Free Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey by The Countess of Carnarvon Page B

Countesses, the age of each title had to be taken into account, and older women took precedence over younger ones, all of which could reshuffle everything into a different order. Once, at a party at Blenheim Palace, her husband’s seat, Consuelo was unsure of the sequence in which the ladies should be withdrawing from the dining room. Not wanting to appear rude, she dithered in the doorway, only to be shoved in the back by a furious Marchioness, who hissed at her, ‘It is quite as vulgar to hang back as to jump ahead.’
    Perhaps it was a relief to speak to someone who understood that alongside the luxury and privilege was the constant pressure not to do ‘The Wrong Thing’, since few people in that strictly codified world would have been prepared to laugh it off. And all the conventions only served to remind them that with the rank came the risk that all trace of their individuality would be swept away. Almina and Consuelo were adjusting to the fact that their personal wishes and desires were considerably less important than the main tasks in hand: producing an heir for the estate and enacting their roles as great ladies.
    It would have been hard even to find a moment to have that conversation, since privacy was virtually impossible to come by when there could be up to eighty people in the house. But the impulse to share secrets and stories is strong and, in any case, new ways to get round the conventionswere always being devised. It was considered improper to play games on the Lord’s day, for example, so it became fashionable for the ladies to spend their Sunday afternoons walking in pairs, for
tête-à-tête
conversations. Social prestige could be measured by how many invitations to walk a lady received. Part of the appeal must surely have been that the strolls through the beautiful park afforded the opportunity to speak frankly, or at least more frankly than in the drawing room taking tea.
    Hosting a weekend party was liable to produce endless opportunities to slip up, or to overlook a crucial detail. Almina had acquitted herself splendidly at her baptism of fire, the Prince of Wales’s visit back in December, but the frantic activity and expense attest to a certain level of anxiety as well as exuberance. She might have tried to reassure the new Duchess, with the benefit of her extra six months’ experience and her greater familiarity with English customs. Her advice would have come in handy a few months later, when the Duchess had to host her first shooting party at Blenheim, once again in honour of the Prince of Wales.
    The marriage between Consuelo and Marlborough was already becoming a byword for loveless but lucrative arrangements at the time of the couple’s visit to Highclere. Almina’s curiosity and sympathy might have led to a few enquiries as the girls strolled. Unfettered gossip would not have been on the agenda, though. Everything about Almina suggests that she was deeply conscious of her own dignity. She had only just arrived at such an exalted position that she could be arm-in-arm with a Duchess, and neither girl would have wanted to be grouped together as the outsiders or to commit the cardinal sin of indiscretion. Almina was sensitive to anyinsinuation that she was letting herself down. Shame was a powerful inhibitor and could be experienced by proxy, as her son later attested.
    But for now, Almina had no reason to worry about anything. She had been welcomed into the family with open arms, for the breezy energy she brought to the Earl’s life, and of course for the immense amount of good that her wealth could do for the estate. A house such as Highclere, not to mention the other properties, was a responsibility as well as a privilege. The sense of custodianship that came with the inheritance meant that – to a large extent – the Castle owned the family, rather than the other way around. Almina was key to securing its future, and she knew it.
    Quite apart from relieving everyone’s anxiety