The indiscretions of a lady's maid

August 29th

Madame Houget was French, like myself, but her accent was Provençal. She, with Monsieur her husband, came to London frequently to spend the early summer, and usually took a furnished house somewhere on the north side of Hyde Park.

When I entered her service they were living in quite a bijou little place in Gloucester Terrace, one of those white, clean-looking houses which strike the observer as being so extremely snug.

And so it was.

Très content, I entered upon my duties as Madame’s maid, and within a few hours of my arrival congratulated myself that enfin I was in a highly respectable family.

Madame was rather stout, but she dressed decidedly well, and judging from the table and from her jewellery there was no stint of funds. Monsieur was a short, bald-headed man of Hebrew type. He wore a profusion of jewellery, and dressed rather flashily—the reverse of Madame, who was always so quiet and gentil.

Madame soon showed herself extremely friendly towards me. She invariably spoke French with me, and quickly gave me to understand—just as most mistresses do—that she would repose confidence in me.

Eh! bien. She was extremely kind and considerate, while Monsieur was fond of joking and was extremely affable towards me.

At the bureau, before I was engaged, I was given to understand that Monsieur Houget was a rich manufacturer of Lyons, and each year he spent four months in London in pursuit of his business.

One evening, while I was brushing out Madame’s hair, she was glancing at an illustrated paper, when her comments in French to Monsieur were caustic and amusing.

“These papers,” she declared, “simply exist for the self-glorification of women struggling to get into society. Look at these portraits—all paid for—portraits of nobodies in somebody’s latest creation! If an Englishwoman in the suburbs gets a full-page portrait in one or other of these so-called ladies’ papers her friends are all envious, and she rises at once in the social scale of Streatham. Poor things! They’re ignorant that their cook, if she wore a decent gown, could show her face in the same paper for a matter of a guinea or two. Again, those ‘types of English beauty,’ as they call them, are mostly paid for. The real beauties of England are not found in the aristocracy or the upper middle class. They are faked beauties, like faked photographs. Ah!” she sighed, “what terrible humbugs we all are, Pierre.”

“No,” he said, “I don’t think you are a humbug, for I’ve never met a woman more plain-spoken, or with more common-sense, than yourself.”

“If we had not been humbugs we should, by this time, have passed through the Divorce Court, and been judicially separated. The papers would have published our portraits beside those of footballers and murderers. Now-a-days the Divorce Court is deemed no disgrace. A woman, in order to obtain notoriety, will seek it purposely, and commit perjury just as easily as she says her prayers in church on Sundays.”

I laughed discreetly at her philosophy. She was always amusing. I delighted to hear her criticisms of women. Madame was always just and outspoken, yet with an utter absence of ill-nature. She regarded life from the point of view of the man-in-the-street, and more than once had she argued in a manner quite Socialistic.

That evening there was a small dinner party, a loud-speaking Italian woman and her two daughters. She was the Princess di Lastra a Signa, and mon Dieu! she had more than a suspicion of a moustache. Her two daughters, black-haired, straight-backed, rather gawky girls, were also introduced—the elder, the Principessina Claudia, and the younger, the Principessina Vittorina.

The stout mother seemed to be an old friend of Madame’s. Indeed, in a few moments I heard that they had met in Rome three years ago, and Madame had often been a guest at the grim old palace on the Corso.

Madame started chatting with the girls, but though they spoke French fairly well, their empty-headedness was typical of the Italian aristocracy, whose girls seem to be educated in the art of inane conversation.

The Princess, dressed in black, wore a very fine bright sapphire pendant, a diamond tiara, and several ornaments which I saw were of great value. The girls, too, were bedecked in jewels worth a considerable sum. Indeed, as I chatted to them I was trying to recollect where I had seen the name of the Princess.

At last I remembered. In my Matin I had about a year before read an article describing the wonderful collection of antique jewellery formed by the late Prince Augusto di Lastra a Signa. The Princess had offered it to the National Museum in Rome at a very reasonable figure, but owing to want of funds they could not purchase it. The remarkable collection had been commenced by Prince Adolpho in 1725, and continued by his successors down to the present time. The collection of Greek cut gems was stated to be the finest outside the British Museum, while two magnificent antique sapphires, once the property of the great Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, were alone estimated to be worth several hundred thousand francs.

I looked at the chattering old Princess again. She wore the great sapphires as earrings, and they were no doubt marvellous stones, such as I had never before seen.

Presently Madame turned to her husband, saying—

“Do you know, Pierre, the Princess is going to Vallombrosa for the summer—the place where the leaves are thick, you know.”

“That’s in Italy, not far from Florence,” he said.

“Yes,” exclaimed the Princess in French, “I have a villa there where we always spend the summer. I go next week, and I am trying to persuade Madame Houget to come with me for a week or so. It would do her good. The mountain air is excellent, and the chestnuts make it so shady in the hot weather.”

I saw that Madame, who had no plans for the immediate future, was favourably disposed towards the suggestion.

“But Florence is an oven just how,” Madame said.

“Granted,” she replied. “Yet Vallombrosa is delightful, I assure you. The Embassy people generally go up there, or to Camaldoli, in order to escape the heat of Rome.”

The Princess’s words seemed to decide her, for after a little more persuasion she agreed to go on the following Tuesday, leaving London at eleven, crossing Paris that same evening, and travelling by the Italian night express from the Gare de Lyon at ten-thirty, and joy! she decided to take me.

Therefore, on Tuesday morning, at eleven, we all five assembled at Victoria.

I saw to the registration of Madame’s two good-sized cane trunks covered with green canvas, but as I was having them weighed she came up to me in the bustling crowd and said—

“Register them only to Pisa, Mariette. We must change there for Florence.”

“But, Madame, the Princess has registered hers to Florence.”

“Do as I tell you, Mariette. Don’t argue. Say nothing—not a word.”

So I obeyed her, and, after obtaining the baggage-ticket, joined the party, who had already taken their seats in a reserved compartment.

Madame was in fine form, and kept us laughing merrily as we ran down to Dover. The old Princess was particularly tickled by her description of a week-end she had spent with some people at Taplow, while the two straight-backed girls actually laughed. Affected innocence and undisguised angularity are the distinctive characteristics of the daughters of the Italian aristocracy. At school they are taught to scorn their inferiors, to worship their own armorial bearings, and never to smile in company. There are districts in Italy where even one’s kitchen-maid actually refuses to go on an errand without a chaperone!

The Channel behaved well, and we were comfortably settled in the Paris express, when the Princess suddenly looked up from her Petit Parisien, and exclaimed—

“Madonna mia! There’s been another theft on the railway! A German lady’s trunk has been rifled and her jewellery stolen. How is it the police can never catch the scoundrelly thieves?”

“The railway servants commit the thefts, no doubt,” Madame declared, without the movement of a muscle.

“Well, mother,” exclaimed the thin-faced, sallow-looking Claudia, “I hope they won’t touch anything of yours.”

“No fear of that, my dear child,” replied the Princess. “My trunks are marked fully with my name. The railway servants would reflect twice before they dared touch a trunk bearing a princely title, for they know that most searching inquiry and exemplary punishment would result. It is different with the trunks of common folk.”

“But the Princess Lubanoff’s jewels were stolen between Paris and Nice last winter, mother,” her younger daughter reminded her.

“She was only a Russian. Titles there don’t count.”

“And in your country, Princess, there are lots of people with very short purses and abnormally long titles,” Madame ventured to remark. “I once had a coachman who was an Italian count, and had his armorial bearings embroidered upon his pyjamas, as seems the fashion in Italy.”

Whereat we all laughed.

“Well,” exclaimed the Princess, “I packed up my jewellery myself in my heaviest trunk. I don’t think I need have any fear—need I, Madame Houget?”

“Not at all, dear Princess. Your daughters are only trying to disturb you,” she said. “Personally, however, I always put my own poor little trinkets in this little jewel-bag, which either I, or Mariette, carry. It is so much safer.”

“I think I shall do so, now that robberies seem to be of almost daily occurrence,” was the stout woman’s reply; and then they all lapsed into silence again, engrossed in books and papers purchased at Calais.

Dinner we had on our way across Paris. We went to a small but very excellent restaurant behind the Opera, and later we entered two auto-cabs, and subsequently left the Gare de Lyon for Modane, having berths in the wagon-lit. The Princess and her younger daughter occupied one compartment, Madame and Claudia were in the next, while I had a berth with another maid at the further end of the car.

Through part of that night, as the wheels ground and roared beneath me towards the frontier I knew so well, I lay awake, wondering for what reason I had been taken. I cared little for Italy in summer. Vallombrosa, with its chestnut forests and walks beneath the pines was delightful, it was true, but I much preferred the gaieties of Aix or Trouville, or even the kursaal music of Homburg, Carlsbad, or any of the hundred-and-one other bads which doctors recommend, and receive a quid pro quo for so doing.

Tiens! Madame Houget had made up her mind suddenly to go to Vallombrosa, and in that very suddenness I scented some ulterior motive.

But at last I dropped off to sleep, to awake in the Alps with the train still speeding through the grey morning, and already near the frontier.

Before the coming of the polite Italian douaniers the ladies were already sitting over their café-au-lait, and as the “visit” was made in the train, we were untroubled until our arrival at Turin at two in the afternoon. We were compelled to wait for a couple of hours, when our sleeping-car was joined to the Rome express.

More than once her Highness expressed apprehension as to the safety of her jewels, but I did not deem it wise to inform her of a little incident which had come to my notice just before we left Turin.

Chose singulière. I was passing down the platform, when I saw a German lady talking excitedly with three railway officials at the door of the baggage-office. She was pointing to her trunk, and, knowing the German language, I overheard her declaring that her jewellery had been stolen during the transit of her box from Paris by the same train in which we had travelled!

Indeed, I recognised her as one of our fellow-passengers in the wagon-lit. She was having great difficulty in making the men understand her fully, and my first impulse was to halt and offer her my services as interpreter. But as our train was just leaving, I hurried along and entered the car.

At Genoa we dined in the station buffet, and were soon on our way through the many stifling, ill-ventilated tunnels beside the sea between that city and marble-built Pisa, the dull, old-world city of the Cemetery and the Leaning Tower.

Hardly had we left Genoa, however, before Madame was taken very ill. The zampone had upset her, and certainly she seemed very unwell. As we passed through tunnel after tunnel during that long, hot summer’s evening, with now and then a second’s glimpse of the Mediterranean, blood-red in the breathless after-glow, her indisposition increased, and we all became very alarmed.

She was pale as death, and at Spezia she declared that she would alight at Pisa, where we should arrive at eleven-five, see a doctor, and remain there the night.

“You’ll remain with me, Mariette,” she said. “I won’t trouble the Princess. We’ll come on to Vallombrosa next day. There’s sure to be a good doctor in Pisa, for there’s a medical school there, I believe.”

At first the Princess and her daughters refused to leave their guest, but Madame insisted, assuring them that we would come on together next day.

Then the Princess wished to leave Claudia behind, saying—

“You must really have one of us with you, my dear.”

“Mais non! You’re too kind, Princess,” declared Madame, looking pale as death, and sniffing the big bottle of salts from her dressing-bag. “I won’t interfere with your arrangements in the least. Why should I? It’s only that horrible railway-buffet dinner that has upset me. I shall be better in the morning.”

“I insist that Claudia stays with you in Pisa. If necessary, she can come on to Florence by the early train. It leaves Pisa at five-forty. I’ve been looking up the time-table.”

I saw that Madame was much annoyed.

“But I really don’t want anybody, Princess,” she declared, petulantly. “Please let me have my own way.”

“Madame is always used to having her own way,” I urged. “She’s been spoilt ever since she was a child!”

“She will not have her own way in this,” declared the Princess, firmly. “If she refuses to have Claudia, we’ll all stay the night at the Victoria.”

Madame, seeing no way out, therefore accepted Claudia’s proffered services with profuse thanks, though I could see that, within her heart, she hated the idea.

Enfin, when the train at last ran into the great, echoing station of Pisa, we all alighted. The Florence train was waiting, and while the Princess and Vittorina entered it, with many good wishes for their guest’s quick recovery, we three crossed to the hotel.

The Princess’s daughter, being in her own native land, was soon at the telephone ringing up Professor Somebody, while Madame sat in a collapsed condition, declaring that she felt on the point of death.

I grew alarmed, and was pleased when, half-an-hour later, a brown-bearded, pleasant-looking man arrived and duly prescribed for her.

“The Signora will quickly recover,” he assured me in Italian. “But she must have rest. She must remain here for, say, three days, and I will see her to-morrow at noon.”

“Is there anything serious, Professor?” asked Claudia.

“Nothing whatsoever, I assure you.”

“Then you’ll, of course, continue your journey by the five-forty,” urged Madame, who evidently wished to get rid of her.

She wished to remain, but Madame declared that she was already getting better, and after the three days ordered by the Professor would go on to Vallombrosa.

This assurance at length satisfied the thin-faced girl, and I saw her, with much relief, into the Florence train.

On my return to Madame’s salon I found her face much brighter. She had suddenly become her old self again.

“Where’s my baggage-ticket, Mariette?” was her first question.

When I produced it, she said—

“Send a porter across for my trunks. I shall stay here for three days, because that ass of a doctor says so. There’s nothing whatever the matter with me.”

“What?” I cried, staring at her.

“Of course not, Mariette, you little fool,” she laughed. “If I had not intended from the first to alight here I should not have had my trunks registered to this horribly dull hole.”

“But why, Madame?” I asked, puzzled.

“Don’t be impatient. Just go and tell the hall-porter to get my trunks from the station. And to everybody I’m pretty bad—remember.”

I laughed, and went to do her bidding.

Half-an-hour later the two cane trunks were deposited in Madame’s sitting-room, and we sat down to breakfast. During the presence of the waiter Madame assumed the attitude of the invalid, but as soon as his back was turned she became overflowing with good humour.

“I didn’t want to stay in this place three days,” she said. “It’s all through that scraggy little cat being here. She would send for the doctor, and after he came what could I do? I told him I’d been poisoned, and he believed it. Yet I only put a bit of extra powder on my face and darkened my eyes. In the daylight he might not have been deceived—eh?” she laughed.

She retired for a rest about nine, while I went out for a stroll to look at the Duomo. At eleven I returned, and found that she had arisen, and was in the sitting-room awaiting me.

“Look at that, Mariette,” she said, tossing over a telegram to me. “It’ll interest you. I trust you, you know.”

I took the message, and read in French the words—

“All my jewels stolen from my trunk. Police are utterly mystified. They say robbery must have been done in France. Are your trunks safe?—Maria Lastra a Signa.”

“That’s curious, Madame!” I remarked.

She glanced to see that the door was shut, then, taking a key from her pocket, said—

“Open that first trunk, Mariette.”

I obeyed, and after removing a silk kimono and some other things, a sight met my gaze which caused me to utter an ejaculation of surprise.

“Well, that’s some conjuring trick, Madame—isn’t it?” I asked, for my gaze fell upon fully twenty or thirty jewel-cases heaped pell-mell into the box.

I opened one of the smaller ones. It contained the Sultan’s sapphires!

Madame Houget, who had risen, was standing laughing at my astonishment.

How she had possessed herself of them was a complete mystery, for she had not left us for a moment. She had bent, and began to examine case after case—a wonderful assortment indeed, some magnificent and of great value, others paltry and almost worthless.

“Dieu!” I gasped, amazed, “you seem to have performed some magical trick!”

Hardly had I uttered the words when the waiter rapped at the door. She shut the box instantly, and when the man entered with a card, she gave orders for the visitor to be shown up.

He proved to be none other than a short little foreigner I had seen suspiciously lounging under the street-lamp in Gloucester Terrace one night.

“This is Jean—Jean Regnier,” she explained. Then turning to him quickly, she said, “I saw that woman making a fuss at Turin.”

“Yes, Madame,” was the Frenchman’s reply. “When I left at six o’clock they had already telegraphed the details of her loss to the bureau of police at the frontier.”

“Madame,” I said, in all seriousness, “do explain this.”

“Explain?” she echoed. “Can’t you see? Surely you aren’t blind?”

“I’m not blind, Madame—only puzzled.”

“Well, my dear child, to be frank, this is not the first time Monsieur Jean and I have worked together—on equal shares, of course. I provide the boxes and the skeleton-keys placed inside, and I dispose of the trinkets found; while Jean, who is baggage-porter on the express between Paris and Modane, and a friend of his, do the rest.”

“How do you mean?”

“It is quite simple,” she explained in English, “I merely register my baggage, and Jean has a key. On the journey he goes to the baggage-wagon, opens my trunk, and finds inside a bunch of skeleton-keys. With these he opens other women’s trunks and rummages them over. Whatever he finds in the way of jewellery, good, bad or indifferent, he places in my box and locks it up. He thus carries nothing upon him, while before the journey’s end I alight and claim my box. Then several persons—all unconscious until many hours afterwards, when they are hundreds of miles away—suddenly awake to find themselves minus their nick-nacks!”

The undersized little Frenchman grinned, for he understood English.

“And what are Madame’s plans?” I inquired, feeling very uncomfortable lest the Princess should return.

“Quite simple. I shall plead continued indisposition, and return. To attempt to cross the frontier with all those morocco cases would only be to court disaster, while to abandon them here would give me away. So I shall go to Genoa, take the North German Lloyd boat to Bremen, and thence to old Jacobsen in Amsterdam.”

“Madame is a perfect marvel of ingenuity,” I declared aghast.

“Haven’t I told you many times that when I want money I must have it. It’s no use being scrupulous these hard times. Other people are not, so why should I set myself on a pedestal? We’ve only taken part of the silly old Princess’s possessions. She’s horribly rich, so she can easily spare them.” Then, turning to Jean, she said: “You’re hard up, and want a bit on account, I know. I can manage two thousand francs to-day. When old Jacobsen pays up for the stuff you will come to me in London for your share.”

“Two thousand francs is quite sufficient for to-day, Madame,” said the Frenchman, cap in hand. “Madame is very genteel.”

And so Madame gave him some French bank-notes, and, all smiles, he bowed himself out of our presence.

After the doctor’s prescribed rest I escorted Madame as far as Genoa, where I saw her on board the German liner, afterwards returning home by way of Paris. She begged of me to say nothing, and as a little present pressed a bank-note for a thousand francs into my hand.

An hour afterwards I left for Turin and London.

Since that day there have been many robberies on the Italian railways, and the police are still quite mystified.

Perhaps this little histoire of mine may enlighten them.

With the feuilletoniste who writes daily in my Matin, I say, “Ah! what a droll world is ours!”