Jennie’s benefit, “OUR CAPTURED CORRESPONDENT,” was followed by a subtitle, in only slightly smaller type, that touted, “Mr. Winston Churchill’s Gallantry.” It also quoted from other newspapers’ accounts of the attack, including the Daily Mail, the paper that had attempted to hire Churchill first. “The dangers of the modern war correspondent’s work,” the Daily Mail had argued, “are strikingly exemplified by the capture of the Morning Post’s brilliant young special, Mr. Winston Churchill.”

Talk of Churchill’s political career was also revived, with predictions for his soaring success, should he make it out of South Africa alive. “We wish him a safe return to England to contest Oldham in the Conservative interest,” the Nottingham Evening Post wrote, “successfully we trust.” Not surprisingly, Atkins had also chimed in, predicting in the Manchester Guardian that his friend and fellow correspondent would make a triumphant return to politics. “This is the way to Parliament,” he wrote, “whither [Churchill] will carry, if he survive these perilous days.”

So loud and universal was the praise for Churchill, in fact, that one newspaper felt it necessary to point out what the others in their excitement seemed to have forgotten: He wasn’t even a member of the military. “We are very sorry that Mr. Winston Churchill should have been taken prisoner, and we have no doubt that he behaved with hereditary gallantry,” an editorial in the Globe began sulkily, before launching into a bitter complaint. “But we protest against despatches which represent him, a correspondent, and therefore properly a mere spectator, as ‘rallying’ the troops and calling upon them to ‘be men,’ while no mention is made of the officers actually on duty. One might suppose, from such a message, that Mr. Churchill undertook the con duct of the fight, and that the real commanders were doing nothing while it was in progress.”

Even at Jennie’s sumptuous fund-raiser, the conversation revolved not around the Maine, or even the war, but young Churchill. “Everyone naturally discussed the achievement of Mr. Winston Churchill,” the York Herald reported. There too, however, controversy was already brewing. Would Lady Churchill use her connections to try to free her son, as she had so often used them to send him to war? “The talk about the highest social influence being exerted in order to secure [Churchill’s] release in preference to that of prisoners unconnected with noble families,” one reporter wrote, “is most strongly deprecated.”

At home, for once in the spotlight not because of her own exploits but those of her son, Jennie suddenly found herself the object not of admiration, disapproval or jealousy, but pity. She was inundated with letters and telegrams, filled with a strange mixture of condolences for her son’s capture and congratulations on his bravery. Among the letters was one from Thomas Walden, once her husband’s valet and now her son’s, who had joined the Imperial Light Horse after Winston’s capture so that he could remain in South Africa to await, he hoped, his employer’s release. “I came down in the armoured train with the driver, who is wounded in the head with a shell,” he wrote to Jennie. “He told me all about Mr. Winston. He says there is not a braver gentleman in the Army.” The editor of the Daily News Weekly apparently agreed, writing to Lady Churchill to ask if she would be willing to write a caption for a sketch he wanted to publish depicting “the gallantry of WSC.”

The only letter Jennie took much notice of, however, was from her young lover, George Cornwallis-West. An officer in the Scots Guards, George was by then also in South Africa and had written to Jennie as soon as he heard the news of Winston’s capture. “I am so grieved to see by today’s paper that Winston has been taken prisoner,” he wrote to her from the Orange River Camp. “I do hope he will be released soon as a non combatant and that nothing will happen to him—how anxious you will be, my poor darling. How I wish I could help you.”

Had Churchill had his way, George would remain as far away from his mother as it was possible to be. He had known before leaving England that the dashing young officer wanted to marry Jennie, and that, despite some reservations, she was seriously considering the idea. “Of course, the glamour won’t last forever,” she had written breezily to a friend, “but why not take what you can?” The thought of his mother marrying a man who was not only his age but, as one of Jennie’s later biographers would write, “a bit short on brain,” made Churchill miserable, and he had not hidden his feelings on the subject. “I hate the idea of your marrying,” he had told her.

George had not endeared himself to Churchill in recent months, as he had already begun to adopt the manner of a disapproving stepfather. After running into Winston a few days before he boarded the Dunottar Castle, George had reported the encounter to Jennie, clicking his tongue in avuncular dismay. “Don’t tell him I said so, but he looked just a young dissenting parson, hat brushed the wrong way, and at the back of his head, awful old black coat and tie,” George had written. “He is a good fellow but—very untidy.”

Churchill’s only hope lay in the fact that he was not alone in trying to prevent his mother from marrying George. George’s family had done all they could to discourage the relationship. After trying and failing to keep George from seeing Jennie, and then to interest him in other, more suitable women, out of desperation George’s father had turned for help to the only person he thought might be able to talk some sense into Lady Churchill: her older son. Knowing that he had no hope of changing his mother’s mind, Winston had instead written to George. “I cannot tell you what he said as he refused me the right to disclose a word,” George later told Jennie, but “his arguments were very strong.”

Churchill had one other ally: the Prince of Wales, who had not only chided Jennie but warned George that he was making a terrible mistake. That summer, the prince had pulled George aside on his yacht, the HMY Britannia, and urged him to reconsider marrying a woman who was so much older than he was. He had also written to Jennie, sternly telling her that he hoped she would not continue her “flirtation” with George. In response, Jennie, bristling with indignation, had reminded the prince that it was her life they were discussing, not his own. “It has been my privilege to enjoy your friendship for upwards of quarter of a century,” he wrote to her in reply, “therefore why do you think it necessary to write me a rude letter simply because I have expressed strongly my regret at the marriage you are about to make?”

The more their friends and family pushed, the more angry and obstinate Jennie grew, and the more lovesick George became. He referred to Jennie as “my darling little missie,” swore that he could not live without her and loved her “more & more if possible.” Churchill, however, still held out hope that the wedding would not happen. “After all I don’t believe you will marry,” he had written to his mother not long before setting sail for South Africa. “My idea is that the family pressure will crush George.”

The resistance to her relationship with George had, of course, only made Jennie more determined than ever to marry him. In fact, she hoped to be reunited with him soon. Although Jennie had not planned to accompany the Maine to South Africa, she was beginning to change her mind. While throwing herself into the fund-raising (the benefit at Claridge’s alone had raised £1,500, around $200,000 in today’s money), she had been able to forget for a time her worries about Winston. “Had it not been for the absorbing occupation of the Maine,” she would later write, “I cannot think how I could have got through that time.” She also realized, however, that the ship could be useful to her in another way. Should she make the journey, she might be able to see George while she was there.

With the money Jennie and her committee had raised, the trip to South Africa need not be as onerous as it might otherwise have been. The ship, which had been donated by the American businessman Bernard Baker, had in its previous life been used to transport everything from cattle to baby elephants for the Barnum & Bailey Circus, and was therefore in desperate need not just of scrubbing but of an almost complete overhaul. With the help of the Royal Navy, the committee planned to add two decks, electric lighting and India-rubber flooring throughout the ship. There would be five wards, with more than two hundred beds, electric fans and refrigerators, and an operating theater with modern X-ray equipment.

Jennie, however, had some further renovations in mind that were perhaps not strictly medical in nature. Used to living in splendor her entire life, from her father’s Brooklyn four-story to Blenheim Palace, she was not about to bunk down in a tiny, sparsely furnished cabin on the Maine. In the end, her room would look more like a small Fifth Avenue apartment than quarters on a hospital ship. Crowded in among the enormous silk pillows, heavy, cinched curtains and potted plants was a surprising amount of furniture, from a tall, ornately carved cabinet that had a narrow, fold-out desk on hinges, to a richly upholstered sofa and even a large wooden pedestal table, crowded with clocks, framed photographs, tea trays and a cut-glass decanter. The room was, one nurse complained, “decorated in a manner suggestive of a lady’s boudoir, rich in…luxuries.”

What would create even more controversy than her lavish quarters was Jennie’s open resistance to accommodating any religious sentiment on board. Like her son, Lady Churchill had little interest in organized religion, and even less patience for its trappings. While she was happy to help the soldiers and officers of the queen’s army, she certainly wasn’t going to subject herself to the dour world of religious zealotry while she was at it. Before setting sail, Jennie, one outraged South African reporter would write, “had every scrap of religious literature—tracts, bibles, periodicals, leaflets etc—brought up on deck and the whole pitched overboard for the moral instruction of the fishes.”

Lady Churchill would soon be on her way to South Africa, wearing an unusually fashionable nurse’s uniform that she had designed herself, with a lace blouse and a wide belt that accentuated her slim waist. When she arrived, however, she would see neither her lover—who would fall victim not to Boer bullets but to sunstroke and would be invalided home before she had even set sail—nor her son. As Jennie began to oversee the packing of her bags and the decorating of her cabin, Churchill was about to begin his life as a prisoner of war. It would prove to be a strange and uncertain time, one that he would hate, he later wrote, “more than I have ever hated any other period in my whole life.”