Little Me Page 10

  We were approaching the bird sanctuary when I stopped to powder my nose. A mist was rising and I urged “Cedie” to lead Momma and Mum onwards to show them his new ornithological specimen, a Scarlet Crested Curmudgeon, I believe. He brightened at this and hastened on. They were approximately fifty feet beyond me when a terrible accident occurred. In picking up my shotgun, it accidentally went off! I heard a cry and then everything went black.

  I don’t know how many hours later I was revived to consciousness in my bedroom. “What happened?” I breathed. “Where am I?” The local physician was standing over me. He took my trembling hand gently in his and said soothingly, “Lady Baughdie, there has been a terrible, terrible accident.”

  “Yes?” I said. “You can tell me.”

  “Whilst walking near the sanctuary today,” the doctor explained, “your gun went off, killing . . .”

  “Yes?” I said, wide-eyed with fear.

  “Killing your poor husband’s Scarlet Crested Curmudgeon. A sorry, sorry loss.”

  “And . . . and the others?” I whispered.

  “Don’t worry your head about us chickens, honey,” Momma’s voice rang from the far end of my bedroom. “Britannia and Marjorie and me is all safe as church.”

  Lifting my head weakly, I could see the three of them standing there in the fading light. It was then that I suffered my complete nervous collapse.

  Back from the nursing home

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  UNKIND HEARTS

  1928

  My lingering illness • Trouble with Mum • “Only a bird in a gilded cage” • I try democracy

  A living death • Our unfortunate bal masqué • A strange encounter at Worth’s • The reappearance

  of Mr. Musgrove • A secret rendezvous • “Cedie” and Mum pay a surprise visit • Divorce!

  Dishonored • The Baughdie Diamonds • Homeward bound

  I LANGUISHED FOR SEVERAL WEEKS in a private nursing home on the lovely Devon coast, lingering between life and death. The unfriendly, interfering attitude of my mother-in-law, the icy indifference shown me by “Cedie” and Momma’s contentious ways had all but broken my poor sanity.

  The only thing that got me back on my feet was a letter from Momma, postmarked “London.” In it she said that she was coming to spend the Christmas holidays with me and that “Cedie” had welcomed Mum into the Park Lane house where she was acting as hostess in my place!

  I had neither the time nor the patience to wait for the next train to London. Instead I hired a car and arrived in Park Lane in the middle of the night. Just as I had feared, Mum had “taken over” completely. She was even sleeping in my bedroom and had had the effrontery to remove the etched mirrors from the ceiling and to have disposed of my unique golden swan bed, my glass furniture and the magnificent portrait of me painted by that great Irish master, James Reynolds. She had replaced my exquisite things with her ugly old Queen Anne furniture which I had long ago consigned to the servants’ quarters. As she was senile, demented and quite lame in the bargain, I could forgive her childish spite, her pathological jealousy of me. But I could never condone her wanton destruction of so much beauty.

  However, the changes Mum had wrought in the house were as nothing compared to the “job” she had done on my husband. Never overly warm, “Cedie” was now cold to the point of ignoring me entirely and, when I told him that either Mum or I must go, he said merely, “Shall I have your maid commence packing?” I was too furious even to dignify his rude remark with any sort of rejoinder.

  And so all of us dwelt in acute disharmony in both houses. Even if I do say so myself, Momma is a lady and a living example that “breeding will tell.” Once “Cedie” put her on a comfortable allowance, so that she could come and go with some measure of ease, she made very little trouble and was away from England more often than she was in it. Through one of the footmen, she had met a very attractive Swedish gymnast and spent a good deal of time sight-seeing on the Scandinavian peninsula.

  I, however, remained, truly “a bird in a gilded cage.” Shunned by “Cedie” and his Mum, I did not fare too badly in London for I had a multitude of stimulating and socially prominent friends, but life in the country was almost unendurable. Left to my own devices, I did my best to make friends throughout the countryside—not with the stuffy rural “gentry” whom “Cedie” and Mum cultivated, but with the real people. As mistress of a large retinue of servants, I tried to democratize my staff, starting with the young footmen. But I could not get over the haunting feeling that I was being “watched.” No sooner would I get into a jolly conversation with one of them than Fidgets, the butler, would appear and order the unfortunate youth to perform some irksome task in a remote part of the manor house. Or, even worse, we would hear Mum stomping through the echoing corridors on her cane (later crutches, although I still believe that her limping was simply a “grandstand play” for “Cedie’s” sympathy) and the terrified young man would flee, leaving me to endure a long, unpleasant interview with my mother-in-law.

  At other times, dressed in my prettiest, I would drive to “The Tooth and Nail,” the “pub” in our village of Baughdie Close, and strike up conversations with some of the local men. They were a brawny, good-natured lot, never at want for a salty joke or a friendly wink. But sooner or later Mum’s big, black Rolls-Royce would appear in the village High Street and, with some transparent excuse about matching thread at the draper’s opposite, she would again be spying on me.

  A typical evening with “Cedie” —the library at Baughdie house

  So much for my days. The nights were totally unbearable. Shortly after dinner in the great cavernous dining room—simply made for gay banquets, but gloomy and oppressive when dining à trois—Mum would hobble off to her bedroom (she had entirely abandoned the dower house since the roof caved in) and leave “Cedie” and me sitting morosely in the vast library, where he would read his own privately printed volumes of poetry and I would attempt vainly to amuse myself. The lovely Jacobean combination cocktail cabinet and gramophone, which I had ordered from Heal’s, was perennially “out of” needles and my new wireless always seemed to be “on the blink.” (Sabotaged, of course.) At ten o’clock “Cedie” would mutter “Good night” and go to his bedroom next to Mum’s, at the farthest end of the house from mine. Such was “life” at Baughdie House. I didn’t blame Momma for staying away.

  The climax of many, many months of tension came at Mum’s eightieth birthday. In honor of the “great” event, a ball was to be given for “the whole countryside.” Lady Bronwyn Haggis, an “arty” cousin on Mum’s side of the family, suggested that it might be more fun if it were a masquerade ball with all the guests dressed as distinguished members of the Baughdie family. This, Cousin Bronwyn said, would please Mum especially as she was such a “demon” on genealogy and had such pride in the family history. It didn’t sound like a very festive evening to me, but at least there would be someone else in the house that night besides “Cedie” with his poetry and Mum with her crutch.

  About that time I noticed that the dampness and the smoke from all the fireplaces in Baughdie House were beginning to make my jewelry look extremely dull and I decided to have the famous Baughdie Diamonds cleaned. But instead of sending them to a jeweler in London, I took them myself to a little shop in nearby Hemel Hempstead—anything to get away from Baughdie House, even if just for a “breather.” The man in the small jeweler’s shop admired these historic gems inordinately and, while they were being “freshened up,” told me an interesting story about their origin. It seems that Charles II, a dead king with an unmanageable page boy bob, had been enamoured of a young actress known as Barbara Bulbous, the “Bawd of Backshot Street.” She had given him an illegitimate son and, in return, King Charles had given her the famous diamonds and had granted the boy, Barstead, the title of Earl of Baughdie. “What could be more historical,” I asked myself, “than for the present Countess of Baughdie, and owner of the famous Baughdie Diamonds, to go to the
party attired as the founder of the family fortunes?”

  After doing a great deal of research, I happened upon a picture of Barbara Bulbous as she had appeared in a sylvan masque written especially for Charles’s fiftieth birthday. There she was, a statuesque blonde like little me, wearing the very diamonds that were mine and dressed as Aphrodite, a Greek goddess of Love.

  On the evening of the party I made a careful toilette and waited until all of the guests had assembled before making my “grand entrance.” Their costumes did not seem very original or exciting to me. “Cedie” was dressed as Lord Pughtred Baughdie, the sixth Earl, and Mum appeared as the death mask of his wife, Lady Fistula Baughdie. Watching from the top of the stair-case, I felt certain that my costume would cause a sensation, but I had no idea that it would create a scandal.

  I pay my respects to another great actress

  With the Dowager Countess of Baughdie—pour le sport

  Just as I descended the stairs, there was a roll of drums and a man’s voice called out, “We will now unmask.” At that moment I appeared and announced in the loud clear tones which I had mastered in my early elocution lessons that I was “Barbara Bulbous, the Bawd of Backshot Street” and founder of the family.

  Mum toppled over with a crash—and once again it was only to get attention. But this time she was well repaid for her trouble as “Cedie” fell right on top of her and the impact broke the old lady’s good leg. There was no question about it. I was awarded first prize. The next morning I received a very sarcastic note from “Cedie” suggesting that “it might be better” if I were to “move to the house in London” while he “nursed” his “poor, long-suffering Mother” back to health “free from distracting influences.” As Momma and her friend, Bengt, had just returned from the calisthenics festival in Stockholm, I was delighted.

  About that time Momma “got it into her head” that she, too, would like to be presented at court. As the Countess of Baughdie, it was up to me to “launch” her, and I thought—and rightly—that this might “take some doing.” However, I was honestly able to say that Momma had never been divorced and, as quite a lot of other American ladies were also being presented around that time (1928), I was able to slip Momma in without too much trouble.

  Momma was thrilled and, even in my depression, I was able to derive some vicarious pleasure from her childlike joy. She had chosen presentation dresses in every color except white, which she disliked, and was happily telephoning Malcolm Arbuthnot and Bertram Park for “sittings” so that this great occasion could be photographed. But I had become heartsick and despondent at the “turn” my marriage was taking. The hollow grandeur of life in London Society—the false friends and empty decorum—had made me blasé and jaded. Despite Momma’s nagging and goading, I held off until the last possible moment before ordering my dress for Momma’s “big night.”

  Momma at the Court of St. James’s—1928

  But, being a loyal daughter, I put on a “brave face,” got into my white Rolls-Royce town brougham and asked to be driven to Worth’s. (I might explain here that each member of the family had Rolls-Royces in his or her own individual color to “keep them straight.” Mum’s particular Rolls-Royces were always black, “Cedie” chose dark blue, fun-loving Momma’s “Rolly-Polly,” as she called it—stingy “Cedie” had allowed her only one!—was “fire engine” red and my cars were all snow white, so that I could find them in the fog.) As I was about to enter the House of Worth, an attractive older stranger tipped his hat and said, “Belle! I’d know you anywhere.”

  “I beg your pardon,” I said with dignity. “Many people know me, for I am the Countess of Baughdie. But I am afraid that I do not recognize you, sir.”

  “Perhaps, then,” he said, “this will refresh your memory.” He handed me a small white pasteboard object which I took to be a visiting card. I whipped out my lorgnette to scrutinize his face when my eye fell upon the “visiting card.” I stepped back with a start. “Mr. Musgrove!” I gasped.

  It was not a visiting card at all, but a “still” picture developed from the horrid cinema in which I had innocently appeared with the notorious Houlighan brothers so many years ago.

  “I am no longer connected with photography,” Mr. Musgrove said in an odious, “oily” way. “I am now an art dealer and I have in my hotel room, Lady Baughdie, many pictures which I feel certain you would be interested in buying. I am stopping at a small private hotel not far from Soho Square, your ladyship.”—Oh! The sardonic way in which he said that!—“Shall we take your car or walk?” Before I could answer I was once again in the rear of my “Rolls” with Mr. Musgrove’s heavy hand on my thigh.

  The true story of what happened in his squalid hotel room on that afternoon, which will live in infamy, has never been told. The journalists, always on the “lookout” for a sensational “scoop” involving the aristocracy, have distorted the facts and dragged my good name through the mud to such an extent that even I am not now quite sure of what did happen. However, I will tell, for the first time, the real story of what occurred with Mr. Musgrove and how certain unscrupulous people were able to twist it into a sordid and scandalous event.

  I went to Mr. Musgrove’s room and sat on the only chair there while he showed me hundreds of “stills” in all sizes—some of them hand tinted, and not very artistically, at that—and then told me that if I did not give him an outrageous sum of money, he would flood the market with them and my career as undisputed social leader of England would be forever ended. At the very thought of the horrendous scandal this would create, I swooned dead away. (Bear in mind, please, that I had been under tremendous emotional strain for the past year and more.) I “came to” only at the loud sound of pounding on the door. When I did so, I discovered that I was disrobed and in bed. Mr. Musgrove bounded for the cupboard, but it was too late. There was a blinding flash of light and there stood “Cedie” and Mum. Pointing his finger at me, “Cedie” said “Jack Hughes!”

  “His name isn’t Jack Hughes,” I replied. “It’s George Musgrove.” Then I fainted again.

  Naturally the court would not believe my simple story. I was branded as déclassé and by March 1929—just four months later—I had been divorced by Cedric, the Tenth Earl of Baughdie. Imagine! He was not even gentleman enough to let me divorce him! The press had a “Roman holiday” besmirching my good name and digging up trivial facts from my past which, when printed out of context, were damning out of all proportion. After all I had done for England, the judge was merciless with me. I was left with only my clothes, although I had had the foresight to send Momma across the Channel with my jewels. If my readers can believe it, “Cedie” was even caddish enough to demand back the Baughdie Diamonds, saying that they were “heirlooms” and not my property at all!

  Penniless, I was even forced to sell a few things to get together my fare back to America. On the first of April 1929 I set sail—heavily disguised—for “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” I had with me just ten dollars, twenty-six pieces of luggage, some other sentimental mementoes and the strong resolve in my heart never again to set foot on English soil.

  Standing at the rail, watching the shores of Great Britain recede, I felt as “blue” as indigo. A tear slid down my cheek just as another woman, also heavily veiled, thrust a crudely wrapped package into my hand. “Here’s the ice, honey,” she said.

  “Momma!” I cried.

  “Not so loud,” Momma said. “You’re not officially out of England yet.”

  “Oh, Momma,” I sighed, “I feel so terrible. I’ve disgraced you. Here I stand, a fallen woman. The first divorcée in the family.”

  But good old Momma had a ready answer at hand. “That’s only natural, honey,” she said. “You’re the first one of us ever to have been married.”

  With that she was off, and I watched this game American gentlewoman gaily clambering down the ladder to go back to shore with the pilot.

  Feeling a little better, I put on the Baughdie necklace,
the tiara, the bracelets and one or two other baubles and walked bravely into the first-class bar for a bracing “Sidecar.”

  I become Mrs. Morris Buchsbaum in a simple ceremony at sea

  CHAPTER NINE

  CALIFORNIA, HERE I COME!

  1929

  I sail steerage • Class discrimination • Intolerable conditions in steerage • The Sofa Brothers

  A rude purser • Morris Buchsbaum the Hollywood producer • A strange mix-up of staterooms • I become

  Mrs. Morris Buchsbaum in a simple ceremony at sea • New York and shopping • California, here I come!

  ALL OF MY LIFE—ever since infancy when the lonely whistle of the old Rock Island Line served as my “lullabye”—the very word “travel” has spelled “magic” for little me. I am never so happy as when boarding a train, a plane, an ocean liner, a yacht or just a simple limousine. My pulse quickens with the hustle and bustle, the whistles, the throb of motors, the hiss of steam, the very thought of new faces, new places, new worlds to conquer. I find travel a challenge and, with little me, the answer to the challenge is always “Yes!”

  Disgraced, dishonored and dismissed I may have been by the “stuffy” standards of Cedric, his vicious old mother and their cruel coterie, but I still had my youth, my good name, my wardrobe, the Baughdie Diamonds and a new life to live in the good old U.S.A. Finishing my third “Sidecar,” I began to feel much better. How thrilled I was to be going places, doing things in the company of gay, urbane people. I smiled at the lone, older gentleman who was sipping a Moxie at the next table. As I had not yet inspected my accommodations, I looked, in vain, for the waiter to present my bill. He was nowhere to be seen. “I shall simply settle with him later,” I said to myself. Leaving the bar, I sought the route that would take me to my stateroom in a section known as “steerage” and deserted the quiet and comfort of first class. First class! Never, no matter how rich or how poor I may have been, had I ever travelled any other way! Even as a little girl, on the many short trips I took with Mr. Caruthers, from Venezuela to Ottawa, we always went by Parlor Car (and occasionally in a Compartment). As a result of my desperation to quit England, and of the sheltered life which I had always led, I had naïvely ordered the cheapest possible accommodation aboard the Euremic, little wotting that there could be such worlds of difference between “A” Deck and that pestilential hole below the water line called “steerage.” What a shock! I could scarcely believe my eyes—or my nose! Instead of a trim cabin for one or even two—for I am a democratic person and should never have objected to sharing quarters with another lady of refinement from my own walk of life—I found a sprawling, brawling mass of humanity spilling out from tiers and tiers of crude “bunks.” Steerage was not, as I had expected, a group of less expensive staterooms for the indigent voyager, but instead, one vast dormitory shared by men, women, children—even animals—alike!