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  Scandal inevitably ensued. De Béon, having once got his footing in the Villa Pepa because he had been so obliging as to stop the train for German royalties at Bordeaux, remained at the Villa Pepa as a fixture. The very nice gentleman was taken on as Pepita’s secretary and general manager. The laundress, who received her pay from de Béon, used to say to herself, ‘Yes, you are the superintendent and something more’. The good folk of Arcachon, who had already once been scandalised by the spectacle of Pepita living with a foreign Count to whom she was not married, were now doubly scandalised by the spectacle of the under station-master of Bordeaux being taken into the house as persona grata. They swung round entirely onto the foreign Count’s side, declaring that he ought to throw the station-master into the Bay of Biscay, especially as ‘he looked to be a lazy fellow’. But they all added that Pepita could make the foreign Count do anything she liked. The general opinion was, that the station-master had become Pepita’s lover, and that the good-natured Count West was fooled.

  I know full well that rumour has made the station-master into the true father of my mother, but chronologically that possibility is dispelled, since Pepita never met the stationmaster until my mother was four or five years old. As to the rest of the story, I scarcely know what to believe. Pepita is an unfathomable character. But then so are most of us unfathomable characters, even to ourselves. Are we to believe that Pepita, who got herself and the children ready to go and meet Lionel Sackville-West at the station whenever his telegram arrived, and whose house-bills went up because they lived so much better when he was there,—are we to believe that Pepita deceived him, for whom she cared so tenderly, to the extent of importing a new young lover into his house?

  All is possible. With people of Pepita’s temperament, all is possible. One can neither decide nor judge.

  Then, again, they said she took to drink. They said she drank champagne with de Béon. Well, one knows how easily the tongues of provincial neighbours wag, and one bottle of champagne may innocently have given rise to this particular reproach. I must admit that my mother told me her younger sister, Fleur de Marie, bought, borrowed, or abstracted champagne whenever she could get it, because she had been told it was good for washing the hair, Fleur de Marie being only four years old at the time. For my own part, I think that the picture drawn of Pepita at this time of her life accords ill with what I know of her. It accords ill with her excessive animal love of her babies; her constant companionship with her older children; her pathetic excitement whenever she heard that Lionel Sackville-West was about to arrive; her distress at the ostracism imposed, logically and inevitably, by her Church.

  It was in order to mitigate this ostracism that she had recourse to the pathetic expedient of building herself a little chapel in her own garden. The services of M. Desombres were again secured, this time in his true capacity as a builder, and to Pepita’s joy when the work was finished the priest from Arcachon consented to hold services on Sundays and feast-days for her and her children. Although she still could not receive the supreme consolation of absolution and communion, she could at least attend Mass without having to endure the inquisitive glances of her neighbours. With her children round her it was very peaceful in the little private chapel, and at any time she could retire there for prayer.

  There was yet another purpose for which the chapel had been designed: she proposed to be buried there when the time should come, within sound of the sea.

  I think that during the winter of 1870–71 she must have spent some happy months. The staff of the British Embassy having been transferred to Bordeaux, Lionel Sackville-West could constantly be with her; she had the chapel and her regular services; and she was expecting another baby, her seventh, in March. She cried a little when the ambassador, Lord Lyons, asked my grandfather to go and take charge of the deserted Embassy in Paris, but he explained to her that it was only a temporary absence and, mercurial as ever, she was soon cheerful again. Her baby would be born before he returned, she would be strong again to welcome him, and the spring would be coming.

  He left for Paris on February 16th.

  On March 6th he received a telegram informing him that Pepita had given birth to a son. Three other telegrams followed in rapid succession. The first stated that she was ill, the second that she was worse, the third that she was dead.

  PEPITA AND HER DAUGHTER, IN 1870

  Distraught, he appealed to Lord Lyons for leave of absence, and arrived at Arcachon just two days too late. They had already embalmed the body, so that he might see her once more as he had known her, for it was uncertain when he would arrive. My mother remembered that arrival well. She was in the room, a frightened and heartbroken child of nine, praying beside the bed on which lay the still form of Pepita, a crucifix clasped between her stiffened fingers, the lighted candles burning steadily over the unearthly beauty of the pallor of death. Beside her lay the tiny figure of the dead baby who had cost her her life. As my grandfather reached the room, he stopped for a moment at the threshold, then ran forward and threw himself on his knees beside the bed, sobbing out that it was he who had killed her. It was in vain that they tried to comfort him by telling him that she had died with his name, ‘Lionel’, upon her lips.

  III

  Fortunately de Béon was there, and so was the excellent M. Desombres, who, in the most practical manner, took charge of everything. He had been present at Pepita’s death, and had taken off the diamond necklace she was wearing; he then decided to stay in the villa till after the funeral. There was much for him to do. He put all Pepita’s jewellery into a box, including the diamond necklace, the emerald heart which had always been so much admired, and the ‘brooch shaped like a lizard set with streaks of gold and emeralds alternately’, and kept the box in a safe until he could hand it over to my grandfather. He registered the deaths of both little Frederic Charles and his mother. He made the coffin, and, at my grandfather’s request, he dug the grave under the chapel where Pepita had wished to be buried.

  But this last and surely harmless wish was not to be gratified. De Béon sought permission from the local authorities and, on their refusal, pressed it as far as the Pope himself. It was still refused, and Pepita lies in the general cemetery of Arcachon, with no memorial stone to mark her grave. All the poor of Arcachon, and all the wounded soldiers, attended her funeral.

  The keeper of the cemetery records that many years afterwards, to be exact, on September 5th, 1896, two gentlemen came to Arcachon, saying that they were the son and the son-in-law of the Countess and had come with the necessary permission for exhuming the body. They had some difficulty in finding the grave, as there was no headstone, but finally it was identified and opened, and the coffin was taken up. ‘Mr Henri West appeared to be very much upset and grieved, and wept on the occasion of the opening of the coffin. The body was quite life-like, and as if she would speak.’

  Part Two

  PEPITA’S DAUGHTER, 1862–1936

  1

  Pepita’s Daughter

  I

  The question remained, what was to be done with the children? My grandfather naturally could not look after them himself, and with some relief accepted the suggestion that de Béon’s mother should take charge of them and live with them at Villa Pepa, with the exception of Max who was sent to school at Bordeaux. This arrangement lasted for two or three years, during which time my grandfather conveniently disappeared to Buenos Aires in the capacity of British Minister. I mean no disrespect to my grandfather, but I do not think he was the man ever to enjoy dealing with a difficult situation: he far preferred to go away if he decently could and leave it to somebody else. Hitherto, Pepita had ordered his life, and now there was to be an uncomfortable period of transition until Pepita’s eldest daughter was of an age to assume the same responsibility.

  Meanwhile, all the other characters in this curious story recede from the centre and are discerned henceforth only occasionally wandering round the periphery. Thus Oliva turns up in Arcachon, wearing a dark suit
and a black hat-band in mourning for Pepita. He is reported there as a Spaniard who could not speak French, trying to squeeze what benefit he could out of her possessions. A little later we find him in hospital in Madrid with cancer of the tongue, but nevertheless going off to fulfil a dancing engagement in Guatemala, from whence he returns with a collection of live birds to show to his friends. As for Catalina, the few last glimpses of her 137 are tragic compared with the zest she brought to the renovation of her houses or the praise of her successful daughter. They tell a story of poverty and deterioration, for the graph of Catalina’s life, after rising to its peaks of prosperity at Albolote and Buena Vista, sinks again to the very low level of her beginnings. At one time she and Lopez are found keeping a provision shop in Malaga, serving in the shop themselves, and then she is seen, still in Malaga, ‘in an old furniture shop, greatly changed and simply clad’. The witness did not know if the shop belonged to her or not. Pressed for further information, he said it was not exactly a shop but a room used as a shop, for selling old clothes, old furniture, and other second-hand things. ‘There was a great difference in her appearance and apparel from what I remembered at Albolote. She seemed crestfallen and in straitened circumstances,—she seemed decayed. I just bowed to her.’

  This is painful enough. Then she is seen at Seville, living ‘in bad circumstances’. And finally, some persons who were in the habit of travelling to and fro between Malaga and Seville, reported to her cousin who went round with the donkey selling fruit that she had died at Seville. He could not remember who the persons were, and he did not know how long she had been dead.

  Thus Catalina takes her exit, and the children are left with no natural guardians except a father in South America and, in England, a very different and infinitely more respectable set of relations of whom they had as yet no knowledge at all.

  II

  They could not remain for ever in Arcachon, and about two years after their mother’s death Mme de Béon removed them all to Paris, with the exception of Max who continued at his school in Bordeaux. It had become imperative for something to be done about their education which Pepita in her happy-go-lucky way had wholly neglected. The eldest girl (to whom I continue to refer as my mother) was now nearly eleven and had never done any lessons at all. I believe she had never even been taught to read or write. The two other girls, Fleur de Marie and Amalia, were seven and five respectively; Henri was only four. These three therefore remained under Mme de Béon’s charge in Paris, while my mother, older and less fortunate than they, was placed in the Convent of St Joseph, 17 rue Monceau. She stayed there from the age of eleven to the age of eighteen.

  She was miserably unhappy from first to last during those seven years spent in the Convent of St Joseph. Other characters might adapt themselves to convent life; not so my mother, who was by nature a rebellious and unconventional person. She suffered from the discipline, the restrictions, the cold, the discomfort, the actual harshness imposed. Accustomed to the warm, extravagant, good-tempered, ill-tempered, varying existence at Villa Pepa; to the occasional cuffs administered by Mamma; to the overflowing and spontaneous consolations which followed; to the lax and happy mode of life which included M. Desombres, and the laundress, and the hairdresser, and M. de Béon, and Aunt Lola who quarrelled with Mamma, and Uncle Diego who lodged at the post-office, and Papa who telegraphed his arrival periodically from Paris, creating a stir in the household so that one tied red cherries on to little trees and made oneself tidy to go and meet him at the station,—accustomed to all this, the rigours of a Paris convent froze the soul. The warmth and storms and difficulty and humanity had gone out of life. They were replaced by severe and suspicious supervision. One was not allowed to talk privately to one’s fellow-inmates lest one might be saying something subversive, or indeed immoral. If one complained of one’s health, as adolescent girls might occasionally and justifiably complain, one was sent out for a long walk in crocodile, or to an even earlier church service to teach one not to be self-regarding. If one fainted in church, from natural causes, one was reproved and made to do extra lessons. At night, in bed, one was so cold that one prayed to the Virgin Mary to warm one. The only happy moments my mother spent in the convent were the moments when she could raise her exceptionally pure though untutored voice in the choir. Otherwise it was all chill. ‘Oui, ma soeur; non, ma soeur.’ She had even ceased to be Mademoiselle Pepita, and had become Mademoiselle quarante-deux.

  There were no real holidays. Sometimes in the summer she was taken to Bercq near Boulogne with some of the nuns, but although there were sand-dunes at Bercq as at Arcachon she was not allowed to fill her drawers with the sand as Pepita had allowed her to do. Her father wrote to her sometimes from South America and very occasionally he went to see her, for this of course could only be done when he was on leave. Once she was allowed to go and see him off at the station; she thought he was going to Buenos Aires but was not sure.

  It was scarcely a life for a much-loved, high-spirited child, and presently as she grew older she began to notice certain disquieting facts and whispers which she felt were vaguely associated in some general mystery, but to which she naturally could not supply the connecting links. First of all some difficulty arose over her confirmation, on account of her baptismal certificate, and there was some talk of her having to be re-baptised. She of course had never seen that baptismal certificate: fille de père inconnu. Then, when that trouble was got over, M. de Béon came one day to see her at the convent, and told her never to mention that her mother had been a dancer or that she had been called Pepita after her. He gave no reason. She had already noticed, however, that while she was staying with Mme de Béon she and the other children had been strictly forbidden to go near the drawing-room when visitors were in the house. A little later de Béon came again, and this time he told her that it would be dangerous for her to go out into the streets as there was a man after her who wanted to kidnap her and her brothers and sisters. He told her the man’s name: Oliva. It was the first time she had ever heard it, and as she knew no language but French she understood it as Olivier.

  All this was puzzling and even sinister. Children are pathetically helpless at the best of times, with little choice but to acquiesce in the inscrutable arrangements made for them, but these children, with no one to whom they could turn for enlightenment, seem especially lost and at sea. Even Mme de Béon died, and after her death the two younger girls were also sent to the convent and Henri went to a lycée. An unknown hand,—the hand of Providence, as it seemed to them in their ignorance,—swooped down on Max in Bordeaux, lifted him bodily to England, and then set him down on a farm in South Africa. When such things could occur, none of them knew what would happen to any of them next. They realised that they could not stay for the rest of their lives in the convent, unless, indeed, they adopted the religious life, but apart from that the future was completely dark.

  It was in 1880 that a Mrs Michel Mulhall appeared at the convent as my grandfather’s emissary to remove his children to England. He had met this lady in Buenos Aires, and, as so often happens to helpless men, had attracted her sympathy over the difficult position in which he found himself. Five illegitimate children! and he a Minister in the British Diplomatic Service! True, the eldest son was temporarily provided for, but there remained the three daughters and the little boy with no responsible guardian whatsoever now that Mme de Béon was dead. Besides, they were Roman Catholics; their father was not, though in his vaguely worried way he expressed a wish that they should continue in their mother’s faith; Mrs Mulhall, herself a Catholic, was so much concerned at their possible fate that she travelled to Bercq in order to have a look at the girls who had gone there under the charge of the nuns. When my grandfather called upon her for practical help, she came forward nobly and carried them all off to her own house, Grasslands at Balcombe in Sussex.

  My mother, who was then eighteen, left the convent armed with the certificate necessary to enable her to become a governess.

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bsp; III

  When they arrived in England, however, they found a new and most surprising set of facts awaiting them. They discovered that they had an uncle, Lord de la Warr, who owned a large house called Buckhurst, where they were taken to spend the day. It stood in the midst of a park, with a lake and magnificent trees, and was unlike anything they had ever seen before. They discovered that they had another uncle, Lord Sackville, who owned an even larger house called Knole. They discovered further that they had two aunts, the Duchess of Bedford and the Countess of Derby; the Duchess of Bedford (Aunt Bessie) refused to have anything to do with them, but Lady Derby (Aunt Mary) treated them from the first with a kindness my mother never forgot. She had them constantly to see her at Derby House, though, with a curious echo of Mme de Béon, they were never allowed to meet any visitors and were always turned away before six o’clock when Aunt Bessie Bedford came for her daily call. Aunt Mary Derby, unlike Aunt Bessie Bedford, lent them her private box at the Albert Hall. She went to see them at the Convent of the Sacred Heart where they had been temporarily placed at Highgate, and at the lodgings in Eastbourne where they had been sent with an English governess. She told them with the utmost gentleness that they had better drop the ‘Sackville’ out of their surname, and be known only by the name of West, also that my mother had better change her name from Pepita to Victoria,—it sounded less foreign,—and that Fleur de Marie likewise had better be called Flora, and Henri Henry. But by this time there was no need to deal tactfully or circumspectly with my mother, for she and she alone had been told the whole truth. Mrs Mulhall had told it to her on the boat as they were crossing the Channel. ‘She told me she had to say that my father and mother had never been married. It was a great shock and surprise to me, though I naturally did not at first realise the consequences. I was eighteen. I did not tell my sisters.’