My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyride again in leg-irons. Our brilliant hostess in a beautiful house believed in thesophisticated concept that the rigours of the chase should be softened in the eveningby the imported company of London intellectuals, including the flower of the ForeignOffice. The days were magical in this war-time continuance of hunting; the master offoxhounds was then the old Lord Lonsdale of yellow carriage fame; 'just to keep thefoxes down'. This sport took the fortunate participants back to the life and spirit of theearly nineteenth century, without crowds, only horses, hounds and the beautiful,weeping scenery. I can still never pass through it without emotion.The great hostesses on the Continent really belong for me to a later stage in this story,the later twenties, but it is interesting to compare them with their London counterparts.Again, some of the most prominent were American, though in Paris and in Rome, asin London, exquisite and charming women also entertained in distinguished thoughless conspicuous fashion in their own cities. Comparable in wit with Lady Cunard wasPrincess Jane di San Faustino, who presided over a lively Italian and cosmopolitangaiety in Rome and Venice. But the two styles differed sharply because Lady Cunardwas almost a prude in conversation, while Princess Jane was outrageous. She wouldsay anything, and the utterance was the more striking because it scintillated in clearloud American from an appearance of the utmost dignity, a Roman matron if everthere was one. Clad in the midday sun of the Lido at Venice in complete widow'sweeds of white, in Rome corresponding clothes of black, relieved only by a slightborder of white round her strong but clearly moulded features and snow-white hair,she mourned her husband with pious reverence and simultaneously regaled thefashion world with the extremities of scandal floodlit by her unfailing and eccentrichumour. She occupied the central capanna of the classic beach where all newcomersmust pass. A French friend said to me there only recently that after a long life andmuch experience he had never encountered anything more unnerving than the basiliskstare from that capanna, accompanied almost certainly by some searing comment toher fellow judges which youth might apprehend: 'mais quelle mechancete', he sighedwith nostalgic appreciation.I once had an account of her long mourning which blended so incongruously with thesparkling sunshine of Rome and the even brighter sparkle of her conversation. Shewas in most expansive mood at a small dinner party which included DoraLabouchere—daughter of the English politician, and later married in a Romanseries—Cole Porter, the song writer, was also present with his Yale friend, MontyWoolley, who later became familiar to cinema audiences. Both Princess Jane andDora Labouchere reviewed their past lives. It is always difficult to determine at whatpoints these outstanding entertainers retain contact with the truth, because art comesfirst, but the show was the thing and on its own stage it was some show. Princess Janesaid she had lived with her distinguished husband for a long time in married bliss—eleven years I think, without a cloud on the horizon—until one day they were outdriving in an open carriage. He then signalled to the coachman to stop, teed up on thekerbstone as for a golf-shot, and hit her as hard as he could over the head with hisumbrella. After this first and abrupt indication of a marriage rift, he departed, and shenever saw him again. She then explained in vast, uproarious and unprintablyscandalous detail how her young American innocence had afterwards been surprisedto learn just what arts she should have acquired to retain his affection. However, onhis death she assumed her widow's weeds and wore them to the end. He must havebeen a man of considerable charm and parts, and his alleged habits were no doubt70 of 424