SIMON & SCHUSTER Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Visit us on the World Wide Web: http://www.SimonSays.com Copyright © 2000 by James Fox All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Designed by Kyoko Watanabe ISBN 0-7432-1700-4 The author and the publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint the following: Extracts from unpublished letter by Joyce Grenfell. Copyright © Joyce Grenfell. Extracts from Darling Ma—Letters to Her Mother 1932-1944, edited and introduced by James Roose Evans. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1988. Copyright © 1988 by Reginald Grenfell and James Roose Evans. Extract from Joyce Grenfell Requests the Pleasure. London: Macmillan, 1976. Copyright © Joyce Grenfell 1976. Verse from “The D-Day Dodgers” by permission of Hamish Henderson. For Francis Wyndham and in loving memory of my mother, Dinah Bridge, 1920-1998 Contents The Cast of Characters The Langhorne Family Tree 1 The Langhornes 2 Mr. Langhorne’s Rock 3 Mrs. Langhorne’s Violet Lunch 4 Mr. Shaw and Mr. Brooks 5 Going Back in the Boats 6 Nancy and the Astors 7 Nancy the Good 8 Conquering Society 9 The Marriage of Nora 10 The Returning Pilgrim 11 Phyllis and the Captain 12 Bright Young Men 13 Fly Sickness 14 Outbreak of War 15 Trenches 16 Dear Mr. Brand 17 The Men in the Room 18 Writing from School 19 The Right Honourable Nancy Astor, MP 20 Nancy the Ringmaster 21 The Boy Problem 22 Nora’s Garden of Roses 23 Winkie and the Jazz Age 24 Nancy to Moscow, Bobbie to Jail 25 Papa Wants a Little Gun 26 Scott Fitzgerald’s Intimate Strangers 27 A Shovel in the Post 28 Alone in the Universe 29 Cockburn’s “Cliveden Set” 30 Fort Augustus Acknowledgments Bibliography Index The Cast of Characters CHISWELL DABNEY LANGHORNE (1843-1919), known as “Chillie,” pronounced “Shilly”; patriarch of the Langhorne family; railroad entrepreneur, sometime tobacco auctioneer. Husband of Nanaire. NANCY WITCHER KEENE LANGHORNE, “Nanaire” (1848-1903), wife of Chillie Langhorne, whom she married in 1864. Their children in order of age: LIZZIE (1867-1914) married Moncure Perkins in 1885; three children: Chiswell (Chillie), Nancy, Alice. KEENE (1869-1916), married Sadie Reynolds. IRENE (1873-1956) married the artist Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944), creator of the Gibson Girl; two children: Irene (Babs) and Langhorne. HARRY (1874-1907) married Genevieve Peyton. NANCY (1879-1964) married Robert Gould Shaw II of Boston (1871-1930), divorced 1903; one child: Bobbie Shaw. Married Waldorf Astor, later 2nd Viscount Astor (1879-1952); five children: Bill, Phyllis (Wissie), David, Michael, John Jacob (Jakie). PHYLLIS (1880-1937) married Reginald (Reggie) Brooks November 1901; two children: Peter and David (Winkie); separated in 1912, divorced 1915. Married Robert Henry Brand (Bob) in 1917; three children: Virginia, Dinah, Jim. WILLIAM (Buck) (1886-1938) married Edith Forsyth; five children: Dabney, Phyllis, Harry, Keene, Douglas. NORA (1889-1955) married Paul Phipps in 1909; two children: Joyce (later Grenfell) and Tommy; divorced 1931. Married Maurice Bennet Flynn (“Lefty”) in 1932. Other main characters, in the order that their names first appear in the book: ALICE WINN (b. 1902), younger daughter of Lizzie. BOB BRAND (Robert Henry Brand) (1878-1963), later 1st Lord Brand of Eydon. Member of Milner’s Kindergarten and the Round Table, economist and banker, married Phyllis in 1917. Grandfather of the author. BOBBIE SHAW (Robert Gould Shaw) (1898-1970), only son of Nancy and Robert (“Bob”) Shaw of Boston. CHARLES DANA GIBSON (1867-1944), artist and illustrator, creator of the Gibson Girl, married Irene in 1895. DAVID ASTOR (b. 1912), Nancy and Waldorf’s second son, later editor of the Observer. DINAH BRIDGE (1920-1998), younger daughter of Phyllis; mother of the author. HENRY DOUGLAS PENNANT (1876-1915), the “Captain.” Soldier and trophy shooter, younger son of Baron Penrhyn. JIM BRAND (1924-1945), only son of Phyllis and Bob Brand. LEFTY FLYNN (1880-1950), former Yale football star, silent screen actor, and Nora’s second husband. MICHAEL ASTOR (1916-1980), Nancy and Waldorf’s third son, author of Tribal Feeling. MONCURE PERKINS (1861-1914), Lizzie’s husband, father of Nancy Lancaster and Alice Winn. NANCY LANCASTER (1897-1994), Lizzie’s eldest daughter, gardener and decorator, who married (1) Henry Field, (2) Ronnie Tree, and (3) Juby Lancaster. PAUL PHIPPS (1880-1953), Nora’s first husband, father of Joyce Grenfell and Tommy Phipps. PETER BROOKS (1902-1944), eldest son of Phyllis and her first husband, Reggie Brooks. PHILIP KERR (1882-1940), later 11th Marquis of Lothian. Member of Milner’s Kindergarten and the Round Table; British Ambassador to the United States, 1939-1940. REGGIE BROOKS (1876-1945), Phyllis’s first husband; father of Peter and Winkie Brooks. WINKIE BROOKS (1910-1936), Phyllis’s second son with Reggie Brooks. WISSIE (PHYLLIS) ASTOR, later Countess of Ancaster (1909-1975), only daughter of Nancy and Waldorf.