“I was never much good at picking husbands, much better with my butlers.”
Nancy Tree Lancaster, Nancy Lancaster, English Country House Style
Nancy Tree Lancaster, Nancy Lancaster, English Country House Style
 Collins, Nancy Lancaster's Butler at Ditchley |  Nancy Lancaster, Dressed for the Hunt |
In the era between the World Wars, Ronald Tree (a grandson of Marshall Field) and his first wife Nancy (a Langhorne granddaughter and niece of Nancy Astor) famously purchased and refurbished Ditchley Park, a grand Oxfordshire estate. When they divorced, Ronald Tree moved in his young American wife Marietta (a granddaughter of Groton's legendary headmaster Reverend Endicott Peabody).
According to Lady Diana Cooper, the staff remained loyal to the first Mrs. Tree. In a January 1948 letter to her son John Julius, Diana referenced Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca to describe the awkward predicament of the second Mrs. Tree:
“Ditchley is as beautiful as ever and almost as comfortable (no, nothing like. Electric fires in the bedrooms instead of blazing logs and bells not answered and rooms of course shut up), but with the most disconcerting Rebeccaism about it. Every object, picture, colour of flower, arrangement, design bought, placed and grown by the first Mrs. Tree is untouched and the poor second fears to give an order to the servants, and Mr. Collins the butler who loved Nancy and shared her interests of garden and furniture, textiles and porcelain, keeps his eyes forever fixed on her uncertain ways.”
According to Lady Diana Cooper, the staff remained loyal to the first Mrs. Tree. In a January 1948 letter to her son John Julius, Diana referenced Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca to describe the awkward predicament of the second Mrs. Tree:
“Ditchley is as beautiful as ever and almost as comfortable (no, nothing like. Electric fires in the bedrooms instead of blazing logs and bells not answered and rooms of course shut up), but with the most disconcerting Rebeccaism about it. Every object, picture, colour of flower, arrangement, design bought, placed and grown by the first Mrs. Tree is untouched and the poor second fears to give an order to the servants, and Mr. Collins the butler who loved Nancy and shared her interests of garden and furniture, textiles and porcelain, keeps his eyes forever fixed on her uncertain ways.”
Image Credit: Nancy Lancaster, English Country House Style
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