Come, Mrs. Spencer. Please sit back down.
She didn’t know if the pages had value or if they’d matter to anyone still alive. But ace researcher that she was, Annie did understand one thing. She was looking at the very start of the story, the place where The Missing Duchess began.
Fourteen
WS: You tell me you’re not the duchess.
GD: Because I’m not.
WS: But you ran in celebrated circles. Surely you’d encountered the duke at some point.
GD: Of course I met the duke.
WS: Because you were married to him.
GD: I’m sorry you think a lady must marry every man she meets.
WS: But his family reported, multiple times, that his missing wife is here, at the Grange. Mugnier the priest made similar statements.
GD: Yes, yes, I can see why a priest who died thirty years ago would know who lives in Oxfordshire today. Tell me, Seton, how long do you plan to go round and round like this? I’ve told you. I never loved the Duke of Marlborough.
WS: But you were married to him.
GD: We had no kind of marriage.
WS: But you knew him.
GD: Didn’t I just say that? Yes, of course I knew him! I have a crumb of social standing, for the love of Christ.
WS: How did you meet?
GD: The duke? Blenheim, I suppose. It’s hard to recall. It was his wife Coon who brought me round. She was my closest girl.
WS: Note to manuscript. Coon is Consuelo Vanderbilt, the prior Duchess of Marlborough.
GD: Note to manuscript. This author is a tosser. Who needs to be reminded of Coon?
WS: Okay, then. Tell me about your friendship with Consuelo. How did you meet?
GD: Actually, now that I think about it, I met her through the duke, instead of the other way around. Yes. That’s right. I encountered him at a London soiree when I was sixteen. Coon wasn’t there. She was recuperating from the birth of their first child. Wretched child, that.
WS: Your future stepson?
GD: You’ll never hear me claiming that wanker as part of my family. Anyhow, old Marlborough thought his wife and I would get along famously. He took me to Blenheim to meet her. Coon was in the doldrums and he wanted me to perk her up.
WS: You were sixteen when this happened?
GD: Yes. Why do I feel like I’m repeating myself?
WS: Very well. So the year was 1897.
GD: Yes. Wait! No! No. That’s just silly. It couldn’t have been 1897 as I would’ve only been two years old! [Laughs] A mere toddler!
WS: But instead you were sixteen?
GD: Yes. As I’ve mentioned. Repeatedly.
WS: Well, you’ve just implied you were born in 1895, and 1895 plus sixteen is 1911.
GD: Oh, the writer is good with numbers, is he?
WS: By 1911, the duke and duchess had been separated four years. She wasn’t recuperating from childbirth and in fact she’d already moved out of Blenheim and was living on her own.
GD: Well, perhaps I was younger. Maybe the year was … 1909? I would’ve been— WS: Fourteen. By your math. But I saw your name in the guest registries at the palace, written in 1901.
GD: Ever hear of a transposition error? Sakes alive, do you fancy yourself a bloody mathematician or a writer? The year is not the point. The point is that Coon and Sunny— WS: Note to manuscript. Sunny—
GD: Was the Duke of Marlborough. Earl of Sunderland. Ergo, Sunny. Jesus. Are you going to do this for our entire interview?
WS: I just might.
Fifteen
GD: She was beautiful, Coon was. Dark, exotic. She had these slightly slanting eyes.
WS: Note to manuscript. Mrs. Spencer is pushing at the corners of her eyelids, as if to demonstrate the slant. Now she’s rolling her eyes.
GD: [Snort] Coon had a touch of the Japanese about her.
WS: In contrast to your fair skin and those wide, haunting blue peepers of yours.
GD: Well, I wouldn’t call them haunting. But yes. The contrast made us stand out when jaunting about Paris. Italy and Germany, too.
WS: It must’ve been startling; the differences Sunny saw when he watched the two of you together.
GD: Forget Sunny. We enchanted half of Europe with our differences. Black and white. Dark and light. Though, of course, we were both beautiful. I can say that now that I’m as old as Methuselah.
WS: You’re still beautiful, Mrs. Spencer.
GD: Full of bollocks, but I appreciate the favor of your compliment. In any event, our personalities were as different as our visages. She was so shy, sweet Coon. Most didn’t know she was also hard of hearing. Her reputation for being snobbish was mostly due to this.
WS: “A black swan aloof in soundless waters.”
GD: Yes, that was my Coon. Poor thing, so depressed in that cumbersome palace. I tried to buoy her. Brighten her marriage, that home, her life. It was all so utterly, heartbreakingly without an ounce of cheer.
WS: Reports have you cheering multiple members of the home.
GD: Well, I tried. Hold on. Surely you’re not referring to Sunny?
WS: Why would I be referring to the duke?