The Glitter and the Gold

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by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan


  In 1914 Sir Edgar was made Lord d'Abernon and, after the war, went to Germany as Ambassador. His views eventually became so pro-German that our friendship nearly ended. On one occasion after a particularly acrimonious passage of arms over the relative merits of French and German partisanship, driven to unsuspected bitterness I exclaimed, "I hear the Germans so appreciate your policy that they are taking the nails out of Hindenburg's statue to put them into one for you." He shook himself rather as a dog would have done, and I felt that I had gone too far, for strangely he made no answer.

  It was through Sir Edgar that I got to know the rising generation of painters. I always felt that he wanted to use me as an experiment before trusting his beautiful wife to their brushes. It was in this way that McEvoy came to do his three portraits of me—of which, however, I kept only one.

  My visits to Paris were rare, alas, for I loved the lovely lights and shadows of its sun-fleeted scenes. The warm humanity of French lives, so simple and gay, appealed to me. There was no false shame in their frank acceptance of life's joys. Lovers strolled arm in arm, mothers held babies to their swelling breasts, and as one passed one shared their happiness. When speeding homeward over the golden wheat fields to the white town of Calais I invariably felt sad at leaving a people whose civilization I believed had truly assessed the values of life.

  Returning to Blenheim I would become once more engulfed in the whirlpool of political talk. Among the members of Parliament who were friends of Winston and who often met at Blenheim in the early 1900's were Ian Malcolm, who later became the secretary of Lord Balfour, to whom after his death he wrote a tribute addressed "To one fearless-resolved and negligently great"; F. E. Smith, who became the Earl of Birkenhead and Lord Chancellor; Lord Hugh Cecil; and Lord Eustace Percy. These young and able backbenchers were by no means satisfied to remain such, but the Conservative party was then rich in middle-aged men distinguished for the services they had rendered, and undersecretaryships were hard come by. Although a Conservative by tradition Winston was, with his cousin Ivor Guest and other young rebels who later joined the Liberal party, at that time fanning insurrection against the reactionary elements of conservatism. Marlborough's affection for these, his favorite cousins, was in no wise affected by their political views, which were freely discussed around our dinner table at which we often lingered until midnight, carried away by Winston's eloquence and by the equally brilliant and sophisticated defense of conservatism offered by Hugh Cecil.

  These were indeed stimulating guests, but we were not always so privileged and there were many days given over to the entertainment of visitors who were simply glorified tourists. From Windsor, royal guests could easily come the forty miles in a special train, and after the German Emperor, the King of Portugal spent a day with us. King Carlos was a rotund little man who in spite of the preternatural dignity he assumed did not suggest kingship. I remember his telling me that among royal personages he was the least likely to be murdered because he was an admirable pistol shot and always carried a weapon he prided himself on producing with lightning rapidity. Nevertheless he was assassinated a few years later, in 1908, together with the Prince Royal. The Queen and her younger son who were in the same carriage miraculously escaped. After his visit to Blenheim, his Minister to the Court of St. James's, the Marquis de Soveral, brought me two royal photographs, one with a diamond crown on its frame as a mark of special favor.

  How different from the red carpet and protocol of the usual royal visits was the impromptu appearance of the Crown Prince and Princess of Roumania. It was Tourist Day and I had taken refuge near the Indian Tent where I was reading under the cedars when the Groom of the Chambers found me. "I thought Your Grace should know," he informed me, "that the Crown Prince and Princess of Roumania accompanied by Mr. Waldorf Astor are touring the Palace." Oh bother, I thought, it is now one o'clock and they will want luncheon and there is only the light meal prepared for Marlborough and myself. Resigned, but flustered, I hurriedly ordered a more ample repast and went to find my uninvited guests. They were in fits of laughter, for the housekeeper, unaware of their identity, was describing the royal personages in the photographs which adorned the tables. The Crown Princess, later to become Queen Marie, was as everyone knows a very beautiful woman. Dazzlingly fair, with lovely features, the bluest of eyes and a luscious figure, she was at that time at her zenith. Remembering that she was Queen Victoria's granddaughter, I was not prepared for the disconcerting bohemianism she affected; nor did her evident desire to charm successfully replace the dignity one expected. Accustomed to the restraint of the English royal family, I thought her eagerness indiscreet, and was conscious of a theatricality usually associated with a prima donna rather than with a bona fide princess. It seemed to me that she overacted the part. That I did her an injustice I later discovered on reading her letter to a young American who succumbed to her beauty but whom, it is rumored, she never met, and whose identity is undisclosed. After her death her letters to him were published. In one, quoted by Hector Bolitho in A Biographer's Notebook, she writes:

  Especially I am grateful that you should sense that nothing in me was acting.... The stage was always set. I was always the one who had to appear, who was expected, awaited. Why disappoint them when I came? Why not my most radiant smile, my prettiest dress, my most becoming hat? Why not a gesture of appreciation towards the eager Mother showing off her child; why not a kind word to the old Granny who was clapping hands in excitement; why not a helpful word to a man with one leg; a look of appreciation for a young girl's new Spring gown? There was no acting in all this, only a real desire to spread joy around me, good understanding and a happy atmosphere of good will...

  My so-called acting was in fact unselfishness, because one is no more self-conscious when one thinks of others instead of oneself. Besides, I also had this feeling: the crowds are waiting for you in sunshine or rain. . . . Then do your best, do not disappoint them; look as well as you can, let it be worthwhile having you as a Princess, as Queen.

  The Crown Prince, on the other hand, was a most unprepossessing person. He was ugly, and his ears protruded at an extraordinary angle. Waldorf Astor, who accompanied them, was my childhood friend. With his curly hair and flashing smile, he was as opposed to the Crown Prince as an Adonis.

  Luncheon was served at a small table in the bow window of the little dining room, where Marlborough joined us half an hour late, as was his habit. I have always disliked hospitality of the potluck variety, but on this occasion I could not be held responsible for the simple fare. It was in any case better than the sandwiches which they had brought with them.

  But to return to less impromptu visits—indeed one might say to imposed visits—the German Emperor, wishing his son to see something of English life, sent us the Crown Prince accompanied by Count Eulenburg and his tutor, Kurt von Pritetwitz. Little did the Emperor suspect that his son would spend his visit in the company of Gladys Deacon, a beautiful and alluring American girl. We had not invited a party; there were at Blenheim only a few friends who usually spent the late summer with us and the German Ambassador, Count Metternich. I still feel a certain sympathy for him when I think of the harrowing week he spent anxiously preening a stiff neck in vain endeavor to follow a flirtation his Prince was happily engaged in pursuing. It was useless to remonstrate with the mischievous lady whose vanity was at stake. But, at all events, nothing came of the flirtation so that the result was different from the case of another American who was later to marry an English King.

  The Crown Prince was tall and slight, and gave one an impression of shyness and indecision. Very fair, with prominent blue eyes, and a silly expression that accentuated the degeneracy of his appearance, he nevertheless had charming manners and took infinite pains to please. Only a few years my junior, he seemed to me still a collegian when he told me how much he disliked the thought of succeeding the Emperor, whom he greatly admired, and modestly disclaimed any capacity for continuing the tradition the Hohenzollerns had established
as kings of Prussia and German emperors.

  Signing the visitor's book on his last day, our royal guest gratuitously added, "I have been very comfortable here!" He then expressed the wish to drive our coach to Oxford Station where he was to entrain for London. Count Mettemich, who was afflicted with a nervous twitch, shook his head more vehemently than ever, protesting that H.I.H. knew nothing about driving four horses and that there would be an accident. Nevertheless, I reflected, he has been sent here to study English country life, and although it is not usual to drive about the country in a coach and four, if he wants to do so I suppose he must. Resigned, I climbed to the box seat beside him, primed to seize the reins in an emergency, though I had never driven more than two horses in my life. As Gladys Deacon sat behind us between Metternich and Marlborough, the Prince spent more time gazing back at her than at the road and we had several close shaves. The groom, with repeated blasts of the horn, did his best to clear the way of vehicular traffic, and English sportsmanship considerably abetted our safe arrival at the station. I heaved a sigh of relief as the train bore our guest away, his silly face protruding from the window to catch a forlorn and parting glimpse of the lady he was leaving.

  A week later a letter from the Emperor's chamberlain informed me of His Majesty's indignation at the fact that Miss Deacon had accepted from the Crown Prince a ring which had been given him by his mother on the occasion of his first communion; he requested me to order Miss Deacon to return the ring at once. So ended a foolish and completely futile conquest.

  The incident, however, was not forgotten by the Emperor, nor was he taking any chances of its renewal. When I went to Berlin with Gladys some months later, we were no sooner settled in our hotel than an Imperial Aide-de-Camp was announced. He informed us politely, but firmly, that the Emperor had deputed him to show us the sights of the city, "and that," with a click of the heels, "he was at our command." We were, alas, to discover that we were at his command for he never left us. His evident boredom at our raptures over the Palace at Sans Souci, his preference for the Beergarten, his stilted conversation and his Prussian officer mentality spoiled our sightseeing. I can see him now, uncomfortably seated on the strapontin of our fiacre sadly reflecting on the hours he was wasting with us. Unaccustomed as we were to so little success, for we were both young and pretty, we consoled our vanity by remarking that the Emperor had wisely chosen a man impervious to woman's charm. No chances of our seeing the Crown Prince were taken; he had been banished from Berlin during our entire stay.

  The day we shed our escort and entrained for Dresden stood out as a day of deliverance and we were in high spirits. Our talks, so long interrupted, were taken up with renewed vigor; life, art and philosophy were discussed with youthful enthusiasm. The beautiful city of Dresden, its opera and picture galleries were a joy. I gave myself to art with the élan and concentration of my twenty-four years and spent hours on a camp stool writing descriptions of favorite pictures while suspicious attendants lurked around, doubtful of my intentions. In the evening we sat entranced at the opera and on sunny afternoons we took the little steamer that chugged down the Elbe, delighting in the scenes of rural life along the riverbanks. Germany would have been pleasant had it not been for the Germans. I disliked them intensely. In the streets they stared offensively, in queues I was invariably pinched and, hemmed into a train compartment, we were embarrassed by officers who did not hesitate to tell indecent stories that they realized we understood by the blushes that reddened our cheeks.

  I looked forward to returning home to my children. Aged four and three, they had developed into definite personalities— Blandford, audacious and willful, forever rebelling against authority; Ivor, gentle and sensitive, already displaying a studious trend. Indeed, it is Blandford who can claim credit for the only time I ever saw my mother at a loss. I had left him and Ivor sitting in the barouche with her while I went into Goode's in South Audley Street to choose some china. I was absent only a few minutes but when I came out I saw a small crowd and my mother, for once, nonplussed. My eldest son was happily and busily engaged in throwing my card case, my pencil and various other gewgaws into the street where a harried footman in red knee breeches, tall hat and powdered hair, who should have been the picture of dignity, was running to collect them from under buses and pedestrians. As I reached the carriage I heard Blandford singing "Gentle Jesus meek and mild loves this little child," greatly to the amusement of the assembled company.

  Besides Nanny and her staff, the children had a French governess whose life was enlivened by incidents I believed were often provoked by Nanny, to whom rebellion against Mademoiselle's authority was welcome. Mademoiselle had rooms at the end of a long and solitary passage to which one gained access by a single door. One day on which the key had been left on die outer side it was mysteriously turned in the lock and hidden. It was some time before Mademoiselle's screams from the window were heard below, and much later that the lock was removed and the door opened. It did not take me long to spot the delinquent. The punishment to administer was a greater problem. Blandford, whenever spanked, reflected, as I let him go, "You have hurt your hand much more than you did me," so that a variety of deprivations had to be found, which in turn he said he did not mind. Wracking my brain for an ethical approach to this child of four I spoke of the omnipresence of God and was very much startled when, pointing to a large easy chair, he asked me, "Is He in that chair?" An appeal to his affection was, I found, the easier way. I had definite ideas concerning discipline, but had difficulty in overcoming Marlborough's stubborn opposition to any form of punishment. Claiming that he had been bullied by his father, he refused to exert any control, and punishments became for me a doubly painful duty in view of his critical disapproval. Never a strict disciplinarian, for a sense of humor and the love I bore my children rendered punishments hateful to me, I nevertheless believed that a certain standard of behavior had to be maintained. That my children recognized this obligation our tender and loving relationship testified. Later, when a tutor replaced Mademoiselle, their training became easier since he had a greater authority. A devout priest, a man of high integrity, his influence proved invaluable during the difficult years when I shared my children with their father after our separation. Looking back on the last years of the Victorian era, I see a pageant of festive scenes. But pomp and ceremony were becoming tedious to one who, as my husband complained, had not a trace of snobbishness. The realities of life seemed far removed from the palatial splendor in which we moved and it was becoming excessively boring to walk on an endlessly spread red carpet. Even now I can evoke the linkman in his drab and faded suit as he opened the carriage door and with a sweep of a battered top hat bowed me to that red carpet. I remember a dinner in honor of the Prince and Princess of Wales to which I wore a diamond crescent instead of the prescribed tiara. The Prince with a severe glance at my crescent observed, "The Princess has taken the trouble to wear a tiara. Why have you not done so?" Luckily I could truthfully answer that I had been delayed by some charitable function in the country and that I had found the bank in which I kept my tiara closed on my arrival in London. But such an incident illustrates the over-importance attached to the fastidious observance of ritual.

  There were more intimate dinners where a diamond crescent could be worn without rebuke, since they were not graced by the Princess's presence. These were given by what was known as the "Prince of Wales's Set," a small cosmopolitan coterie in which for a while we were included. Lady Paget and Mrs. Cavendish-Bentinck vied with one another in providing rare wines and delicacies, but the list of those invited brought no surprises and Monsieur de Soveral was an outstanding, if somewhat constant, guest. While the Prince enjoyed his game of bridge with Mrs. George Keppel, the general company awaited his good pleasure for permission to retire. The Honorable George Keppel was one of those tall and handsome Englishmen who, immaculately dressed, proclaim the perfect gentleman, and in bringing his wife into the somewhat cloistered family circle of the Earl of Albemar
le had introduced a note of gaiety and Gallic bonhomie that previously had been lacking. Alice Keppel was handsome and of genial and easy approach; nevertheless she knew how to choose her friends with shrewd appraisal. Even her enemies, and they were few, she treated kindly which, considering the influence she wielded with the Prince, indicated a generous nature. She invariably knew the choicest scandal, the price of stocks, the latest political move; no one could better amuse the Prince during the tedium of the long dinners etiquette decreed. How intolerably boring they were, with everyone else twice my age and the few Court officials who attended them chosen for their discretion rather than for their brilliance. Little by little we found excuses for absenting ourselves and the last link was severed when Marlborough gave up racing, an interest the Prince had stimulated by making him buy a horse named Barabbas, trained by Marsh, the Prince's trainer. I was thankful when I no longer had to attend the races at Newmarket and those dinners in London.

  On Queen Victoria's death there came with the Edwardian era a greater freedom, but it was accompanied by a greater circumspection than had been expected by those who had known the King as Prince of Wales. The red carpet was still there, although the linkman's manner grew bolder and he was heard to murmur, "Make way for the beautiful Duchess"—causing one to wonder whether a new Restoration had dawned. Americans then became popular at Court. Mrs. Keppel had many among her intimates. Financiers such as Sir Ernest Cassel occupied niches that in the past had held statesmen such as Palmerston and Beaconsfield. The Court became cosmopolitan. Gone were the German stiffness and formality, gone the stern interpretation of a life lived purely as a duty, gone the perpetual mourning that had for so long obscured the Crown.

 

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