Pepita

by Vita Sackville-West

  But she did tell her brother. He was just going to be sent to Stoneyhurst, and she thought he might have his life made unbearable by the other boys. ‘I said to him, “Henri, you must not tell any boy that our father and mother were never married. I don’t know what it means, but it is a terrible thing”, and he said he would not. He seemed to be astonished and probably did not realise what it meant.’

  The secrecy was over, so far as my mother was concerned, but still her future seemed as undetermined as ever. She once showed me the certificate of her proficiency as a governess, and told me that for a while she had quite made up her mind to adopt that profession; there seemed to be no other path open to her. I must say that I smile to think how she would have turned any employer’s household upside-down within a week. Anyone less adapted to the position of a governess I can scarcely imagine. Luckily, Queen Victoria, Lord Granville, and the wife of the American President between them saved her from so incongruous a fate.

  IV

  My mother appears to have been born with the faculty of attracting the most peculiar and improbable happenings, which trailed after her throughout her career as an ever-lengthening comet’s tail of surprise and oddity. One may say, indeed, that they started with her birth, which in itself was picturesque rather than conventional. This, certainly, was due to circumstances over which she could have exercised no influence, conscious or unconscious, but having begun, so to speak, on the right lines she never afterwards fell short of the standard thus prescribed. There are some people to whom unexpected things happen all the time; others to whom nothing ever happens at all. My mother very definitely belonged to the former category. Even she herself, although one of the least self-conscious and least analytical of mortals, sometimes became aware of it and would laugh at herself; ‘Quelles drôles de choses m’arrivent, tout de même,’ she would say. ‘What funny things do happen to me, to be sure.’

  Thus it was quite consistent that such eminent figures as the Queen of England, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the leaders of American society should all have been mobilised to rescue the half-Spanish waif from the life of obscurity and even ignominy which threatened. A bastard? A governess? No. Lady Derby thought otherwise. She had seen the girl’s beauty and the immature charm which was just beginning to expand after the release from the repression of the French convent. Lady Derby was a kindly woman, but she was also a woman of the world, and in her young relative she saw the material for something quite different from a children’s governess. Her brother Lionel Sackville-West had just been appointed British Minister to Washington, and Lady Derby set herself to use her position and influence to send his young daughter after him, to act as his hostess and mistress of his house.

  The suggestion caused some consternation, both at the Foreign Office and among the ladies of Washington, for Washington society was small and excessively exclusive, and naturally the hostess of the British Legation would play a leading part in social life. To suggest an illegitimate daughter of eighteen, unable even to speak English fluently, for such a rôle was asking something which had never been asked before. At first, only Mrs Garfield had to be consulted, but in the midst of the negotiations President Garfield was shot, and the new President Arthur being a widower it became necessary to consult the wives of Secretaries of State and other influential Washington hostesses. Mrs Garfield had already given her consent, and although many anxious meetings were called to discuss the matter, not altogether unanimous, it was unlikely that the ladies would in the end refuse to follow Mrs Garfield’s lead. One of the gravest difficulties in the way of acceptance was the fact that the Minister’s daughter had never been presented in London at Court, and this to the eyes of Washington in the ’eighties was almost as insuperable an obstacle as her illegitimacy. A report however was spread to the effect that Lady Derby had taken her young protegée for a private audience to Buckingham Palace, a report which did much to mollify the conscience of the Washington ladies. I do not know whether there was any foundation for it or not: I know only that it was generally circulated and believed.

  MY MOTHER AND HER SISTERS ON THEIR WAY TO WASHINGTON

  Meanwhile, at home, Lady Derby was certainly sending Lord Granville to see the Queen. Nobody was more than slightly surprised when all opposition collapsed and Victoria West, accompanied by a French lady-companion of forbidding appearance and impeccable integrity, sailed for Washington to join her father.

  V

  Here was a change of affairs indeed. Instead of running at the behest of nuns, or of finding herself bundled out of the drawing-room when visitors were announced, she now found herself at the head of a large house, with a large staff of servants, a number of young secretaries and attachés anxious to do her bidding, distinguished people calling on her in shoals every day—for naturally everybody’s curiosity had been aroused—and the prospect of organising balls and official parties ahead of her. She does not seem to have been in the least appalled, but to have taken control of the whole situation as though she had been prepared for it all her life. If Washington society expected a timid little convent girl, it must have received a surprise.

  She was lovely, ingenuous, and irresistibly charming. I hope I shall not be accused of prejudice if I say that my mother was a truly beautiful woman. No photograph or portrait ever showed her as she was, for no photograph or portrait could indicate the changes of her expression or the extraordinary sweetness of her smile. If ever the phrase ‘turn one’s heart to water’ meant anything, it meant when my mother looked at you and smiled. I, of course, remember her only in her middle years and her old age, for she was already thirty when I was born, but those who knew her as a girl and a young woman unanimously tell me that seldom have they known such charm allied to such beauty. One of them added, ‘It really wasn’t fair. She did exactly what she liked with everybody.’ That dark hair, those dark blue eyes, that marvellously curving mouth, those lovely hands and expressive gestures, that broken English, that mixture of innocence and imperiousness—Washington was at her feet, and Mrs Russell Selfridge, who still refused to receive her, found herself in a minority of one.

  People fell in love with her right and left. She began dramatically, for the first proposal of marriage she had was from the President himself. Others followed with absurd rapidity. The list of her suitors in America is long and various. Beginning with the President, it included a Red Indian chief whose attentions became so pressing that he had to be pushed out of the Ministerial train, a millionaire who tried to bribe her with a promise of £50,000 a year pocket-money, a financier who puzzled her considerably with his references to Wall Street and to the profits she might make there under his guidance, a Siamese gentleman named Phra Darun, and a rabble of young secretaries in her own and other Legations. Discretion forbids me to mention names, for some of their bearers are still alive, but I may at least say that several of these young men in later life reached the highest ranks in their professions and retained a valued friendship with her to the last. One of them, indeed, whom I knew well and who died nearer the age of eighty than seventy, never failed to write to her on the anniversary of the day when he had first declared his love, invariably ending his letter with the sign and the words ‘votre fidèle R. S.’ This particular friendship suffered a year’s interruption after forty years’ duration, when she accused him of eating £100 worth of groceries which she had had sent out to her own flat in Rome (a flat which, incidentally, she rented at great cost and never inhabited for a single day), but after this brief interlude they composed their differences, anglice, he apologised to her satisfaction for something he had patently never done—for distinguished diplomats seldom trouble to purloin other people’s provisions—and the friendship resumed its course unimpaired.

  I think that part of her attraction at that time, apart from her beauty, must have lain in the combination of extreme innocence and determined personality. Fresh from her convent, she was utterly unconversant with the realities of the world in any for
m. I once asked her why she had never accepted any of the men, young or otherwise, who laid siege to her in Washington. She replied, with the naïve gravity that sometimes overcame her, that she had once indeed consented to become engaged. He was very handsome, and drove her out in his buggy with great dash and speed and chic along the flowering avenues of Washington in the late ’eighties. She fancied herself in love with him, until the lady-companion provided by Lady Derby and Lady de la Warr thought it her duty to explain the facts of married life. After this explanation, my mother instantly broke the engagement, without giving any reason. The poor young man wondered where he had been at fault, he who had done nothing but send her flowers, take her out for drives, and honourably ask her to share his life. She told me herself that he was very much puzzled and upset and that he couldn’t understand the sudden change in her at all. When she told me this, perhaps forty or fifty years after it had happened, she suddenly realized how puzzled he must have been. Remorse overcame her. ‘Ce pauvre Buggy!’ she fondly exclaimed—for she had nicknamed him after his carriage, and the nickname had stuck. ‘Et pourtant,’ she added, more complacently, ‘il m’aimait bien—he did really love me.’ He loved her till he died. This I know, for he told me so himself. He told me that she had been the only woman in his life. He was old when he told me that, and by then he had been married twice. It had turned into a romantic love, of course; he was a romantic person, and she was exactly the sort of woman on to whom a romantic, hopeless love would fasten.

  Innocent though she was, she had a will of her own and no hesitation about exercising it. Thus she found certain practices current in Washington of which she disapproved and to which she promptly put a stop. People who came uninvited to large parties at the Legation found themselves politely escorted out. Such a thing had never been done before. It was also made known that people who wished to call on the young hostess of the British Legation could do so only by appointment. This, again, was an innovation; it was high-handed, almost regal; most Legation hostesses were always accessible at tea-time; they just sat behind the tea-pot waiting for the chers collègues to drop in, and the more that came, the better they were pleased. Diplomatic receptions were easy and indeed obligatory, but to be invited to the British Legation became something of an honour. Another innovation she introduced met with great approval among the young men, after they had recovered from their first shocked surprise: she refused to accept bouquets from them before a dance. The word went round, ‘Miss West won’t be bunched’. It was surprising, at first, to see the popular Miss West arrive flowerless in the ballroom, but because Miss West wouldn’t be bunched, all the smart young ladies in Washington had to follow suit, which proved a welcome economy to all the smart young men, who hitherto had gauged a girl’s popularity by the number of bouquets she received, and which they could ill afford repeatedly to send.

  Then a ballot of votes was taken for ‘the nicest girl in Washington’, and Mrs Bloomfield Moore clasped the prize of three thousand pounds’ worth of pearls round the white throat of Victoria West. I have not the faintest idea of what has happened to those pearls. She wore them for years, and then one day I suddenly realised that she wore them no longer. She may have lost them, sold them, or merely given them away. One never knew, with her, what happened to things, any more than one ever knew what she was likely to do next.

  My mother never cared much for parties or for what is called Society. For one thing she was curiously fastidious, hated shaking hands, and would do anything she could to avoid it. Either she would wear a glove, or else she would enter the room with her arms full of parcels, which disconcerted everybody and made handshaking impossible. This, of course, she could scarcely do at Washington, when she had to stand at the top of the staircase to receive several hundreds of people, and on these occasions she would dawdle, tearful and rebellious, in her bedroom before going down, while the French lady-companion fussed round admonishing her, ‘Mais voyons, Victoria, voyons!’ The French lady-companion’s job was no sinecure; she had been engaged by Lady Derby, with the recommendation of Lady de la Warr to back her, to look after that curious sport of the English aristocracy, Victoria West. It is difficult to read into the mind of the lady-companion. It is to be presumed that she took a perfectly orthodox view of the functions obligatory on her pupil-charge. A daughter of the English aristocracy,—whether on the right or the wrong side of the blanket,—had certain obligations to fulfil. Once pitchforked into Society, she must fulfil them cheerfully and even with pleasure. It was unnatural for a young and beautiful girl to dislike those obligations as vehemently as Victoria disliked them.

  Yet by all accounts the young people in Washington had plenty of fun and a good time. The society, though exclusive, was by no means rigid or dull. In spring and summer there were drives and picnics; in winter, on the all-too-rare occasions of a fall of snow, there were the sleighs to be brought out of the stable, when the streets of Washington tinkled to a thousand bells, as clear and glittering as the sparkling snow over which the horses trotted noiselessly. Wrapped in huge bearskin rugs, not only over their knees but round their shoulders also, so that the frosted fur stood up in great shaggy collars round their glowing faces, the gilded youth of Washington set off on expeditions, calling gaily to one another as the silent runners started over the crisp surface. My mother on these occasions wore a tight-fitting sealskin jacket and a little sealskin cap; her eyes danced, the colour came into her cheeks, her laughter rang out, she enjoyed herself with the whole-hearted enjoyment she could throw into anything when she was really amused. The young man who could tuck himself into the narrow seat beside her was esteemed lucky.

  Then in the evenings, apart from the big official parties, there was that pleasant institution, the informal after-dinner reunion, when the young could dance and their elders indulge in conversation. The conversation of the elders might be of a serious nature, for diplomatists, Senators, Congressmen would all drift in and out of the well-warmed, well-lighted rooms, but there was no solemnity among the young people enjoying their friendships and their flirtations in the intervals between the polkas and waltzes. They all, of course, knew each other intimately; they had their jokes and their chaff; they ‘visited’ at each other’s houses; and they were not above having a laugh at someone else’s expense. Thus, when the Chinese Minister determined that the young men of his Legation should learn to dance, there was much speculation on what would be the outcome. A leading beauty flatly declared that nothing would induce her to dance with a Chink. Meanwhile it was known that members of the Chinese Legation staff were obediently taking dancing-lessons in private, and that their curiously shaped shoes had been adjusted in order to meet the new requirements. For in the ’eighties a Chinese gentleman still appeared in his national dress of brightly-coloured silks, with the little round cap and button, and the traditional pigtail hanging down his back. When the great evening at last arrived an unforeseen difficulty arose. Such was the vigour with which the young Oriental gentlemen displayed their new accomplishment, that their pigtails swung out horizontally, knocking ornaments off mantelpieces and catching their fellow-dancers a smart slap across the face as with a whip-lash.

  MY MOTHER WHEN IN WASHINGTON

  VI

  My grandfather had been Minister at Washington for seven peaceful years, from 1881 to 1888, before events suddenly rushed at him and changed the course of his destiny. My grandfather, as I have indicated, was by nature a peace-loving and indeed a lazy man who liked to have everything arranged for him and did not want to be bothered. Considering the very unconventional private life he had led, running parallel to the most conventional of professions, he had succeeded with remarkable skill in achieving his desire. He had managed to keep Pepita as his mistress and Queen Victoria as his employer concurrently for nearly twenty years. Then, when he had lost Pepita, he had managed to get his illegitimate daughter sent out to look after him, and not only allowed himself and his Legation to be run by her but observed with detached amusement
the whole fastidious society of Washington accepting this irregular situation. Up to the autumn of 1888 he must have felt that fate had spared him all the trouble she could; he must have felt that fate deliberately prevented his right hand from noticing what his left hand did. Then, for a few short weeks during the autumn of 1888, fate rapidly played him a series of the most surprising and unsettling tricks.

  The first trick took the form of what is known to diplomatic history as the Murchison Letter. It is an absurd story, which in its day created a great commotion, but which now in retrospect appears both uninteresting and unimportant. My poor unwise grandfather, in short, was tricked into a silly indiscretion which cost him his career. Pepita herself had never done him so much harm as he then did himself. He had managed to keep Pepita’s existence more or less private, but the Murchison Letter blazed across the headlines of England and America:

  THE BRITISH LION’S PAW THRUST INTO AMERICAN POLITICS

  * * *

  WHAT WILL ENGLAND DO?

  * * *

  BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT WILL DISCUSS THE MATTER

  * * *

  SACKVILLE SACKED

  * * *

  THE COUNTRY APPROVES

  * * *

  HOW EUROPE TAKES IT

  * * *

  THE FOREIGN OFFICE ASTONISHED

  * * *

  THE SCREECH OF THE EAGLE

  * * *

  And so on. Thus the American eagle screeched, but on the whole recovered its balance and its temper very quickly, and saw the whole affair for what it was: a cynical trap into which the victim fell. As somebody once pertinently though rather brutally remarked to me, ‘It was ironical that your grandfather of all people, the most taciturn of men, should have been sacked for expressing himself too freely’. It was indeed. Nobody ever committed himself less freely to an opinion, either by word or on paper, yet nobody ever brought an otherwise successful career to more sudden or foolish a conclusion.