The details of her bridal lingerie was described in great detail in the papers. Despite the rain, more than 8,000 people attended the wedding of “the richest girl in the world”—Edwina Ashley—and Lord Louis Mountbatten aka Dickie. Much before the cult of celebrity existed, there were the Mountbattens, who stood at the cusp of history, influenced it and eagerly participated in it. Years later, they still have the power to charm, even on page.
Their early romance—Dickie falling in love with her even though he was getting over his other love, Audrey—is straight out of a romance script, with he, the dashingly handsome godson to Queen Victoria and friend to the king, and she, charmingly flirtatious, restless and ambitious. But soon the marriage is under strain, with Dickie, an inexperienced lover who did not sow wild oats, and Edwina who wanted more. Theirs was not the perfect marriage, though Dickie does come across as the supportive, certainly accommodative husband who is besotted by his wife. There were no secrets either. Dickie knew about his wife’s lovers and often made himself scarce when they chose to spend the night with her.
Andrew Lownie has chosen to write a biography, as he writes in the preface, “when the dust has settled’’. Gossipy, interesting and filled with their voices, the biography of the two glamourous people who led complicated lives and had complicated loves, is fascinating. It has letters Dickie wrote to his mother—detailed, intimate and frank—and letters that Edwina wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru—they wrote everyday, then weekly and then fortnightly.
Readers in India will anxiously wait for the bit about Nehru, and there is plenty. Not salacious or cheap gossip, but it is about a relationship that was “pure’’, strong and, as Edwina writes to Dickie, entrusting him with the stash of letters when she thinks she is going to die, “You yourself will realise the strange relationship—most of it spiritual—which exists between us. J has obviously meant a great deal in my life in these last years, and I think I in his, too.” Dickie, too scared to open it, asks his daughter to read it.
But the book, at the heart of it, is about love. As well as a portrait, no holds barred, of a man who created history and his wife who shared it. And, marriage—not a romcom, but a really messy affair. Dickie and Edwina certainly had that.
BOOK EXTRACTS
GANDHI’S DEATH had not just brought the politicians together, but deepened the existing affection with the Mountbattens. Nehru had refused their invitation to live at Government House to ensure his personal safety, but he now saw even more of the couple and, in particular, Edwina, who had written a comforting letter after Gandhi’s death.
Dickie had always had a picture of Nehru on his desk. Now Edwina had asked for one as well: ‘My dear J-Lal... I would love to have one, in fact two! I’d like a formal one and if possible an informal snap shot... Love ever, Edwina.’ Thanking him a few days later for ‘the delightful snapshots and photograph’, she offered to return the favour. ‘My admiration for you increases each day. I’d love you to have a photograph and will send for one, as soon as I’ve found one you might like... Love ever, Edwina.’
For Nehru, amidst the loneliness of high public office, here was someone he could trust and to whom he could confide. ‘I want someone to talk to me sanely and confidently, as you can do so well,’ he wrote to Edwina in April, ‘for I am in danger of losing faith in myself and the work I do... What has happened, is happening, to the values we cherished? Where are our brave ideals?’
In mid-May, Nehru joined the Mountbattens, at Edwina’s invitation, for a few days at the Retreat at Mashoba, driving there from Ambala in an open-top sports car. ‘Although we have come to know him pretty well during the last fourteen months, it was during these three days that we really succeeded in establishing strong personal bonds,’ Mountbatten wrote to George VI. Dickie worked on his family tree, Edwina and Nehru walked, talked or read companionably with each other. There were picnics and after-dinner games of cards. After the pressures of the last few months, everyone could finally relax. ‘A perfect evening,’ Edwina wrote in her diary and then after the others had gone to bed, ‘... a fascinating heart to heart with J.N.’
Seeing the strong emotional bond between the two, Dickie and Pamela discreetly withdrew to give them time together. Six weeks before her departure, Edwina had finally, according to her younger daughter, found ‘the companionship and equality of spirit and intellect that she craved.’ On the morning Nehru had to leave, she rose at half past six to see him off and, almost immediately afterwards, sent him a letter. ‘I hated seeing you drive away this morning... you have left me with a strange sense of peace and happiness. Perhaps I have brought you the same?’ He had felt the same, writing in a letter that crossed with hers, ‘Life is a dreary business... and when a bright patch comes it rather takes one’s breath away.’ A few years later, he was more open about the moment:
Suddenly I realised (and perhaps you did also) that there was a deeper attachment between us, that some uncontrollable force, of which I was only dimly aware, drew us to one another. I was overwhelmed and at the same time exhilarated by this new discovery. We talked more intimately, as if some veil had been removed, and we could look into each other’s eyes without fear or embarrassment.
***
ON 11 JUNE, Edwina and Nehru flew to the United Provinces to say goodbye to Sarojini, now Governor of Bareilly and an old friend of Edwina’s mother. They walked in the gardens, drifted on a boat in the lake and next morning rode together in the mountains.
‘This was the only promise we ever made,’ Edwina wrote to Nehru later, ‘on the road to Naini Tal—that nothing we did or felt would ever be allowed to come between you and your work or me and mine—because that would spoil everything.’
As the date for departure loomed, Nehru tried to convince her to stay and continue her work with refugees but, torn as she was, she knew her place was with her husband. ‘And so it will be and it has to be,’ he reflected. ‘How wise and right you are, but wisdom brings little satisfaction. A feeling of acute malaise is creeping over me, and horror seizes me when I look at a picture in my mind of your shaking thousands of hands on the night of the 20th and saying your final goodbyes... Dickie and you cannot bypass your fate, just as I cannot bypass mine.’
***
EARLY THE NEXT morning, Nehru appeared at Government House where he and Edwina exchanged presents. For him, one of her most valued possessions, an 18th-century French box of enamel and gold, and for her an ancient coin, a box of ripe mangoes and a copy of his autobiography. Then the Mountbattens left Government House for the last time, a bodyguard lining the steps and escorting the carriage. As they were about to move off, one of the horses jibbed. ‘Even the horses won’t let you go,’ someone called out.
Away from the crowds on board the plane, Edwina finally broke down in tears. Taking off something round her neck, she passed it to her personal assistant, motioning to her to leave the plane. It was her precious St Christopher that she wanted Nehru to have. ‘The long flight home passed in sombre silence.’
***
IN OCTOBER, Nehru came to Britain for discussions on the Commonwealth, before going on to the United Nations in New York. Dickie tactfully left the reunited lovers alone for a midnight rendezvous en route from the airport. ‘Too lovely,’ Edwina noted in her diary. Whilst Dickie initially stayed in London, the two spent several days at Broadlands, where Nehru entertained Patricia’s sons by ‘getting down on all fours in the drawing room and making lion faces at Norton and his new brother, Michael John, who roared back in absolute delight.’
For the next week they were inseparable. They visited Jacob Epstein’s studio, Edwina joined Nehru on the platform at a meeting at Kingsway Hall, they saw Euripides’ Medea, jointly attended the Lord Mayor’s banquet, a reception at the King’s Hall and a dinner for Dominion Premiers at Buckingham Palace, and were photographed at a Greek restaurant in Soho after the press were tipped off by Krishna Menon.
Excerpted with permission from The Mountbattens by Andrew Lownie, published by Bonnier Books UK and represented by HarperCollins Publishers India.
THE MOUNTBATTENS: THEIR LIVES AND LOVES
Author: Andrew Lownie
Publisher: Bonnier Books UK (HarperCollins India)
Pages: 499
Price: Rs699