Marlene Wagman-Geller

      No episode of Downton Abbey rivaled the caustic cauldron of intrigue that riddled the Abbey’s nonfictional counterpart, Highclere Castle, home of the elite of Edwardian England. Even Lady Cora Crawley, the tempest-tossed titled main character, did not have a life as dramatic as its ancestral heroine whose life was a boubaillaise of adultery, abortion, and illegitimacy with the added twist of a mummy’s curse.

      In the Victorian era, marrying socially ambitious heiresses was almost de rigueur for the titled/entitled rich but pound-poor English lords whose taste for chorus girls, yachts, and horses had depleted the ancestral coffers. Resourceful blue bloods offered an exchange of their pedigrees for the wealth of husband-hunting heiresses.  A marriage of convenience followed: cash for cache.

   George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, enjoyed a hedonistic lifestyle of travel and collecting rare artifacts. The fly in this privileged ointment was though the aristocrat was long on lineage, he was short on money, a situation that led to a quest for a golden goose. A rich wife could rescue him and his three hundred room monster-mansion, Highclere, from changing hands, something it had not done since 1679. The property’s history dates back 1,300 years; the Bishops of Winchester were its first owners (hence the television name Abbey.) Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Palace of Westminster, put in charge of a 19^th century remodel, provided a prescient warning, “It is pregnant with the most alarming danger to your Lordship’s pocketbook.” Lord Carnarvon was on the verge of bidding it a non-cheery cheerio when, like the arrival of the cavalry in a Western, all was saved.

       Almina Victoria Marie Alexandra was, at least officially, the daughter of the British army officer Captain Frederick Charles Wombell and his French wife, Marie Boyer. The birth certificate would not have borne too much scrutiny as paternity actually belonged to Marie’s lover, Baron Alfred de Rothschild, scion to the fabulously wealthy banking family. Rothschild was the director of the Bank of England, the first Jew to attain that position, and in a bid to avoid scandal never admitted paternity, especially as the result of adultery. In compensation, the Baron acted as Almina’s godfather, and when he let it be known he was willing to lavish a king’s ransom on her dowry, the suitors circled. The banker’s hope was a member of the nobility would give his daughter the social standing she had been denied when he had not bestowed on her the Rothschild name.

     An aristocrat drawn by the lure of the multi-million-pound catnip, Lord Carnarvon, in quest of wealth, was willing to overlook Almina’s illegitimacy and Jewish father. The wedding took place in 1895 at St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey. Both bride and groom were thrilled; Lord Carnarvon could keep Highclere, and Almina became the chatelaine of a giant dollhouse. As the present Lady Carnarvon said of her palatial estate, “I suppose if you know how many rooms you’ve got, you haven’t got a very big house.” Almina’s playhouse came replete with footmen and uniformed maids, and Van Dyke and Gainsborough portraits graced its walls. There was also a corner desk upon which Napoleon had planned his battle strategies. Evelyn Waugh, the lady’s nephew through marriage, used the expression, “very Highclere” to mean “the best of everything.” With her newfound position and the Rothschild bottomless pocket, Almina spent on a scale that would even cause contemporary hedge-fund darlings to gasp.  Rothschild networked for his darling daughter and orchestrated a visit from the Prince of Wales. Almina threw herself into preparations that included spending 360,000 pounds for the lavish weekend.

       Unfortunately, the marriage came with an Achilles Heel; namely, a lack of sexual chemistry between Almina, nicknamed the pocket-sized Venus, due to her diminutive stature, exquisite beauty, and her decade-older spouse. The lack of lust was partially because, besides Alfred’s passion for antiquities, he was fixated on photographs of scantily clad girls, and at the height of his voyeurism, he commissioned three thousand nudes. Into this marital mix came Prince Victor Duleep Singh, a godson of Queen Victoria, the son of the last Maharajah of Lahore, who had been a close friend of Carnarvon since their student days at Eton. On a youthful vacation to Egypt, Victor had fixed up the peer with a prostitute in order to lose his virginity; however, Carnarvon also picked up a sexually transmitted disease that almost proved fatal. Although he recovered, the Lord was traumatized and hence his preference for visual gratification. While Carnarvon was not erotically interested in Lady Almina, Victor was more than happy to pick up the slack. He practically lived at Highclere providing his host with a friend and his hostess with a lover. What put a kink in the domestic bliss was Almina became pregnant. While most expectant women endlessly imagine the sex of their baby, Almina was obsessed with pigmentation: namely, would the baby bear the tell-tale Indian skin. In the latter contingency, Lady Almina rented a house where she could retreat with her infant and await the subsequent scandal and inevitable divorce. In 1898, her son, Henry George, was born with a light complexion; the baby’s skin-tone did not rule out Victor as the father since he was the offspring of a white mother. Whatever the genetic truth, Lord Carnarvon accepted Henry George as his son and heir. The couple was united in their efforts to keep the skeleton firmly locked in the depths of Highclere’s capacious closets. The birth also meant the parting of the ways of Almina and the man she loved. The marriage survived, and two years later they had a daughter of unambiguous paternity, Lady Evelyn.

          World War I proved Almina’s finest hour when she channeled her out of control spending for a philanthropic cause. She transformed Highclere into a hospital and convalescence home and played the role of Florence Nightingale; the difference her lamp was the Rothschild riches. Lord Carnarvon gave his grudging approval and announced his new address as, “Carnarvon, Amputate, Highclere.” Almina was enthusiastic about her project and assembled a team of beautiful nurses, clad in strawberry pink uniforms and makeup, who ministered to those returning from the trenches. Highclere patients-one the grandson of Alfred, Lord Tennyson-had their own red-lipped angel. Does oblige ever get more noblesser?

         In 1918, Sir Alfred Rothschild died, leaving his house in Mayfair, fabulous paintings, and furnishings to his only child. At this time, Lord Carnarvon, obsessed with all things Egyptian, became entranced with the archaeologist Howard Carter’s belief that in the Valley of Kings the boy-king Tutankhamen slumbered undisturbed for three thousand years. With Almina’s inheritance, the Carnarvons undertook the financial end of the expedition. When Carter discovered the tomb, a cable was immediately sent to Almina, who arrived in Luxor looking suitably ostentatious, glamorous daughter in tow. When Carter first peered through the grate, he exclaimed, “I see wonderful things;” he was addressing Lord Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn. Soon the name of the pharaoh was everywhere-United States President Hoover named his dog King Tut. Because of Almina’s largesse, the young pharaoh and his opulent lifestyle became as famous as the ash-imprisoned people of Pompeii. However, what added a bazaar postscript was when Lord Carnarvon met misfortune in Egypt where he died after the opening of the tomb. The event coincided with the lights of Cairo going out and with the passing of his beloved dog Susie in Highclere. Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, said it was the “curse” of the mummy; his comment inspired a host of Hollywood horror films.  Lady Almina was to share in the curse.

          With the demise of the Earl, possession of Highclere passed to Henry George, and Almina had to search for another home. Relations between Henry and his mother were tenuous due to the lingering uncertainty surrounding his paternity, his mother’s affair with his friend Tommy Frost, and the fact she was loath to share her wealth. Her tight-fisted attitude may have stemmed from her disappointment in the heir: while Lord Carnarvon had achieved international acclaim in the Valley of the Kings, Porchy’s (his nickname from his title Lord Porchester) only distinction was he had cuckolded half the husbands of Berkshire.

       After Almina left the estate where she had lived for almost three decades, she lavishly spent her fortune both on the worthwhile (she continued to fund further Carter expeditions) and the worthless, namely, a second husband. In the year she became a widow, Almina walked down the aisle with Ian Dennistoun, a bounder of all bounders. She had set him up in a cottage while her husband was off on his treasure hunt. He had been a Guards Officer whose promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel had been due to his first wife Dorothy’s seduction of Sir John Cowans, a move undertaken not for passion but to further her husband’s career. Dennistoun also proved useful for money laundering; Almina, after a life of free-spending, was undergoing a financial pinch and sold the jewels and art she had received from poppa, a move designed to appease the taxman. To further complicate matters, Dennistoun’s ex-wife, Dorothy, who had been denied alimony, after she discovered her successor was Lady Carnarvon, infuriated she had volunteered her body for her husband’s advancement, came after him for support. Almina looked at her action as a shakedown and rather than pay, allowed their fight to go public. The subsequent High Court case displayed very dirty linen. Almina found herself in the witness box where her adultery came to light, and the case blackened the name of everyone involved. Such was the uproar that King George V aired his disgust, but the country was captivated with the blue-blood battle. The army dismissed Dennistoun, and Almina ended up paying the court costs of four hundred thousand pounds, far more than the sum Dorothy had requested. When hubby passed away some years later, Almina began an affair with his undertaker.

           As the daughter of a Rothschild, the word budget had never been in Almina’s vocabulary, which is why she managed to let a $100,000,000 fortune dissipate. To avoid insolvency, in a nod to the tried and true, she once more opened a nursing home. She chose a location in central London that she christened Alfred House after her father that patients likened to the Ritz Hotel. A hall porter in medals and a uniform greeted guests while Almina wafted around in her uniform. The trouble was she often forgot to provide a bill, both because she had never been concerned with money and also thought it in bad taste to ask for payment. However, as her coffers began to empty at an alarming rate, a new service was added to the repertoire of Alfred House. Despite the fact that pregnancy termination was illegal, a steady stream of well-to-do female patients began checking into the nursing home. Had Almina been caught, she would have faced imprisonment. However, high society willingly averted its gaze. Waugh described it as “Almina’s abortionist parlour.” What further lowered Almina’s social standing was at age seventy, she took a thirty-years-younger lover, James Stocking, a heating engineer. The woman who had once been the crown jewel of society had descended to a hopelessly declassee. In addition, she was destitute. To make matters worse, her son outed her to the Inland Revenue over her past questionable dealings. Angry at the fact she had squandered the birthright of his inheritance that he desperately needed for the money-guzzling Highclere, he called her a “scheming swindler.” He despised her so much he shut off her favorite room at Highclere.

       At the age of seventy-five, largely due to the vengeful accusations of her son, the Rothschild-by-blood was bankrupt. She moved to a terrace house in Bristol, without the luxury of hot water, and survived on sporadic Highclere handouts. In 1969, she passed away in the shabby residence at age ninety-three, after choking on a piece of chicken. Her death ended a life that had proved as dramatic as that of Downton Abbey’s Lady Cora Crawley. To those of a superstitious bent, Almina’s later-life misfortunes could have indeed been orchestrated by the revenge of the Egyptian boy-king, angered she had been the architect of disturbing his centuries-long slumber.

         Almina’s old age held ample fodder for nostalgia; the days she had been the chatelaine of Highclere, had played a role in opening the tomb of splendor and had played host to King Edward. But perhaps what tugged at her heartstrings the most was the memory of the stolen hours with Victor, when their musical accompaniment could have been the theme song from Downton Abbey, “Did I Make the Most of Loving You?”