The Viceroy's Daughters Read Free Page A

its powerful neighbor, Afghanistan.
    His triumph was crowned by the award of the peerage considered fitting for the greatness of the office; he was now Baron Curzon of Kedleston (in the peerage of Ireland). But although as viceroy of India he would be one of the most powerful rulers in the world, holding the destinies of millions in his hand, financially he would be worse off rather than better. Maintaining the huge staffs considered essential at Viceregal Lodge in Calcutta and the viceroy’s summer palace at the hill station of Simla mopped up the twenty-five-thousand-pound annual viceregal salary; in addition, the Curzons were expected to buy all plate, wine, carriages and horses from the outgoing viceroy, as well as paying their own fares and freight to India.
    As vicereine, Mary had to be dressed as befitted a queen in a country where status was indicated by sumptuous clothing and jewels. Her trousseau from Paris cost over one thousand pounds * (the average weekly wage of an agricultural laborer then was ninety pence). Levi Leiter gave her a parure of diamonds, including a tiara, and three thousand pounds to the couple jointly. It was at this moment that Curzon, perhaps feeling that once touched by destiny nothing could harm him, decided to buy a twenty-five-year lease on the house at No. 1 Carlton House Terrace. It cost him twenty-five thousand pounds and a further one thousand five hundred pounds was needed to put it in decent repair, which he did not hesitate to borrow from the bank (guaranteed by his long-suffering father-in-law).
    On December 10, 1898, Mary, Irene, Cimmie, aged three and a half months, and their nanny (engaged, needless to say, by Curzon) left Plymouth on the three-week voyage for India. Curzon joined them at Marseilles. His departure was known to his coterie of friends as “the passing of a Soul.”

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    Viceroy and Vicereine
    On the way to India Mary Curzon made her will. Datelined “The Indian Ocean, 29 December 1898,” it is a pathetically brief document, seemingly written largely to safeguard her jewelry.
    I devise and bequeath my four rows of white pearls my large tiara made by Boucheron my second diamond tiara made by the Goldsmiths Co my diamond necklace made by Watherston and all my old laces to my husband George Nathaniel Lord Curzon of Kedleston to be held by him upon trust during his life for my son if I have one or for the eldest surviving of my sons if I have more than one. And upon my husband’s death to be similarly held upon trust by my son or eldest son whichever it be as heirlooms inalienable from the Kedleston title. Failing my son I bequeath the above mentioned articles to my husband upon trust during his life for my daughters to be distributed by him among them either during his life or upon his death at his discretion.
    She wished the same for her diamond star tiara and diamond brooch.
    Moving on to the rest of her jewelry—notably a ring, clasp and brooch of rubies and diamonds, brooches, crescent and belt of turquoise and a sapphire-and-diamond bracelet—she left these to Curzon, to keep or dispose of as gifts as he thought fit, as well as her plate and personal belongings. To her father went a book and a picture by Millet; to her mother, her sables, silver fox, chinchilla and other furs. This will would later add to the conflict between Curzon and his daughters.
    In India, as in England, the two little girls led a life with a strict nursery routine. Outside the home, their parents moved through the formalities expected of them. Levees, dances, a Drawing Room, a garden party, official dinners for 120 every Thursday and innumerable smaller dinner and luncheon parties were crammed into the three months spent in Calcutta. Bejeweled princes walked along marble floors past motionless rows of uniformed viceregal guards to where the viceroy, seated on a dais in the throne room, awaited them. If the visitor were of sufficiently high rank Curzon would