May the Lord God forgive me for thinking this, but our honeymoon seemed endless. A steamer to the Mediterranean, a rough Atlantic crossing with my husband suffering from mal de mer and I suffering from the reality of being married to him.
We disembarked at Gibraltar and visited chilly, late November Spain. Next, during Christmas in Rome, I was homesick and fell ill, becoming wan and weak. A doctor there actually told me I had six months to live, though he was so inept I did not believe him. I was appalled, however, to overhear that my husband had taken an insurance policy out on my life!
We skipped across the Mediterranean for a trip up the Nile. Then back to Italy. At Pompeii, where so many had died, I started to feel stronger. In January came the not unexpected news that Mother had married Oliver Belmont. By far, I was happier for her than I was for myself.
Even my beloved Paris did not really strengthen or soothe me, partly because of my own mistake.
“Time for the fashion houses here to dress my new duchess in grand style for going home and your first season in London,” Sunny said during a carriage ride in the Bois de Boulogne. “I know some of your gowns are from Worth here in the city.”
“That will be a new experience, for my mother always ordered my clothes. ‘I chose them, you wear them,’ she said more than once.”
I thought he might be upset or think I was more of a ninny, but I knew he would believe me. To my surprise, he lit up and turned to me with a smile. “Then I shall help you. I have some styles, jewelry, too, in mind to show off my new wife!”
He proceeded to take over shopping for me, ordering things I would never wear by choice, overly elegant garments, not my taste at all. As with Mother, I did not see most of them before I went for fittings. His purchases included a nineteen-row pearl choker with diamond clasps that covered my entire neck. Truth be told, jewelry did not really appeal to me. But how appropriate a choker was, I thought, as we finally headed “home” to England with hundreds of new items in tow. Here I was a married woman, Duchess of Marlborough, and I had merely traded one manager for another.
MY FIRST DAYS in London, before we even went to Blenheim, became a big blur. Most of the Marlborough relations met us as we arrived at Victoria Station. Cousin Winston Churchill was there, a carrot-topped redhead no less, round faced and instantly interesting and kind. Sunny had told me that Winston’s father had died of syphilis only a year before. Missing Papa as I did, I felt great sympathy for Winston.
He was with his beautiful mother, Jennie Jerome Churchill, also an American, who had wed Randolph Churchill, Sunny’s uncle. She had brought him a fortune in that bargain, too, another “Dollar Bride,” as they were starting to call us imported American heiresses in the press.
Although Sunny had prepared me for the onslaught, I clung to the fact that we would see some of these family members singly in their London homes. There, I hoped, I could truly get to know them, not just be gawked at or talked about as if I could not hear. And then, while we stayed at Sunny’s leased London townhouse, the visits began in the order of precedence in the Marlborough-Spencer-Churchill connections.
At the Grosvenor Square home of Sunny’s grandmother, Sarah Wilson, a dowager Duchess of Marlborough, widow of the seventh duke, she said to me, “I do hope your country’s war with South America wasn’t too hard on your family, not to mention the threat of those red Indians.”
I just stared at her a moment. No, she was not joking, as she sat papery-skinned and powdered in a chair in the corner of her drawing room.
“Your Grace, perhaps you mean the war between the northern and southern states,” I said as she continually studied me with her lorgnette.
“I am referring to the war with South America in 1861, my dear.”
Sunny shifted beside me, recrossing his legs. And then he dared to pop up to pace on the other side of the room to leave me to handle this myself. “Oh, yes, the North-South war,” I said, rather than trying to correct her further. “Actually, it devastated my maternal grandfather’s cotton import business, but good things came from that war, such as the freeing of slaves in our southern states, which went to war with our northern states.”
“Slavery, a nasty business England handled much earlier than your country.”
While what she said was true enough, it reminded me once more that the English upper class regarded even educated Americans as yahoos. I learned to fit in, however much everyone kept referring to my American heritage.
“My dear,” the dowager duchess went on, her gray-eyed gaze piercing me again, “your first duty will be to bear a son, of course. Concentrate on that, not gadding about or entertaining more than you must. It would be intolerable to have that little upstart Winston who thinks he knows it all to become duke, however much Sunny likes him. Are you in a family way?”
“I . . . I am sure we will begin a family soon.”
“I should hope so. And I must tell you about Goosey before Sunny comes back.”
“Goosey?”
“The nickname for Sunny’s mother—his real mother. Absolutely madcap, so keep an eye on her if he has her about again. Little jokes, inane ones. Something bloody dreadful, like an inkpot above the door or, like slivers of soap in the soup, you know what I mean, or, hopefully, not.”
“A practical joker.”
“Nothing practical about Goosey, silly as a goose. Albertha has bats in the belfry, as they say.”
Oh my. So far I had discerned that Sunny’s roué father browbeat him—or, perhaps actually beat him—and now I learn that his mother was too much of the wrong kind of fun. I thought again about my own parents, where the personalities were reversed, Papa great fun, even a rakehell at times, while my mother browbeat me—and literally used a rod.
Our next stop on the Marlborough spinning wheel was to Sunny’s uncle, the elderly Duke of Abercorn, at Hampden House in London. It was a charming place done by the fashionable interior designer Robert Adam, with grand and spacious rooms. The thin, nervous duke kept popping up to point out various family portraits and telling me I must know who was who despite the fact they were all dead. He wore a velvet smoking jacket and kept tugging the cuffs down.
He had fussed over removing my coat before Sunny could, then kept staring at the lining of it—Russian sables. “What a beautiful coat. Reminds me of one I own, but these may be better sables.”
He rang for his butler who ordered his valet to bring his in. “Indeed, these are finer than mine, so I shall have to look for a new one. Sunny, you must tell me, my boy, exactly where you purchased this for Her Grace. You know,” he said with a wink at me, “I can see that the future Churchills and tenth duke will be tall and handsome. Good news, eh, Sunny?”
Thirdly, though I was starting to wilt, we stopped at Lansdowne House in Berkley Square to visit the Marchioness of Lansdowne, an aunt whom I could tell Sunny preferred to his own mother. I breathed a sigh of relief for she was smiling, gay, and even gossipy. I had met her briefly in India, and my parents had stayed with her when she was vicereine, so we had a starting point, so to speak. It finally occurred to me where Mother got the inkling of pairing me with Sunny: His aunt must have mentioned that Sunny was available and Mother saw him ripe for the picking.
I was relieved not to have my corseted figure eyed again, as they were all hoping for an heir, but what I thought would finally be an easy visit turned into a “helpful talk.”
“Now, Consuelo, since you do not know our ways, let me give you some advice,” Lady Lansdowne told me as Sunny nodded throughout. “A lady of your lofty status simply must not walk alone in Piccadilly or on Bond Street, nor sit in Hyde Park unless properly accompanied. You should not be seen in a hansom cab, and it is far better to occupy a box rather than a stall at the theater, and to even be seen near a music hall is out of the question . . .”
On it went until my brain clicked off. Boring restrictions, I thought. I was trapped in a gilded cage, and these new people and new rules were the bars, at least the ones I could see so far.
AFTER NEARLY A week in London, it was on to Sunny’s Blenheim—my Blenheim now, too. That day was outright cold, so he insisted I wear my sable coat. We went by regular train to Oxford where a special train, with our parlor car decorated for a duke, took us the rest of the way to Woodstock. Sunny had told me everything would be both formal and festive to welcome their duke back and their new duchess home. Yet I could not have been more surprised by the turnout. It made the crowds on our wedding day look meager.
“Good,” Sunny said only as we disembarked to cheers and huzzahs. “I would expect no less.”
Women cried and waved, and men, some with little children on their shoulders, snatched off their hats or caps. The station flew bunting, British flags, and Marlborough coat-of-arms banners. A red carpet had been laid on the platform. We were welcomed by the mayor of Woodstock in crimson robes, who greeted me with, “I must tell Your Grace that Woodstock had a mayor before America was even discovered.”
I was quite used to that attitude by now, but I was not prepared to control my emotions when the mayor’s daughter presented me with a huge bouquet of pink roses. They were so lovely, so fragrant, not American Beauties, but it brought back to me Win’s half-wilted rose that he had pulled from his coat the day he proposed on his bicycle and I accepted. I desperately blinked back tears and bit my lower lip—my upper lip not at all stiff but quivering. I had tried so hard to put the past behind me, but it kept lurking.
Speeches, welcomes, more cheers. To my amazement, our carriage up the road to Blenheim was drawn by estate workers rather than horses. That seemed off-putting, but the men looked proud, so I waved, smiling now much more than Sunny whose sharp nods indicated that all this was his due.
A triumphal arch had been erected. At the front door to the palace we were greeted by the chief steward, Mr. Angus, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Ryman, while a small band played “Home Sweet Home.” I did love the schoolchildren’s singing and promised myself I would visit their classroom soon. Tenant farmers, household servants, and other employees stood in separate groups, which bothered me, too, but apparently that was the way of it as we stood on the front steps of massive Blenheim.
Sunny, obviously their beloved duke, made a speech. “I did not plan to be so long away from you or that when I returned it would be the occasion of such good feeling and so kind a reception. Our new duchess has expressed to me numerous times that she hopes to become a friend to the people among whom she is going to dwell, and prays she might endear herself to your hearts.”
And to yours, I thought. We had been intimate only in the bedroom, not in sentiment or emotion. I so missed that, longed for that. I still felt I did not know this man, let alone his people and all that would be expected of me. Suddenly, the roses and my coat seemed so heavy, even my hat and hair. I was swimming in exhaustion when I was about to face a luncheon for three hundred fifty people involved in these ceremonies in a chamber called the audit room.
I had never been so glad to see a hot bath. It had been prepared for me by my new English maid, Rosalie, for Sunny had not liked Jeanne and had sacked her. Sometimes I had the feeling he would give me the heave-ho, too, if I did not measure up. I had no time to soak in the bath, only to wash off the dust. Then it was time to be on display again.
As the pealing of church bells sounded near and far, Rosalie told me, “In your honor, Your Grace. Fireworks later too. And many trains coming tonight to take home people to their parishes, come to see their new duchess, they did. Mrs. Ryman says near thirteen hundred come in today.”
Rosalie had laid out another outfit for me, perhaps one dictated by my husband, but I would change all that soon—as soon as I could. I actually liked that Rosalie was chatty, for I missed my American maid and Miss Harper terribly. For a moment, I almost missed my mother.
THAT NIGHT, SUNNY and I watched from a private tent in the park as fireworks filled the sky, great booming bouquets and whirligigs of colored lights. Strange, but I thought then of Jacques Balsan who had told me he loved to sail the heavens. He had promised me a ride in them someday, a someday now that would never come.
“Another ride through the streets, then home again,” Sunny repeated over the noise. He took my elbow. “And what a night for our creating the next duke,” he added, putting an arm around my waist.
I tried not to wilt. This was my husband and my new life. Of course I would love children. Are you in a family way? the words of the formidable dowager duchess sounded in my ear with the last of the booms that echoed through the trees followed by the gasps of Sunny’s people, now my people.
“If you aren’t tired,” I said, trying to hint at my exhaustion.
“This place invigorates me and always will,” he said, urging me toward our waiting landau.
And so I was now home in England, at Blenheim.