Chapter 5: A Spell in Masai Country

Chapter on how Broughton ends up marrying Diana. 

Opens with a quote from Cyril Connolly:

Such rich men with absentee wives may be revived only by a successful love affair. ....

Begins with the Delves Broughtons --

• began coming to Kenya on hunting safaris soon after the Armistice (WWI)
• Sir Jock Delves Broughton's first wife: Vera
• mighty huntress and adventuress
• London's Harley Street physician recommended Jock Broughton go to Kenya as cure for his severe headaches; physician: Sir Farquhar Buzzard
• Broughton: a "war" dodger back in 1914; blamed it on "heat stroke" that he couldn't board sea-going transport
• 1923: bought a coffee plantation in Kenya
• 1940: 57 years old, returning to Kenya with a new wife
• story of Broughton, chapter 5
• born 1883
• born into the protected, leisured world of racing
• into the big league of landowning families
• his father, the 10th Baronet, owned three houses:
• Doddington Park in Cheshire -- the family seat
• Broughton Hall in Staffordshire
• 6 Hill Street in Mayfair, London
• 34,000 acres of land; vast estate mostly of prime Cheshire farming which would now be worth something over £70 million

Eton, poor student

• always held a grudge; felt he was being mistreated by father, stepbrother, stepsister after father remained; mother had died when he was two years old
• crammer's after Eton for some force-fed tutoring
• joined the Irish Guards in 1902

1913: married Vera Boscawen, impoverished branch of a good family;

• bigger than life; adventuress; hated everybody; going to get as much out of life as possible; probably despited Jock but found his money comforting

1914: Jock's father dies; he now has a princely income with the houses and the acres

August 12, 1914: Irish Guards sailed for France; this is the story where he feigned sunstroke and dodged war; his unit suffered incredibly bad casualties;

Retired from the army in 1919, with a 50 percent disability pension;

• limped; arthritic right hand with weak grip -- foreshadowing the murder
• subject to bouts of confusion and amnesia

now began his 20 years of this 36-year-old Baronet

• sold land to raise cash; always worried about running out of money

Vera becomes a big-game huntress

• they go to Kenya together in 1919 - 1920
• went back again in 1923 and met Broughton's old school friend, Jack Soames, who had settled in Nanyuki
• Broughton bought the Spring Valley coffee estate near Nairobi

1928: again in Kenya, he met the Earl of Erroll at Muthaiga

• stayed with Lord Delamere and his wife Gwladys at Soysambu (index says Soysambu first mentioned on page 249; in fact, first mentioned here -- or earlier) -- not previously mentioned by me until this chapter of note-taking; first mentioned on page 16, Delamere and his cattle estate;

Skipping ahead to page 57:

• Vera: loved life; more and more safaris, world travels; close friend Walter Guinness, becomes Lord Moyne in 1932, he had been the 3rd son of the Earl of Iveagh;
• Jock: grew bored
• they grew apart

Jock's son: Evelyn

• Evelyn and Jock did not get along at all

Jock's boredom came to an end in 1935, page 59

• Jock met 22-year-old Diana Caldwell;
• Cyril Connolly fascinated by Diana Caldwell;

Diana Caldwell:

• socialite
• aviatrix
• danced in London
• hunted in Warwickshire
• flew her own plane to Le Touquet, Vienna and Budapest
• her father a gambler and little else after leaving Eton
• Diana had been briefly married to a playboy musician, Vernon Motion
• divorced him for adultery soon after the marriage

p. 59

At this point, I'm going to skip ahead, come back to this later, but I want to move along.

Page 63:

1938: Broughton and Vera made a final appearance together at the marriage of their daughter Rosamund to Lord Lovat.

Broughton sold more land, leaving Doddington with an estage of less than 4,000 acres

Rumors: Broughton heavy in debt.

1938: reported two robberies, the Broughton pearls for £17,000, from the glove compartment of Miss Caldwell's car outside a fashionable  restaurant on the Côte d'Azur; the second robbery, a thief broke into Doddington while Broughton was in London and cut three family portraits from their frames, heavily and recently insured.

1939: Lord Moyne's wife died and Vera, who hoped to marry him, began divorce proceedings against Broughton. Broughton was deeply hurt, though he had tolerated her affairs.

Broughton's response: propose to Diana, and to make plans to emigrate to Kenya. 

Diana's life also falling apart. Both Diana and Broughton thought it best to simply flee England.

While en route from South Africa, the divorce decree granted to Vera in London came through. But Broughton's marriage to Diana did not follow immediately.

Cockie Hoogterp, then the Baroness Blixen (Bror Blixen's second wife after Isak Dinesen) met the couple in Johannesburg a few weeks before the ceremony finally took place  ... detected some uncertianty on Diana's part.

Cockie made a diner date with Broughton ....noted some ambivalence on the part of Broughton regarding marrying Diana.

Six weeks before the marriage, Broughton entered into a peculiar contract -- quite separate from their marriage vows. Diana would be granted a divorce if she fell in love with a younger man and wanted a divorce, and he would provide her an annual stipend of £5,000 per year for at least seven years after divorce. He made the agreement because he was so much older than she.