The Magnificent Montez Part 4

Elizabeth Walters, the manageress of the Imperial Hotel, said that on February 21, 1841, "a lady and gentleman arrived in a hackney cab, with luggage marked G. Lennox and Mrs. James, and booked a double room." Mrs. Walters had not, she admitted, "actually discovered them undressed, or sharing the bed," but "she would not have been surprised to have done so." Accordingly, when her travelling companion left the next morning, she taxed Mrs. James with misconduct. After telling her to "mind her own business," Mrs. James had declared that she and Captain Lennox were on the point of being married, and had then packed up and left the establishment.

"What exactly did she say?" enquired the judge.

"She said, 'what I choose to do is my own affair and n.o.body else's.'"

On leaving the somewhat arid hospitality of the Covent Garden Hotel, Mrs. James had removed to a lodging-house just off Pall Mall, where she stopped for a month. Mrs. Martin, the proprietress, told the court that, during this period, Captain Lennox settled the bill, and "called there every day, often stopping till all hours of the night."

The testimony of Mrs. Sarah Watson, the sister of Captain James, was that her brother had written to her in the autumn of 1840, saying that his wife had been thrown from her horse and was coming to England for medical treatment; and that he had written to his aunt, Mrs. Rae, of Edinburgh, suggesting that his wife should stop with her. Mrs. Watson, having "been told things," then called on Mrs. James in Covent Garden.

"I spoke to her," she said, "of the shocking rumour that Captain Lennox had pa.s.sed a night with her there, and pointed out the unutterable ruin that would result from a continuance of such deplorable conduct. I begged her to entrust herself to the care of Mrs. Rae. My entreaties were ineffectual. She positively declared, affirming with an oath, that she would do nothing of the kind."

Among the pa.s.sengers on board the East Indiaman by which Mrs. James had voyaged to England was Mrs. Ingram, the captain's wife. "The conduct of Mrs. James," she said, "was unguarded in the extreme, and her general behaviour was what is sometimes called flirting." Captain Ingram, who followed, had a still more disturbing story to recount.

"On several occasions," he said, "I heard Mrs. James address the gentleman who joined us at Madras as 'Dear Lennox,' and she would even admit him to the privacy of her cabin while the other pa.s.sengers were attending divine service on deck. When I spoke to her about it, she answered me in a very cool fashion."

All this was distinctly damaging. The real sensation, however, was provided by Caroline Marden, a stewardess.

"During the voyage from Madras," she told the astonished judge, "I more than once saw Captain Lennox lacing up Mrs. James's stays."

"Did you see anything else?" faltered counsel.

"Yes, I also saw her actually putting on her stockings while Captain Lennox was in her cabin!"

There were limits to intimacies between the s.e.xes. This was clearly among them. For a man to a.s.sist in adjusting a woman's stays, and watch her changing her stockings, could, in the opinion of the learned and experienced Dr. Lushington, only lead to one result. The worst result. Hence, he had no difficulty in p.r.o.nouncing the decree for which the husband was applying.

III

All James had got for his activities in bringing his action was a divorce _a mensa et thoro_, that is, "from bed and board." But, while it was all he got, this measure of relief was probably all he wanted, as he was not contemplating a second experiment in matrimony, either with Mrs. Lomer or anybody else. Where his discarded wife was concerned, she would have to shift for herself. She no longer had any legal claim upon him; nor could she marry again during his lifetime.

Her position was a somewhat pathetic one. Thus, she was alone and friendless; besmirched in reputation; abandoned by her husband; and deserted by her lover. But she still had her youth and her courage.

The London of the 1840's, where Lola found herself cast adrift, was a curious microcosm and full of contrasts. A mixture of unabashed blackguardism and cloistered prudery; of double-beds and primness; of humbug and frankness; of liberty and restraint; of l.u.s.t and license; of brutal horse-play pa.s.sing for "wit," and of candour marching with cant. The working cla.s.ses scarcely called their souls their own; women and children mercilessly exploited by smug profiteers; the "Song of the Shirt"; Gradgrind and Boanerges holding high festival; Tom and Jerry (on their last legs) and Corinthians wrenching off door knockers and upsetting policemen; and Exeter Hall and the Cider Cellars both in full swing. Altogether, an ill place of sojourn for an unprotected young woman.

Exactly how this one supported herself during the next few months is not very clear, for, if she kept a diary, she never published it.

According, however, to a Sunday organ, "she entangled the virtuous Earl of Malmesbury in a delicate kind of newspaper correspondence, an a.s.sertion having been made in public that she visited that pious n.o.bleman at his own house." An odd story (of American origin, and quite unfounded) has it that, about this period, she established contact with a certain Jean Francois Montez, "an individual of immense wealth who lavished a fortune on her"; and Edward Blanchard, a hack dramatist of Drury Lane, contributes the somewhat unhelpful remark, "She became a Bohemian." Perhaps she did. But she had to discover a second career that would bring a little more grist to the mill. Such a course was imperative, since the balance of the 1000 her step-father had given her would not last indefinitely. Looking round, she felt that, all things considered, the stage offered the best prospects of earning a livelihood. Not a very novel decision.

Nowadays, as an attractive young woman, with a little capital in her possession, she would have had more choice. Thus, she might have opened a hat shop, or run tea-rooms, or bred pet dogs, become a mannequin, or a dance club hostess, or even "gone on the films." But none of these avenues to feminine employment existed in the eighteen-forties. Hence, it was the footlights or nothing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Lola Montez, "Spanish Dancer." Debut at Her Majesty's Theatre_]

She had the sense to put herself in the hands of an instructress. The one she selected was f.a.n.n.y Kelly ("the only woman to whom Charles Lamb had screwed up sufficient courage to propose marriage"), who conducted a school of acting. Being honest, as well as capable, Miss Kelly took the measure of the would-be Ophelia very promptly.

"You'll never make an actress," was her decision. "You've no talent for it."

But, if the applicant had no talent, the other saw that she had something else. This was a pair of shapely legs, which, as a ballet-dancer, could yet twinkle in front of the footlights.

This opinion being shared by its recipient, she lost no time in adopting it. As a preliminary, she went to Madrid. There, under expert tuition, she learned to rattle the castanets, and practised the bolero and the cachucha, as well as the cla.s.sic arabesques and entrechats and the technique accompanying them. But she did not advance much beyond the simplest steps, for the time at her disposal was short, and the art of the ballerina is not to be acquired without years of unceasing study.

According to a French journalist, an "English Milord" made Lola's acquaintance in Madrid. This was Lord Malmesbury, "who was so dazzled by the purity of her Spanish accent that he adopted her as a _compagnon de voyage_, and shared with her the horrors of bad cooking and the joys of nights in Granada." This fact, however, if it be a fact, is not to be found in the volume of "memoirs" that he afterwards published.

Still, it seems that Lord Malmesbury did meet Lola. His own account of the incident is that, on returning to England from abroad, in the spring of the year 1843, he was asked by the Spanish Consul at Southampton to escort to London a young woman who had just landed there. He found her, he says, "a remarkably handsome person, who was in deep mourning and who appeared to be in great distress." While they were alone in the railway carriage, he improved the occasion and extracted from his travelling companion the story of her life.

"She informed me," he says, "in bad English that she was the widow of Don Diego Leon, who had lately been shot by the Carlists after he was taken prisoner, and that she was going to London to sell some Spanish property that she possessed, and give lessons in singing, as she was very poor."

Notwithstanding his diplomatic training, Lord Malmesbury swallowed this story, as well as much else with which it was embroidered. One thing led to another; and the acquaintance thus fortuitously begun in a railway carriage was continued in London. There he got up a concert for her benefit at his town house, where, in addition to singing Castilian ballads, his protegee sold veils and fans among the audience; and he also gave her an introduction to a theatrical manager, with results that neither of them had foreseen.

CHAPTER IV

FLARE OF THE FOOTLIGHTS

I

Times change. When Lola returned to London a pa.s.sage through the divorce court was not regarded as a necessary qualification for stage aspirants. Also, being well aware that, to ensure a good reception, a foreign-sounding name was desirable, this one decided to adopt that of Lola Montez. This, she felt, would, among other advantages, effectively mask her ident.i.ty with that of Mrs. Thomas James, an ident.i.ty she was anxious to shed.

Her plans were soon made. On the morning after her arrival, she presented her letter of introduction to the impressario of Her Majesty's Theatre, in the Haymarket. This position was held by an affable Hebrew, one Benjamin Lumley, an ex-solicitor, who had abandoned his parchments and bills of costs and acquired a lease of Her Majesty's. The house had long been looked upon as something of a white elephant in the theatrical jungle; but Lumley, being pushful and knowledgeable, soon built up a valuable following and set the establishment on its legs.

As luck would have it, Lola's interview with him came at just the right moment, for he was alternating ballet with opera and was in want of a fresh attraction. Convinced that he recognised it in his caller (or, perhaps, anxious to please Lord Malmesbury), he offered her an engagement there and then to dance a _pas seul_ between the acts of _Il Barbiere di Seviglia_.

"If you make a hit," he said, "you shall have a contract for the rest of the season. It all depends on yourself."

Lola, wanting nothing better, left the managerial office, treading on air.

As was his custom, Lumley cultivated the critics, and would receive them in his sanctum whenever he had a novel attraction to submit.

"I have a surprise for you in my next programme," he said, when the champagne and cigars had been discussed. "This is that I have secured Donna Lola, a Spanish dancer, direct from Seville. She is, I a.s.sure you, deliciously beautiful and remarkably accomplished. I pledge you my word, gentlemen, she will create a positive _furore_ here."

In 1843 dramatic critics had the privilege of attending rehearsals and penetrating behind the scenes. One of their number, adopting the pseudonym "Q," has left an account of the manner in which he first met Lola Montez. He had called on Lumley for a gossip, and was invited by that authority to descend to the stage and watch his new acquisition practising a dance there.

"At that period," he says, "her figure was even more attractive than her face, lovely as the latter was. Lithe and graceful as a young fawn, every movement she made was instinct with melody. Her dark eyes were blazing and flashing with excitement, for she felt that I was willing to admire her.... As she swept round the stage, her slender waist swayed to the music, and her graceful head and neck bent with it like a flower that bends with the impulse given to its stem by the fitful temper of the wind."

Lumley was tactful enough to leave the pressman alone with the star.

As the latter promised to "give her a good puff in his paper," Lola, who never missed an opportunity, made herself specially agreeable to him. Her bright eyes did their work. "When we separated," says "Q" in his reminiscences, "I found myself tumbled heels over head into the profound depths of that which the French call a _grande pa.s.sion_."

Lumley's next step was to draw up an announcement of the promised novelty for inclusion in the programme:

HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE

June 3, 1843

SPECIAL ATTRACTION!

Mr. Benjamin Lumley begs to announce that, between the acts of the Opera, DONNA LOLA MONTEZ, of the Teatro Real, Seville, will have the honour to make her first appearance in England in the Original Spanish dance El Oleano.

After the cast list had been set out the rest of the reading matter on the programme was given up to advertis.e.m.e.nts. Some of them would appear to have been selected rather at haphazard. At any rate, their special appeal to music lovers was a little difficult to follow. Thus, one was of "Jackson's patent enema machines, as patronised by the n.o.bility (either s.e.x) when travelling"; another of "Mrs. Rodd's anatomical ladies' stays (which ensure the wearer a figure of astonishing symmetry";) and another of a "Brilliant burlesque ballad, 'Get along, Rosey,' sung with the most positive triumph every evening by Madame Vestris."

With much satisfaction, Manager Lumley, taking a preliminary peep at the crowded house, saw that a particularly "smart" audience was a.s.sembled on the night of June 3. The list of "fashionables" he handed to the reporters resembled an extract from the pages of Messrs. Burke and Debrett. Thus, the Royal Box was graced by the Queen Dowager, with the King of Hanover and Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar for her guests; and, dotted about the pit tier (then the fashionable part of the house) were the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Wellington, the Marquess and Marchioness of Granby, Lord and Lady Brougham, and the Baroness de Rothschild, with the Belgian Minister, Count Esterhazy, and Baron Talleyrand. Even the occupants of the pit had to accept an official intimation that "only black trousers will be allowed." Her Majesty's had a standard, and Lumley insisted on its observance.

That long familiar feature, "Fops' Alley," having disappeared from the auditorium, the modish thing for unattached men was to make up a party and hire an omnibus-box; and from that position to p.r.o.nounce judgment upon the legs of the dancers pirouetting in wispy gauze on the stage.