Charity had a discomfiting way of illuminating the gulf between wealth and poverty. Newly installed as the chatelaine of Blenheim Palace, Consuelo Marlborough noticed that the butler left a basket of tins on the sideboard in the dining room. These, she learnt, were intended for leftovers from the ducal table. The scraps would be packed into the tins, then taken, in feudal fashion, to the poorest residents in the surrounding villages. At no stage had it ever been thought necessary to separate savoury dishes from sweet: all were jumbled together. Revolted, Consuelo made a point of sorting
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