LITMIR.BIZ

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for one of her younger unmarried friends and had wanted the divorce too. There was no uproar and terms were mutually agreed. In fact, Charles and Honor Gordon would be neighbours to Idina and Joss in Kenya. Charles Gordon had benefited from Kenya’s Soldier Settlement Scheme in 1919, and he found himself with 2,500 acres in the Wanjohi Valley above Gilgil. Idina received just over half the land as part of her divorce settlement.²³

      Joss, meanwhile, was ‘causing tremendous consternation in the hearts of the ripe young things’ in the marriage market-places. He was much in demand where débutantes flourished. He was scanned by dukes and dowagers, among bespoke kilts and bejewelled bosoms, upon which rested heirlooms.²⁴ In 1922 he played the season – Ascot, Cowes, Henley, Cowdray Park and the Royal Caledonian Ball (the biggest of the London season) – having resigned his job at the Embassy in Berlin in March that year, nine months before the posting was due to end. His father must have been aghast at such fecklessness. But though his patience must have been wearing rather thin by this stage, he seems to have done his best to get his son back on to his career path. Perhaps Lady Kilmarnock put in some persuasive words for her favourite child, for in 1923 Joss became secretary at the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission.²⁵ Nepotistic though the appointment may have been, he would undoubtedly have been able to make a useful contribution to the work of the High Commission. By now, he had acquired extensive experience in the Foreign Office and could switch to another language without a moment’s hesitation.

      Adding to the tension in the British residence household at the time was the recent resale of Slains. Ellerman had arranged for the estate agents Frank Knight & Rubenstein, W. D. Rutley to auction it off.²⁶ In the spring of 1922 Slains was sold for scrap – a considerable humiliation for the Erroll family.²⁷

      Idina was not long in following Joss out to Coblenz for a visit during the interlude between her decrees nisi and absolute. Joss wanted his parents to meet her, but he never let on to them his intention to marry her. He obviously realised that his parents were unlikely to share his enthusiasm for Idina, and even if he believed that she ‘could have walked off the bas-relief of dancing nymphs in the Louvre’ Lord and Lady Kilmarnock would take a lot of persuading.²⁸ None the less, they would welcome her as his girlfriend.

      Coblenz was a picturesque town at the mouth of the Mosel River, and had long been established as the trading hub for wine-growing countries and furniture factories. It was a sociable place: racing was popular, and since there was a good theatre, everyone went to the opera at least once, if not twice, a week.²⁹

      The British residence was surrounded by tall trees; in summer the building was entirely draped in Virginia creeper but during the winter its fish-scale tiled roof was exposed. It stood in the best spot of all among the French, Dutch, Belgian and American embassies, on the edge of the Rhinelagon, directly opposite the ‘bridge of boats’ which parted to allow barges through as they sailed up and down the river.³⁰ Lord Kilmarnock’s position as High Commissioner entitled him to a guard and a sentry-box outside the gates of the residence; a Cameron Highlander did duty, marching up and down in a kilt. One of his more ceremonial roles was to pipe out distinguished guests down the drive as they left the house. Visits by dignitaries to the residence were photographed by the firm Lindstedt & Zimmermann, who specialised in turning photographs of the more important guests into postcards.³¹

      Idina spent a lot of her time in Coblenz shopping for furniture for the new home in Africa that she would receive through her divorce settlement, choosing table linens and ‘ordering crêpe de chine sheets and exotic bathroom equipment’ including ‘a splendid green bath which in Kenya achieved a reputation all of its own ultimately, when it was believed to have been made from onyx’.³² Joss would accompany her, not letting on to his parents that he planned to share this future home of hers.

      Joss’s general behaviour towards Idina and his family in Coblenz during Idina’s stay was observed by one of his contemporaries, Bettine Rundle from Australia, who had been sent to stay with her guardian’s daughter Marryat Dobie, one of Lord Kilmarnock’s aides. Bettine found herself at the British residence for eighteen months, party to the sensation created by Idina and to the interactions between Joss’s family and the staff attached to the residence. Thanks to Joss’s and Gilbert’s kindness, Bettine was included in the young people’s social life, attending the many parties and witnessing the childish pranks perpetrated by Joss and Idina. The staff were shocked at the spectacle of Idina with her Eton crop, and at how old she was. ‘Her figure resembled that of a boy, too; very, very slim’, her breasts flattened, ‘which seemed to make Joss complement her physically … They seemed like brother and sister; there was something alike in them.’³³

      These partners in crime masterminded a ‘little surprise’ to mark a visit from Monsieur Tirade, the French High Commissioner. While everyone else was bathing and changing for dinner they ‘sneaked downstairs and tied numerous pairs of knickers and brassieres from the top to the bottom of the banisters of the grand staircase into the hall below, where functions were always held. They had gone to the trouble of dying the underwear like the Tricolour, stringing the garments up like bunting in a totally inappropriate manner.’³⁴ Lord and Lady Kilmarnock descended and – Voila! Joss’s father was acutely embarrassed before his guest of honour; Joss looked on in glee. Apparently his elders were always fearful of what he might do next. ‘He was generally regarded as something of a loose cannon,’ Bettine said. Today Joss’s and Idina’s prank might be regarded as harmless fun, but in the old school to which Lord Kilmarnock belonged one simply did not do that sort of thing.

      Idina used lingerie for maximum arousal in the bedroom and taught Joss many tricks involving its removal. His favourite was to touch the strategic four points on a skirt undoing the suspenders underneath so deftly that the wearer would notice nothing until her stockings collapsed about her ankles.³⁵ Underwear would continue to be a sensitive subject during Idina’s stay. She never fell short of taking ‘delight in Joss’s near-the-knuckle jokes’. ‘Covered in hay’ did the rounds in Coblenz.³⁶

      Such mockery of decorum outraged the Kilmarnocks. Joss’s father remarked that since Idina was so much older she should have known better.³⁷ If Joss involved himself with such a woman, how could he expect to move expertly as a diplomat? Lord Kilmarnock feared for him and told him so, but his warnings fell on ears tuned only to amusement. If Joss had been smarting from the telling-off, his doting mother would soon have soothed his wounded vanity.

      A portrait of Lady Kilmarnock painted that year shows a stunning woman. She exuded confidence and, like Idina, ‘was very stylish, usually surrounded by a good many subalterns from Cologne – and officers of the Guard … seeming not to want to grow old’. Joss ‘seemed to cultivate a peculiarly intimate relationship with Lady Kilmarnock’, and Bettine Rundle noticed that, even while Idina was staying, he continued to appear in his mother’s dressing room before dinner for a private chat. One evening, sauntering in, Joss had picked up the flannel dangling over the side of her wash-basin and gestured as if to wipe his face, when his mother snatched it away with a shriek, ‘That’s my douche cloth!’ ‘A lot of tittering between mother and son had gone on over his mother’s washcloth.’ According to Bettine, when Joss exercised his sense of humour he ‘always had to score a point – usually it had a smutty side’.³⁸

      Joss’s smuttiness

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