A Russell of

silk

Diana Holman Hunt

Christabel: The Russell Case and After Eileen Hunter (Andre Deutsch E2.95)

In 1923, when Eileen Hunter was fourteen, her

mother rented a furnished house for the summer holidays. Intrigued by 'a secret ,rdom ' left locked by the landlady, Eileen round the key and determined to explore its mysteries. She discovered a pile of old copies of The Times concealed, rather appropriately, under a dingy counterpane on the bed. These Old newspapers reported the Russell case, the Ileginning of a prolonged legal battle which involved the most learned counsel and brilliant brains of the 'twenties — Marshall Ran, Patrick Hastings, the future Lords Hailsham and Samuel, and finally the famous Lord Birkenhead.

Twelve years later, more by design than accident, Eileen Hunter became Christabel Russell's intimate friend.

Christabel was a retired Colonel's daughter born in 1895. The family lived a modest county life: Christabel was mad about hunting from the age of five. She and her sister were educated by a patient governess, but aged twelve Christabel could not read: "a great triumph of will for a child so intelligent and bright," _When Christabel was seventeen, Colonel Hart died. His young widow took her

r

daughter to live on the Left Bank in Paris. Almost every night they went dancing, unchaperoned, with Frenchmen "not usually backward in making sexual advances." Christabel earned pin-money by giving private tango lessons and exhibition dances in local cafs.

This energetic programme was interrupted

in 1914 when Mrs Hart took the 'two lighthearted, untouched girls' back to Sussex. Here they lonmed an unconventional and boldly innocent group' of friends but Christabel was considered fast by the locals. When war broke Put, she entered a munitions factory and lodged in a hostel nearby. Young officers

the to take her dancing in London at `de most expensive places. Many proposed marriage, but Christabel had a frivolous at titude to matrimony At weekends, Mrs slart kept open house. The only positive in

I _ruction that these "enticing and desirable daughters" received was not to make themselves cheap. In 1915, Christabel met the eldest son of Lord AmPthill: John Russell, a midshipman in e Royal Navy, aged ninteen. He was 6ft Gin and known as ' Stilts ' by his contemporaries. when he became of age, and an officer on one

of the new submarines, he proposed; but was jilted in favour of a Mr Bradley, with whom she eloped to Gretna Green. Owing to unexpected formalities, Christabel returned a spinster from this escapade. Shortly after, she wrote to ' Stilts ' saying that if he still felt the same, she would marry him. He telegraphed that he did and bought a special licence immediately. The night before the wedding, she extracted from him a solemn but daunting promise: for at least two years they would not live as man and wife. Over-confident, John agreed. Mrs Hart and a few friends attended the ceremony at a Kensington church, but the alarmed Ampthills stayed away.

Lady Ampthill was Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Mary. It was rumoured that both she and the Queen had entertained hopes that John and the Princess Royal would eventually marry. However, the Ampthills wisely decided to ' make the best of it ' and received their daughter-in-law at their family seat shortly after the wedding.

Before John returned to sea, he installed his bride in a small house in Chelsea — where she slept in the basement and he in the attic. He only saw her when he came home on leave until the war ended in 1918. During the next two years, she dined with him twice and he was not allowed so much as a kiss. He sent her Marie Stopes's book, Married Lone. She found it boring and discarded her weddingring. He shared neither her bed nor her passion for dancing in nightclubs, cheek to cheek, nor her love of hunting at weekends. She did not smoke or drink. Left on his own, ' Stilts ' enjoyed the then popular fancy dress parties: immensely tall, unmistakably masculine and innocent, he would appear in some feminine guise to the hilarity of his friends.

The Ampthills were horrified when Christabel opened a dress shop in Curzon Street and insisted that she and John must live on the premises — once more he was condemned to the attic. Christabel often stayed out all night and made no secret of frequently occupying adjoining rooms in hotels with different gentlemen friends.' She thought nothing of it, but John jealously demanded of a particular admirer: "Are you playing hanky-panky with my wife?" The despairing Ampthills invited John and Christabel for Christmas in 1920 and hopefully provided a double bed. Later, Christabel swore that " attempted intercourse" took place on this visit, but John strenuously denied it.

. The following May, Christabel visited a clairvoyant who discovered from "vibrations of the hormones" that her client was " five months gone"! Mrs Hart had remarked nothing suspicious and pleaded that" no waists was the fashion then." An eminent gynaecologist, who examined Christabel at the time, stated in court that the petitioner, although five months pregnant '' showed all the marks of virginity." Surprisingly, Christabel had noticed no physical indications of her plight. It was not until the seventh month that she told John that they were expecting a baby — adding crossly that he "must have walked in his sleep.' His reaction was typical of a naval man. Ten months after the alleged intercourse, she gave birth to a whopping son, whose legitimacy she determined to establish. Backed by his parents, John Russell started divorce proceedings.

Eileen Hunter's well researched account of how her friend succeeded and survived, makes compulsive reading. Christabel Lady Ampthill is now seventy-eight. She still rides fearlessly to hounds and even wore mini-skirts quite recently. In 1969, she took a bus to Afghanistan with a crowd of promiscuous, pot-smoking hippies. She disapproved of them: after all, she had never enjoyed smoking or sex. I find her biographer a touch too compassionate: my sympathies are with Christabel's son, now a man over fifty, whose father never spoke to him.