Free American Lady : The Life of Susan Mary Alsop (9781101601167) by Frances (INT) Caroline; Fitzgerald De Margerie

13, 1947, Odette Pol-Roger and Susan Mary went to England. Odette had been invited by Churchill, her respectful admirer, and Susan Mary had been invited by Ronnie Tree, an American by birth and fortune who lived in England. He had been elected to the House of Commons and was known for his perfect manners and hospitality. He and his wife, Nancy, had bought and renovated Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire, but were undergoing a separation at the time of Susan Mary’s visit. Even by British standards, Ditchley was exceptionally luxurious. Susan Mary, joined by Bill for a few days, slept in the best bedroom, decorated in yellow silk, with views of the deer and the follies in the park. She caught a severe cold and had to stay in bed, where she spent most of her time reading Duff’s biographies of Field Marshal Haig and King David. She missed lunch with Churchill at Chartwell, but after Bill’s departure, she felt well enough to visit Blenheim Palace, see
The Tempest
in Stratford-upon-Avon, and lunch in Oxford with her philosopher friend Isaiah Berlin, whom she had met in Washington and who would soon come to Paris to work on setting up the Marshall Plan.
    Shakespeare, the rolling countryside, charming towns named Chipping Norton, Stow-on-the-Wold, and Bourton-on-the-Water—everything in England reminded her of Duff. She had always preferred lords to cowboys, and the ones she met—Ismay and Salisbury—were old friends of the man she could not stop thinking about. In spite of her fever, Susan Mary was a delightful houseguest, talking politics in the drawing room and listening to Ronnie sing the praises of her old friend Marietta FitzGerald, with whom he had fallen in love—they would get married in July. But when she received a letter from Duff, she would impolitely fly off to her bedroom. “Goodnight Lady Moore, goodnight Lady Beatty, Jakie Astor, Sir Richard, Odette, goodnight, goodnight you pack of fools, I am madly in love in the month of May and I have a letter from my lover.” 11 She and Duff probably became lovers on May 30 at the Dorchester Hotel, where Duff always stayed when he was in London. “There was a large moon,” he wrote in his diary. 12
    Their relationship soon fell into a pattern. Susan Mary and Duff saw each other often during the week, at the embassy or at the houses of mutual friends, a cosmopolitan set that included the Cabrols, who were close to the Windsors; Denise Bourdet, the wife of playwright Edouard Bourdet; Charlie de Beistegui; rich Mrs. Corrigan; and Mogens Tvede and his wife, Dolly Radziwill. On weekends, the Pattens went to Senlis, a country town near Paris, to a pretty house that their American friends the Carters rented to them. From outside, they could see the towers of the Senlis cathedral. Wild strawberries grew in the vegetable garden, and the forest of Chantilly was not far away.
    This rural retreat was conveniently located near the château deSaint-Firmin, which the Coopers rented from the Institut de France. In this light-flooded house with pale-gray rooms, plaster bas-reliefs, and grotesques, Diana became a pastoral Marie Antoinette, pulling ideas for parties out of her hat while John Julius, the Coopers’ beloved son, whom Susan Mary dearly liked, played the guitar. The two couples went back and forth, having bridge and tennis at one house, picnics and cocktails at the other. Duff met the Americans who came to visit the Pattens, such as John Alsop and his wife, Gussie; Susan Mary’s cousin Charlie Whitehouse; her aunt Aldrich; and the severe mother-in-laws, Mrs. Jay and Mrs. Davies. In Saint-Firmin, Susan Mary saw Churchill and Bevin again. With Bevin she chatted about the Marshall Plan, the importance of which the British statesman had recognized at once. Churchill, on the other hand, insisted on talking with Susan Mary in his incomprehensible but fluent French, something he did when in a good mood. Duff admired the young woman’s savoir faire. “Her great charm is her