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.
He did not soften toward Irene, for instance, when at her instigation he allowed her to visit him briefly in the spring of 1923, which she followed by a humble letter of thanks: “Dear Daddy, I came away profoundly grateful for having seen you for those few minutes. It has made such an immense difference to me. I take things that touch you so deeply to heart that it would make all the difference if you felt I might see you from time to time and so hold onto ties that deep down mean everything to me. Thank you again for those minutes which, though short, meant the world to Your grateful daughter.”
By contrast, his attitude to Grace was subservient, with constant pleas that she might spare some time to come and see him, requests that she would write more often, demands that she should rest and free herself from cares (“your holiday seems to be one long course of self-sacrifice,” he wrote without the slightest trace of sarcasm). These expressions of devotion only varied when he was forced to defend himself against Gracie’s jealous accusations.
Occasionally he was able to dismiss some baseless charge (“Ever since that fatal evening when we dined with Maud and I committed the seemingly unpardonable error of talking after dinner to Diana Cooper you have been different”); more often than not he did not know why she was attacking him. “You say I will understand why your feelings toward me have so changed. I have read those words and I have not the faintest inkling to what they refer. I am not conscious of having failed in the smallest respect in loyalty to you. I am not capable of that. I have not the slightest idea what I am supposed to have done or not done.” Sadly he concluded: “You show affection to almost everyone else until I almost feel I am the person who comes last and counts least.”
Gracie’s self-chosen role as absentee wife did not prevent her from doing what she could for Baba. She took her to balls and parties; she took both Irene and Baba to the Buckingham Palace garden party that concluded the season on July 29, 1923—Grace in white lace with amber feathers in her white hat, Irene in a champagne-colored frock and Baba in white.
Baba, like Irene and Cimmie before her, was treating Cliveden more and more like a second home. For her there was another attraction: Nancy Astor’s twenty-five-year-old son (by her first marriage), Bobbie Shaw. A glamorous young officer in the Blues (the Royal Horse Guards), he was an ornament of the Cliveden circle, known for his wit as much as for his good nature. He was the only person who could stand up to his mother in full flood, stopping a stream of argument or direction with a single dry remark that reduced her to a helpless gust of laughter.
He was very attracted to Baba and she, at nineteen, equally drawn to him. They made a striking couple; with their looks, slim, elegant figures and chic, they seemed, said one of the Langhorne uncles, like the two juvenile leads in a musical comedy, ready to glide effortlessly into a stylish dance number. It was assumed by everyone that one day in the near future they would announce their engagement.
But Bobbie had a secret. He was homosexual. It was not something Baba could possibly have known or even guessed. No one would have dreamed of discussing such a subject in front of a young unmarried girl and homosexuals themselves were extremely careful not to betray their sexual orientation—it was, after all, a criminal offense—so much so that many married and fathered children. Bobbie, however, was an extremely honorable man who had no intention of marrying Baba in order to provide himself with a “blind” and who was far too fond of her to deprive her of the chance of real sexual happiness in the future. Gently he made it clear that marriage was not in the cards, so tactfully that he always remained one of her best friends.
She had many other admirers. Prince George was still pursuing her, to the displeasure of the king and queen when they were linked publicly in the press. “Another row about you, my dear, which was trying, however it is all right and I had it out with them, and it was only the papers,” he wrote from Balmoral in September 1923. On another occasion, after playing in a golf foursome, Prince George, the Prince of Wales and Fruity Metcalfe playfully signed a pledge promising to pay Baba one hundred pounds (about two thousand five hundred pounds in today’s money) if they smoked too much.
We the undersigned swear, on oath, that we abide by the following compact.
(1) P of W two cigarettes before five o’clock, plus pipes
(2) P.G. four camel cigarettes before five
(3) E.D.M. four cigarettes before five o’clock.
This agreement to commence May 23rd and to expire June 25 or we agree to pay £100 in default to be equally divided.
Signed: Edward P, George, E. D. Metcalfe.
(They kept their pledge, as a note in Baba’s handwriting shows.)
It is an interesting document, if only because it shows the prince’s signature on the same piece of paper as his brother George and Fruity—the two men of whom he was fondest (years later, Lloyd George told his equerry Dudley Forwood that these were the only two men in his life whom the prince really loved).
For Fruity, since their return from India, the prince had come to feel an affection so deep and all-embracing that it could have been called love, as a letter written the previous autumn (September 19, 1922) from Balmoral shows. It is worth quoting in full, if only because if it had been addressed to a woman, one could be forgiven for mistaking it for a love letter:
My dear old Fruity,
I am so sorry I have not written before. I have been meaning to but I’m too bloody (£50 to you) sleepy after dinner, which is the only time I get for letters as I’m out all day after the stags. I loathed having to come north on Tuesday and leave you behind, the first time in nearly a year, that’s all. I’m missing you a whole lot. I most certainly am!
But I’ll be back south in a fortnight and it’s my duty to come here for a bit, not only to see my family but also to see all the keepers and ghillies and servants, some of whom I’ve known for 20 years. It’s desperately cold and I feel much as I would in the Antarctic, all tucked up, and it’s my first taste of real cold for two years and I hate it worse than ever!! I missed two stags yesterday but shot well today and got four so I’m quite pleased with myself for once and they were all long downhill shots. But stalking seems very tame after riding, as everything else does, and I’m missing my riding terribly, and hope to God I won’t loose [sic] the very little I feel I’ve picked up in the last six weeks! And what about all my lovely boots? I feel that every step I take on the hill is making my chances of getting into them again smaller and smaller!! This feeling haunts me.
But enough balls and nagging. Honestly, and you must know it by now, I miss you terribly when you are away, and somehow I want to say I’m ever so grateful to you for being the marvellous friend to me you have been ever since we left India; I don’t count so much before March, do you? as we saw so very little of each other as compared to now. Oh! I can’t write what I want to say but I am oh! so very grateful to you for everything. Your marvellous friendship first and then all your help with the horses and ponies and the running of my stables. But I’m not going to write a soppy letter though I insist on your driving out of your silly old head any ideas or thoughts of returning to India when your year’s leave is up. As a matter of fact there’s been no mention of your name up here as yet but that don’t make a scrap of difference. I’m just not going to let you go back to that Godforsaken country and life and insist on you staying with me (officially) to run my stables etc but actually, to . . . well, carry on being what you’ve always been to me and are now, my greatest man friend. I can’t just explain why you hold that “position” and mean so much to me, right here on paper, it’s just YOU!! But now I’m getting sloppy again and you’ll hate me if I get like this and besides I must dress for dinner, for which it is a far greater crime to be late than at Badminton. But you know what I mean!!
I hope you will get this before you go west on Sunday and I enclose a letter for old Wilder. I can’t bear not to be going to Easton Grey with you next week and mind you don’t jump the horses over the schooling fences. You can do anything you like in the closed school and may jump out cubbing if Master lets hounds go. But no more as I want to be there for the dirty work even if I’m not capable of doing it myself!! I know you’ll say I’ve been vocalising and put me in 1st or 2nd Div. But I only want to try and tell you how grateful I am to you for all you’ve been and are to me and how much I’m missing you and how I want you to chuck any ideas of leaving me unless you want to for your own private and personal reasons then of course you are free now as you’ve always been but I’ve gotten an idea that you don’t want to leave me for either private or personal reasons. So “cut it all right out” now and for all time. Must stop now.
Be good tho’ I bet you aren’t. Be careful of that little bitch from Peshawar but give my love to Mrs. Belleville. What a shame to rag you but the latter is the goods while the other isn’t your affair at all. Please write to me.
Yrs ever EP
PS I miss all the fun and jokes we have together so terribly. I’ve written pages to the old Admiral!
Curzon had spent the late summer taking a cure at the French spa of Bagnolles. He was worried, as always, by his financial affairs. Grace, who had agreed to pay him £200 a month, seldom did so. Rent, rates, taxes, living expenses, repairs, wages and entertainment for the two principal houses, 1 Carlton House Terrace and Hackwood, came to £20,389 15s 3d a year; Montacute House cost £1,589 10s 10d; Naldera, the house in Broadstairs, £299 13s 7d; income tax and supertax £6,067 5s; Baba £1,025 7s 3d. “A total of £32,371 15s!”
He came back from France on September 5, 1923, when he reproached Gracie for not taking the slightest interest in him, his health or his doings. “You have never once asked me how was my leg. Not one word have you ever said about my office or Foreign Affairs—you who once rebuked me for not keeping you au fait with everything that passed. For five weeks I have lived in absolute solitude.”
Grace was now pursuing her own life with unblushing selfishness, spending as much time away from her husband as she could while simultaneously trying to offload on to him as much of the responsibility for her children as possible. It was Curzon who had to find a tutor for Hubert; Curzon who arranged a party as a treat for Marcella’s sixteenth birthday on November 24, first lunching with her and then taking them all to the theater afterward; Curzon who wrote several times (fruitlessly) to Marcella’s older brother Alfred to remind him of his sister’s birthday; Curzon who mopped Marcella’s tears afterward when Alfred made no responses, failing even to turn up for the luncheon.
It was Curzon, too, who had to deal with the boy’s drunkenness at Balliol, who had to make arrangements to extricate him from his “decadent set” by sending him abroad. “Unless we save him now, Gracie, it will be too late,” wrote Curzon to his wife. As a first step, Alfred was sent to stay with Irene for a week, then returned to Carlton House Terrace, giving his word of honor that he would always be in by midnight. Instead, he stayed out all night, letting himself in by the area door when it was unlocked in the morning and, as Curzon put it, “drinking and cavorting with women, with whom he had on most occasions been home.” He still had gambling debts from Balliol and to keep afloat he had sold his car and pawned his jewelry. Curzon bought back the car, tried to find the jewelry and spent hours talking to Alfred. He begged Gracie not to go on giving Alfred money and above all to understand the seriousness of her son’s behavior. Finally, in February 1924, Curzon decreed that no bill would be honored unless it was from a tradesman or a debt of honor. “The Randolph Hotel, the tarts and the night club will not be paid.”
Grace was not particularly grateful. After the desperate attempts of the previous years to conceive and carry an heir, she had virtually given up all pretense of married life. Curzon did not make it easy for her: she was a woman who needed attention and, apart from the life of the bedroom, she received little from her husband. By his own account, he had no time for recreation and had only dined out once that year; instead, he sat up until two or three in the morning working on papers. Lord D’Abernon, to whom he confided this, noted in his diary: “This regime almost compels him to relegate to the morning hours the lighter amenities of conjugal life.” Not surprisingly, Gracie described herself in one letter as “only your wife in name.”
She seldom saw her husband. Though always protesting her longing to be with him, she managed to arrive in London when he was in Kedleston, to be in Scotland when he was in London, and then to depart in October for Switzerland (“I long to return as I no longer care for this place but the children seem to love it”). Nor had she been at home when the Mary Curzon Hostel for Women was established as a charity on October 6, 1922, at 170 King’s Cross Road, with Curzon’s great friend Consuelo Balsan (the former duchess of Marlborough) as trustee.
Curzon, who devotedly sent Grace flowers, chickens, rabbits and fruits whenever she was in England, felt her indifference badly. He wrote sadly from Kedleston, where many of his plans were going awry: “. . . all these worries and never one to turn to or speak to. I think you must try, Girlie, to be a little more nice to me in the future. It is telling on me badly . . .”
His unhappiness was exacerbated by a frightful row with Baba, who wanted to go to America. No doubt she felt she would like a change of scene since she had turned down Prince George and Bobbie Shaw had made it plain that their future was not together. But she was only nineteen and, although Nancy Astor had issued a blanket invitation to the houses of her Langhorne relations in Virginia, she knew that her father would not let her go without a carefully planned itinerary of visits to approved houses. One after another, these planned visits fell through, but not Baba’s determination. Curzon anguished over her plans, asking Lady Salisbury to visit him—he had to come down in his dressing gown, so painful was his back—so that he could ask her advice.
Lady Salisbury consulted Nancy Astor, and both agreed that on no account should Baba be allowed to go unless every day and week of her time in America was mapped out with bona fide invitations in advance. “When Baba comes back from Irene on Tuesday I shall probably have a fierce encounter,” Curzon wrote to Gracie. Two days later, he did. “This morning I had it out with Baba and went through a rather terrible scene. I implored her not to live for pleasure and excitement only but to do or attempt something serious but I fear it is not in the child.” To make allowances for a nineteen-year-old’s need for fun was not in Curzon’s nature.
His sole source of love and affection was Marcella, who traveled with her nurse to whatever house he was staying in. He loved her sunny nature, her originality, her frankness and her trusting delight in his company, all of which seemed to compare so unfavorably with his own daughters. He gave her little presents like Georgian paste shoe buckles; he reported gleefully that he had done a very difficult crossword puzzle in the Westminster Gazette, sent it in in Marcella’s name and won a prize. “Marcella is very pleased with the little terrier Chips Channon gave her, which capers about her school room,” he wrote to Grace in Saint Moritz at the end of November. “I see next to nothing of Sandra who is out all day. Where she goes I have no idea as she never leaves word with anybody.”
One of the places she went during that winter of 1923 was to her sister Irene, in Melton Mowbray, a small Leicestershire town at the heart of the best hunting country in England. Here Tom Mosley had successfully courted Cimmie, and here Irene was now well established, settled in Sandy Lodge, the hunting box that would become her home. From it, she hunted regularly with the Quorn, the Belvoir and the Cottesmore hunt clubs, with occasional days with the Pytchley and the Fernie. Here, too, was the Prince of Wales, hunting as often as he could manage with the Melton packs. With him, in charge of his horses, came Fruity Metcalfe.