Chapter TEN

Stories of Notable Women--Old Countess of Cardigan and
Her Gay Parties--Naughty Stories Told by the Wittiest
Woman in London--The Phantom Car in Park Lane--When Don
Jaime, the Spanish Pretender, Saw a Ghost--High Jinks at
Deene Park--Edward and the Game-keeper--How the Cardigan
_Memoirs_ Came into Being--My Friendship with the Crown
Princess of Saxony--Its Result--I Arrange Her Highness’s
Secret Marriage with Signor Toselli--Amusing Incidents
After the Ceremony--I Induce the Princess to Write Her
_Memoirs_.

Dinner-table stories are directly responsible for the prevailing fashion of writing one’s recollections, this book of mine being one of many such volumes.

I may be justly accused of having invented the modern “memoir.” It happened in a curious way. The old Countess of Cardigan, widow of Lord Cardigan of Balaclava fame, whom I had known all my life, had been a friend of my father. In my boyhood days she called me “Willie Liqueur.” For thirty years or so I was constantly a guest at Deene Park, Northamptonshire, the stately home of the Cardigans, where King Henry slept after the Battle of Bosworth.

Lady Cardigan was a celebrity. She had for seventy years known everyone who was worth knowing, and had led a very hectic life--if all reports were true.

When she was eighty, with her yellow wig and her painfully narrow chest, her dress of pale carnation satin and her squeaky voice, I often used to sit in her little upstairs drawing-room at Deanery Street, Park Lane, and listen to her gossip over the tea-cups. Her statements about people caused me, as a journalist, to shudder for fear of the law of libel, and I have often strolled back down Park Lane utterly amazed that I should have been so magnetized for an hour by a woman old enough to be my great-grandmother.

I had heard hundreds of stories--some of them side-splitting--from the old countess’s lips, but her handwriting grew from bad to worse, till it became quite illegible, so whenever I received a letter with the well-known coronet upon it I always rang up the faithful and portly Knighton, who was her butler as well as her man of affairs, and a conversation something like this took place:

“I say, Knighton, I’ve had a letter from her ladyship. When shall I come?” Knighton would then apologize, and go to look at his mistress’s diary, and afterwards reply:

“Dinner, sir, next Friday.”

And so I would sit down and write an acceptance.

One night at Deanery Street during the London season, the “Old Lady,” as we called her, gave a dinner-party, and among those present were the Countess of Westmorland, Lady Angela Forbes, “Cis” Fane, young Brudenell-Bruce, who was heir to the Cardigan estates, but who, alas! was killed in the war, and Sir Nigel and Lady Kingscote.

I remember that we had one of her ladyship’s pet dishes, a Spanish ham that she got from somewhere in Castile, stewed in sherry. Over a slice of it, served with great dignity by the never-smiling Knighton, Lady Cardigan began to tell some extremely amusing stories of people she had known, including Lord Beaconsfield, who had proposed marriage to her. Then she eclipsed the stories by an extremely “risky” one, at which we were all convulsed--all but Knighton.

“Well, Lady Cardigan,” I exclaimed across the table, “I’m a bit of an author. And I’m wondering why you don’t write a book of your stories.”

“A book!” exclaimed the yellow-haired old lady, who was glittering with diamonds. “A book! My dear Mr. Le Queux! Why, if I wrote a book who would ever publish it?”

“If you will write a book, I will see that it gets a publisher,” I said, taking a sporting chance, but remembering that a big blue pencil would be necessary.

“Yes!” cried pretty Lady Westmorland, who had been one of the great beauties of England, and who was sitting beside me. “Oh! it would be such fun!”

Cis Fane opposite me sighed, and whispered audibly:

“Good Lord deliver us!”

The party seemed all highly tickled by the suggestion, and presently her ladyship said:

“Very well, Mr. Le Queux. If you think the public would like to read some of my stories, then I will hold you to your promise, and write them.”

On that same evening I had a curious experience. As I left the house with Brudenell-Bruce, the butler blew his whistle for a taxi, and we entered, telling the man to drive to the Bachelors’ Club.

Hardly were we inside when a breath of sweet perfume caused me to glance around, and I said:

“Why, this isn’t a taxi, Brudenell!”

“No, apparently not,” he drawled. “But it will take us to the club.”

A few minutes later we got out, and, as I went forward to pay, I was faced by a smart chauffeur, who gazed at me, and, apparently startled, hastily drove swiftly away down Piccadilly, leaving us both standing on the pavement amazed.

We never fathomed the mystery, but it seemed certain that the car was waiting in Deanery Street for some evil purpose, and the man mistook us for the persons who were to join him.

Next day I sought Eveleigh Nash at his office in King Street, Covent Garden. He, not knowing Lady Cardigan, except by repute, did not seem anxious to publish the book, so I went away resolving to let the matter drop.

A week later, however, I had an urgent summons to go to the “Old Lady” at Deanery Street, and found that she held me to my promise given over her dinner-table!

So next day I returned to my friend Eveleigh Nash, told him the whole circumstances, and in the end it was decided to obtain the help of Mrs. Maude Chester ffoulkes. I took Mrs. ffoulkes round to tea at Deanery Street a few days later, with the result that the first Volume of modern “recollections” was issued to the public, and made a great sensation.

But I can tell you that when the manuscript was ready the blue pencil had to be exercised very freely on some of those stories before they were passed by Eveleigh Nash, who detested the book from the beginning and, I believe, always regretted that he published it.

Old Lady Cardigan was a wonderful figure. Her Christmas and shooting parties at Deene were centres of the wildest fun--the merriment of the gayest and most irresponsible set in England. They were the “smartest” of the “smart” and when one accepted an invitation it meant uninterrupted enjoyment from the moment of arrival to that of departure.

The magnificent old mansion, once an ancient abbey, stands in the midst of a beautiful park, and after the “Old Lady” had retired, as was her habit, at 9 p.m., the great lakes and splendid beech-formed avenues echoed with nocturnal merriment.

Dinner was always served on a service of George III. silver, with great state at a big round table. I hated those heavy silver soup plates, and when later on one used one’s knife upon a plate, it cut into it. It was always a stately meal, but the plates to me seemed ever greasy.

Lady Cardigan would allow no motor-car to approach Deene, nor would she have any electric bell. In the dining-room she had the ordinary pull-bell, with a long string attached to it; while her constant attendant, waking or sleeping, driving or pouring out tea, was a particularly annoying brown miniature Pomeranian named “Bundle.” One dare not go near one’s hostess for fear of “Bundle’s” teeth.

At one of the shooting-parties, that included, as was usual, a number of well-known people were Don Jaime, the Pretender to the Spanish throne, and his brother, who figured prominently in the public eye at the moment.

Don Jaime occupied King Henry VII.’s bedroom, a great panelled apartment with a huge four-post bed in which I had often slept. His brother was in the next room, and I in the room adjoining that. The rest of the old wing was occupied by Dr. Thomas Pink, of Lyddington, Lady Cardigan’s pet doctor, whom she always told people had kept her alive for the past twenty years, young Brudenell-Bruce, and several other bachelor guests. It was the bachelors’ quarter.

On that well-remembered night we all retired about 2 a.m., after a gay time among the ladies in the big smoking-room--an apartment with highly-decorated Renaissance carvings over the fireplace that I hesitate to describe here, but a description of which may be found in certain books on English architecture.

I suppose I had been in bed about an hour when I was awakened by a most unearthly yell. I dashed out into the corridor, to find Don Jaime in pale blue silk pyjamas.

“_Dios!_” he gasped. “I--I’ve seen a ghost!”

“What?” I ejaculated.

Brudenell, who had at that moment sprung out of his own room, heard the Prince’s assertion and said:

“Ghost be hanged! Go to bed, Prince. We don’t have ghosts at Deene!”

“You do! Lady Cardigan believes in the White Lady,” he said, in his broken English.

“Well, I don’t--for one,” I said, and by this time the whole corridor was agog with Don Jaime and his ghost. He described it as a young nun in a black habit.

“Oh, get back to bed and make love to her if she comes again,” I replied, rather annoyed at being awakened out of my sleep. So we returned to our rooms.

I do not think I had been in bed half-an-hour when I heard another yell from the room next to me!

This time it was Don Jaime’s brother who had seen the same ghost! He described it, as we all stood in our pyjamas in the corridor.

I declared to the company that somebody was playing a practical joke, with which my old friend Dr. Pink--who always wore a big piece of pink coral as dress-stud, by the way--agreed. At four o’clock we went to sleep again, but so utterly scared were the Spanish Prince and his brother that they left Deene next morning without even making their adieux to their hostess.

From that day to the present the mystery has never been fathomed, and though the butler Knighton still lives in Northamptonshire, he has, on several occasions, assured me that there was no ragging.

“I always knew of any rag, sir. And if there had been one, I should have known,” he said the last time I asked him. “No. It’s a mystery, sir.”

There was no gayer country house in all England than Deene Park in those days before the war. Our hostess, a _grande dame_ of the old school, threw open her beautiful home to her friends, and without stint or formality bade them enjoy themselves.

Yet Lady Cardigan was most punctiliously dignified, and, as everyone who knew her is so well aware, she resented any intrusion on her privacy. In her insistence of the observance of her “manorial rights,” she in many ways outvied the most feudal chatelaine.

It was her custom, when the weather was fine and warm, to be wheeled on to the beautiful terrace at Deene. She invariably selected a spot near a large magnolia, whose creamy blossoms and glossy leaves made a special appeal to the exotic tastes of the old lady. Here she would doze happily till Knighton, in due time, reappeared and conducted her with pomp and circumstance back to the house.

Mrs. ffoulkes, who stayed at Deene a good deal while collaborating with the old lady in writing her famous memoirs, found me with a fellow-guest, Rear-Admiral H. W. Wilkin, in the smoking-room one afternoon and told me an amusing incident that had just happened.

It seems that her ladyship was dozing in the shade of the magnolia when her slumbers were disturbed by the sound of voices.

“And--now--dear Mr. Smith,” came in the cultured High Church accents of the neighbouring Vicar’s wife, “you will get a good view of the park, and here--is the wonderful magnolia.”

“Oh, how truly fair,” drawled the impulsive young shepherd of souls, who accompanied her, “but how very sad it is to reflect on the many scandalous stories current about this beautiful ancestral home!”

Suddenly an imperious, high-pitched voice made itself heard.

“Who are you, and how dare you walk on my terrace?” it demanded.

The intruders approached the locality whence the voice proceeded, and there they saw an irate and golden-haired lady, whose facial adornment would have given points to Jezebel, yet whose attire was more suitable for a young lady still in her teens.

The Vicar’s wife was, as befitted her calling, courageous!

“Mr. Smith was lunching with us, your ladyship,” she said, “and I thought I would bring him across the park to look at the beautiful magnolia.”

“Am I Countess of Cardigan, or am I not?” demanded the Lady of the Magnolia. “You’ve no business to bring any fool of a curate about here! I hate ’em!” Then, ringing a bell furiously, she shrieked: “Knighton--Knighton--_Knighton_! Turn these people _out_!” At this moment Knighton, discreet as ever, appeared from nowhere, and, with a gesture worthy of an Archbishop’s butler, conducted the Vicar’s wife and the curate homewards, and then rapidly removed the enraged countess.

In the great hall of Deene, a replica of Westminster Hall and built at the same time, the aged countess would sing chansonettes after dinner, and dance with her guests with the agility of a young woman, and yet she was over eighty!

Great Britain will never again see her equal, for both she and Lady Dorothy Nevill, whom I knew well, were the last of the old Victorian school, and passed just as the port-drinking, fox-hunting parson, and the fat squire of the Pickwickian days, have passed.

My friend Nash and I were among the guests at Deene one week-end after her recollections had been published, the fashion of writing memoirs set, and the whole world laughing at her amusing and often rather ill-natured stories. Nash, at dinner, related the following:

“Lord Frederic Hamilton invariably tells me some amusing story when we meet. The one I remember best is about an American millionaire who decided to buy a property in Scotland. He arranged to look over an estate in the Highlands, and the Scottish peer to whom it belonged made a point of showing him round the place himself. When at last they returned to the house the American happened to notice over the entrance-hall the words: ‘EAST, WEST, HAME’S BEST,’ and, turning to the owner, he remarked, ‘Well, my lord, it’s very kind of you to have shown me over this property, and I don’t think we’re likely to fall out about the price, but there’s one stipulation I must make (pointing to the motto). That damned fellow Hame has got to take down his ad-ver-tisement.’”

Eveleigh Nash is a splendid raconteur and a well-known man-about-town, as well as being a famous publisher. Mrs. George Pinckard, who is so well known in Society, once remarked to me, “The Row would never be the same if Eveleigh deserted it.”

Not long ago he and I were dining with “Ruby”--as her intimate friends call her--at her delightful Georgian home in Chesterfield Street, Mayfair. George Pinckard, her husband, was M.F.H. in Surrey, and, by the way, generously gave a military remount depôt to the Government, which he himself supported. Afterwards in the drawing-room the conversation turned on literary people, whereupon Nash, in his dry way, said:

“I used frequently to meet J. W. Cross, who married George Eliot, the novelist, and I once heard him tell at a house-party a good story about himself. Cross, after spending several years of his life as a banker in Wall Street, returned to settle down in his native country, and shortly afterwards received an invitation from a friend to stay with him for the grouse shooting. It was about the time that ‘driving’ birds was introduced, and Cross, whose shooting had got rather rusty during the years he had spent in New York, deemed it advisable to get some coaching from the head gamekeeper. After a few days the host remarked to the keeper, ‘How’s Mr. Cross getting on, Joe?’ ‘Well, sir,’ replied Joe, ‘he’s _missing_ better than he did!’ Some years afterwards Cross told this story to King Edward, whose service Joe had entered, and the King remarked, laughing, ‘I shall never get rid of Joe; that’s one of the most tactful things that has ever been said.’”

The Cardigan memoirs being such a huge success, I suggested that my old friend the Princess Luisa, wife of the Crown Prince, now King of Saxony, should publish her recollections.

Perhaps my claim to be an old friend of Her Imperial Highness is shown by what she herself has written in _The Life Story of the Ex-Crown Princess of Saxony_.

In that book she says:

“Though I may be an Imperial Princess of the fatal Hapsburgs, with many titles after my name as registered in the _Almanach de Gotha_, I am, after all, only a woman with the same heart, the same sentiments, the same maternal love, and the same detestation of hypocrisy and sham as any woman who reads this narrative of mine.

“I know England well, and I know and admire the dear British people. I know beautiful Scotland. With Mr. Le Queux I have shopped in Bond Street in London and in Prince’s Street in Edinburgh, and I have been in Oban and in Inverness, at Cowes and at Ilfracombe, but none has dreamed that the woman in a plain navy skirt and cream blouse--both made, by the way, in the Rue de la Paix--was the same person about whose erratic doings so much has been written at the instigation of her enemies.

“I love the public. Heartily tired as I am of the glare and glitter of palaces and the wild turmoil of unceasing plot and counterplot among those who elbow each other to get into the vicinity of a throne, I prefer a life with the public to one apart from it.

“Some years ago I went upon an escapade in Dresden which would have shocked the stiff and narrow-minded Court, in order to discover for myself in what estimation I was held by my Saxon people. As a matter of fact, Mr. Le Queux was at our Court at Dresden at the time, and with my husband, the Crown Prince Frederick-August, we had sat at five o’clock tea, when the sudden idea occurred to me.

“Mr. Le Queux had mentioned that _Il Trovatore_ was to be given at the opera that night, and had been recalling some reminiscences of the great composer, Verdi, with whom both he and his father had been intimate friends. My husband and I were listening to the amusing stories when it struck me that instead of attending with the royal circle, as had been arranged--for at Court we are but creatures of routine, and live by rules and arrangements laid down for us by the Minister of the Household and the other officials whom we call the _Grands Chargés de la Cour_--I might go alone and watch.

“After Mr. Le Queux had bowed before King Albert and his consort, Carola, who had just entered the room, and had departed, I pleaded a bad headache, and later sent word to my husband that I could not go to the opera, and did not wish to be disturbed.

“Now, I had a confidential maid--one whom I had brought from Austria and who had been with me some years--and in her I confided. I sent her out to a theatrical costumier’s, where she obtained a dark wig and a box of ‘make-up,’ and, putting on one of her dresses, I was soon transformed into a woman of the people. In this guise she saw me out of the Palace by the servants’ entrance, and I proceeded to the Opera on foot while the others were still dining. For some time I waited in the queue, then paid for my modest seat in the gallery, and at last found myself between two stout women, high up, with the royal box away on my right.

“The house gradually filled while I sat there among the people. Ah! how my thoughts ran back to my girlhood days, my stiff upbringing, my staid, angular governess, with all the hide-bound regulations of Court manners and Court etiquette, and that parrot-cry ever dinned into my ears since I had been ten years of age: ‘Imperial Highness, be careful of the public! Imperial Highness, what will they think? Imperial Highness, what will they say?’

“That night I sat with the public in order to hear and to know what they said. The King and Queen entered, and the house, including myself, rose to salute them. The stout woman on my left, with whom I had already become on friendly terms by offering her a sight of my programme, exclaimed:

“‘Ah! Carola is in that same shabby old gown she wore a fortnight ago when we came to hear _Faust_. Cannot a queen afford a new one?’

“‘I suppose she wears the grand ones in the Palace and puts on any worn-out thing when she comes here--afraid to spoil it, eh?’ remarked the woman on my other hand.

“At that moment my husband, smart in his blue uniform, smiling and good-looking, entered the box, and, advancing, bowed, whereupon all hands were clapped.

“‘Ah!’ exclaimed the stout critic on my right. ‘The Crown Prince is only a dressed-up popinjay. He will be our King soon, of course--a fine, handsome man, but nowadays he dare not call his soul his own, with such a father and mother!’

“‘When he becomes King he will be all right’ declared the other woman. ‘Old Albert cannot last for ever. But look! they’ve shut the door of the box. Where is Luisa? Isn’t she coming?’

“The orchestra struck up, and in the royal box they had all settled themselves.

“‘Poor Luisa!’ went on the woman, turning to me confidentially as she added, ‘Another unpleasantness, I suppose! Her life must be a wretched one. She looks always so smiling and so good-tempered, yet whenever one sees her driving, here in the theatre, or at the reviews there is a look in her face of sadness and disappointment. Haven’t you noticed it?’ she asked. ‘That smile she wears is only the mask of a broken heart.’

“‘Do you really think so?’ I asked.

“‘Yes, of course. Why, everyone knows what a dull life she has of it with old Carola snapping at her all the time, and the King going out of his way to make things uncomfortable for her. Everybody in Saxony pities poor Luisa!’

“I was silent. So that was what the public were saying about me!

“One woman I took to be the wife of an artisan, the other was, no doubt, the wife of a small tradesman, and I--well, I was the wife of the elegant, good-looking Crown Prince who sat in the middle of the royal box, smiling graciously upon those upon whom he was so soon to be called to rule.

“I learnt much that evening. It taught me that though I was without friends in that great, gloomy, gilded Palace, yet the Saxon people were my friends.

“Yes, I love the public; yet from my earliest recollections as a girl I had been always taught to hate _das verdammte Publikum_ (the damned public), as my father, the Grand Duke of Tuscany usually referred to the people: a favourite remark, by the way, of the late Emperor Francis Josef.

“For the benefit of those who may not know exactly who I am,” she goes on in the book of her life story, “I may, perhaps, say that though I am usually called Luisa, Ex-Crown Princess of Saxony, I was christened on September 8th, 1870, at the Imperial Castle of Salzburg, with eleven different names, and succeeded to the titles of Archduchess of Austria, Duchess of this, Baroness of that, Countess, and what not. Under my last title, Countess of Montignoso--a beautiful estate in Italy, belonging to my family--I am still known, for even the wrath of poor old Francis Josef--himself no saint, by the way--could not deprive me of that. My father was Ferdinand IV., Grand Duke of Tuscany, and my grandfather, the last ruler of Tuscany, lived in the Pitti Palace in Florence, now turned into one of the greatest art-galleries in the world, which many of my readers know, and have, no doubt, admired.”

* * * * *

The affairs of this erratic yet charming lady had, ever since she had separated from her husband and had her name connected with M. Giron, her son’s tutor, been in my hands, and it struck me that if I could induce her to write the story of her eventful life, so much of which I alone knew, it should be of great interest.

After an unconventional career all over Europe, the Princess had fallen deeply in love with Signor Toselli, who was, by the way, utterly unsuited to her, as I openly told her. But she was bent on marrying him, and at her request I arranged that the contract should be made one morning in secret at the Registry Office in Henrietta Street, Strand.

It was a few months after their marriage that I travelled from London to Fiesole, above Florence, where they were living in a large old Italian villa, and not without a great deal of persuasion I prevailed upon the Princess to receive Mrs. Maude Chester ffoulkes and to allow her to collaborate with her in writing her memoirs.

This she did, with the result that the second volume of memoirs, _My Own Story_, was published by the House of Nash, and was even a greater success than the recollections of Lady Cardigan.

Since then we have been flooded by books of the reminiscences of persons, some well known, and others a trifle obscure, but I have thought it to be of some little interest to here tell the story of how the fashion in “memoirs” was inaugurated.

The events that immediately followed the Princess’s secret marriage I will let Her Imperial Highness describe in her own words:

“A small party of five people entered the restaurant of the Savoy Hotel, and sat down to a table overlooking the river, to eat the wedding luncheon. All five of us were half fearful lest we might be recognized, but among that gay, chattering throng we were unnoticed, and whispered our toasts across our glasses.

“Luncheon ended, we passed out by the back of the hotel and walked along the Embankment, fondly believing that nobody knew of the happy event. But already the sleuth-hounds of the London Press had scented news of it from the Registrar’s Office, the register had been inspected and a copy of the register obtained. While walking along a Press-photographer took a snapshot of Signor Toselli, Mr. Le Queux, and myself, which was the first inkling we had that our secret was out.

“We decided to enter the Hotel Cecil by the back way, and Mr. Le Queux conducted my husband and myself to his rooms, urging us to admit no one. Meanwhile he descended to the front hall to deal diplomatically with an assembly of thirty or forty representatives of various newspapers clamouring for news. It was not every day that an Imperial Princess was married in secret at a London Registry Office.

“Because I had endeavoured to keep the whole thing quiet, Mr. Le Queux was extremely discreet. He admitted to the reporters that I had been married, a fact they already knew from the copy of the certificate, which one enterprising journalist had demanded and paid for. Of details Mr. Le Queux gave none. Though a writer himself, he was full of regrets that he could not oblige his friends, yet, as he pointed out, he was compelled to respect my wishes.

“Meanwhile an amusing incident has occurred upstairs. Signor Toselli was seated writing a letter while I stood at the window, when, of a sudden, a man burst into the room unannounced and faced us with surprise upon his face. We, of course, believed him to be a reporter who had eluded the vigilance of those below, therefore my husband promptly and with few words took hold of him and bundled him out of the room.

“A few minutes later Mr. Le Queux returned, accompanied by the man whom Signor Toselli had so unceremoniously ejected, and introduced him. He was Mr. Fred Le Queux, who, of course, knowing nothing of the circumstances, had been astounded to find strangers occupying his brother’s quarters.

“Truly, that day was one fraught with much excitement. We dare not go forth from the hotel, for the journalists were still watchful. They had been informed in confidence that we were to leave Victoria that night for Paris. Instead of doing so, however, Mr. Le Queux and myself drove in one cab, with my husband and Mr. Le Queux’s brother in another, to Charing Cross Station, and were able to leave unobserved, while the journalists were waiting eagerly at Victoria.”

The skittish Princess omits to tell what she said to me on our way to the station:

“Now, Mr. Le Queux, thank you for all you’ve done for me to-day. I know you hesitated, and you have done this because you are my old friend, and I’m very grateful. But there is only one thing wanting to complete the sensation which will be in the papers to-morrow!”

“And what is that?” I asked.

“Why, for me to elope with you!” she laughed. “That would be a first-class shocker for the people, wouldn’t it?”

Princess Luisa was always incorrigible, as those who have read her own story so well know.

And none know it more than myself.