Countess Daisy

By Arne Handberg Jakobsen

A historical novel about the young Danish Countess' dramatic life, which brought her to St. John in the Danish West Indies to grow coffee like her cousin Karen Blixen did in Kenya.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312450226

Book preview

COUNTESS DAISY

by Arne Handberg Jakobsen

A historical novel about the young Danish Countess’ dramatic life, which brought her to St. John in the Danish West Indies to grow coffee like her cousin Karen Blixen did in Kenya.

© 2014 Arne Handerg Jakobsen. All rights reserved. ISBN 978-1-312-45022-6

Cover Photo: Daisy 1908

©Lokalhistorisk Samling in Hammel

This book is dedicated to my third and last wife, Barbara, my Platonic Lover Daisy, and my dog, also named Daisy.

INTRODUCTION

To write a historical novel based upon DAISY’s life was very difficult because her father destroyed everything she had owned — letters with her friends, photos, etc. after her death in 1917 in London. The reason was that she ended her young life as a drug addict and was the black sheep of the family.  Her father demanded that everyone else also destroy what they had from or about her.

Very little information was available in Denmark and in St. John.  After having written A pioneer woman on St. John, Daisy in 2012, I have received a great deal of new information about DAISY amongst others from Region- Och Stadsarkivet, Göteborg, Sweden (Swedish Archives), which had a large file from Daisy’s stay at a Swedish sanatorium where she was in rehabilitation in 1915. This file contains letters from her husband and doctors without which it would have been impossible to map out an important part of her life.  To my knowledge, these facts have never been known or published until now.

Her father also destroyed all photos except some few where Daisy appears with her cousin Karen Blixen. Happily enough, over the years, Hammel Local Historical Archive, Denmark, in a small town near to the castle where Daisy was born, has been donated photos from families of local photographers, who took the photos in local ateliers and let me use them in this novel.  Mr. Ole Ravn-Nielsen, local historian, also in Hammel, has not only selected the material and supplied additional information, but also deciphered the difficult-to-read handwritten journals from Sweden, mostly written in old Swedish.  The material I received from Sweden is now archived in Hammel Local Historic Archive and can be further studied there.

The novel is somewhat fiction to tie the events together and give a background for the historical facts. Every date and location is historically correct. In the back of the book you will see which persons are real and which are fictional.

Arne Handberg Jakobsen

Author

Author’s note:  You may notice that some sentence structures in the text are not perfect English. The reason is that I am Danish.  So was Daisy, and she might also have talked like I do.  We realize that we indeed are keeping the charming Danish accent, also when we write.

LONDON JANUARY ¹⁹¹⁷

You are looking tired Miss Olsen. Haven’t you had any sleep?  Your eyes are red, Ambassador Castenskiold asked when he walked into the kitchen early in the morning. His housekeeper sat at the table in the middle of the kitchen. She immediately rose when the Ambassador came in.

Well, Count Castenskiold, I cannot sleep when the Countess is out all night and we do not know where she is.  Signe Olsen was Danish, but lost her husband, who had a heart attack while working for a major Danish engineering company on the docks in London. Housekeepers were often old unmarried ladies so it came naturally that she was called Miss.  Signe had decided to stay in London when she was offered the job as private housekeeper for the Danish Ambassador in London.

She came from a farm in West Sealand not far from the estate Hørbygaard owned by the Castenskiold family. In the Ambassador’s private home he approved that she called him Count like he was known in his younger years, and he, indeed, liked it, as her West Sealand dialect reminded him about his youth; and then she could make kribinetter, his Danish favorite, and impossible to translate, but it is a kind of hamburger with breadcrumbs. She had gotten the job a year earlier.  Signe was seldom in the Embassy — always in the private area,  mostly in the kitchen, and was careful to call her boss Ambassador when she was in his office.

I have been sitting here most of the night and read The Times from end to end. The Count looks very tired as well. What is happening?

Well I probably know as little as you. I could not sleep, and finally took some of the Countess’ medication in a small unlabeled bottle, and that knocked me out until early in the morning.

I will make the Count some strong coffee and make some toast.  It is too early to go to the office.

Thanks, but I do not think that I can eat anything.

"I do not know if I should tell the Count, but I like the

Countess so much and worry all the time. . ."

Yes go ahead.

Pat, sorry, Patricia, told me the other day that she saw the Countess walking in Brewer Street, you know, a block from Piccadilly, all by herself. She should have taken Felicia with her to carry the large cardboard boxes with big fancy hats the countess sometimes comes home with. I could always have Pem, sorry, Mr. Pemberton, to help me in the kitchen.

"I know, I know, but she probably would not take your

helpers away from the house if she just wanted to do some light shopping."

Yes, but  there are so many pickpockets, or even worse, men shouting profane words at fine ladies.

I have already put sugar in my coffee. Are you still asleep? Pour me a new cup, Miss Olsen and I will be on my way after I have read the headlines.

The Ambassador skimmed the headlines in the newspapers The Times and The Daily Telegraph. Lloyd George presented the terms of a new War Loan at Gillhall. New food orders had been issued by Lord Devenport. All boring.

Then an article caught the Ambassadors eye: German and Austrian Governments had contacted neutral Powers regarding a Peace Note.

That is probably something waiting in my office, he mumbled to himself.  The neutral Danish government had been asked to moderate several negotiations in the Danish Embassy in London.

There was heavy fighting at the West Front and at the East Front, but right now the Ambassador was heavily involved in fighting at the Home Front. Sadly he was trying, also unsuccessfully, to control his young wife Daisy and to pacify her father, Count Kragh-Juel-Vind-Frijs, who was very angry that Henrik could not take care of Daisy, the Count’s daughter, in London.

And so — off to the office.

The morning of January the 12th, 1917, was cold and rainy, just over freezing point, but it felt much colder as a brisk wind blew down Pont Street where the Danish Embassy was located at number 55.

The Ambassador Count Henrik Grevenkop-Castenskiold arrived earlier than usual in his large office on the second floor. His coffee was ready but Mr. Stott, the driver, had not returned with the Danish pastry from the little shop near Kingsbridge Station. The Ambassador had a sweet tooth.

He paced into his large office, not touching the coffee, and went immediately out again to the front office where Mr. Attingworth sat behind his desk working with the big bookkeeping books, just in front of the large safe.

The ambassador opened the second door of the safe and tried to find something. May I help, Mr. Ambassador? Mr. Attingworth asked, without moving his eyes from his books.

No, I am just looking for something, the Ambassador said shortly thereafter.

Indeed, you may help. I am looking for a large yellow envelope with my name on it - an envelope of the kind we use when sending mail to the Foreign Affairs Office in Copenhagen.

I have not seen it, Mr. Attingworth stated.

It was here yesterday, the Ambassador said, I placed it here to the right on top of the old bookkeeping books. I moved it from the small safe in my office. No one in the office has access to the safe apart from you and Mr. Lundborg, who is in Scotland these days, the Ambassador said.

The safe is always locked when I leave my desk and cannot see it, replied Mr. Attingworth. He hesitated a bit, and then he said, Well, now I recall that the Countess came in here yesterday afternoon, and took some papers from the safe. I could not see what it was. She told me that you had sent her to pick them up.

Are you out of your mind? The Ambassador yelled.

Well, Countess Daisy is your wife, and you told her to pick it up.........I supposed that it was all right.

I have not seen my wife since yesterday. Have you seen her later yesterday or this morning?

No, Sir.  But yesterday around noon, she asked me to book her a room at the Carlton Hotel, as she was going to have a meeting with someone there later. The meeting might have been late, so maybe she spent the night in the hotel. Who knows?

Call a cab. I do not want to wait until Stott is back.

The Ambassador’s bald head looked like an overripe tomato on top of his round potbellied body. He almost rolled down the one flight to the street. When the cab approached the Carlton Hotel, an ambulance and two police cars were parked partly up on the sidewalk. The hall porter, who knew the Ambassador, greeted him, and said: They are all, police and paramedics, at her room 366 on third floor, Ambassador.

The room was full of people; some were taking photos. Daisy lay half out of the bed with her head almost on the floor - fully clothed. One of the police officers recognized the Ambassador and said, I am terrible sorry, your wife is DEAD.  There was no blood but some medication in bottles, and a small pillbox was on the floor too.

The cleaning lady found her when she went into the room to clean very early this morning. The guests, Countess Castenskiold and whoever, were only supposed to use the room during the day, yesterday. The door was not locked, the officer said.  "It looks like an overdose of something. No

Reviews for Countess Daisy

[Natasha Watts · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Badly written with many mistakes in grammar etc. I wasn't fond of the constant change from fact to fiction, it should have been written as a Non Fiction title instead, it would have had far more historical value. I hope the Author decides at some point to write a Non Fiction book about Daisy as he has clearly done a great deal of research and has enough material to make a decent biography. There is still a great deal of valuable information contained herein and I appreciated the level of dedication the author clearly had as far as his research was involved. Not a bad first effort, but I do recommend a rework.