Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey (14 page)

There was a huge feeling of outrage from Conservative voters about the possible break-up of the Union, the Liberals’ attempts to reform the House of Lords, immigration and the inadequacies of the National Insurance Bill. Almina felt it was her duty to get involved to champion the Tory Party cause. In anticipation of her increasing workload, she hired a secretary, Miss Mary Weekes.

Mary had previously worked for Alfred de Rothschild and was supremely efficient, used to dealing with the slightly capricious style that characterised both Almina and her father. She was very much the equivalent of the modern PA, booking in Her Ladyship’s social engagements in London, organising her at Highclere, travelling with her at all times. She was tall and slim and completely devoted to Almina. She was also a sign of the changing times, a woman in the Countess’s employ who was not strictly speaking a servant, certainly not a lady’s maid.

Mary helped Almina to push the bounds of her role far out beyond the confines of the Castle. There is a red
cuttings-book at Highclere in which are pasted the transcripts of Almina’s speaking engagements in the years 1910 and 1911. They must have been typed by Mary, and they range from the straightforward speeches delivered at village fetes: ‘I am delighted to declare this bazaar open!’ to addresses to the ladies of the South Berkshire Unionist [Conservative] Association.

Almina’s tone when she spoke at political meetings was highly charged, her language designed to touch the hearts of her listeners as well as to stir their campaigning zeal. In a speech opposing the Liberal government’s attempts to reform the House of Lords, she pointed to the Lords’ defence of every parent’s right to determine what religious education their child should receive as evidence that the Upper Chamber didn’t need reforming. Almina’s rhetoric is perfectly judged for her audience, her tone supremely confident. ‘We maintain that the poor man has as good a right as the rich to choose in what religion his child should be brought up … [Here we see] the importance of a strong Upper House to every mother in the land.’ You can almost hear the enthusiastic applause of the mothers in the audience.

Almina goes on to urge her listeners to campaign for their values, which were seen to be under attack by the Liberals, whom she insists on calling the Radicals. Her speeches are eminently readable; she seems to be relishing this chance to get out into the world and talk about something of national importance, rather than being merely the public face of Highclere. There is an exuberance in her words that suggests she was probably a very good public speaker. ‘The Constitution under which we have flourished and found the highest civilisation and the most perfect
freedom is in peril. Remember, we were caught napping in 1906 [when the Conservatives lost their seat in Newbury in a landslide victory for the Liberal Party] and that the slightest weakening in our work may jeopardise Mr Mount’s seat …’ Almina comes across like a seasoned pro of political speeches, building up to a stirring finish and a direct call to action. ‘Don’t forget Reading. Urge your friends not to rest content until the flag of national unity, trade reform and social progress waves triumphantly in that important centre of industry.’

In the January 1910 general election, the Conservatives regained Newbury from the Liberals. You can’t help wondering what part was played by the army of South Berkshire women Almina sent out to campaign.

Almina might have been a skilled orator and energetic defender of Conservative politics, but she was also a woman at a time when women did not have the right to vote, let alone to stand for election. Any ambition to be involved in politics would have to be channelled into behind-the-scenes campaigning work. It seems that Almina, despite her modest assertions that she was unaccustomed to public speaking, very much enjoyed it, and when Aubrey decided to stand as the Conservative candidate for Somerset South in a 1911 by-election, she relished helping him to write electioneering speeches and campaigning on his behalf. Aubrey won. They must have been a dream team, both of them big personalities overflowing with self-assurance.

Almina’s values and politics were very much those you would expect of a woman of her social class at the time and it would, of course, be overstating the case to say that she was a champion of women’s rights. She never voiced
any support for women’s suffrage. Even so, some of her speeches give a very strong sense of her forceful personality, her wit and her faith in women’s power to influence public life. She tells the Newbury Unionist Women’s Association in January 1911: ‘In the dark ages, which are not very far behind us, we used to be called the weaker sex. We never were, and we never shall be weaker in our patriotism. In this as in all similar matters we are neither inferior nor superior, but only very different and I am convinced that we shall do most good to our country and her cause if instead of imitating men we endeavour to widen and perhaps enrich the spirit of public life by being simply ourselves.’

After her successes campaigning in the 1910 general elections and Aubrey’s by-election, Almina seems to have cast around for the next challenge and realised that there wasn’t one that really suited her. She was too theatrical and too restless to be content with delivering rousing speeches to local political societies, and although now you can imagine her as a fiery, eccentric MP, then she had no such outlet. Her instinct to be useful was clearly very strong because she kept up her public speaking and appearances at various charitable occasions including the East Ham Chrysanthemum Show and the Tunbridge Wells fundraiser for Dr Barnardo’s children’s homes. But she would have to wait another three years for her big chance to do some good in the world.

And in the meantime there was always something to distract her from any lingering sense of purposelessness. Racing was perfect for that, and on 15 May 1911 Lord and Lady Carnarvon were at Ascot with the new King. There is a striking picture of them in the Royal Enclosure. The
Earl is in top hat and tails, using a silver-topped cane to support his bad leg. He looks like a man who is confident that he is about to have fun in the company of friends. Almina is wearing an ankle-length dress in black-and-white striped satin, a dark fur and a spectacular wide-brimmed, ostrich-feather-trimmed hat. She is leaning away from her husband, seemingly laughing as she extends her hand to someone by her side. She looks as if she is graciously receiving the tributes due to her. It is utterly unlike the sweet and purposeful demeanour in the photo of her in nurse’s uniform that was taken barely more than three years later.

Glitz, public life, the dignity of the Carnarvons – these were still very important to her in 1911, and they all combined on 22 June 1911, the day of the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary. The whole household had gone up to town to prepare. Fearnside, Roberts and Jessie Money, Almina’s new lady’s maid, had been in charge of bringing everything that would be required to the house in Berkeley Square. Meticulously, Fearnside brushed down the Earl’s ermine robes. They had last been used eight years previously, at the coronation of Edward VII, and had been carefully kept in camphor and checked twice a year for moths. Roberts and Money laid out Almina’s ornate dress, tiara and jewels. Lord and Lady Carnarvon each had a bedroom and dressing room on the second floor of the house and, by the time they arrived to get ready, the running along corridors and frantic unpacking of boxes was all finished and everything was ready for them. The Earl and Countess set off for Westminster Abbey to join the throng of peers and nobles of the realm.

The procession to the abbey was splendid. The King and Queen travelled in the gold State Coach, drawn by eight heavily caparisoned carriage horses with four postillions riding and several footmen accompanying. Lord Kitchener rode in a place of honour to the right of the State Coach. He had been made Field Marshal, the highest rank in the Army, by Edward VII as he lay on his deathbed, in recognition of his service in Sudan, South Africa and India.

As they waited for the ceremony to begin, there was plenty of time to observe the splendours of the abbey, familiar to them of course from all the State occasions they had attended there, and the dress of the other members of the congregation. The church was full of the Carnarvons’ friends and all the crowned heads of Europe, but Almina must have been irritated to have to shake hands with Herbert Asquith, the Liberal Prime Minister, leader of the dreadful ‘Radicals’.

The Carnarvons watched anxiously for the arrival of the procession and strained to catch their first glimpse of their son, who had been chosen to be one of the Pages of Honour. He had been granted leave from his prep school, Ludgrove, to attend the endless rehearsals for the coronation, all masterminded by the Duke of Norfolk. The Duke was apparently meticulous in his supervision of the pages and required complete attention to detail, but Porchy remembered that, if a rehearsal had gone well, he dished out delicious chocolates to everyone afterwards.

On this occasion, doubtless to Almina’s relief, her son acquitted himself perfectly and the whole ceremony was magnificent, with the guns’ salute thundering across Hyde Park and the bells of the abbey pealing out over the newly
crowned King and Queen as they left the church. It was probably the last great gathering of the old order. Europe’s political scene was tense and getting worse; there were just over three years to go before war was declared. Of the eight Pages of Honour on that occasion, only two would survive the coming carnage. Lord Porchester would be one of them.

On New Year’s Eve 1911, Almina gave her annual children’s party at Highclere, with hundreds of guests, and entertainers brought down from London. Twelve days later she threw a ball for 500 local people. Almina had to greet her guests without the Earl, whose migraine was so bad that he could not attend for more than a few minutes before retiring to his rooms. That wasn’t unusual; Almina was increasingly the power that was keeping everything going. She addressed the throng of people at midnight, from the balcony that overlooks the beautiful vaulted Saloon at the heart of the Castle, apologising on Lord Carnarvon’s behalf. She was flanked by her mother Marie, her husband’s sisters, and by Aubrey and his wife Mary. Prince Victor Duleep Singh stayed to lend his support to Almina as she spoke and then loyally retired to the Earl’s sitting room to keep his old friend company. Aubrey welcomed everyone again at supper and then the Mayor of Newbury thanked the Carnarvons and family on behalf of the guests. The dancing began after supper with music supplied by Merier’s Viennese orchestra and twenty different dances on the programme. Almina had placed lanterns all along the carriage driveways to light her guests home in the early hours and the party didn’t finish until 6.00 a.m.

It had been fun, it had been a success; but by now Almina could manage these occasions in her sleep. It was not the challenge she needed. The Earl’s health continued to be poor and she was busy overseeing all his treatments. She loved to take care of him and, gradually, nursing became a preoccupation, not just at home but in general. She attended operations performed by Berkeley Moynihan, the eminent surgeon at Leeds General Infirmary who made occasional trips to London to carry out his duties as a consultant at University Hospital. A plan was forming in the back of her mind, and she wanted to be prepared if the moment for action presented itself.

Almina continued to accompany Carnarvon on his trips to Egypt, where he and Carter were struggling to get access to the sites they were determined to excavate. They had their eye on a spot in the Valley of the Kings, rather than the Valley of the Queens or Nobles, where they had always been based, but at that time the concession was still held by an American, Theodore Davis. Alternatives were proposed and rejected. Private excavations were no longer favoured and Maspero insisted that the pyramid site Carnarvon had been considering must be reserved for official exploration.

Ever resourceful, Carnarvon contacted Lord Kitchener, who was a personal friend, and asked if he could lean on Maspero. After his nine years as Commander in Chief of India, Kitchener had been sent to Egypt in 1909, where he was Consul General and de facto Viceroy. It was inevitable that Kitchener and Carnarvon would meet and socialise out there, since they moved in precisely the same circles. Despite this high-level connection, though, Carnarvon had no success.

Unsure where to concentrate next, he was persuaded by Percy Newberry, a noted English Egyptologist, to apply for some delta sites at Sakha and Tell el-Balamun. Working in the delta of the River Nile put them out of range of civilised amenities: it was going to entail camping. The fact that a man of Carnarvon’s fragile health should even consider such a thing is proof of his obsessive love for his work. The fact that Almina went along too is surely proof of her love for him.

Carnarvon asked Percy Newberry to organise tents and provisions for him, Almina, his valet Fearnside, Her Ladyship’s maid Edith Wiggal, Howard Carter, Dr Johnnie and himself. Provisions such as tins of soup were shipped from Fortnum & Mason’s in London. The expedition duly set off. It was an adventure by anyone’s standards, and one imagines Jessie and Almina rolling their eyes together at the privations they were both expected to bear. Jessie was a regular traveller since she accompanied Almina wherever she went, but it was the first time the two women had roughed it and it proved too much.

The delta was muddy and full of cobras but the group stuck it out until the Earl fell ill with bronchitis, at which point they repaired to Luxor and the Winter Palace Hotel. With his weak lungs, he was quite seriously sick, and Almina had to nurse her husband, who was not an easy patient, back to what constituted more or less full health over a number of weeks. Carnarvon wrote at one point to Budge saying he could not put any weight on. He weighed less than nine stone and was five feet ten inches tall.

By Easter, Lord and Lady Carnarvon were back at Highclere and digging was over for another year. The Earl
used the summer months to entertain his Egyptian contacts, since without a supportive group of friends in high places, it was likely to prove harder and harder to work out there.