Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor

Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor by Rosina Harrison Page A

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Authors: Rosina Harrison
Tags: Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Women
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nearly out of my mind with fright, yet I knew I was right. After all I wasn’t likely to forget whether I’d got a few hundred thousand pounds’ worth of diamond in my possession, was I? I phoned Miss Jones, Lord Astor’s secretary. ‘Oh, he’s just spoken to me about it, Rose,’ she said. ‘He put it in his pocket and forgot that it was there.’
    ‘Put it in his pocket and then said that I’d got it,’ I shouted down the phone. ‘Wait till I see him, I’ll give him a piece of my mind!’
    ‘You can do it now, Rose,’ came the reply in his lordship’s voice. He’d taken the phone from Miss Jones. ‘It was very naughty of me.’
    ‘Naughty, my lord?’ I said, ‘it was criminal. You nearly murdered me, I was just about to have heart failure.’ I must say that for the next few days whenever he saw me he put his head in his hands and turned away.
    I wasn’t the only one to have suffered through that diamond, Mr Lee informed me. ‘It happened,’ he said, ‘some years before you joined, Miss Harrison; there was a ball at St James’s Square and Lady Astor had lent the diamond to her sister, Mrs Nora Phipps, to wear on a gold chain. In the early hours of the morning her ladyship came up to me and whispered, “Mr Lee, the Sancy diamond is missing.”
    ‘“Missing, my lady, do you mean Mrs Phipps has lost it?”
    ‘“Yes,” she said. “Who do you think has taken it?”
    ‘“If you mean do I know who the thief is, my lady, it’s a question I can’t answer, but aren’t you jumping to conclusions?” She was.
    ‘“What about your men?” she said, knowing I’d hired some additional staff for the evening. “Do you think they’re honest?”
    ‘I looked hard at her. “Be reasonable,” I said, “What would the likes of us do with the Sancy diamond? The moment we tried to get rid of it we’d be arrested.”
    ‘“What about the band?” she said.
    ‘“The band has nothing to do with me, my lady, it was booked by your secretary.” It was Ambrose and his orchestra who were so popular at that time that they were engaged for all the big society balls; hardly likely to have wanted to combine rhythm and crime. “If it’s a question of theft, my lady, it would more likely be one of your guests; they would be in a better position to dispose of the diamond. If you believe it to have been stolen I suggest you ring Scotland Yard.”
    ‘She went to his lordship but he wouldn’t hear about calling in the police. It was just as well. I informed all the staff that it was missing and the next morning at seven one of the under-housemaids came to my room with the Sancy diamond in her hand. “Mr Lee,” she said, “is this the thing there’s all the fuss about?” She’d found it under a carpet. It had probably been swept under by the ladies’ long dresses. And that, Miss Harrison,’ said Mr Lee, ‘was the mystery of the Sancy diamond.’
    Mr Lee always spun his stories delightfully, and I must say I liked the housemaid’s reference to the famous diamond as a ‘thing’. It seemed to put it in its place. Once Mr Lee got into his stride he was a hard man to stop. He went on to tell me about the time her ladyship’s pearls were missing. ‘It was in 1919, Miss Harrison, just about the time society was getting into gear again after the First World War, and when her ladyship had won her seat in the Commons, for Plymouth. There’d been a party at the house in Elliot Terrace and the morning following Lady Astor sent for me and said, “Lee, my pearls have been stolen.”
    ‘“I’m sorry to hear that, my lady,” I said. “When and by whom?”
    ‘“It must have been last night,” she said, “and I don’t know who took them.”
    ‘“Then you mean they’re missing, my lady.”
    ‘“I’ve searched everywhere and so has Miss Samson.” Miss Samson was her lady’s maid though she’d only been with her a short time. “They must have been stolen. Ring the police.”
    ‘“Very well, my

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