Surprise Brideshead bequest will mean the world to Cara

AT THE age of 28, she has everything an actress and supermodel could wish for — 44 million Instagram fans, the ability to ‘make anyone fall in love with her’, according to fellow model Karlie Kloss, and a fortune of more than £20 million.

And now I can disclose that Cara Delevingne’s bank balance is about to be swollen by a further £10,000 — a touching bequest from her late, beloved godmother, Annette Howard, known as ‘Scruff ’, who died in the summer aged 71, after battling declining health.

Scruff, who, during her second marriage to Simon Howard, was chatelaine of Castle Howard in Yorkshire — setting for the television and film versions of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited — made the same bequest to all her godchildren.

She left the balance of her £3.5 million estate to be held in trust for her niece, having sadly been unable to have children of her own.

Cara’s mother, Pandora, describes it as an act of characteristic generosity. ‘She had a lot of godchildren — so many,’ she tells me. ‘She was unbelievable to all of them. She was like a sort of Pied Piper to kids. ‘She loved them and they loved her.’ Some might think that Cara, left, needed no more help. But Scruff drew up her will in 2015 when Cara’s career was at something of a crossroads. After becoming a catwalk sensation, she had begun passing out on shoots and developed psoriasis, a distressing skin disease. None of this escaped Scruff.

At one point, alarmed by a report about Cara’s private life, she rang Cara’s godfather, Nicholas Coleridge, arguing that, with Cara’s parents holidaying in the South of France, i t was their duty as godparents to ensure that Cara was admitted to a clinic for treatment.

Coleridge demurred: ‘We can’t kidnap her!’

Scruff declared herself disappointed. But no one could stop her making one final gesture to all the godchildren she loved so dearly — Cara included.