Aunt Bessie

“It rained on Coronation Day in 1953, but nothing like so badly as at the previous coronation in 1937 when it came down like the best of British stair-rods just after the ceremonies in the Abbey had ended and when people were trying to get home.

My wife and I, on that occasion, were amongst the last to leave and were lucky in finding a taxi nearby. As we were about to get into it, we noticed a solitary coronetted peeress, looking bedraggled and dejected as she waited for her conveyance (the car call-up system had broken down), and we of course asked her whether she would like a lift in our taxi, especially as she happened to be my younger brother’s step-mother-in-law, Lady Decies. But she declined our offer decisively, saying she would rather wait for her own car even if it meant staying there all night.

Aunt Bessie – that’s what we called her, being remotely a sort of aunt by marriage – always seemed to be getting into unhappy situations. One of her troubles was that she combined an awkward manner with an unprepossessing appearance. By no stretch of the imagination, nor with the best will in the world, could one say that she was a very attractive woman, except of course that she was inordinately rich, being the daughter of J W Drexel of Philadelphia. This seems not to have escaped the notice of the 5th Lord Decies, a handsome Irish widower, who married her. He had been married firstly to the daughter of G J Gould of New York, one of the richest of the rather romantic but utterly ruthless American ‘robber barons’.

Lady Decies the second, for her part, when she was just plain Miss Elizabeth Drexel, had married a fabulously fascinating American playboy called Henry Symes Lehr, or Harry Lehr for short, who could perhaps be described as the most insufferable cad of all time, particularly in view of what he told his young bride plainly on the very first night of their honeymoon. It was, as she related later: ‘I married you only for your money. I will be civil to you in public, but that’s all you can expect. Good night.’ At least he was an honest cad and he did also make some amends by dying not too long after.

Later, as a vey rich widow, she spent much of her time in Paris, where Americans, providing they had unlimited money, were dearly loved by French society.

Mrs Drexel Lehr, as she preferred to be called, was accustomed to having her own way in most things. But, when she let it be known that she intended to attend the 1937 coronation, she was astonished to learn that the seats in Westminster Abbey were not for sale. ‘Only British peers and peeresses, and other British notables, and those on the Foreign Office list, will be invited,’ she was told by the British Embassy in Paris. ‘Well, since I am not a British notable, nor on the Foreign Office list, do you know of a British peer who would like to make me a British peeress?’ she enquired (as I was told by a British Embassy attaché later).

Whether it was due to the ever helpful embassy, or whether it was a result of her own efforts, she did find a British peer, in the person of the above Lord Decies, who was willing to help her, and she did therefore attend the coronation, as I have just related. But I am sorry to say she does not seem to have got much more out of it than that, except perhaps the right to be known thereafter as Lady Decies and to be addressed sometimes as milady, which she is said to have enjoyed. There was, however, a big difference between her two marriages because, in the first one her position was made clear to her by a brutal husband immediately after her wedding, and in the second all was arranged in an agreeable Irish manner beforehand.

When we went to call on Aunt Bessie in Paris some time later, she was living in an entrancing house, an ancient minor palace on the Rive Gauche. It was architecturally Louis Seize and had a drive-in courtyard and all. It was, however, in a very run-down state when she first saw it, with nine or ten families living in it in distressing squalor. These poor people she had of course to persuade to leave and to recompense handsomely for doing so.

There followed a thorough rehabilitation of the house such as can only be done if you have a totally indestructible bank balance. It was taken apart and steel girders were inserted in the fabric to prevent it falling down. Ancient floors were brought from the Maison de This, exquisite panelling from the Château de That, mosaics from a Roman villa, chimney-pieces, furniture and pictures, from the most expensive dealers in Paris. Finally it was really  very beautiful. When Lord Decies came there one day for a short stay, he found antique gold-plated taps of amazing quality in his bathroom though, alas, they would not work.

But the garden at the back, not large, not even half the size of a football pitch, was a bitter disappointment. Nothing would grow in it, absolutely nothing. Experts analysed the soil. It was almost pure chicken manure and would have to be replaced to a depth of three feet. The only way from the garden to the street was through the drawing-room with its fine parquetry floor from an ancient domain on the Loire. Nevertheless, determination, fortified by an apparently bottomless purse, worked wonders and the whole garden went out through the drawing-room and a new one was brought back in its place, all without damage, not even a scratch.

For the first time in her life Aunt Bessie may have been happy. But then came the war, and before it ended she died, a few months after her husband.”

The Hon, Sir George Bellew, KCB, KCVO, KStJ, FSA.