She was born in 1867; her mother died when she was just 16 months old; and her father, Julian Fane, broke down and died 18 months later. Ettie Fane, not yet three, was old enough to remember sitting on the floor with her baby brother, surrounded by weeping adults and "tasting chocolate for the first time." The little orphans were shunted between the beautiful houses of their grandmothers, who were both dowager duchesses: by the time Ettie was 13, both beloved grandmothers and her baby brother were dead. By the time she was 20 she had also lost the aunt who cared for her most, and the uncle who was most nearly a father: the aunt had died broken-hearted after the death of her eldest son, and the uncle broken-hearted at the death of his sister.
Ettie learnt early that grief can kill. She had herself inherited the depressive "lassitude" of the Cowper family, and her life became a formidable fight of sheer willpower against the "morbid" temptations of despair. Her iron determination to make the best of things sometimes made her seem artificial or hard to outsiders: Davenport-Hines's sympathetic admiration for his heroine is all the more persuasive since he recognises the point of some of the criticisms levelled against her. This is no hagiography, but a fine account of a form of Christian courage peculiarly of its era. Ettie's "stubborn gospel of joy" would be tested to its utmost in and after the First World War.
Ettie Fane found happiness partly though her marriage - although this relationship, too, is very much of its time, and class. As a beautiful heiress, she attracted many suitors, or "spangles", but eventually settled on Willie Grenfell (later Lord Desborough). Her cousin Mabell, newly married herself ("one's honeymoon is chiefly passed in .?.?. feeling dreadfully ill," she reassuringly told Ettie. "I was nearly frightened to death and suffered tortures !!"), offered the benefits of her wisdom: "If you do not absolutely hate him I should marry him I think .?.?. he may be a little dull, but after all, what a comfort it is to be cleverer than one's husband."
