The Glitter and the Gold Read online

  Men were only occasionally present at these luncheons, my father being kept at his business, and as I grew in years and listened to the arid gossip women talk when in each other's company, I developed a decided preference for the society of men whose conversation, it seemed to me, held much more of interest. My studies at the Rosa classes had made me very much alive to events other than those discussed among my mother's women friends. I sometimes longed to express my views in the general conversations that took place, but a look from my mother repressed me. Art was a favored topic, and I listened to the appreciations of certain self-termed connoisseurs whose appraisals were dictated by the cost rather than the beauty of an object. I was not surprised when later in Mrs. Oelrich's pseudo-marble palace or Mrs. Goelet's Renaissance château I saw objects that with their heavy gilding and rich velvets looked expensive but had neither the fine proportions nor the restraint art imposes. Period houses were then rising like mushrooms in the competitive atmosphere of Newport's plutocracy. Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, who lived in a frame house of some distinction but no pretensions and claimed to be a social leader, is reported to have been annoyed by such ostentation. On one occasion when her hostess, whose knowledge of history was as limited as her appreciation of art, announced, "And this is my Louis Quinze salon!" Mrs. Fish with a polite but studied insolence exclaimed, "And what makes you think so?" Such distinctions gave pleasure to the little set of elegants who still occupied the simple houses of their fathers and gazed with affronted eyes at the vulgar extravagances of newcomers.

  As a child I would note these new mansions rising when in the afternoons I drove my pony "Dumpling" up and down Bellevue Avenue. My governess, Miss Harper, shared the seat beside me in the low dog cart specially built for me; behind sat a small groom. One day shopping in the town of Newport I learned how the rich are exploited, for when Marble House was mentioned as our address the shopkeeper informed me he had mistaken the price he had given me and added a good 50 per cent. Even Miss Harper seemed taken aback, and I was aghast at what I conceived to be dishonesty.

  As I grew older, I was increasingly happy to leave the artificial life of Newport and to return to Idlehour in the autumn. Here, when I was sixteen, a last peaceful interlude awaited me before our departure on a long cruise to India.

  I saw little of the Rosa classes from then on. It was perhaps as well that the competitive ardor examinations evoked should be over, for I worked myself into such a state of apprehension that I still wonder how I managed to secure the cum laude with which our teacher rewarded our best efforts. Encouraged by my English governess, I had had hopes of going to Oxford after my graduation, with the modem language Tripos in view, but all this came to naught when at the age of eighteen I became engaged to be married.

  2: A Debutante of the '90’s

  I HAD reached an age when the continual disagreements between my parents had become a matter of deep concern to me. I was tensely susceptible to their differences, and each new quarrel awoke responding echoes that tore at my loyalties. Profoundly unhappy in my home life, I awaited the rupture which I felt could not be long delayed. Divorce in those days was considered shocking, and because of its novelty would create a dire scandal. But of this I knew nothing and cared still less. The immediate cause of my unhappiness was to be found in the constant scenes that so deeply wounded my father and harried my mother beyond control—scenes that embittered the sensitive years of my girlhood and made of marriage a horrible mockery. It was in such an atmosphere of dread and uncertainty that our last and longest yachting expedition was undertaken in my seventeenth year.

  We left New York on November 23, 1893, with India as our destination. The party included my parents, my brother Harold, a doctor, a governess and the three men friends who were our constant companions. Willie being at school remained at home. My mother, claiming that my governess gave sufficient trouble, refused to have another woman on board.

  Our way to Bombay lay through the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, calling only at Tunis and Egypt. We spent two days in Cairo while the yacht passed through the Suez Canal and coaled at Suez. The harbor of Bombay was a welcome sight after so long a voyage, but when we started to cross India in a private sleeping car attached to a regular train we realized what discomfort in a train could amount to. At every station angry natives seeking transportation tried noisily to force their way into our bedrooms which opened directly onto the station platforms. Luckily the doors were locked, but the din was formidable, and in the night those angry mobs seemed threatening. No one slept and the next day we continued our journey in the comparative luxury and seclusion of a private train.

  Thus we crossed India—stopping at Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Delhi, Benares, Lucknow and Agra. Accompanying my parents, I did all the sights in tourist fashion, and spent a night of lurid memories in Lucknow. I had read a vivid description of the gallant defense of its English garrison during the Indian Mutiny and of how they were finally overcome and massacred by Indian troops. In my hotel bedroom, which was accessible to any marauder, the horrors of that massacre assumed nightmare proportions. Hotels at that time were small hostels one story high, built to accommodate commercial travelers; the front of the rooms gave onto a court, while the back looked out on an open drain. Fortunately, most of our nights were spent on the train, which was backed onto a siding. Even then we knew little comfort, for it was difficult to secure bath water and the food was incredibly nasty. We lived on tea, toast and marmalade.

  It was wonderful to find all the luxuries of home on the Valiant, which had come round India from Bombay and lay anchored in the Hooghly. My parents spent a week as guests of the Viceroy and Lady Lansdowne at Government House, Calcutta. My mother, whose habit it was to impose her views rather than to invite discussion, had already, on occasion, revealed the hopes she nourished for my brilliant future, and her admiration for the British way of life was as apparent, as was her desire to place me in an aristocratic setting. These intentions, I am sure, crystallized during her visit at Government House. In the Viceroy and Lady Lansdowne she found exemplified the qualities she admired, which the prerogatives of a privileged life had but enhanced; and in conversations with her hostess, who was Marlborough's aunt, the possibility of my marriage to him may have been discussed. It is certain that it was then her ambitions took definite shape; for she confessed to me years later that she had decided to marry me either to Marlborough or to Lord Lansdowne's heir.

  While we were in Galcutta, I went to spend a day with Lady Lansdowne's younger daughter at a place the Viceroy had on the river. She was just my age and later on was to become my cousin by marriage since both Lady Lansdowne and Lady Blandford, my future mother-in-law, were daughters of the Duke of Aber-corn—"Old Magnificent," as he was dubbed while Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. She and I compared the books we were reading and I was surprised to find how scanty was her knowledge. Little time or trouble was spent on the education of English girls. It was still customary for them to have, sometimes inherited from a previous generation, what Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has humorously described as a "good homespun" governess. They read Miss Young's History of Greece, but Virgil, Gibbon, Hallam and Green were all equally unknown to them. I pitied the limited outlook given by so restricted an education, and wondered what chance a girl so brought up had against a boy with a public school and college background. Later on I was to find that English girls suffered many handicaps, and I came to realize that it was considered fitting that their interests should be sacrificed to the more important prospects of the heir.

  It was with no regrets that I left India. It seemed to me a cruel country. Women had so little part, either in its history, its life or its religion. Their lives were spent in purdah, in petty squabbles and intrigues which sometimes culminated in ugly tragedies. How glorious in comparison was Greece where women as goddesses or hetaerae had inspired the arts. How transcendent the Acropolis with its amphitheater of mountains in the distance, the sea nearby
and the little theater where the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides were first heard. Even without the statues of Praxiteles and the friezes of Phideas, now scattered in museums, one realized the splendor that must have been the Athens of Pericles. Nostalgic memories lay in the shade of those Greek olives and myrtle; whether evoked by the loves of pagan gods, or by heroes of an illustrious past or yet again by the fine concepts of the Stoics I did not know, but I felt that on this hill greatness had dwelt.

  We spent the spring in Paris. I can still see the view over the Tuileries Gardens from our windows, still enjoy our walks under the flowering chestnuts of the Champs Élysées and our drives in the Bois de Boulogne in our carriage and pair. Every day there were visits to museums and churches and lectures at the Sor-bonne, but the classical matinées at the Theatre Frangais were my greatest pleasure. The impression made by Mounet Sully in CEdi'pe Roi is unforgettable—his moving voice, his noble gestures and bearing, his handsome appearance and the dramatic quality of his acting stirred me deeply. In Legouve's play, Adrienne Lecouvreur, the beautiful actress murdered by the Duchesse de Bouillon, jealous of the former's love for Maurice de Saxe, was impersonated by Mademoiselle Bartet, with Albert Lambert as the hero. The tragic intensity of their love scenes established a standard I have rarely seen attained. How elegant is the French language when spoken as it was at the Comedie Française with its great tradition of perfect diction. At times I have wondered whether it was anticipation of my future that caused my mother to arrange for me to have lessons in elocution with an actress from so classic a school, or whether she already realized that any daughter of hers would find causes to champion. Whatever her motive, the lessons produced a voice that carried.

  On Sundays my governess and I would go to Saint-Sulpice and sit with Widor, the celebrated organist. Years later, when Rheims Cathedral was reopened after World War I, I was to hear his lovely Mass for two organs. How deeply moving was that Mass in its spiritual ascendancy of an inviolate Faith. There was in that beautiful church, in that vast assembly, a dedication, such as had animated the crusades, that sanctified the participant.

  In the Paris of my youth there were no motorcars. One used to stroll along the boulevards or sit and watch the passing crowd. The little open Victoria in which it so delighted the Princess of Wales to drive incognito was, with the boats that plied the Seine, the pleasantest conveyance. The Rue de la Paix was the fashionable shopping center and names of the great dressmakers —Worth, Doucet, Rouff—were printed on small doors admitting one to modest shops. Inside, the array of lovely dresses, expensive furs and diaphanous lingerie fairly took one's breath away. I longed to be allowed to choose my dresses, but my mother had her own views, which unfortunately did not coincide with mine.

  For my first ball, at the Due de Gramont's in the Avenue des Champs Élysées, where I made my debut at a party given for the Duchess's eldest daughter, I wore a white tulle dress made by Worth. It touched the ground with a full skirt, as was the fashion in those days, and it had a tightly laced bodice. My hair was piled high in curls and a narrow ribbon was tied round my long and slender neck. I had no jewels and wore gloves that came almost to my shoulders. The French dubbed me La belle Mile, Vanderbilt au long cou. It is difficult for a girl of the present day to visualize a white ball, as those dances given for debutantes were then called. A bal blanc had to live up to its name of purity and innocence; it could not inspire the mild flirtations of a pink ball where young married women were included. The men who attended them, no doubt with the intention of selecting a future spouse, were expected to behave with circumspection. There was no opportunity for conversation. A debutante was invited to dance and once the dance was over she was escorted back to her mama. Rows of chaperones lined the walls, discussing the merits of their charges. The young girls stood diffidently beside them. The terror of not being asked to dance, the humiliation of being a "wallflower," ruined the pleasures of a ball for those who were ill favored. With the politeness inherent in the French, a galaxy of partners presented their respects to me and I was soon at ease and happy. Curiously enough, my second husband, Jacques Balsan, who was present, told his mother the following day, "I met at the ball last night the girl I would like to marry." It was twenty-seven years later that his wish came true.

  We spent the whole of May and June in Paris, and I had five proposals of marriage. When I say I had, I mean that my mother informed me that five men had asked her for my hand, as the French saying goes, but Jacques was not among them. She had, as a matter of course, refused them, since she considered none of them sufficiently exalted. There was only one, a German Prince, whose cause I was allowed to consider. Prince Francis Joseph was the youngest of the four handsome Battenberg Princes. The eldest, Prince Alexander, had in 1879 been freely elected Prince of Bulgaria by the people, but in 1886, falling into disfavor with Russia, had been kidnaped and carried into that country by Russian partisans, and eventually had to abdicate. Of the other two, Prince Henry had married Queen Victoria's youngest daughter; Prince Louis had already begun his brilliant career in the British Navy, which was cut short by the war.

  I met Prince Francis Joseph at an evening party given by Madame de Pourtalès in her house close to the Madeleine. That the Comtesse Melanie de Pourtalès had been a famous beauty could still be seen. She was a typical grande dame and in her salons were to be found the beau monde of Paris. I felt lost as I entered that brilliant throng of statesmen, diplomats and elegant women, but my hostess with inimitable charm called me to her side and put me at ease. I sensed by the way she drew me out that her interest was not inspired purely by kindness to a little debutante and I wondered what lay behind it. Later in the course of the evening while I was with the Prince I saw my mother engrossed in conversation with our hostess; they were observing us with interest. Instinct suggested and made me fearful of some deep-laid plot. I was grateful for the distraction offered by the Comte Louis de Turenne's witty comments on those present. He was a diplomat of the old school and seemed to know the history of everyone worth knowing. It was, he told me, then the fashion for great ladies to aspire to political power through protégés whose ambitions they fostered. It was also common knowledge that intrigues were on foot to displace Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg who, though elected ruler of Bulgaria a few years before by the Great Powers against the wishes of Russia, had not yet been accorded general recognition. Pointing to Prince Francis Joseph, the Count said it was rumored that at least one of the Powers would be willing to elect him King in Ferdinand's stead, and that he appeared to be assured of success if provided with the necessary financial backing. The stage seemed set for a political intrigue and my hostess s ambition to place her protégé on a throne showed signs of succeeding. I think that for a moment my mother's intentions to marry me to an English Duke faltered! A royal crown glittered more brightly than a coronet! So the Prince continued his courtship unhindered, unfolding his ambitions to my apprehensive ears. It seemed I was but to exchange one bondage for another. Such a marriage could mean only unhappiness. Separated from my family and my friends, living in a provincial capital, ironbound in a strict etiquette with a man whose views were those of a prejudiced German princeling—how could I reconcile myself to such a life? Only a great love could make such a marriage possible, and I felt aversion rather than attraction for the dapper man of the world for whom I realized I was only a means to an end. My mother on second thoughts decided to adhere to her former intentions and raised no objections when I confessed my feelings to her. So nothing more was heard of the project—Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, backed by the Great Powers, assumed the title of Czar, and Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg's royal aspirations later became reconciled to a minor role in his marriage to a Montenegran Princess, sister to Queen Helene of Italy.

  Soon after this we left Paris to spend the summer in England at a rented house near Marlow on the Thames. Having begun a divorce suit against my father, my mother wished to await its conclusion abroad and had invited Mrs.
William Jay with her daughters, who were my friends, to visit us. My parents definitely parted that spring in Paris. I felt relief that the sinister gloom of their relationship would no longer encompass me. But I did not realize how irrevocably I would be cut off from a father I loved nor how completely my mother would dominate me from then on.

  We first went to London and settled in the fashionable Brown's Hotel, a dingy structure in a narrow street. The rooms were frowsty in the true English sense and contained a bewildering medley of the rubbish of centuries. Rigid armchairs had lace antimacassars; comfortless couches stood stiffly against the wall; footstools and what-nots impeded one's progress, and a black grate held black coal at an impossible angle. A chandelier with gas flares hung over a large round table on which were spread the Times, the Morning Post, a copy of Punch, and the fashionable weekly, The World, in which Belle's "Letters'' castigated the beau monde like a genteel precursor of Cholly Knickerbocker. Over the windows hung heavy plush curtains, and the meager light was still further dimmed by the heavy lace window curtains. I thought with longing of our gay and handsome suite at the Hotel Continental and of the lovely view over the Tuileries Gardens to the Seine.

  Our carriages and horses, the imposing French coachman and the no less distinguished English footman had preceded us, and our first outing was a visit to Lady Paget, one of my mother's oldest friends. She was born Minnie Stevens of New York and, with my Godmother Consuelo Duchess of Manchester, Lady Randolph Churchill and Mrs. Cavendish-Bentink, represented the American element of the smart coterie known as "the 'Prince of Wales' set." Lady Paget was considered handsome; to me, with her quick wit and worldly standards, she was Becky Sharp incarnate. She was married to a tall handsome officer who in time, and for no apparent other reason, became a General. She lived at 35 Belgrave Square, a fine house with lofty rooms in which there was an immense amount of nondescript furniture and numerous tables that were littered with signed photographs in silver frames. She received us with a mixture of the affection due to an old friend and the condescension that seemed to infect the habitués of the inner circles of London society. Once greetings had been exchanged I realized with a sense of acute discomfort that I was being critically appraised by a pair of hard green eyes. The simple dress I was wearing, my shyness and diffidence which in France were regarded as natural in a debutante, appeared to awaken her ridicule. My lack of beauty, for I was still in the ugly duckling stage, made me painfully sensitive to criticism. I felt like a gawky graceless child under her scrutiny.