Three weeks went by before I was able to return to Crofton Wood. It was Thanksgiving weekend in America, and thinking about my family gathered around a table, eating a turkey with all the trimmings, I was overwhelmed by a sense of being isolated from everything I cared about, and I didn’t want to be alone.
While Beth went riding, Jack and I headed toward Chatsworth, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Devonshire. Located near the Peak District, Chatsworth, with its 80,000 acres, was considered to be one of England’s great country manors. Looking at the house from a distance, I had to agree that if Jane Austen imagined Mr. Darcy living there, then she certainly had raised him very high indeed. But the scale of the mansion seemed all wrong for Elizabeth Bennet. I think she would have preferred Montclair.
Jack explained that in the early 1900s, when the 8th Duke of Devonshire had died, over a half million pounds in death taxes became due, a phenomenal amount of money. The family had to sell some of their book collection, including four Shakespeare folios, as well as properties from all over the country, to pay the debt, but they had managed to hang on to Chatsworth.
“I’m a Derbyshire man, and I don’t mind telling you that some of the most beautiful scenery in England is right here in the Peak District and at Chatsworth. This estate had thousands of visitors even in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Because the Devonshires were involved in politics, they hosted Public Day once a week when they were in residence, and the duke and duchess welcomed the visitors themselves. Some would be invited to stay for dinner, and they would help themselves to the port and get knackered. Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, wrote in her diary about drunks falling down the stairs and relieving themselves in the fireplace. In those days, politics was not for the timid.
“There’s an American connection to Chatsworth,” Jack said. “William Cavendish, the oldest son of the 10th Duke of Devonshire, or Billy Hartington as he was known to his friends, married an American, Kathleen Kennedy, the daughter of Joseph Kennedy, the Ambassador to the Court of St. James in the late 1930s. The couple hadn’t been married but a few months when Billy was killed by a German sniper. I understand her brother, John, is now a congressman from Massachusetts. When their love story hit the front pages, it got a lot of ink, a lot of it nasty, because ‘Kick’ Kennedy was an American and a Catholic, who was marrying into one of Britain’s great titled Protestant families. Oh, what a brouhaha their romance caused! To me, the whole thing was a storm in a teacup. What difference does it make if the two people get on? With all the blood spilled in the wars, people get upset about nonsense like that. Anyway, she’s still the Marchioness of Hartington until she remarries.
“The current duke and duchess aren’t living here at present, and I haven’t heard what their plans are for Chatsworth. Right now, it’s occupied by two housemaids, who keep it tidied up with the help of some of their friends. There are more than one hundred rooms in that house, so there’s a lot of tidying up to do.”
“Did the Laceys socialize with the Devonshires?”
“Yes. In fact, Will Lacey’s mother, Anne Devereaux, was a good friend of the most famous Duchess of Devonshire, Georgiana Spencer, and named her daughter after her. I know Elizabeth relied heavily on Her Grace’s advice when she became mistress of Montclair. The duchess was several years older than Elizabeth and wrote her letter after letter telling her how to avoid the mistakes she had made when she had first married the duke.
“The next in line was Georgiana’s son, Harty Cavendish, the Bachelor Duke. For many years, the duke kept a beautiful mistress named ‘Skittles’ until she was pushed out by the Duchess of Manchester. Just about the time I was making my appearance in this world, that would be 1891, the Duke of Manchester died, freeing his widow to marry Harty, and she became the Duchess of Devonshire, making her a Double Duchess.”
“Did the Duke of Manchester ever find out about their affair?”
“It was never a secret.” Looking at my expression, Jack cautioned, “Maggie, when you are that high in society, you make your own rules. The most important ones are that you are always discreet, you don’t make a scene when the affair is over, and you never ask for a divorce. Divorces are messy things, and all your dirty laundry ends up in the newspapers. If you break those rules, you are cast out into the wilderness.”
I asked Jack if Montclair had visitors like Chatsworth did. “Not like Chatsworth,” Jack answered. “It’s one of England’s great country houses and is chockablock with art, including paintings by Rembrandt, Gainsborough, and Beth’s favorite, The Adoration of the Magi by Veronese. The cascade fountain alone was a major draw. It was quite a feat of engineering in its day, and as an engineer myself, I agree that it’s a mechanical masterpiece, much more interesting than family portraits of well-dressed people with little dogs lying at their masters’ feet.
“Now, don’t get me wrong. Montclair is a terrific house, and it’s had its share of visitors over the years. A lot of people who stopped off in Crofton on their way to the Peak District would come through, and its parkland has always been used by the locals. As long as everyone behaved themselves, the Laceys didn’t mind visitors. But with Chatsworth and the spa at Matlock so close, most people bypassed Montclair, excepting people like yourself who went looking for it because they believed the Darcys had lived there.”
Because of the late hour, Jack drove me directly to the train station. On the way, I asked him about Will and Elizabeth’s children.
“There were four children: twins Christopher and Francine, Laurence, and Phoebe. The impression I got from reading the letters and diaries was that Laurence was a little slow out of the gate. Eventually, he was sent to work in a mercantile house owned by the Binghams in Livorno, Italy, or Leghorn, as the British called it, where Laurence fell in love with a contessa. After they married, I don’t know if he put in another day’s work for the rest of his life.
“Franny never married and lived at Montclair for all of her life. Her twin brother’s first wife died in childbirth, and she ran the house for her brother even after Christopher married a woman who was a first cousin of his deceased wife. They did stuff like that back then. After his second wife’s death, Christopher spent most of his time in London and got married for a third time to an actress who loved to entertain. From all accounts, they were happy together.
“The younger girl, Phoebe, made her debut during the Regency Era, when it was a great time to be young. She got into a lot of mischief, and Franny, her older sister, wrote about it in her diary. The one story I remember is that the whole family were in Brussels on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, and Will was anxious to get everyone back to England. But the Duchess of Richmond was having a ball for the Duke of Wellington, and Phoebe gave her father the slip and went to the ball without him. You need to talk to Violet Alcott, Beth’s cousin, who lives in Holland Park in London. Violet and her brother, Geoff, are about the same age as James and Michael, and they spent a lot of time with us when we were all in India together. She’s a delightful chatterbox, and I know she wrote a school paper on Franny.”
Checking his watch to make sure that I wouldn’t miss my train, Jack said, “Next time you come, we’ll have to go to Melton Mowbray for a pork pie. I was there the day the town welcomed back the 4th Parachute Brigade. After their big fight at the bridge at Arnhem in Holland in ’44, the boys all wanted their pork pies.”
By that time, we had arrived at the station. There was still so much that I wanted to know. But there was time. I was sure I would see the Crowells again.