He had proposed when they were out walking the dogs at Shropham, the home of her aunt, Lady Grogan. It was less than a month after their first meeting at her grandmother’s funeral, and initially Lorna had been shocked, saying she would very much like to accompany him to Africa, but as his housekeeper, not his wife. Caught up in his own wonder at the unexpected reliving of his first love, he tried to be understanding.
[…]
Lorna had told him that she was against marriage in principle, and that she had hoped to study music, medicine or languages, though she doubted her uncle would permit it. But Gore-Browne persisted, taking her to Brooklands, dropping the charms of Shiwa into conversation, showing her photographs of the house and the lake, telling her how it changed colour with the seasons, and recounting stories of hunting, and the Bemba people to whom he said she could teach so much.
Something, perhaps her yearning to see Africa again, and his repeated assurances of how useful she would be in his ‘mission,’ persuaded her. One evening in late May, after they had been to see Tristan and Isolde at Covent Garden and he had seen her home to the Goldmans, he received a note at his club, the Army &* Navy in Pall Mall.
Recognizing her loopy handwriting, he opened it nervously, then saw the one word answer he so longed for. The following week he had swept into Sherborne school one evening and told Lorna’s headmistress he was taking his ‘financée’ out for dinner. ‘We don’t have any fiancées here,’ said a shocked Mrs Mulliner.
‘You do now,’ he replied.
Source:
Lamb, Christina. “Part Two: 1927-1967, Chapter 11.” The Africa House: The True Story of An English Gentleman and His African Dream. Harper Collins Publishers, 2004. 132-33. Print.
Further Reading:
Lieutenant Colonel Sir Stewart Gore-Browne, DSO
Brooklands Motor Racing Circuit
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