The Visits of Constance (Three Albums)

1898-1920. I: 25 by 31 cm, oblong, 58 pp. Covering years 1898 to 1901. II: 32 by 43 cm, oblong. Covering years 1902 to 1905. 61 pp. III: 33 by 43 cm, oblong. 60 pp. following by blank card leaves. Covers years 1907 to 1920s (latter part is more scattered).Among the watercolors are two by Charles Crombie, both of the rules of golf, a few years before he had similar work published in his Rules of Golf, and two by Henry J. Ford. With approx.. 67 watercolors, 38 pen and ink and 6 pencil drawings. (These elude a precise count since the images are sometimes a collage and thus a matter of opinion whether they represent discrete illustrations. In just one instance, we counted as a single pen and ink drawing a group that might as easily be regarded as a dozen individual drawings. Some of the items might appropriately be described as vignettes or cameos; when there are a few of these, all somehow related, on a single page, we count them as just one. When a picture carries over onto two pages, we count that as one. The watercolors generally have some pen and ink work, but the result reads as a watercolor painting. Among the works tallied as pen and ink illustrations are a few with a small quotient of color, including watercolor. Since in our judgment the pen and ink aspect of these pieces dominates, we treat them as pen and ink.)These are a remarkable set of three albums chronicling weekend visits to numerous grand country homes during the Edwardian Age. The compiler, Constance Jardine, was a cinch as a popular guest, blessed with good looks, connections, talent, and one can surmise, charm and an ingratiating personality. She was clearly someone who reveled in the comforts and privileges that were a part of the whole way of life that was soon to unravel with the upheavals brought on by the First World War, death taxes and the whole reordering of society that went along with modernity. These disruptions figure into the latter part of the third album, as the entries change in character and the organizing principle no longer centers around particular weekend jaunts. But until that point, the albums can be enjoyed by us as pure escapism to Jardines milieu. If you ask us, Jardine invites us to do that, just as she must have enthusiastically shared her albums with her hosts and fellow guests. One can picture her producing the album in progress at tea, or perhaps by a fireside on a rainy day, letting others leaf through its pages, and exhorting them to contribute a clever verse, a funny drawing, or simply their autograph.Hers was the rarefied world now popularly recreated with the hit serial series, Downton Abbey. Or was it? Downton Abbey and other fictional works like it offer a very loose parallel, since there were layers and divisions within that world. Never do we encounter Royalty in the albums, nor were the parties overflowing with dukes, viscounts, prime ministers or other ranking cabinet members. Constances itinerary did not take in the most magnificent and storied of estates places like Woburn Abbey, Chatsworth, Castle Howard or Blenheim and some of the homes look comparatively modest. Rather, the album covers what we might regard as the more ordinary rich at play. There are a handful of the genuinely fame, but most could probably have walked across Trafalgar Square without causing heads to turn. In the context of social history, this is part of the value of these albums; they offer us a glimpse on the upper class of that time and place akin to what we might find in a Henry James or John Galsworthy novel, but without being mediated by an author who has molded the material to fit his own literary ends. In this far more expansive layer of the upper crust it was not conceivable that everyone knew everyone else, even by reputation, but the pleasures of social life were just as great, if not more so, than the pageantry of a weekend where the guest list was culled down to the cream of society, and where some of the fizzle was from the deliberate bringing together of people not well-acquainted with one another. For all its brilliance, this Cliveden sort of weekend, and all its accompanying intricate choreography, had an oppressiveness side to it.One can tell from the albums that things were more relaxed during one of Constances country house weekends. Since the same names crop up time and again, we can deduce that many of the guests were part of one or two circles of friends. Their days in the country were filled with angling, foxhunting, rabbit hunting, upland bird shooting, croquet, croquet, tennis, golf, card tables, balls and masquerades. Or they might spend an afternoon taking in the race track or a regatta. Which activities were pursued depended a lot on the location and the season, obviously. Not to contradict the argument of the prior paragraphs, but there were some recognizable names among those Constance spent these weekends with. We encounter the autograph of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams a number of times. One weekend included John Hay, the American Secretary of State and formerly the ambassador to Great Britain. From the business world a regular was Ralph Slazenger, a founder of the eponymous sporting goods company. We come across repeatedly members of the Bonham Carter and the Vernon-Harcourt families, both names with name recognition still. Without question there were others, now forgotten, who had some renown in their day. The list of properties visited is long, with multiple visits to many of the estates. The properties were scattered throughout the British Isles, and many have names with a poetic lilt. A few are now on the National Trust; others have long ago been converted to other uses, including corporate retreats, nursing homes, condominiums, and not a few have fallen victim to the wrecking ball, as their high cost of maintenance and the tax code conspired to incentivize their destruction for many years of the mid-twentieth century. The properties include Fulmer House; Kilmartin, Drumnadrochit; Paxhill Park, Lindfield, Sussex; Leith Hill, Dorking, twice; Oldany Lodge; Lochinver; Urrard; Orche Hill, Gerrards Cross, Uxbridge; Dunninald; Kincardine; Brahan; Rushwood; Stronchreggan; Stradishall Place; Hyde Croft; Farrants, Bickley, Kent; The Grange, Goring-on-Thames, twice; Kirkside, St. Cyrus; Kilberry, Argyllshire; Kilkerran House, Maybole; St. Martins Abbey; Sirmshail (?) Place; Aldershot; Northerwood Park, Isle of Wight, twice; Summinghill; Peddybill Park; Kirkside; Aldourie Castle, Inverness; Cudwells; Heacham; Alderbourne; Noraher Wood; Mile Bush End, Leighton; Connemara; Banff; Ollenuyon (?); Smallfield Place, Burstow, Surrey; Knowle Park; Ruthden; Lethen; Bradfield; Frensham; Auchendarroch, Lochgilphead; Pickeridge; Monserrate; Fast Liss; Hardwick; Mainstone Court; Balnamoon; Auchendarroch; Pennyhill Park, Bagshot; Druminnor, Rhynie, Aberdeenshire; Banchory Lodge; Hollington; Welford; Waldershare; Lilliput; and finally, Townhill. Some of the visits, it is clear, lasted a month or longer, while others were undoubtedly shorter.Not all the homes were palatial, as one can see from the illustrations and photos. This does not mean that the more modest homes were not comfortable. Curiously, there are pictures of all the properties from the outside but few of the interiors.In 1914, Jardine made a trip to India, and at this point the album is tantamount to a photo album, with some other ephemera thrown in, such as a dinner invitation from the Aga Khan. The photos record some of the lifestyle of the Raj just before it entered its twilight years, but they are not necessarily distinguishable from those of other privileged Anglo tourists of the same era. During the war the entries take on a decidedly more somber tone, as Jardine herself volunteered for various organizations, like so many other women of her class and station. There are a few clippings from benefits, a whole page devoted to signatures of patients at an officers hospital in Devon, a large Red Cross certificate recognizing Constances volunteer contributions. Amongst these are several photos and clippings of more or less normal recreational activities life did go on.Following the war, we get a handful of photos of estate houses and staid family photos Constance was now herself comfortably middle aged. Gone is the hedonism and the artistic panache. Essentially, the album-keeping does not so much stop abruptly as much as it peters out, just as the lifestyle it celebrated also became a thing of the past. Constance Jardine (she appears not to have used her first name Annette much) was born in 1876 in East Grinstead, Sussex, England. She married Robert Jardine in 1897, shortly before these albums got under way, and they maintained a home at 69 Cadogan Place in London, which remains a highly desirable address in Belgravia. Robert Jardine passed away in December, 1930. In 1934, Annette married the younger Captain Arthur Granville-Soames, who had divorced his first wife earlier the same year. Granville-Soames was a member of His Majesty's Coldstream Guards, the father-in-law of Winston Churchill's youngest daughter, and the owner of Sheffield Park, an important estate that he was to sell in 1954. That marriage did not last; they divorced sometime before 1948, when Captain Granville-Soames married a third time. It would appear Constance did not remarry since in her obituary she had held onto Soames as her surname. Little is known about how Constance lived out the rest of her life. Albums maintained by visiting guests, and also organized around the houses experienced, are not unique to these kept by Jardine. But one comes upon such guest albums far, far less often than those kept by the hosts, and we know of no other example of such guest albums with anywhere near the same caliber and scope of Jardine's three heavy books. As a window on the past, the Jardine albums offer us a different voyeuristic experience from that found in even the most elaborate of host albums. Somehow Jardine's compilation captures a restless energy and movement of these party weekends.