THE DAYS I KNEW
Published by Arrowhead Classics Publishing
In Association with Panoply Publications
Los Angeles, California • Newcastle, California
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ISBN (13): 978-1-886571-37-2
ISBN (10): 1-886571-37-6
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By
LILLIE LANGTRY
(LADY DE BATHE)
With a Foreword by
RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
Table of Contents
Chapter 3 Sitting for Painters
Chapter 6 Presented to the Queen
Chapter 8 Convivial Gatherings
Chapter 10 Young and Optimistic
Chapter 11 An Interest in Drama
Chapter 12 New World Opportunities
Chapter 13 Suitable Investments
Chapter 14 A Return to England
Chapter 16 A Propitious Moment
Chapter 17 A Victim of Circumstances
PROLOGUE
If Lillie Langtry had put an exclamation point after the title of her autobiography it still wouldn’t have done justice to the extraordinary life this beautiful lady led. But, typical of the dignified Mrs. Langtry, she chose not to sensationalize her life story with a title that could have been, deservedly, much more provocative. Instead, she chose to title her book, simply, “The Days I Knew.” But what days they were! Filled with enough events and personalities to make Lillie Langtry not only one of the most fascinating women of the Victorian Edwardian eras, but of all times, her autobiography is as compelling as was her event filled life.
Lillie had it all. Beauty, brains, charm, business acumen. If she had lived in the 21st century she would easily have qualified as one of the most well known women of modern times. As it was, she created a sensation from the moment she settled in London as the young bride of Edward Langtry. She was soon the most sought after “professional beauty” of London’s top artists and photographers. She became close friends with Oscar Wilde and much of London’s literati. And she soon was the acknowledged mistress of Prince Albert Edward, Queen Victoria’s son and the future King Edward VII of Great Britain.
But that’s just the beginning. Lillie Langtry’s story is so engrossing that it’s hard to believe one woman could have had such a full life, but that she did. A list of Lillie’s close friends and acquaintances would read like a who’s who. Not only did she know kings and queens and presidents and prime ministers, but such diverse personages from Judge Roy Bean, who claimed to have named a town in Texas after her, to Rudyard Kipling, to name just a few.
Despite having no stage training at all, Lillie decided to become an actress and in no time she was the most popular and successful performer in the world. She owned a theater in London, land in California, and some of the top race horses in England. She was probably the first person to be used in product endorsement advertising and she was the darling of what today is called the tabloid press. She was admired and mobbed by fans all over the world, much like today’s rock stars and actors. While Lillie has been portrayed in two motion pictures dealing with Judge Roy Bean, it is understandable why there have never been any movies made entirely about her. There’s just too much to tell in the approximately two hours usually allotted to feature films. But, to its credit, Masterpiece Theater produced a series on the fabulous lady in 1978 and needed 13 hours to do her story justice.
Now it’s time to let Lillie tell it herself. As Richard Le Gallienne says in his foreword, she does it with aplomb and humor. History owes a big thanks to this enchanting woman for taking the time and effort to tell us about the marvelous days she knew.
FOREWORD
Of all forms of fame that of Beauty is the greatest, in that it is the simplest, for it is not the fame of achievement, of which one can trace the beginnings and follow the development, but it is the fame of a miracle. It is man’s wonder at a perfect thing suddenly before his eyes, he knows not how. It is his adoration of a mystery—for beauty belongs to the supernatural. In this way the fame of Helen of Troy is in its essence greater, because stranger, than that of Homer, for the greatest poet is still a man, but a beautiful woman is something more than a woman. She belongs with such marvels as the moon and the sea.
To have been the representative of Beauty in one’s own time, its very symbol, is a peculiarly aristocratic form of immortality. It is nearest to the fame of the gods. It is like being some immortal statue, as though one should be the Venus de Milo in real life. Such fame is at once the most ancient and the most romantic, and such fame has been Mrs. Langtry’s all her days.
Born into an age of great symbolic personalities, as Tennyson meant poetry, Mr. Gladstone politics, Sarah Bernhardt and Henry Irving the stage, Mrs. Langtry, the “lily” that suddenly flowered in Jersey, meant Beauty personified; and almost instantly she meant that, not only for London drawing rooms, but for the whole world. For backwoodsmen in America, as well as for poets and painters in England, “the Jersey Lily” became immediately the current symbol of the loveliness of woman.
Not since the lily of the valley in Solomon’s Songs has any lily in life or literature won so universal a fame. There were other women famous for their beauty when hers came to bloom, women to whom she pays self forgetful tribute in the following pages, but there was not one whose beauty had that quality of universality which made hers a beauty, not for England alone, but, so to say, Beauty Internationalised. And still her name means just that.
It must be a very strange thing to know oneself the most beautiful woman in the world. Many women, doubtless, think themselves that, but to know it by every form of testimony and tribute, from kings to cowboys, to have been mobbed, almost crushed to death, on account of it, to have seen it written in letters of fire upon the sky, to have had towns named after you because of your beauty: here is evidence that would bring conviction to the least vain of women — and that Mrs. Langtry is as near being that as any woman can humanly be who has thus had the world a: her feet her book very attractively reveals.
That she should be conscious of her own significance in the history of j her time is to be expected. For her to ignore it would be the most tasteless of affectations. It would be like the British Museum pretending not to know that it is the British Museum. Her book would have no raison d’etre otherwise, and indeed one of its great charms is the simple way in which she accepts the fame of her beauty as a fact — but a fact she is able to write of with a remarkable detachment, in the same spirit of wonder that should be happening to her as overcame her when, a young girl from Jersey, with but one frock, she suddenly found herself the bewildered idol of London fashionable society.
The history of that one frock is one of her most charming chapter told with that humour which is the salt of her autobiography, a quality rare indeed in modern autobiographies — for it was evident, too, from the beginning that, in Meredith’s phrase,
This golden head has wit in it.
. . she has that rare gift
To beauty, Common Sense.
This endowment of character is seconded by the cleverness of a pen which many professional writers might envy. The lightness of its touch throughout would make any subject matter attractive, and its skill is particularly notable in the way it conveys the atmosphere and tone of the various worlds Mrs. Langtry has moved in: the romantic charm of her account of her girlhood days in Jersey, with its skillfully woven references to the picturesque history and customs of the Channel Islands, with their pride of Norman blood to this day; the gay devilmecarishness of London’s smart set, with something still as feudal Olympians, with all their modern sophistication; the worlds of politicians and financiers; the worlds of Ascot and Cowes; the world of writers, painters, and wits; the world of the stage; and last, but not least understandingly, the world of America, all its sides from Fifth Avenue to — Langtry, Texas; that little town with its population of devoted cowboys, on the very edge of Mexico, “down there by the Rio Grande.”
I venture to say that among all her trophies Mrs. Langtry values none so much as “Roy Bean’s revolver,” Roy Bean having been the founder of her town. Some years before this relic came into her possession Roy Bean had invited her to visit Langtry. This she was unable to do at that time, but in sending her regrets Mrs. Langtry offered to present an ornamental drinking fountain to the town as a token of her appreciation. But came Roy Bean’s quick reply that “it would be quite useless, as the only thing the citizens of Langtry did not drink was water.” Years afterwards, however, when Roy Bean had handed in his checks, she did visit the town, and she gives a charming, and rather touching, account of her reception from its romantic, gallant inhabitants.
It is delightful to think of her “trudging through the sagebrush and cactus” to “the Jersey Lily Saloon,” where her dead admirer had administered justice at the point of the revolver which was afterwards presented to her with this inscription: “Presented by W. H. Dodd, of Langtry, Texas, to Mrs. Lillie Langtry, in honour of her visit to our town. This pistol was formerly the property of Judge Roy Bean. It aided him in finding some of his famous decisions and keeping order west of the Pecos River. It also kept order in the Jersey Lily Saloon. Kindly accept this as a small token of our regards.”
I am sure that Mrs. Langtry will agree with me that it was thus reserved for America to pay her the most tremendous, romantic, and touching compliment of her career.
To have been painted by Millais and all the great painters of her time must, of course, have been gratifying, but what portrait at the Royal Academy could compare with Roy Bean’s revolver!
To have had Judge Roy Bean at her feet, to have had Oscar Wilde sleeping on her doorstep—so that Mr. Langtry, returning home, stumbled over his prostrate form—to have drawn the sting of Whistler’s waspish butterfly, and to have had the austere Mr. Gladstone for one of her admiring intimates, sometimes reading Shakespeare to her, sometimes bringing her books, sometimes giving her good advice (as for instance: “In your professional career, you will receive attacks, personal and critical, just and unjust. Bear them. Never reply and, above all, never rush into print to explain or defend yourself)—this surely is an astonishing gamut of fame. And to tell of it all so gaily, at once with a girlish enjoyment and gratitude, and the aplomb of a woman of the great world, is a rare achievement indeed. Never was Beauty Enthroned so comradely human, so rippling with fun, and so wittily alert for all the humour of the multicoloured scene, in which she has been called to play so distinguished a part.
It is such a book as Helen of Troy might have written, with a laughing eye on Achilles, Agamemnon, and the other heroes of her disastrous face —if only she had possessed Mrs. Langtry’s sense of humour. But if Helen had possessed humour there might have been no Trojan war. To unite beauty and humour is the paradox which Mrs. Langtry here so brilliantly achieves, in a record which is not only her own story, but the vivid picture of the Victorian Age at the height of its splendid summer.
RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
Chapter 1
My names are really Emilie Charlotte –– both dreadful, to my way of thinking –– but, happily, perhaps on account of my skin being unusually white, I was nicknamed “Lillie” very early in life, and that sobriquet has clung to me ever since. An only daughter, with six brothers, named respectively Frank, William, Trevor, Maurice, Clement, and Reginald, I ranked the youngest but one, coming between the last two mentioned. My mother was a Miss Martin, whom my father met, fell in love with, and married during his incumbency of St. Olave’s, Southwark, London. At the age of thirty–four, my father, William Corbet Le Breton, became Dean of Jersey, which was destined to be my birthplace.
The appointment had been offered him as soon as it became vacant, but he was then only twenty–nine, and, acting on the advice of his father, who thought him too young for so serious a responsibility, he preferred to remain for a further period in the curacy of St. Olave’s. When, five years later, the deanship was bestowed on him, he left London for the island of his birth (with his wife and four elder children), and of which he remained dean until his death in 1888. On leaving St. Olave’s, his parishioners presented him with a silver salver lengthily inscribed, one portion of the inscription alluding to his zeal and solicitous care for the poor “whereby he has endeared himself to all who knew him.”
My father was educated at Winchester, at that time a week’s journey from Jersey, yet the nearest Public School of note. There, as a junior, he was fag to Lord Selborne, who, I believe, once rapped him unmercifully over the head with a frying–pan for not cooking his bacon properly, so I imagine the culinary art was not one of his minor accomplishments. His room–mates at Winchester were Cardwell, Lowe, and Roundell Palmer, who afterwards oddly enough became Ministers in the same Cabinet. From Winchester he went to Oxford, where he became scholar of Pembroke and fellow of Exeter. He was a remarkably handsome man, and widely adored for his geniality and charm of disposition.
His hair turned white at a very early age. Indeed, I never remember it otherwise. His eyes very blue, looked one through and through. He was over six feet in height, of rather ruddy complexion and majestic bearing, a characteristic which he retained throughout his life. I feel I cannot close this description of my Very Reverend father without a frivolous reference to his well–modelled limbs, which were vastly admired in the Island and certainly did credit to the silk stocking he wore as a dean. Perhaps the following anecdote will convey a better idea of his appearance than anything I can say.
At one of Queen Victoria’s levees attended by my father, General Sir John Pennefather, who, I have heard, was known in military circles as “Sir Damnsetey Curesgy,” presumably on account of his frequent strong language, was also present, and, after regarding the dean attentively for some moments, walked up to him and said, “Do you know, sir, that when you joined the Church, there was a deuced fine sergeant–major spoilt!”
Notwithstanding Sir John’s words, I am convinced that the Stage suffered a greater loss than the Army, for my father had the true histrionic gift, and his dramatic talent would have undoubtedly made him a fine actor. He had an extraordinarily retentive memory, which he trained so assiduously in learning by heart a certain amount of poetry every day that it became a difficult matter to find any English or Latin verse which he could not recite verbatim on the instant it was suggested.
My mother was petite and lovely, with blue eyes, a perfect skin and complexion, regular features, curling auburn hair, and the most fascinating smile. Her girlhood was passed at Chelsea, of which parish the father of Charles Kingsley, author of Water Babies and Hypatia, was rector, and she lived with her widowed mother in close vicinity to the rectory. The families were very intimate, and I know that Charles Kingsley, later in life, described her to one of my brothers as the most bewitchingly beautiful creature he had ever seen. One of the Kingsley brothers wanted to marry her, Henry, I think, who was more her own age.
I have in my possession a book of extracts from the works of various poets, selected for her by Charles Kingsley, so she must have liked poetry as well as music. Being also extremely fond of an open–air life, she rode, drove, and walked a great deal, devoting much of her time to gardening, for she had a passion for flowers and unusual taste in grouping them. Probably it was the healthy life she led which enabled her to retain much of her beauty to the end of her long life of eighty–two years. My mother was very fond of animals and birds, and an incident connected with two of her dumb friends occurs to me.
She had a greyhound called “Hawk,” and for a year or two a seagull, which she had found on the seashore with a broken pinion, divided favour with him. She brought Jacko, the seagull, home, mended him up, and he became persona grata at the deanery. Finally, presuming on his popularity, he made short work of a brood of tame young partridges. My mother, in a spirit of justice, tapped him with her riding whip, whereupon Jacko arose in his wrath and sailed away. Twelve months later, while picnicking on the rocks, a gull alighted and began disputing a bone with the dog. It was Jacko! The bird remained during the meal, helping himself to tid–bits from my mother’s plate as he used to do. He seemed well pleased to be with us again but I suppose he liked his liberty better, for, when we moved, he took wing to rejoin his companions.
And now, having introduced my family, let me say something about my birthplace, an island which lies some sixteen miles distant from the old province of Normandy, and where many quaint customs survive, and a terra incognita, I am sure, to a great many people. As a matter of fact, it is surprising to find how little the average Briton knows of Jersey. To him, it is generally no more than an unimportant speck on the map, and even upon its exact location he is very hazy indeed.
He also seems quite uncertain as to whether its inhabitants are English or French, so I may say at once that they are pure Norman, the Channel Islands being all that remain of the old Duchy of Normandy which conquered England, and to this day we acknowledge only the sovereignty of the Duke of Normandy, as was shown to be the case in the recent visit of King George V, to Jersey. We are not descendants of the English as the Canadians and Australians are, nor can we be considered as a British Colony, seeing that by ancient charter we are a self–governing political unit. Certain duties devolve upon the seigneurs in connection with the reception of their Sovereign Duke, one of which consists of riding into the sea up to the horses’ saddle girths to meet him.
We have our own jurisdiction as well as our own assembly, or local parliament. This assembly, or States, as it is termed in Jersey, consists of the lieutenant–governor, bailiff (the civil head), the dean (ecclesiastical head), twelve jurats (aldermen), twelve rectors, twelve connectables (constables), and fourteen deputies. It also includes the crown officers, who are allowed to speak, but not to vote.
The official language of the States, and, indeed, of the churches and law courts, is French, and we natives also speak a patois which so nearly resembles the Norman patois of the present day that, when travelling in Normandy recently, I found little difficulty in making myself intelligible to the peasants.
The law of Jersey still continues full of picturesque and feudal customs. One of the most curious of these sanctioned survivals is the clameur de Haro (the outcry of Haro). Although long since abolished in Normandy, the clameur may still be raised by any Jerseyman who thinks his rights are challenged or his property threatened. If he wishes to avail himself of this ancient form of protection, he falls upon his knees and, in the presence of two witnesses, cries aloud three times: “Haro! Haro! Haro! A l’aide, mon prince, on me fait tort!” (Haro! Haro! Haro! Help, help, my prince! I am being wronged!”)
This invocation stays any proceedings on the part of the supposed or real oppressor until the case comes before the court, and, as that local body has a tantalising method of pigeon–holing cases au greffe (in the registry office) –– in other words, of postponing them indefinitely –– it is apt to result in no benefit to either of the belligerents. The “Haro” appealed to is Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy, and I once saw the clameur put into practice myself.
Viscount Ranelagh, years ago, bought a pretty bungalow overlooking one of the bays and divided by a narrow lane from a Jerseyman’s farm. Finding this passage in bad condition, and regarding it as a joint possession, he magnanimously commenced to improve it, but to this the Jerseyman offered violent opposition, claiming the lane as part of his own property. He preferred it with its deep cart–ruts, and, as often as Lord Tanelagh filled them up, the Jerseyman redug them, finally outwitting the Englishman by digging a deep trench across the debated road during the night. In the morning, falling on his knees, he raised the clameur de Haro, and thus made reprisals impossible. Probably the chasm remains to this day, though both disputants have long been in their graves.
The Island of Jersey is studded with old, grey–stone manor houses, which carry with them the title of seigneur. Many curious rents were exacted by the seigneurs in olden days, one being the picturesque payment of a chaplet of roses on St. John’s Day. Another still more airy one is chronicled in an old book as having been paid on pain of imprisonment, viz., a dozen butterflies. What a dainty tribute! Many of these singular tithes still exist, and even now Sieur Le Breton has every year to pay four shillings and threepence, the equivalent of a cartload of ashes while another family pays four shillings and sixpence a year in lieu of the presentation of eighty eels.
Jersey enjoys the benefit of the Gulf Stream, and therefore the climate is so mild that ixias, camellias, palms, and geraniums flourish in the open air throughout the winter. The sky is intensely blue and the sea more violet than the Mediterranean. Indeed, with its indented shores fashioned by nature into numberless small and beautiful bays with their stretches of golden sand, its country lanes with their high hedges topped by green aisles of arching trees, its apple orchards, its soft–eyed cattle browsing knee–deep in cool green valleys through which brooklets of clear water wander, and the comely milkmaids in native costume, the little Isle is certainly most attractive.
Of the smaller islands of the group, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm, and Jethou, I know very little, except for a passing visit. Guernsey is the next most important in point of size, but its scenic features have rather diminished owing to the numerous and prosaic glass–houses erected by the farmers in order to supply the London market with early vegetables and grapes. Alderney is practically a military post. Herm and Jethou, which lie opposite St. Peter Port, the town of Guernsey, belonged until the war to Prince Blucher, and are merely islets, but Sark is ideally romantic and picturesque. Still, as the inhabitants of each are clannish, keeping aloof from each other and very seldom intermarrying, I hope, as a Jersey woman, to be forgiven if I seem prejudiced in favour of my own little “country.”
Both Guernsey and Jersey have really unique glass–covered markets. Ours is positively palatial, with a fountain playing in the central hall, about which stalls of flowers and fruit form a tempting display, and where women in their quaint Jersey sunbonnets sit around in the midst of their “cabot” baskets laden with home–made butter and home–grown vegetables. On Saturdays the world and his wife meet here, and no woman, whatever her position, feels it infra dig. to do her own marketing and bargaining with the pleasant–mannered, dignified country folk.
The genealogy of many of the Jersey families can be traced back an extraordinarily long way. My remote ancestors were seigneurs of Noirmont, a very picturesquely situated manor on the seashore, and one of them was among the Jerseymen who followed William the Conqueror and fought in the Battle of Hastings. He figures in the Bayeux tapestry, and this fact incited me recently to inspect the famous fabric for the purpose of tracing in the features of this distinguished person a resemblance to myself, but the result was not very satisfactory. He also seems to have had some dispute regarding the boundary of the seigneurie, and took his grievance to Rouen, Normandy, where the facts were chronicled in the archives of that ancient city.
Another Le Breton was a bishop under Edward I, and in the same king’s reign the family contributed a Judge Le Breton, who seems to have run through his money and to have become so hard–up that the king graciously presented him with his robes. I only hope he served His Majesty especially well in consequence.
But my favourite here is Raoul Le Breton, a man after my own heart, an adventurous spirit, who, in King John’s reign, fought his way up the Seine, with five hundred retainers, to take Paris. I love Raoul for his pluck and enterprise, and I cordially endorse his taste in desiring to possess so fascinating a city. He pushed his way to the very gates of the citadel, but, needless to say, his ambitious designs were there checked, and he and his bold followers captured. I am bound to add the deplorable fact that Seigneur Raoul is insultingly referred to in French histories as “The Channel Islands Pirate.” I think it may have been this same Le Breton who gave a service of communion plate to the Church of St. Brelade’s, where, I hope, it is still preserved. Possibly this gift was intended as an atonement for his piratical misdeeds.
These appear to be the more interesting of my progenitors, and the only ones about whom I remember details; though a shameful Le Breton helped to murder Thomas a Becket, and another fought gallantly under Lord Howe and was one of the bearers of the news of victory. The latter died of his wounds, and is buried at Salisbury in the Church of St. Thomas. Yet another ancestor was the first Bishop of Ely.
To come to later days, a great–uncle of mine, Sir Thomas Le Breton, was a distinguished scholar who received the Odyssey and the Iliad of Homer as a prize for the best Latin poem at Oxford. These books always found a place in my father’s library at Jersey, and I have heard the latter say that the presentation to Sir Thomas was made by Dr. Johnson, who wrote in them: “Spartam quam nectus es ornati,” which I suppose may be freely translated by: “You adorn the country of your adoption.” He must have been a handsome man, if Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of him does not flatter; and he was, perhaps, the last sitter to the great painter, who had by that time given up work.
It happened thus. As bailiff of the Island, Sir Thomas Le Breton had made the then long and arduous journey to London to defend the threatened rights of the Jersey States. This he was successful in doing, and his grateful country not only subscribed for and presented him with a very finely modelled silver epergne, but begged him in addition to take the opportunity of having his features perpetuated by Sir Thomas Lawrence, the greatest painter of his day. He called for the purpose on the master, only to be told by him that he had retired, but an interested scrutiny of my great–uncle’s appearance must have impressed Lawrence, for he exclaimed, “Damme, you are such a handsome fellow I’ll paint your portrait, nevertheless!”
The old rectory of St. Saviour’s (familiarly known during my father’s incumbency as the “deanery”) snuggled comfortably at the bottom of a hilly lane leading from the parish main road. It was built of the grey granite quarried in the Island, and occupied three sides of a square; two sides were covered by the dwelling; the third, forming the large courtyard, being given over to a row of buildings used in olden days for the home–manufacture of cider. The making of this mild beverage had long been discontinued, but the great stone wheel for the crushing of the apples, together with the huge stone troughs, vats, and other primitive appliances, still remained, while a dovecote, symbolical of the rector’s calling, stood in the courtyard.
A portion of the house proper bore the date of 1100, cut in a coping– stone, but the original building had evidently been added to from time to time. Its fact was almost entirely covered with climbing roses –– red, white, pink, blush, and (to me most beautiful of all) the single damask. Underlying these were cherry and pear trees of great age, the blossoms of which in spring–time mingled with the roses in delicious disorder. Climbing to my own bedroom window, and gracefully framing it, was an immense white jessamine, warring for existence with a vigorous climbing deep–red rose.
The large, high–walled garden to the east was given equally to flowers and fruit, and here a fig tree –– rich, in season, with its purple yield –– reared its fertile head. To the south, a long terrace with a gently sloping lawn beyond comprised the remainder of the pleasure grounds, with evidences on all sides of my mother’s wonderful love of flowers. There was also a large portion of the glebe fields stocked with vegetables to satisfy our healthy appetites, and which at times we all helped to weed.
There were two main entrances to the rectory, the door consecrated to my mother’s use being dignified with a glass portico, always well filled with flowering plants in sharp contrast to the severely business–like entrance to my father’s study and our schoolroom. The first floor was a labyrinth of small, low rooms, with deep window–seats and many–paned casements; these rooms were divided into groups approached by separate and winding stairs. A drawing–room and dining–room, which had been added by my father, seemed almost palatial in comparison with the rest of the house.
Looking out on the slanting lawn at the rear, these rooms commanded a view of the beautiful undulating lands that are known in Jersey as “cotils.”
One wing in the deanery was set apart for the children, and there the younger of us romped, unhindered, to our heart’s content, in charge of an old, white–haired nurse named Madama Bisson, resplendent in frilled caps decorated with mauve ribbons; and I add parenthetically that I never see a certain piece of sculpture advertising a more or less familiar brand of soap without recalling instantly the dear old soul’s vigorous and wholesome methods in the discharge of her duties.
A born story–teller, she used to fill out easily excited minds with narratives of daring French invasions and bold smugglers. An especially fascinating tale had to do with one Baron de Rullecourt, who, with a handful of followers, had landed on the Island some eighty years previously with conquest in his mind, and had been ignominiously defeated by Major Pierson at the head of the military. Madame Bisson’s father had witnessed the thrilling event, and had seen my great–grandmother flee with her youthful family from the scene of conflict in the Royal Square, the skirmish having been later immortalised by the Bostonian painter, David Copley, in his picture of “The Battle of Jersey,” now in the National Gallery, London.
As may be imagined, our nurse’s stories had a very disquieting effect on childish minds, and any unusual noises at night brought us bolt upright in bed, terrified at the possible return of our French enemies. There was, of course, no danger of such a happening, but smuggling still continued, and Madame Bisson could give such real accurate accounts of the smugglers’ doings as to eventually create a suspicion that one of her sailor sons followed this particular calling.
It may be thought that, an only girl surrounded by six brothers, I was utterly spoilt. Quite the contrary, my brothers lost no opportunity during my earliest youth of impressing on me what a miserable handicap it was to be a girl, a silly creature, given to weeping on the slightest provocation, easily scared and full of qualms. So I was quick to perceive that, in order to be allowed to take part in their sports and not to be left out in the cold, I must steady my nerves, control my tears, and look at things from a boy’s point of view. Following this course, I conquered their prejudices, becoming a partner in all their games and numerous escapades, and sharing, though always in a mitigated form, the punishment meted out to the transgressors.
We kept rabbits, guinea–pigs, canaries, ferrets, and every kind of chicken. Once, forgetting to feed a pet canary, it died of starvation. Filled with the deepest remorse, as I had every reason to be, I enclosed the unfortunate bird in a night–light box and buried it with full funeral honours in a corner of the garden, inscribing on a wooden headstone over the grave, “Alas, poor Dick!” –– the quotation, I think, having been cribbed from Goldsmith. I found on a recent visit to Jersey that the grave was still carefully preserved by the present occupant of St. Saviour’s. He had also thought it worth while to remove from a window a pane of glass on which I had engraved my name with my engagement ring, and to have it framed and hung in one of the rooms. How proud I felt!
Living the life of my brothers transformed me into an incorrigible tomboy. I could climb trees and vault fences with the best of them, and I entered with infinite relish into their practical jokes. I have a lively recollection of my youngest brother and myself patrolling the old tree–shaded churchyard at midnight (when we were supposed to be in bed) mounted on stilts and draped in sheets, disquieting late passers–by very effectually. This prank continued until someone wrote to the Jersey papers, promising the ghosts of St. Saviour’s graveyard a dose of cold lead if they appeared again. We had a veritable passion for annexing door–knockers, and scarcely a door in the parish was allowed to retain one. We braved threats, dogs, enraged householders, even shotguns to obtain these trophies.
One of our chief targets was an old man named Wilkins, a retired tradesman, who lived, with his two spinster daughters, at the head of the Deanery Lane. He was patient and long–suffering, but occasionally we exasperated him beyond endurance, and he would reluctantly descend on my father with a formal complaint.
Having relieved him of his door–knocker one evening, we tied a long, strong cord to his bell, making the other end fast to a stone, which we threw over a wall opposite, with the result that everyone who passed by, either afoot, or on horseback, struck the cord, causing the old man’s bell to ring furiously. At each fresh clanging, Wilkins emerged with the promptitude of a cuckoo clock striking the hour, and hurled the most violent language at the innocent wayfarers. Finally, our audible chuckles behind the wall located the real culprits, and Wilkins preceded us to the deanery, where, after an interview with my father, fitting chastisement was inflicted on us.
About the last escapade which I remember was one in which my sex prevented me from taking an active part. A time–honoured status of an anonymous personage, wearing a wreath of laurels and a medley of garments, was salved by the Jerseyites from a Spanish ship wrecked on our shores during the reign of George II. As it seemed a pity to waste it, the Islanders labelled it “George Rex,” after the Hanoverian king, and erected it in the Royal Square of St. Heliers, where it had stood unmolested ever since, until my brothers conceived the appalling idea of tarring and feathering this royal and stony individual.
I shall never forget the tremendous and wrathful outburst which ensued when the townspeople discovered the outrage. It is an ill wind, however, which does not blow profit to some quarter, and an enterprising photographer coined money by snapping his spurious Majesty for souvenir purposes before scourers and painters had made him presentable again. Not infrequently, through our reputation for all manner of pranks, my brothers and I got the name without the game, everything mischievous that was done being attributed off–hand to the “dean’s family.”
While the tomboy element was conspicuous in me, I had my serious side as well, and would read for hours; longer sometimes than my parents thought good for me. I never went to school, and for that reason had few girl friends. A French governess laboured faithfully to impart knowledge to me, but I am afraid I was rather a handful. My brothers were all educated at Victory College (the Jersey public school), and the only real work I did was with their tutor when he came each evening to overlook the preparation of their work for the following day. He gave me a fairly good education in the classics and mathematics, which was supplemented by lessons from German, French, music and drawing masters. My father, being a remarkably clever and progressive man, believed firmly in the higher education of women.
At the age of thirteen I developed, with two girl friends, a taste for spiritualism and table–turning, and gradually, through our interesting experiences, became engrossed in it. One particular table which we used in our seances displayed such extraordinary agility, cut so many capers, and answered some of our questions so intelligently, that I began to regard myself as a medium, and to feel that I really was, as the spirits we evoked assured me, the cause of these manifestations. Even to this day table–turning fascinates and mystifies me.
Some years subsequent to my youthful experiments I discussed the subject with Victorien Sardou, the famous French dramatist, himself an ardent spiritualist, and asked him why the spirits never really enlightened me, although they were quite ready to rap our answers after I had sat for a few moments at the table. He replied that I had not pursued the matter far enough, and that I was as yet in touch only with the cuisiniers (by which I presume, he meant the underlings of the occult world). He asserted, an assertion which I did not and do not credit, that spooks may reveal themselves by showering flowers about the room and performing other seemingly impossible acts, and wound up with the sweeping statement that only fools did not believe in the supernatural.
Perhaps it was Sardou who interested Sarah Bernhardt in spiritualism, for, happening to call on her one day in Paris, I found them both sitting about a table in a darkened room in company with three or four old women, but the spirits had not been in the right mood that afternoon and nothing had occurred. In any case, there was no trickery in our table–turning, and we three girls were deadly frightened on one moonlight night to feel ourselves being dragged on a large sofa from one end of the drawing–room to the other, amid a weird rustling like the whirring of huge wings.
I grew up, my brothers also; and the boys nearly all elected to serve their Queen by land or water. (To–day of the once merry group that frolicked about St. Saviour’s, only two remain, Clement and myself.)
With my girlhood, new interests came into my life. Not a few of the parochial duties devolved upon me. Frequently, when my mother, owing to indisposition, could not accompany my father on his visits, or if, for some equally good reason, she was unable to present prizes at school and other Island functions, I served as her substitute, and also did my share in visiting the sick and distressed.
I dare say thus being put forward a little prominently had the effect of making me rather precocious. At all events, when I approached my fourteenth year, I began to think that I should be included in invitations to the pleasant picnics and small informal dances which are a feature of Jersey social life. My mother agreed with me, and, in spite of my youth, I became her companion on these occasions. Going about as I did, it was impossible not to meet people older than myself, and, before I knew it, and to my bewilderment (I was scarcely over fourteen), I received my first proposal, a very serious one, from an officer whose regiment was quartered in the Island.
He was the son of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, but he failed to find favour in my eyes. Subsequently, one or two other suitors appeared, these also without making any impression on me. Such experiences, however, had set my thoughts drifting into a new channel, and, like other girls, I began to dream of the real Prince Charming who would one day appear. In a short time he came, in the person of Edward Langtry, an Irishman, about 30 years old, a widower, hailing from Belfast. His father, I might mention, was the first man to run a line of steamers from Belfast to Stranraer, and his public–spiritedness and practical interest in the welfare of the former city gained him the title of “The Father of Belfast.” His portrait, the first ever painted on commission by Millais, still hangs on the wall of the Public Library there.
At this time my brother Willie returned from India to be married. Mr. Langtry, who was well known in the Islands, and who had a large and luxurious yacht called the Red Gauntlet, gave a ball at the Jersey Yacht Club as part of the wedding festivities. It was a far more elaborate and extravagant affair than anything I had hitherto witnessed, and it electrified me. The walls were hung with quantities of flags; the supper was less sketchy than I had been accustomed to, and, to crown all, the hall and staircase were lined with sailors in their spotless white suites. To me, it was simply dazzling, and Arabian Nights’ Entertainment, and its donor instantly became in my eyes a wonder!
Then followed various cruises in the Red Gauntlet, my father accompanying me. One took us to the French coast and back. The sequel may be surmised. I thought myself desperately in love, and at the end of six weeks accepted Mr. Langtry’s proposal of marriage. Being the only daughter, my elation was not shared warmly by my father and mother. The former desired me to see more of life before I married, and the latter had set her heart on my having a London season previous to the settling of such an important matter. But the stronger the opposition, the more determinedly did I cling to my engagement, the result being that I had my way. Very early one morning I was married in St. Saviour’s Church, within whose walls many of my ancestors are commemorated by tombstones.
I elected to be married in my travelling gown, as I hated the idea of a big wedding and the conventional bridal array. My husband and I sailed away the same day in the Red Gauntlet to his yachting pied a terre, Cliffe Lodge, situated on Southampton Water. I entered eagerly with him into the sport of yachting, and we lived all that summer on board an 80–ton racing yawl called the Gertrude, going from one regatta to another to compete in sailing matches, of which we won several, the most important of these being the International Yacht Race at Havre, which the Gertrude carried off in a gale. How I enjoyed the excitement of that race, crowding on sail to the verge of danger, with a swirling spray drenching us to the skin.
Occasionally, however, yacht racing could be dull in the extreme. To roll about becalmed for hours, whistling for a breath of wind, was deadly. Once, in a big race up the Thames from the Nore to Erith, we drifted along so sluggishly that I went to bed in disgust, and though we floated past the winning post in the small hours, Mr. Langtry refrained, out of consideration of my slumbers, from firing the announcing cannon, and discovered to his consternation the next day that he had lost the prize by not doing so. The two leading vessels, of which one was the Cetonia, had become imbedded in some shoals, and the yacht arriving long after us was awarded the cup.
I need dwell no further on my life at this period. It was uneventful until I was prostrated by a severe attack of typhoid fever, which naturally laid me up for some time at Cliffe Lodge, Southampton. When I became convalescent my physician ordered a change of air, and we decided on London, a decision which later events proved to be a most momentous one. I have no idea what led us to select the great, smoky city as a sanatorium, but we arrived at Waterloo Station one murky morning in January, and, after stopping at an hotel for a day or two, took what we considered suitable apartments in a thoroughfare now known as Eaton Place.
How strange and confusing the bustle and turmoil of the greatest city in the world was to me can only be realised by those few who, like myself, had lived to the age of sixteen without ever having seen a railway train. As for my husband, an extremely shy man, who had spent his life since leaving Oxford in outdoor country sports, he felt quite like a fish out of water.
Chapter 2
To London
Soon after my arrival in London my first deep grief assailed me. By telegram I heard of my youngest brother’s death. Crushed by the young mare he was riding, he fought against his injuries for three days, only to succumb at last. And I didn’t even know of the accident. The dreadful news, so cruelly sudden; my speechless sorrow; the interminable journey to Jersey, during which I lay weeping all night; the agonist grief of my mother when we met –– all these things made me feel that life was over. I returned to London in a state of deep depression, caring little for anything.
I knew only a few English families, who, for economic or climatic reasons, had sometimes wintered in our sunny Island. Among these hibernating visitors were Lord and Lady Suffield and their children, with whom I rode after about the country lanes and knew fairly well. Perhaps the first compliment paid to a girl in her teens lingers longer in her memory than the subsequent pretty speeches that may be showered on her. Anyhow, it was Lord Suffield who, at one of those informal picnics in which Jerseyites delight, made the following remark: “Do you know, Miss Le Breton, that you are very, very beautiful? You ought to have a season in London.” I am sure no one ever so alluded to my appearance before.
Since Lord Suffield’s flattering remark had broached the subject, I may say that it is a matter of fact that Jersey has always possessed more beautiful girls than Nature usually apportions to the square mile; and, among the many I call to mind, two at least have become famous for brains as well as for good looks. Their maiden name was Sutherland, now they are respectively Elinor Glyn and Lady Duff Gordon (Lucile). They were my juniors and still in the schoolroom when I married.
After our first experience of London life we paid a visit to the Island in the yacht Hildegarde, and incidentally dined at Government House. As I deposited my cloak, and took a last survey of myself in the glass, I observed two pretty, red–headed girls named above peeping from under the muslin–covered dressing– table. How they got there I don’t know, but someone contrived this ambush to satisfy their curiosity.
Other visitors who came to avoid the English winter were the Rendleshams –– still, it seemed unlikely that the “long arm of coincidence” would bring us into contact with any of these. Indeed, neither my husband nor I remembered that we had any acquaintances in the vast city. On our return to London we passed our time as country cousins do –– walking in the Park watching for royalty to pass, for I had never set eyes on even a minor one, and in going to museums and picture galleries, seeing many interesting things that were new to me, and which, although I still felt very sad, made me feel a little more contented with life.
It must, therefore, have been the finger of Fate that, one afternoon a fortnight after my return, pointed the way to the Aquarium at Westminster. It had been newly opened, and was a popular resort at the moment, and there in the crowd we came across Lord Ranelagh, the hero of the “Haro! Haro!” episode, and his two daughters, with whom I had become friends in Jersey. They seemed very pleased to see us again, and we went down to spend a few days with them at their Fulham house, which was a convenient drive from town in those days of no motors. The suburb was still quite countrified, and Lord Ranelagh’s Sunday afternoon parties were very popular. His delightful creeper– covered mansion boasted a large fruit and vegetable garden, where grew strawberries galore.
Everyone enjoyed having tea on the mossy, tree–shaded lawn, sloping down to the Thames, and interesting people were always to be found there. Our meeting with Lord Ranelagh completely changed the current of my life, for, shortly after, through him and quite unexpectedly, we received our first invitation in London, a card for a Sunday evening at–home from Lady Sebright, a very enthusiastic amateur actress, fond of literature and art, and who loved to gather at these Sunday evening receptions men and women conspicuous on both callings, besides a purely social element.
The evening came and we rattled up to Lady Sebright’s house in Lowndes Square in a humble four–wheeler. Being, of course, in deep mourning, I wore a very simple black, square–cut gown (designed by my Jersey modiste), with no jewels –– I had none –– or ornaments of any kind, and with my hair twisted carelessly on the nape of my neck in a knot, which later became known as the “Langtry.” Very meekly I glided into the drawing–room, which was filled with a typical London crush, was presented to my hostess, and then retired shyly to a chair in a remote corner, feeling very un–smart and countrified. Fancy my surprise when I immediately became the centre of attraction, and, after a few moments, I found that quite half the people in the room seemed bent on making my acquaintance. One distinguished person after another was led up to my corner by my hostess, they in turn bringing others, till my shyness and confusion gave way to utter astonishment at finding myself singled out for such marked attention.
One of the first to be introduced was John Everett Millais, probably the most eminent English painter of the day, a native of the Island in which I was born, and who beamed in friendly enthusiasm while he claimed me as his countrywoman. He was tall and broad–shouldered; his handsome, ruddy, mobile countenance was strong rather than sensitive in character, and his swinging walk suggested the moors and the sportsman. Manly is the only word which will accurately describe the impression he made. Later, when I came to know him better, I discovered that he affected none of the eccentricities, either of dress or manner, usually ascribed to artists, that he was quite sane, and that in his working hours he did not wear a velvet jacket, but a well–worn, home– spun, belted coat, which, I am sure, had done yeoman service on his beloved Scotch moors. In a word, he was as natural as if he were not a genius.
Among other notabilities whom I met on that, to me, memorable occasion, and who afterwards became my firm friends, were James McNeill Whistler, the famous American artist (with wonderful speaking hands); Henry Irving, approaching the zenith of his fame, his star blazing brilliantly at the Lyceum; Lord Wharncliffe, made rich by finding coal on his Sheffield property and wisely spending the surplus on art collection and art encouragement; Abraham Hayward, the well–known essayist; Frank Miles, the artist; and William Yardley, an amateur actor and leading cricketer of the day.
There was a rush of cavaliers to take me down to supper, but Millais won the day, of which I was glad, for I was fearfully shy, and his gay assumption of kinsmanship made me feel more at ease with him than with others I had met that evening. He asked me to sit to him, and his compelling personality made me readily consent that he should be the first painter to reproduce on canvas, what he called, the “classic features” of his countrywoman. And so ended my first night in London society.
This wonderful experience was still fresh in my mind the next morning, and I felt nothing could eclipse it, but, in the afternoon, on returning to our rooms in Eaton Place after a walk, Mr. Langtry and I found the table heaped with cards and notes of invitation, to dine, to lunch, to dance, from people whose distinguished names were familiar, but who, themselves, were personally unknown to us. A complete transformation seemed to have taken place in my life overnight. It was quite staggering, and thenceforward visitors and invitations continued to pour in daily, until they became a source of grievance to our landlady, who was obliged to engage an extra servant to respond to the battering of powdered footmen on her humble and somewhat flimsy door.
Our first dinner, I think, was with the Earl and Countess of Wharncliffe, at their beautiful home in Curzon Street, which stood in a garden and was long and low like a country house. Brilliantly clever and artistic, it would have been difficult to find a more perfect example of the grande dame than was the tall, handsome Lady Wharncliffe. I am not sure whether she was more beautiful that night, sitting at the head of her table, which glowed with golden tulips that matched her golden hair, or as I saw her later at Wortley, near Sheffield, bending her graceful head over her embroidery frame, at which she seemed to work as perpetually as Penelope. But, oh! after that first dinner at Wharncliffe House, she smoked cigarette after cigarette, and my country soul was shocked!
Among her guests was Madge Robertson (Mrs. Kendall) –– accompanied by her husband –– not only the most accomplished actress of the day, but a model of all the virtues, and the only actress at that time received in the “inner circle” of Society. Sir Edward Poynter, afterwards President of the Royal Academy, was also present. He had just commenced work on four enormous canvases, a commission from his host which occupied the painter’s time for four years. It was arranged that very evening that I was to pose for the central figure, Nausicaa, in one of these pictures. In another, Lady Wharncliffe was portrayed as some other Greek “celebrity,” for the friezes were all devoted to classical subjects. The artist’s wife and Miss Violet Lindsay were also included in the paintings, which I subsequently saw fulfilling their destiny in the great hall at Wortley.
Invitations to receptions and balls were so numerous that we were mostly obliged to attend two or three of each in an evening in order to keep our engagements. Whatever my husband said and felt, I absolutely revelled in the novelty of it all, and, though at this distance of time I cannot call to mind details, there was scarcely a great house in London that I did not visit during my first season.
Devonshire House, with its renowned marble stair–case, was certainly one of the most attractive. We went to one of the Marquis of Harrington’s political receptions there. On our arrival he left his place at the head of the stairs and conducted me round the magnificent rooms, pointing out a few treasures, and, on my admiring the lovely coloured water–lilies reposing in marble pools, he drenched his clothes pulling them out as an offering, as also the gorgeous liveries of the footmen, into whose arms he flung them and who strewed our brougham with such quantities of the dripping blossoms as to make the latter conveyance rather moister than was convenient; but I think “Harty–Tarty.” as he was familiarly called, did nothing by halves.
At these various gatherings I met practically all the well–born and well– known men and women of the day, and the point most apparent in connection with them was their entire lack of self– assertion. While I carried away with me from these functions a general sense of pomp and grandeur, there was a simplicity about the people which one finds only in those born to greatness, or who have achieved it. Probably the security of their station enabled them to be charming and gracious. Certain it is that they were absolutely free from the affectation and “smallness” which, sooner or later, make their appearance in many who merely buy a position with money.