I must admit I was terribly nervous as we motored up the curved lane to the Balsan château at Châteauroux in the heart of France. The family lived in a sort of compound with houses on grounds that looked like a well-tended park. Jacques had pointed out to me their cloth factories as we passed them, huge structures that had founded the family fortune back in the days of Napoleon when the Balsans had first clothed the French army in a blue cloth with the name of “the blue horizon.”
“That is what is facing us, my darling,” he had said to me as we motored through the grounds, closer to the imposing main building. “From now on, only blue sky on our horizon.”
Someone must have been watching, for the moment we pulled up, several young adults on the porch became a crowd of waving, chatting people of several generations. I saw Jacques blink back tears of joy, which made everything worth it: my years of loneliness, missing my sons, even Mother’s now ruined reputation for the way she had treated me years ago—everything. Family first, I had once heard Jacques say, and loss of that had been a tragedy.
I was hugged, kissed on both cheeks, my back patted as people, young ones mostly at the entry, embraced me even as they did Jacques. His brother Étienne was easy to pick out, for, as Jacques had said, they looked much alike. I heard the voices of little children floating down the grand staircase, but they had evidently been banished upstairs for now.
But then came squeals and cheers and cries, some so loud I could easily hear them from behind me. French words from at least twenty throats came at me like a chorus, dancing on the buzz of some whispered conversations. What if I could not hear them when they spoke to me or asked a question? More than once I thought I heard, “Belle, belle! Elle est belle!” She is beautiful.
In the press of people, we were greeted by his parents. Jacques also resembled his father, so I knew them instantly, but especially from a photo of them Jacques kept in his study. His mother was crying; I was too. No kisses on the cheek here, for she simply hugged me hard. Then more kisses on both cheeks from his papa. They looked me over, smiling and crying while Jacques beamed.
With a strong hand, he led me the rest of the way inside, into a large, lovely room with tall windows. Like a queen, a frail, silver-haired woman was seated across the way under a tapestry.
“Even if you have met them, you must be formally introduced to my brothers, sisters, and cousins,” Jacques told me, though he had explained that earlier. “You must meet our grande dame, for the formal introductions are hers.”
We had rehearsed names and connections in the motorcar, so I was somewhat prepared. He had told me I would be formally welcomed by the doyenne of the Balsans, Madame Charles Balsan, Jacques’s aunt, and the traditional head of the family. But I wondered if it would not only be a welcome but an approval. Strange, but the memory of the time I met Queen Victoria and she kissed my forehead flashed through my mind. How my mother would approve of a matriarch heading this family.
Everyone seemed to understand the importance of this moment, for the chatter muted, and it was as if the sea of people parted. Even Jacques’s smiling father and teary mother stepped back to clear our path.
I sucked in a sharp breath when I saw madame. It was as if I were looking not into the face of Queen Victoria but into that of dear, long-departed Mrs. Prattley from the almshouse at Blenheim, though this woman was obviously not blind. Her gaze went quickly, thoroughly over me, then she smiled at Jacques and then at me. She even spoke loudly for an old lady, so perhaps she had been told about my deafness—or she was hard of hearing herself. No matter: I felt instantly at home with her.
“Welcome to our family, and I shall present to you each one,” she declared in French.
“I am so happy to be here and to be the wife of Jacques Balsan,” I said and somehow kept myself from dropping her a curtsy.
“And part of us now,” she said. She seated me next to her in a chair and Jacques on the other side and began to recite names as people stepped forward in turn as if this had all been rehearsed. When the introductions were through, she presented me with a family heirloom, a small golden box. I knew instantly it was where I would store the antique pin Jacques had once given me and perhaps my engagement and wedding rings, too, if I took them off to bathe or sleep.
We went into a dining room lined with family portraits for a lovely dinner. I was seated between this kindly mater familias and Jacques at the head of the table, with his aunt just across the corner near his mother and Jacques catercorner from his father. My years of social training served me well, for I kept myself from sobbing with joy to see my husband so proud and happy. Surely nothing could ever go wrong again.
I DID WHAT I could to raise money for children’s charities but also reveled in my own grandchildren. When Jacques was especially busy with the Balsan woolen factory empire or even training other pilots, I spent a bit more time with my sons in London. Bert and Mary now had three beautiful children, and they let me spoil them with my gifts and attention.
Sarah Consuelo turned ten during this visit in 1931; Caroline was eight; and the heir, and future duke, was five. Their mother, Mary, much relieved after John George Vanderbilt Henry was born, told me the third time was a charm, for she had felt the pressure to produce a boy, too. No heir and a spare, she told me, but this would have to do. Despite the fact I was no longer a Marlborough, she and I shared a certain understanding, and I valued her greatly.
Bert, all six and a half feet of him, was always very sure of himself, unlike Ivor, but then he had been showered with love from his father, more than had Ivor. I was happy to see that Bert did not seem to overly favor his son and very grateful that the Vanderbilt name was part of the boy’s heritage, too. I did think that Bert was especially happy when I was visiting and Ivor was not there to distract me, as I had overheard him say to Mary once when they were first married.
“I say, Mother,” Bert called to me—he always spoke very loudly, bless him—“but you are good hands on with the children.”
“That is one of the most lovely compliments you have ever given me. They have wonderful parents and a good nanny, but sometimes it takes a grandmother’s special fairy godmother touch.”
“Grandmother Alva would have just smacked me,” he said with a little laugh. “Still might next time I see her.”
“So you do not mind if I go up to see the children tucked in?”
“Sarah C would like that so she doesn’t see the ghost. But, truly, she only mentions it when we’re at Blenheim, not here in the city.”
I jerked alert and pulled the child toward me to hug her. “Did you think you saw a ghost there?” I asked with a smile, but gooseflesh peppered my arms. It had to be of the first duchess Sarah. And that long dead woman had a namesake with the child’s name and mine. I did not really believe in ghosts, but I believed in the first duchess Sarah.
“It’s bloody fine,” little Sarah told me.
“Do not say ‘bloody,’” her mother corrected.
“Well, she is a nice ghost,” the child insisted.
My gaze met Mary’s. “Have you seen her, my dear?” I asked.
“Oh, she is only in Sarah’s dreams when we stay at Blenheim,” Mary tried to assure me with a roll of her eyes, which was evidently meant to merely humor Sarah. “She is just pretend, right, my girl?” her mother prodded. “Just in your dreams?”
“She is oodles nicer than Duchess Gladys,” Sarah insisted. “Duchess Gladys yelled at Grandpapa to get those children out of here, and that means us.”
My gaze snagged with Mary’s startled look, but neither of us said anything. For now, at least, I kept quiet on that. Later, I went upstairs, holding Sarah’s hand while the younger ones went up with the nanny. The staircase was lighted, and I was relieved for Sarah about that. How often I had been frightened in the New York or Newport houses by darkness on the vast staircases. We sat on Sarah’s bed as the city night sounds quieted outside and we waited for Nanny to tuck Caroline and little John in.
“If you do think there’s a ghost at Blenheim, do not be afraid,” I told her.
“She is not a dream. She goes up and down in the hall,” she said, her eyes wide, “and she is not Duchess Gladys. You used to live there with Grandpapa, right?”
“Yes, a long time ago before his Gladys.”
“Well, Gladys—I am supposed to call her Grandmama but I don’t. She screams and throws things, but the ghost only comes in and covers me up and then Nanny says why ever did I open that bedroom door to let in the chill air, but I didn’t.”
The mention of the ghost had given me pause, but this news of Gladys was worse. Surely, this child hadn’t dreamed any of that or made it up. And why was Bert letting the children stay there if Gladys was screaming—at whom I wondered?—and throwing things? I would have to find out, but I wasn’t going to ask little Sarah.
“Do you know who you are named for?” I asked her after Nanny came in to change her to a nightgown and I tucked her in.
“You, of course!”
“But the name Sarah. What about that?”
“The first duchess long ago like in a fairy tale. She built Blenheim because the queen liked her and liked the duke and he was a good soldier, but he didn’t fly planes in a war like Grandpapa Jacques did.”
I had to smile at that. Jacques loved these little ones as if they were his own, and, in a way, they were.
“I want to tell you something I think you are old enough to understand, my dear,” I told her.
“But Caroline and especially Sunny are not. I won’t be duke, but I am firstborn.”
There it was again: The name Sunny for the heir apparent to the dukedom, this time Sarah’s little brother. The specter of my former husband seemed to haunt me, as the ghost of Sarah Churchill never had.
“All right, here is what I mean,” I said, scooting forward to the edge of her bed and taking both her hands in mine. “I have seen that ghost, and she is kind and friendly, not bad or a bit scary.”
“I believe you, Grandmama. Mother says the same, but she thinks I made her up, but I didn’t—did I?”
“No, and she is our secret. I am so proud and happy you have part of my name and I believe ghost Sarah is, too.” I leaned down to kiss her soft cheek. I had to talk to Bert about Gladys.
I went downstairs and found him at his desk with a whiskey, reading a letter. I knocked on the open door.
“Mother,” he said, popping up. “I thought you’d be turning in since you are off to see Ivor again tomorrow.”
“I do want to tell you how much this visit has meant to me—to see the children and Mary, but especially you, too.”
He bit his lower lip, either in emotion or to keep from a rejoinder, but he took my elbow and ushered me in to sit in one of the leather club chairs that were pulled up before his big desk.
“Bert, I am proud of you, and it has nothing to do with the fact you will be the next duke.”
“I know,” he said with a shrug as he twisted toward me in his chair. “An accident of birth, an honor and yet a burden. Look at Father. Listen, I try not to so much as mention him around you, but—”
He stopped mid-thought and turned away, staring at the large photograph of Blenheim on the wall behind his desk.
“But what?” I prompted. “Bert, Sarah says that Duchess Gladys screams and throws things, and—”
“It is more than that,” he interrupted. “That is more or less what I was going to say. They both shout at each other, bicker before guests even. I’ve had a real row with Father over the children not spending time at Blenheim right now. I know he can be moody, but she is, well, I had no intention of telling you this, but she is—unstable. Frankly, she’s officially moved out of Blenheim, though she keeps going back, but now she’s gone to live in London for a while, I take it. I think he is bloody well relieved that she’s gone for now, because she made it a living hell there.”
“I am sorry to hear, after all the grief and publicity he has been through, that he is unhappy—really.”
“Mother,” he went on pivoting toward me, “she breeds dogs she calls Blenheim spaniels, which wouldn’t be so awful but she keeps them right in the Great Hall! She had the space divided into dog pens, and the smell was horrible! Her trust fund, I hear, was ruined in the crash in twenty-nine, and they’re still fighting over the money. Worse, she kept a revolver in her bedroom and told Father she would shoot him if he ever came to her bedroom door again. Damn, I’m sorry, for I did not mean to tell you all that, and we’re terrified the papers might find out, even if she’s in London lately, because she comes back—for the dogs.”
“But then she is doubly dangerous!”
“Father doesn’t even stay there when he goes home now from London, but puts up at the hotel in Woodstock. I think . . . I am pretty sure he is going to find some way to permanently evict her. Sorry to dump all of this on you, but Mary and I . . . we trust you. I used to hope they would calm down and get back together, but it was and is a battlefield there—perfect for Blenheim, right?”
“I see you are worried for your father, but above all you must think of your children first, that they steer clear of all that. Bring them to us in France next holiday instead of Blenheim, even if Gladys has been sent away.”
“I would like to, but Father would, well, you know.”
“Yes, he would protest or sulk or worse, but he will have to see this is best for the children. You know, I used to believe Gladys was my friend, but she turned on me, had plans all along to take my place, and I was too naïve to know that at first. If I had not left of my own accord, who knows what she might have done. This knowledge of her screaming and a revolver in hand, well, above all, protect your children.”
He sniffed hard and pressed his lips together in a straight line. “I will not tell Father we had this talk, but I will tell Mary. I do see why you left him.” He said this in such a rush I had to almost read his lips. “Children sense things, the truth, early, even if they are told something else. I know that, I remember that.”
“Dear Bert,” I told him as we both rose, “you are tall in stature and tall in my heart. Remember that, whatever happens.”
He nodded, sniffed again, and stooped to hug me hard.