Christmas Day

25 December (1940)
Christmas Day! An old butler came in to wake me at half-past eight, bearing the conventional tray with tea. He was a trifle apologetic at bringing it to an American. And as he began fussing around opening the curtains and folding my clothes, I asked him about himself. He said he had been coming down to Cliveden for the past twenty-two years, whenever they had a house party or a ball, but there were not so many of them nowadays. In fact, he said, the modern days were not at all the same, for when he was young he belonged to a group of waiters who made it their business to go all over the country to hunt balls and county balls. Those were great days, he said. “We would leave London in a charabanc, 36 of us, and arrive somewhere in the middle of the day. We would make the ballroom and the dining room ready, setting the table, and when all was prepared, would sit down and have tea and a game of cards. Then, in the evening there would be the grand dinner, following (sic) by a ball and we would be very busy until it was over, when we would clear up and then find a place in the ballroom or the dining room or the kitchen to curl up and have a nap. When morning came, we would start off for the next place, and so would do this day after day, for weeks at a time.”
Just as I was tying my cravat in the bow window, Lord Astor came tramping through the undergrowth, followed by a swarm of dogs of all kinds and sizes, to wave me good morning. At breakfast he said he hoped I had enjoyed being in the bedroom which had been assigned to me, that it was called the Sutherland room because it had been done by the Duchess of Sutherland when she lived at Cliveden, which for her was just a small country place. This room, he said, had been left untouched when they redecorated the house as a kind of curiosity. I must say it had struck me when I looked about this morning. The principal feature is a huge white marble fireplace, which reaches from floor to ceiling. It is heavily carved and boasts of not one but two mantels, above the upper one of which is the portrait of Charles I, set in the marble framing. It is a rather spooky thing for his somewhat sad features look out as though he were buried alive behind this huge facade of marble from which only his face could peep out.
The marble columns which flank his portrait run clear up to the ceiling which is decorated with intricate and tortuous moulding  and plaster. The walls are hung with apricot damask and the windows are almost concealed by curtains of such heavy silk that the festoons over the window are as solid looking as though they were of carved wood. The furniture is gold and white, excessively ornamented, and the wide bedstead has a huge ducal coronet leaning out over the sleeper’s face. The bathroom which opens off it is almost as much of a curiosity, lined with marble, but with a tin tub set with its bottom considerably below the level of the floor so that one has to descend into it by a tiny flight of steps. The bedroom is lit by three or four windows which give out over the terrace and afford a long view under the level arms of an ancient cypress over the Thames which lies like a long, narrow, silver lagoon in the distance.
At breakfast there was a considerable interchange of gifts. I was much touched by Lady Astor’s giving me a silver bookmarker which was not at all an afterthought, because my initials and the date were engraved upon it. This is something I have long needed because it is an encouragement to lay a book down rather than go on greedily devouring it and sitting up much too late in the process.
Hertford came down in the course of the afternoon, bringing with him Admiral Mark Kerr, who is a relative of Lord Lothian and was to have a conversation with Lothian’s sister, who was one of the guests in the house. After the whole party had returned from the hospital, there was a huge dinner of some twenty-five people, but after all had entered the dining room it turned out that there were about ten more than the table had been set for and that they had been invited here and there by Lady Astor. The result was that she began to issue orders in every direction, and in her excitement took hold of the end of the large table and gave it a heave to try to move it, but all the trestles fell out of that part of it and it began to collapse. Instantly there were half a dozen soldiers under the table propping it up and great laughter and shouting so that everything went into a splendid hilarious turmoil and confusion, the best possible way of starting Christmas dinner off.
After dinner there were charades, very clever indeed, little impromptu sketches which were better than many seen on the stage.
A very finished performance was given by Joyce Grenfell, who is appearing in the show Diversion in London now with sketches and monologues. She did two or three which she is just developing. Another was done by Bobby Shaw, Lady Astor’s son by her first marriage. He occupies a rather difficult position here in this household of high-spirited young Astors, but when he did his turn I was delighted to see that they all made a great fuss over it and applauded him much more generously and heartily than they did each other. He was carrying his arm in a sling. About six weeks ago he and ten of his companions in London decided to spend the night in the country and managed to get as far as the suburbs when they thought they were quite safe and stopped to buy some cigarettes. While they were in the little shop a bomb fell on it and killed nine out of the eleven. He escaped with a bit of shell fragment in his elbow.
The party broke up very much as it had started with Major Winn tripping over an electric light cord which brought down a large porcelain lamp with a terrific crash. Everybody whooped and hollered and enjoyed it except Lady Astor, who was very indignant.
One of the differences between Cliveden and other houses is that no spirits are served, the only thing to drink being wine served at dinner. This does not have the least effect on the gaiety of the party. On the contrary I am inclined to think it is more gay as a result. It is a relief to go into dinner without dawdling over a lot of unnecessary cocktails and it is a relief after dinner to sit and talk, or read, without the usual saturation with brandy and Scotch whisky.
General Raymond E. Lee