It was a rare scene of Wales family togetherness: Princess Diana, in a white robe and wet hair, standing on a hotel balcony in Austria and cheering on Prince Charles and their two young sons in a snowball fight below. But, after a month of family woes focused on the marital breakup of her brother-in-law Andrew and the Duchess of York, Di would find her own happiness suddenly undone as well. Abruptly called to the phone, the Princess learned that her father, the 68-year-old eighth Earl Spencer, had died unexpectedly of a heart attack in London. Returning to the balcony, visibly shaken, Diana pleaded with nearby photographers to "please, just leave us alone" and called her family together. Later that night a black dress -- royals customarily pack mourning attire when they travel -- was seen being aired outside their suite.
Admitted to Humana Wellington Hospital with pneumonia on March 21, the Earl had seemed on the mend when Diana and the boys, later joined by Prince Charles, departed for Austria on March 26. Di had visited him three times, including once each with William, 9, and Harry, 7, and like other family members had expected his imminent release. "It was an enormous shock to me and my family," Di's brother, Charles, 27, said of his father's sudden death. "It is a matter of great regret that no one was with him when he died."
All were present three days later -- son Charles, daughters Sarah McCorquodale, 37, Jane Fellowes, 35, and Diana, 30, and the Earl's second wife, Raine, 62 -- when more than 100 relatives and friends assembled for a 55-minute funeral service. The site was the same small Northamptonshire church where the Earl's ancestor Sir John Spencer was buried in 1522. The show of Spencer clan unity, however, seemed only a temporary overlay to the rift that has divided the family for several years.
That dispute, between Raine and her four stepchildren, exploded in the British press late last summer. Angered by what they saw as their stepmother's selling of family treasures -- gold and silver heirlooms, furniture and as many as 100 paintings -- to finance garish renovations to Althorp House, the family's home on the estate they have owned since the 16th century, Di and her siblings had kept their distance. But with the Earl's hospitalization, they put their anger toward Raine aside, even joining her on visits to his hospital bedside. "When it counts," Princess Di said to a friend, "we stand together."
To a point. With the Earl's death, his title and the bulk of an estimated $150 million family fortune, including the 15,000-acre Althorp estate and other properties, fall to his son. Within two days of her husband's death, Raine had moved out of the mansion and into a town house in London's ritzy Mayfair section. "From now on, this is my home," pronounced Raine, who will reportedly inherit the town house along with a sizable financial bequest from her late husband. "I could never go back to Althorp now my husband is gone."
Viscount Althorp, who becomes the ninth Earl Spencer, is expected to move immediately from the Falconry, a lodge on the estate, to the big house with his wife, Victoria, 26, who is expecting twin girls this summer, and their daughter, Kitty, 15 months. That such baronial splendor should be bestowed on the man the tabloids used to call "Champagne Charlie" strikes many observers as ironic. In 1989, Charles, then working as a correspondent for NBC, proposed to Victoria, a fashion model, and married her a few months later. Six months after the wedding, he confessed publicly to having had an extramarital tryst in Paris with Sally Ann Lasson, then a satirical columnist for the Tatler. "I have caused my wife more grief than I would wish her to have in a lifetime with me," he said at the time. Even so, the marriage seems to have healed since the birth of their daughter.
Such extramarital shenanigans seem to go with the Spencer family crest. Several of Diana's female ancestors were known to have had discreet liaisons with English monarchs at least as far back as the 17th century, and the marriage of her own parents broke up in 1969 after her mother, Frances, ran off with wallpaper heir Peter Shand Kydd, leaving the children in the Earl's care. Frances, who currently lives in Scotland, lost custody of the children after a bitter legal fight during which her own mother testified against her.
Only 6 at the time of her parents' divorce, Diana became especially close with her father despite his old-style, aristocratic method of child-rearing. Raised mostly by nannies, the brood would be taken to see their father once in the morning around 9 A.M. and then again in the afternoon, when they were brought down from the nursery brushed and ready to be seen. But Di, a hugger and kisser and the most outwardly affectionate of the children, managed to bridge the emotional gap. Lord Spencer came to admire her even more after she married the future King and carried off her new role with charm and poise.
The children's affection, however, did not extend to Raine, whom Spencer married in 1976. And although the animosity between his wife and offspring must have pained him, the Earl remained devoted to Raine, who nursed him back to health after he had a serious stroke in 1978. "She brought him back to life through the sheer strength of her personality," says Brian Hoey, author of several books on the royal family. Hoey also believes that Raine, despite her differences with the children, has had a positive effect on Althorp House's balance sheet. "She is leaving it in a far better condition than it was when she arrived on the scene," he says.
Still, it's a safe bet that the new Earl will now undo some of the enhancements Raine brought to Althorp House. (Among the likely first casualties: a showy portrait of Raine now hanging in the main hall.) Unfortunately, the sale of heirlooms may not yet be over. With an estimated $4 million in death duty that must be paid in cash, Charles, too, may be forced to part with pieces of his patrimony.
All that, of course, is still just a future worry, as the late Earl's survivors focus on their personal sorrow and immediate plans. After meeting with Princess Di last week, a Palace spokesman announced that the Princess would forgo a formal mourning period and continue her heavy schedule of royal engagements. "Work carries on," explained the spokesman. "Life carries on."
