Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor (31 page)

So this chapter has described the fulfilment of my ambition. Much I have had to leave out, but I think everyone will agree that the dreams of a poor callow Yorkshire girl were realized beyond any of her expectations. As I’ve relived these travels I’ve been reminded of something that Mr Bobbie Shaw said when I’d only been in my lady’s service for a few years. He was trying to draw me out in front of her. ‘What would you like most in this world, Rose?’

And I replied, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘To live my life over again.’ Today my answer, without any hesitation, would be the same.

R
eligion for a servant could be hazardous. Even at the time I was in service there were many big houses where family prayers were still the order of the day, where servants were marshalled to church twice on Sundays, where tenant farmers, their labourers and those villagers in tied cottages were counted and where absentees could jeopardize their livings and their homes. It was still a time too when the remark in the vicar’s reference that you came of ‘God-fearing parents’ carried more weight in some places than your education, experience and ability to do your job, and when employers were more worried about the care of your soul than that of your body. The kitchen staff were generally the exception for these people. The chef or cook and their minions were either given some sort of divine absolution or else it must have been accepted that their souls were past redemption for the traditional Sunday lunch was sacrosanct. I know of this kind of attitude by hearsay, not from personal experience.

My childhood religious upbringing has been the rock on which my faith has been built. For me religion is a personal thing and not something I display or discuss. I think it is necessary for me to declare it now since it affected my relationship with Lady Astor. My daily life is the outward expression of my religious feeling. Through my behaviour, my approach to my work and my relations with other people I try to show an inner grace. I try to be good, do good and think good. Of course I don’t always succeed, but I find it a simple creed and one that I can follow without the worry of doubts or dogma. I’m also a believer in faith through prayer and I think there have been occasions when through my prayers I and others have been touched by God. Having said that let me say that I don’t expect other people to think the same way any more than I expect them to question my belief.

When I went into service with the Tuftons I found that while they would have allowed me to go to church, my absence would have dislocated the running of the house. Even more would this have applied at the Cranbornes’. I had to content myself with occasional visits on my Sundays off. I discovered the beautiful sung evensong at Westminster Abbey and I enjoyed the services at the Guards Chapel, but my church attendances were irregular and I was driven to recalling my childhood experiences at the village church for consolation. I have done that throughout much of my life because when I began to work for the Astors, going to church was almost out of the question. I complained about it once or twice to her ladyship. ‘If you really wanted to you’d find a way,’ she said.

‘And if I did you’d find a way of making things awkward for me, my lady,’ I replied. So in service I learnt to rely on my own prayers, and they have never let me down.

I’ve already mentioned my experience when my work and my lady’s attitude towards it and me made my life unbearable and how I was given strength to endure and to win through. There were two similar occasions that are easy for me to recall and relate, and others which are too personal for me to write about. The first was when I was in Germany near the town of Garmisch before the last war. We were staying with a millionaire friend of her ladyship’s, in a vast bungalow. We’d come there from Munich, where we’d stayed a few days at the Continental Hotel. During the first day there my lady decided to catch up on her mail, but by the time she’d finished writing she found she had missed the local post. Since some of her letters were urgent I was asked to go by train to Garmisch with them where I would be able to catch the post. I was driven to the station, had some language difficulty at the ticket office and eventually settled for a single ticket to Garmisch. I found the post office and posted the letters.

When I got back to Garmisch station I couldn’t remember the name of the place I had to book to, nor the name of the house or person we were staying with. I searched my bag for some clue but found nothing. I panicked. I then remembered that the name of the station ended in … grinau, but discovered that there were two places, Untergrinau and Obergrinau. I decided to settle on the latter. When I got there it meant nothing to me. I tried talking to the passengers who got off the train with me, but they didn’t understand a word I said, and eventually I found myself on my own outside the station. I felt very small and lonely as I stood there with the mountains of the Austrian Tyrol looking down on me. I was alone and lost. I was like a little child. I wished myself back in my friendly Yorkshire village with my mother to care for me. I called for help. It came. I was suddenly warm inside and carefree, no longer alone. A fresh strength had entered my body and my mind. A spirit touched me. I allowed the sensation to take over. When it had passed my mind was clear; I knew what I had to do. I found the station phone box, telephoned the Continental Hotel in Munich where we’d been staying, got someone who spoke English and asked if they knew where Lady Astor was now. They did but wouldn’t tell me. I explained who I was and asked them to ring Lady Astor giving my whereabouts and to tell her, ‘Rose is lost’. They did this, for in minutes a car arrived for me, with my lady. I was a little girl again. I flung myself into her arms and said, ‘Whatever you do don’t scold me.’ I then told her my story, leaving out the prayer bit. ‘But whatever made you ring the hotel at Munich?’ she said. Then I explained about my prayer. She put her hand in mine, saying nothing, but I could sense her understanding and love at that moment. ‘Stuff and nonsense! You’re imagining things,’ I can hear people say, but I know the truth of what happened as my lady did, as anyone else will who has had a similar experience.

The other occasion I am able to recall was when I was called before a tribunal who were to decide into what wartime job I should be recruited. On the face of things as a lady’s maid I stood no chance of exemption. My lady had asked me if she could send a letter. I refused. I wasn’t ungrateful to her but something in me thought it would be wrong. I had to appear at Slough in Buckinghamshire. On the train down I dismissed all thoughts of what I was going to say from my mind. I thought about my lady, the times we’d had together and the work I was doing for her and the country. Her ladyship had one of her secretaries meet me at the station to escort me to where I had to go. ‘She didn’t want you to be alone in your ordeal.’ What ordeal? I thought to myself. When my time came to appear I was ushered in front of five ladies in uniform.

‘What is your present employment?’ one of them asked.

‘Lady’s maid,’ I replied, and I could see from her and the other faces that they thought I was an easy one.

‘What would you like to do for the war effort?’

‘Stay where I am.’

‘Why?’

Then I told them. I think it was the greatest speech I’d ever made. I told them about her ladyship’s work as a Member of Parliament and Mayoress of Plymouth. How it was my job to see that she was fit to do hers, and simply and truthfully I said how I’d been able to assist both her and his lordship. ‘Where are all these words coming from?’ I asked myself as I said them. It was as if it was not me that was speaking.

I must have gone on for about five minutes. The chairman looked flabbergasted. Without even consulting the others she said, ‘Thank you, Miss Harrison, we shall not be requiring your services. Please continue in the good work that you’re doing.’ And the others murmured their agreement. Then I was outside telling the good news to the secretary, who fled to telephone Lady Astor. Again I was sure that someone else had taken over. So was her ladyship. ‘I was praying too, Rose,’ she said, though how she knew I was remains a mystery.

I’ve already said that Lady Astor was a devoted Christian Scientist. Now having said that I don’t question other people’s beliefs, let me say that neither did I question her ladyship’s. I fulfilled to the letter everything she asked me to in the practice of her faith. It never entered my head to influence her in any way. I never called a doctor. Only one stipulation did I make, that if I thought she was seriously ill I would get in touch with Miss Wissie or the boys and hand over the responsibility to them. This was made of course after his lordship’s death, though since he too was a Christian Scientist I would if I had thought it necessary have gone over his head to the children, while he was alive.

My lady went to church every Sunday and on Wednesdays when she was in London. She read her books and the Bible every morning and every evening. So did his lordship. They had not always been Scientists; my lady was the first to change from the Protestant religion at the beginning of the First World War. Her great friend at that time, and for the rest of her life, was Philip Kerr, later Lord Lothian, who was to be our Ambassador in America shortly after the beginning of the Second World War. He was born a Roman Catholic, but as a result of my lady’s conversion, he was persuaded to read
Science and Health,
was impressed with it and after a little time renounced Catholicism. His lordship followed their example shortly afterwards.

While I am sure all three got help and consolation from their faith, and although I met many good men and women who were Scientists, particularly the practitioners whose lives were a living example of what their religion should be, in my experience of watching it I believe it to be harmful not only to its followers but to people around them. Here I am not just referring to Scientists’ attitude towards doctors and medicine. It teaches people to think far too much about themselves, their own bodies and souls. So long as they are in good health they’re unsympathetic and impatient. Other people’s sickness is their own fault. If they were better spiritually they wouldn’t be ill. I’ve never heard of a Christian Science mission to help the sick, undernourished and deprived. It lacks what is to me the cornerstone of any faith: charity, and to a greater or lesser extent this is reflected in the actions of the people who follow it.

Yet you will say this often belies the picture that I have painted of Lady Astor. It does and it doesn’t. She was a creature of instinct and I believe that when she allowed her true nature to take over she was a fine person. It was when she harnessed herself to her religion that things went wrong with her. Despite the work that she put into it I don’t think Science ever really satisfied her, and I believe that towards the end of her life she realized this. Mr Lee said to me once, ‘Lady Astor is not a religious woman, she’s all the time looking for a light she can never find.’ Christian Science though suited her way of life. It had no dogma and could be twisted and bent to excuse her faults and actions. It made her smug and sometimes self-righteous. It was as though she had invited Our Lord to one of her parties, he had accepted and sat at her right hand. It encouraged her to hate groups of people, Roman Catholics – ‘Red Cherries’ – as she called them, the Irish, the anti-prohibitionists. Yet perversely, among her greatest friends were Hilaire Belloc, a bigoted Catholic and Jew-hater, and two godless Socialists, Sean O’Casey and Bernard Shaw. The latter, with Lord Lothian, could without any doubt be called her two closest friends. Again Christian Science is only for the rich or the middle class. You can’t get a practitioner on the National Health, nor do you find one of their churches in a poor area. You buy your pardons. It cost the Astors plenty.

The Astor children were brought up on Christian Science, though I don’t think they ever understood it, let alone practised it. It’s my opinion that they looked on it as a bit of a joke. It was the only way they could tolerate it. Though I wasn’t there at the time, there’s a family story about Mr Billy who when he was at Eton coxed a boat for the school at Henley Regatta. His crew got through the first heat, but was beaten in the second. Mr Billy was given a dressing-down by her ladyship. Their first victory, according to his mother, was because he had done his Christian Science lesson on that day, but his defeat, and that of the eight men whose boat he was steering, was because he hadn’t done it on the subsequent day. If that interpretation of religion is given to a young man he can only despise or laugh at it.

If good health is proof of a religion then my lady was a saint. There were only two occasions when she had anything really wrong with her, until her final illness. The common cold and the odd dose of flu is not supposed to count with Scientists. Once she had a bad boil under her arm which was causing her great pain. There came a time when I said to her, ‘If you’ll allow me, my lady, I think I can shift it.’ She was playing according to the Christian Scientist’s rules when she agreed. ‘It’s going to hurt,’ I told her. It must have done, but she gritted her teeth and no cry came from her. I was able to get the thing away and she was grateful. She showed great courage.

The second occasion was more worrying. She had a quinsy in her throat, though I was not sure what it was at the time. She took to her bed and was unable to eat anything. She got thinner and thinner until finally the quinsy burst. I felt I could no longer take the responsibility for her so I phoned Mr David, and he arrived with a doctor. She recovered fast, though she was then nearly eighty. I think that most of us would be happy if we thought that those two things were all that was to be wrong with us during our last thirty-five years of life.

Much as she may have deprecated the medical profession in its attitude towards ordinary illness, her behaviour towards the doctors, surgeons and nurses at the Military Hospital at Cliveden, and to the hospitals in Plymouth, was one of admiration, courtesy and kindness. She was a constant visitor. Her ability to cheer people up was welcome medicine.