the Seremai estate that it would fly if he dropped it from his aeroplane, or, at least, fly well enough to survive. The guests at Seremai that day remember the hen dropping out of Carberry’s aeroplane like a stone. It was at first presumed dead, but some hours later it was found limping lopsidedly through the coffee shamba. Only then was it allowed to resume its privileges.
A table for three had been booked for lunch on the day of the Broughtons’ arrival (November 12th) at the Muthaiga Club, where they would stay while they looked for a suitable house. Their guest was Gwladys Delamere, the Mayor of Nairobi. Broughton had known her well during her first marriage in England and considered her a close friend. Gwladys was the Tsarina of Nairobi social life, and Broughton was wise to pay his first respects exclusively to her. Perhaps Gwladys, too, thought he would be arriving with Vera. Diana would require her approval.
Walking past the porter’s lodge and into the chintzy sitting rooms of the Club, Broughton, after thirteen years of absence, must have found it somewhat shorn of its former grandeur. The Club then had usually been almost empty on weekdays; now it was humming with activity, with officers up from South Africa, or shuttling between England and Cairo. Nairobi and the Muthaiga had become recreation centres for troops on leave.
Gwladys claimed the honeymooning couple for dinner as well as lunch that day, and added another guest, Broughton’s contemporary, Jack Soames, who came in from his farm at Nanyuki. There was much to talk about: Britainunder the blackout, the difficulties of keeping an estate running during the war, Turf Club gossip. They ordered Bronxes before dinner, and champagne. The subject came up of why Broughton had wanted to leave England. He made a reply about a man his age not being able to find any proper war work in England. Furthermore, he thought a new life deserved a new background and he was looking forward to showing Diana this country.
Almost immediately the couple set off on an up-country journey to introduce Diana to Broughton’s old friends. They visited Lord Francis Scott, Mervyn Ridley, Soames, and “Boy” and Paula Long. It was the Longs’ first glimpse of Diana and they were surprised that the new bride should say in front of her husband and her hosts, “I’m not sharing a room with that dirty old man. I insist on having a room to myself.” This, it seemed, was the unwritten part of the pact. The couple never did share a room, either before or after the marriage. Broughton appeared to be besotted by Diana, but she had clearly already begun to find the relationship unbearable after the years of semi-freedom, of flying and dancing and escaping with her beaux to the 400 Club.
Diana’s impressions of Old Etonians abroad cannot have been improved by their visit to “Commander” Soames at Bergeret. At school he had been a contemporary of Broughton, and they had travelled on the long journey out to Kenya together in 1923—Broughton for the first time. Soames had divorced Nina Drury some ten years before the Broughtons’ arrival. But even then, although she never suffered directly from his peculiar habits and compulsions—all acted on surreptitiously—she was keenly aware of them. “He could be so charming to people that they were often never aware of the other side of it,” she said. Soames had developed a sinister and morbid imagination, and had become a voyeur with an alarming style. He would drill holes in the roof above the guest bedrooms and peer down at them.
“It was all becoming rather paramount even before Imarried him,” said Nina Drury, “and people had started to become wary of him.”
He had also become bad-tempered and tyrannical towards his servants. On one occasion a guest complained that the houseboy had “buggered up the bath” by omitting to fit the plug properly and thus draining the supply of hot water. Soames picked up a gun and hunted the
A table for three had been booked for lunch on the day of the Broughtons’ arrival (November 12th) at the Muthaiga Club, where they would stay while they looked for a suitable house. Their guest was Gwladys Delamere, the Mayor of Nairobi. Broughton had known her well during her first marriage in England and considered her a close friend. Gwladys was the Tsarina of Nairobi social life, and Broughton was wise to pay his first respects exclusively to her. Perhaps Gwladys, too, thought he would be arriving with Vera. Diana would require her approval.
Walking past the porter’s lodge and into the chintzy sitting rooms of the Club, Broughton, after thirteen years of absence, must have found it somewhat shorn of its former grandeur. The Club then had usually been almost empty on weekdays; now it was humming with activity, with officers up from South Africa, or shuttling between England and Cairo. Nairobi and the Muthaiga had become recreation centres for troops on leave.
Gwladys claimed the honeymooning couple for dinner as well as lunch that day, and added another guest, Broughton’s contemporary, Jack Soames, who came in from his farm at Nanyuki. There was much to talk about: Britainunder the blackout, the difficulties of keeping an estate running during the war, Turf Club gossip. They ordered Bronxes before dinner, and champagne. The subject came up of why Broughton had wanted to leave England. He made a reply about a man his age not being able to find any proper war work in England. Furthermore, he thought a new life deserved a new background and he was looking forward to showing Diana this country.
Almost immediately the couple set off on an up-country journey to introduce Diana to Broughton’s old friends. They visited Lord Francis Scott, Mervyn Ridley, Soames, and “Boy” and Paula Long. It was the Longs’ first glimpse of Diana and they were surprised that the new bride should say in front of her husband and her hosts, “I’m not sharing a room with that dirty old man. I insist on having a room to myself.” This, it seemed, was the unwritten part of the pact. The couple never did share a room, either before or after the marriage. Broughton appeared to be besotted by Diana, but she had clearly already begun to find the relationship unbearable after the years of semi-freedom, of flying and dancing and escaping with her beaux to the 400 Club.
Diana’s impressions of Old Etonians abroad cannot have been improved by their visit to “Commander” Soames at Bergeret. At school he had been a contemporary of Broughton, and they had travelled on the long journey out to Kenya together in 1923—Broughton for the first time. Soames had divorced Nina Drury some ten years before the Broughtons’ arrival. But even then, although she never suffered directly from his peculiar habits and compulsions—all acted on surreptitiously—she was keenly aware of them. “He could be so charming to people that they were often never aware of the other side of it,” she said. Soames had developed a sinister and morbid imagination, and had become a voyeur with an alarming style. He would drill holes in the roof above the guest bedrooms and peer down at them.
“It was all becoming rather paramount even before Imarried him,” said Nina Drury, “and people had started to become wary of him.”
He had also become bad-tempered and tyrannical towards his servants. On one occasion a guest complained that the houseboy had “buggered up the bath” by omitting to fit the plug properly and thus draining the supply of hot water. Soames picked up a gun and hunted the
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