The Glitter and the Gold

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The Glitter and the Gold Page 31

by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan


  No room being obtainable in Bordeaux, we took the road to Bayonne. The surrounding country appeared to be alive with cars and we looked in vain for lodgings. It was now getting dark. Passing through a village we inquired of a man who was directing the traffic if he knew of a vacant room. With a quick look at Jacques's uniform he smilingly said:

  "Mais, non Colonel, my wife and I will be proud to have you and Madame la Colonelle share our home. We have only one small guest room, but it is at your disposal."

  How gratefully we accepted, and when we saw his kindly wife, the clean and comfortable room they gave us, the generous hospitality it pleased them to extend to us, we felt we had indeed been lucky. We sat in the small living room that looked over their garden talking to our hostess and wondering what had happened to our host. He was, his wife told us, a retired Captain of the Merchant Marine. Suddenly, looking very pleased, he returned with a large bottle of Moet et Chandon 1928 under his arm. He had cooled it, he informed us, in the bath filled with cold water. I have never drunk better champagne nor enjoyed any more. From sad and weary, we became hopeful and refreshed.

  Madame had laid the table and asked us to share their meal. After a good soup she gave us an excellent omelette, a salad such as I had never tasted—the vinegar was made from Bordeaux wine, its flavor warm, delicate and perfumed—and we finished with juicy apricots, while two bottles of Bordeaux, one light and one with more body, seemed to disappear with astonishing rapidity. During our meal our hostess's father looked in. He was the gamekeeper of an important local magnate, and from his remarks we gathered that had he only had notice of our arrival a rabbit or two would have graced the board. Our host, having absorbed a good share of the champagne and of the two bottles of red wine, had become very loquacious. He was by now more impressed by my appearance than by my husband's uniform, and if it had not been for constant reminders from the radio that we were at a very critical moment of a very disastrous war, he would have become quite gay.

  We left them at four the next morning, warmed by their kindliness. They even insisted upon giving us coffee before seeing us off. At Bayonne it was impossible to get accommodations, but at the hotel where we lunched the mécanicien offered us a room in his house nearby. It was, we found, in a quiet little street and the room looked out on a garden. There were two sofas on which we slept.

  We found the Portuguese and Spanish consulates in a state of siege. Crowds of excited people were trying to force an entry through doors that were guarded by consular officials assisted by police. Any newcomers, we realized, would have little chance of reaching those portals. Fortunately it occurred to Jacques that a former Spanish Ambassador to France who was a friend of ours now lived at Biarritz, and we decided to motor the few miles to obtain a letter of recommendation which would gain our admittance to the Spanish Consul. Unfortunately the Ambassador was away, but was expected back the following day. Such delays, we knew, might be fatal, and were hard to bear, for the possibility that the frontier might at any moment be closed was ever in our minds.

  Torrential rains increased the difficulties of circulation, so we bought mackintoshes and umbrellas. We had our meals at the hotel where an overworked staff efficiently served hundreds of travelers. I marveled at the patience the waiters showed. No doubt they realized how harrowed and worn their customers were. Many had lost their relatives, and we witnessed touching scenes of reunion when, in the flood of evacuees, a man would unexpectedly come upon his wife and children. With all means of communication severed one felt strangely dependent on a fortunate chance. So we deemed ourselves lucky when we met Baron Almeida in Biarritz, for he kindly offered to help us reach the Portuguese Consul. In motoring from Biarritz to Bayonne we picked up a man and his wife who were on foot. The man we were to see again.

  We had been told that the Spanish authorities required a visa for Portugal as a guarantee that refugees would not be stranded in Spain, where food was none too plentiful. Our first visit was therefore to the Portuguese Consul. So anxious were we to reach him that we arrived at 6:00 a.m., although the doors would not open before 8:00. It was a gloomy dawn, and the rain was coming down harder than ever. Long lines of angry and disconsolate people stretched like black and dripping beetles far into the street. From this street a narrow passage between overhanging houses was the only entrance to a small court from which a flight of wooden stairs led up an outer wall to the Consular offices on the fourth floor. Slowly we managed to squeeze our way, but when we reached the court it was equally crowded. Newcomers were viewed with hostility and protesting murmurs arose at our appearance. Even at that early hour I could see no possibility of reaching the Consul, for the crowd was rough; among it were a number of Portuguese loudly proclaiming their right to return to their own country. On a raised step the court I recognized a few acquaintances who, like us, were waiting. The Consulate was not yet due to open, but suddenly in response to the clamor a window opened above and the Consul’s head appeared. ''We want our passports''—''We have a right to our passports," shouted the Portuguese. The Consul with a wave of desperate hands shouted back, ''How can I help you all when I cannot even save my wife?" At this the crowd grew menacing; we were being hemmed in ever tighter. I wondered what would happen next. Then the window above closed. The Consul must have taken counsel, for in a few minutes he shouted down to us, "You will all have your visas, but you must be patient." Then the tension eased—there were even spasmodic cheers. We waited two hours, standing in the crowd in the rain, before the door at the top of the wooden stairs opened and to our surprise we saw the man to whom we had given a ride the previous day, streaking through the crowd down the stairs toward us, while from above Baron Almeida signed to us to come up. It seemed that our fellow traveler had acted on a chance remark of ours— that the Portuguese Consul needed additional help.

  There were a lot of people between me and the stairs, and I felt desperate as I began to push through them, but with Jacques behind me and our rescuer stretching down to me from above I managed to get through and up those flights to the safety of the Consulate. I had just time to regain breath before the door opened and, clutching my visa, I faced those stairs and a mob now furious at having been cheated. They will never let us down. I thought, and so evidently did our rescuer; for with a quick look at the low hand railing and the frail wooden stairs he suddenly shouted, "Look out—look out—the stairs are giving way—they were never meant to bear so great a weight." In the ensuing rush down we reached the safety of the street before the mob turned, and with cries of rage once again charged up the stairs. It is rare that one good turn is so quickly rewarded, and in so great a measure. Passports were now more precious than jewels; and it almost became a nervous habit with me to explore my handbag for the reassurance mine brought me.

  But there was still the Spanish visa to be obtained before we could cross the frontier. The Spanish Consulate was on the second floor of a patrician house in one of Bayonne's principal streets. The imposing staircase swept upward in wide steps and on each a recumbent figure lay half asleep. As we picked our way through they looked up and pointed to a sign prominently displayed on the Consulate door. It announced that no more visas would be issued that day. Since the day was still young, I felt that the staff was probably indulging a midday siesta. We rang the bell repeatedly until the door was carefully opened and a head appeared. Waving the Ambassador's seal in the startled man's face, we succeeded in pushing our way in. When a few minutes later we emerged with our visas I was shamed at the sight of those tired unhappy people facing the discomforts of another night on the stairs. Reflecting on what prerogative had accomplished, I almost felt a transgressor.

  We returned to Biarritz on our way to the frontier. I hoped there would be no more miserable and disconsolate crowds for I hated pushing my way through, but Jacques in a French officer's uniform could hardly resort to such methods; neither, I shrewdly calculated, could he refuse to follow me, since alone I might easily have been manhandled.

  Of t
he Hôtel du Palais at Biarritz I have two memories and they are very clear. As we entered the hall where deserted cock-

  tail tables still stood I saw a young man bent over one in a gesture of such complete despair I thought he was dying, until at my approach he raised his head. Will it be the ocean so close or a pistol shot so much quicker, I thought, as his eyes met mine and revealed his plight in the curse that lay upon his race. Then I went upstairs to collect some things we had left. In the hall I saw a row of at least twenty trunks, beautifully polished and labeled "Mrs. Tailer-Smith." I met their owner, an American, and a friend of my mother's.

  "Are you staying here?" I asked her. "The frontier may soon be closed."

  "But I could not leave without these," she answered, pointing to the twenty trunks. Looking at her placid countenance and her twenty trunks, I said, "You will be all right. Good-by and good luck."

  And now we were actually on our way to the frontier, but when we reached it the barriers were down, the customs closed. Would they open tomorrow? We were assured they would. With my husband's habit of everywhere finding a friend we turned to the director of the Bidassoa, a furniture factory that lay nearby, and he kindly offered to put us up. The next morning at six we brought our car to the bridge over the river which divides Spain from France, and while my husband went to the customs I strolled out to where the sentries were on guard.

  A great sadness filled me at leaving France where I had found such happiness. I knew my husband would return to his country and I hated being the cause of his going. While I was standing on the bridge, the frontier opened, and I saw Sir Charles and Lady Mendl in a beautiful Rolls-Royce driven by a chauffeur pass by. They had a diplomatic passport, and were followed by a station wagon, driven by a Mr. McMullen, a friend of theirs. It was filled with Vuiton trunks.

  Once in Spain, life assumed a more normal aspect. It was easy to obtain good rooms at San Sebastian, but our passport was limited to a few days. I noticed that we had neither butter nor sugar and realized that food was not plentiful, and that strangers were unwelcome. Nevertheless we experienced great difficulty in getting places on the train to Lisbon, for which the Travel Bureau was asking extortionate prices. The French government allowed each of its nationals to take thirty thousand francs out of the country, but with the fall of France her currency was no longer honored. My husband had a limited number of English pounds and American dollars, but these were not sufficient to pay the prices for our tickets to Lisbon. We decided to sell our Citroen, which was worth more in Spain than in France, since few cars were on the market. But then we were informed that it was illegal to buy French cars from refugees. We were learning the hard way, and I felt outraged by the incredible bargain the haggling dealer secured our car for. He and the traveling agency then arranged to give us the places on the train they had before told us they were unable to procure.

  I shook the dust of Spain from willing feet as I climbed into the train, but at the Portuguese frontier the worst of all trials awaited us. They actually took our passports from us, giving us slips of paper in exchange for which, they said, our passports would be returned to us in Lisbon. This procedure struck me as a refined and needless torture. In the state of nervous tension to which all refugees had been reduced it was like removing a life belt in midstream from a worn-out swimmer. In fact I clung to my passport with the same desperation with which a drowning person would have clung to his belt; but to no avail.

  "It will be returned to you in Lisbon at the Passport Office," they said.

  We had expected to reach Lisbon at 7:00 that evening, but arrived at 4:00 a.m. the following morning. There were no reservations at the hotel we had arrived to; every room in the city, the Concierge told us, was occupied. We might, if lucky, find one at Estoril some twenty-five miles out of town. So we taxied there and at 6:00 a.m. finally found a bed and room. I was glad to lie down, but visions of my passport haunted my dreams and at 8:00 A.M. we were again on the road to claim them.

  There was, of course, a long queue awaiting the opening of the Passport Office which, with the lazy ease bred by the sun, opened late, closed early for lunch and siesta, and opened again as a deferential gesture before closing for the night. We arrived in time to join the end of the queue and reached the office just as it closed. So we went to the American Consulate, where we were informed that no visa could be granted without a passport. A welcome cable from my brothers, however, told us that we had reservations on a seaplane the following Friday. We had hardly three days to secure our passports and visas. It was forty-eight hours before we got them back. Driven to despair we threatened to remain in Portugal at the expense of the authorities; at this they made a thorough search of their files and produced our passports. Then the American Consul most kindly put pressure to bear and we obtained our American visas.

  The evening before leaving Lisbon we dined with the Duke of Kent who, having heard of our arrival, invited us to a lovely palace the Portuguese government had put at his disposal during his official visit. Having no evening clothes, we at first declined, but he insisted that we should come as we were, and he promised to take news of us to my sons in England. I sat next to him at dinner—it was just a year since we had met at Blenheim for my granddaughter's coming-out ball. Two years later he was killed in an airplane accident. How odd it seemed to sit at a formal dinner again free of anxiety and care—how little these people knew of the storm and stress of a country overrun by a ruthless enemy. That we had no evening clothes seemed strange to them. What a world of difference now lay in our outlooks. I shall not, however, forget the Duke's considerate kindness to us that evening. He brought England and my children closer to me, and I felt warmed by his solicitude. He was a man of great charm and had a sympathetic understanding of all things beautiful, inherited from his mother, Queen Mary.

  The next morning—thanks to the good offices of the American Consul and my brothers—we left Lisbon on the Clipper. I had an inhibition against flying, and this was my first voyage. As we moved through the waters and rose to our flight, I looked at the blue sky above and the slowly fading coast beneath and felt I had embarked on a celestial passage to a promised land.

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  Mrs. Vanderbilt with her three children: William, Harold, and Consuelo.

  Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt with her daughter, Consuelo, 1877.

  Consuelo at about ten years old (Brown Brothers).

  At sixteen.

  Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt, the author’s grandmother, painted by Porter.

  Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, the author’s great-grandfather.

  Consuelo Vanderbilt’s father: William Kissam Vanderbilt in 1900.

  Consuelo Vanderbilt’s mother: Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, in the costume she wore at her famous fancy dress ball in 1883.

  The Vanderbilt houses on Fifth Avenue, opposite the present site of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Left to right: first, home of W. H. Vanderbilt, the author’s grandfather; second, the house he built for his two daughters; third, home of the W. K. Vanderbilts, the author’s parents. Beyond are St. Thomas Church and the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.

  The entrance to Marble House the Newport, R.I. home of W. K. Vanderbilt.

  The white and gold salon in the W. K. Vanderbilt house at 660 Fifth Avenue (Culver Service).

  House party at Blenheim during the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales in the autumn of 1896; picture taken at high lodge, Blenheim Park. Left to right: back row, Earl of Gosford, Lady Emily Kingscote, Hon. Sidney Greville, Mr. George Nathaniel Curzon, General Ellis, Countess of Gosford, Mr. A. J. Balfour, Mrs. William Grenfell, Sir Samuel Scott, Marquess of Londonderry, Lady Helen Stewart, Lady Lilian Spencer-Churchill, Mr. William Grenfell, Prince Charles of Denmark, Viscount Curzon; middle row, Earl of Chesterfield, Lady Randolph Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough, the Princess of Wales, Mrs. George Nathaniel Curzon, Marchioness of Londonderry, Princess Victoria, Princess Charles of Denmark; front row, Lady Sophie Scott, Duke of Marlboro
ugh, Viscountess Curzon.

  The Prince and Princess of Wales, in the daumont drawn by four horses, leaving Blenheim after a week’s visit. The Duke of Marlborough, on the left, is riding escort. In the demi-daumont are Prince and Princess Charles of Denmark. The Duchess of Marlborough is standing on the steps of the palace.

  The author with her sons, the Marquess of Blandford and Lord Ivor Spencer Churchill, 1900.

  The Duchess of Marlborough in 1901.

  The Duchess of Marlborough. An etching by Paul Helleu, 1901.

  Winston Churchill with the author (above and below) at Blenheim in 1901.

  Blandford and Ivor at Blenheim.

  The Duchess of Marlborough as canopy bearer to Queen Alexandra at the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902 (Photograph by Lafayette).

  The Duchess of Marlborough. Photograph by Lafayette, 1905.

  Ethel Barrymore with Winston Churchill on the lawn at Blenheim.

  The Duchess of Marlborough on her hunter, Greyling, at Blenheim.

 

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