The Duchesss Tattoo Read Free Page A

American money probably kept the stately homes of England going for another generation.
    Those of you who enjoyed the Masterpiece Theatre series Downton Abbey will remember that the Earl of Grantham married an American heiress (also called Cora) whose dowry saved the family estate from ruin. But Downton Abbey is set twenty years after The American Heiress. By that time even the stuffiest English aristocrats had realized that American money had stopped the roof leaking. The traces of these American girls are everywhere in Britain today; most people know that Winston Churchill’s mother was American, but the great-grandmother of Princess Diana was also an American heiress.
    For many of these American brides, however, a title really didn’t make up for the horrors of English country life. A dollar princess frequently found herself isolated and miserable in a great pile of a house that, however exquisite, was miles away from anywhere, with no heating apart from open fires and—horror of horror—no bathrooms. One titled American bride wrote home to her mother that she hadn’t taken her furs off all winter even when she went to bed. Another heiress gave up going to dinner at people’s country houses because she couldn’t bear the arctic temperatures in an evening dress. And English society was not exactly welcoming to these rich newcomers: Imagine Kim Kardashian marrying Prince Harry today and you get the general idea of the suspicion and disdain that the Americans encountered. In Downton Abbey, when Cora, Countess of Grantham, wonders whether a potential suitor for her daughter comes from an old family, her mother-in-law, played by Maggie Smith, retorts, “Older than yours, I imagine.” And even the Countess’s own daughter, Lady Mary, dismisses her mother by saying, “You wouldn’t understand. You’re American.”
    You will have to read The American Heiress to the last page to find out if Cora Cash wins her own particular War of Independence, but you can rest assured that every detail in the story, however outlandish, is grounded in fact.
    DAISY GOODWIN is a leading television producer in the U.K. She has published several poetry anthologies, and was chair of the judging panel of the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction. She and her husband, an ABC TV executive, have two daughters and live in London. The American Heiress is her first novel.

 
    Why English Noblemen
    Seek American Brides…
    And Other Excerpts from
    Titled Americans *
    March 1890
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    WHO NEEDS MATCH.COM?

    * When Daisy Goodwin was researching her novel, The American Heiress , she discovered that rich American girls (and their mothers) who were seeking a match with an English lord would typically start by consulting the quarterly publication, Titled Americans , which listed all the eligible titled bachelors still on the market, with a handy description of their age, accomplishments and prospects.
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    Why English Noblemen
    Seek American Brides.

    Chauncey M. Depew’s Views on the Subject.

    â€œWhy do Englishmen select American wives?” was asked the silver-tongued orator, Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, who submitted himself graciously to a reporter’s inquisition on the subject of paramount interest and continuous discussion since the Endicott-Chamberlain wedding.
    â€œDo you think I can answer that question without getting up another war with England? If I may express my opinion, without shattering the international treaty, I should say that the American girls has the advantage of her English sister in that she possesses all that the other lacks. This is due to the different methods in which the two girls are brought up. And English girl is, as a rule, brought up very strictly, kept under rigid discipline, sees nothing of society until formally brought out, is not permitted to think or act for herself, or allowed to display any individuality. As a result she is shy, self-conscious, easily