MELBA'S MEMOIRS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19214, 31 December 1925, Page 6

MELBA'S MEMOIRS.

A CANADIAN VISITOR. LORD NORTHCLIFFE. (Copyright.) CHAPTER XXV.—(Continued.) One nigbfc Gean Mount Stephen was showing mo her jewels. She had a most charming way of showing them, dragging their: rather diffidently from their boxes and holding up diamonds and pearls and emeralds to the light, rather as a child would hold up a new toy. Among them X noticed two suporb rows of diamonds. "Do be really pompous to night," T said, "and wear them both." She shrank back with a little gesture of dissent and shook her head, saying: "Oh, no, his Lordship never allows mo to wear more than one of them at a time." "Oh, don't bother about that just for once," I said. "Put them on, and see if he will notice them." And after a little persuasion she did. All went well during dinner, and she sat at the end of the table, glittering with diamonds, and secretly revelling in her naughtiness. But afterwards, when he came into the drawing room, Lord Mount Stephen pointed his finger at her and said : "Gean, haven't T told you not to wear all those diamonds round your neck ?" I pleaded guilty to making her wear them, and I said rather indignantly, "Why did you give her two rows of diamonds, if she is not allowed to wear them ?" He frowned at me and said, "You are making a great mistake. X will tell you how I came to buy those diamonds. I'd already given her one row, and then I went into Christie's one afternoon and I saw that necklace, and I said to the dealer: 'How much do you think they will fetch V He told me. Well, like a stupid old fool, I told him, 'lf you can get it for £SOOO less, I will have it.' I forgot all about the darned thing, but when it was brought to me I had to pay for it, so I shoved it in my despatch-box. "But trust a woman to find out if there are any jewels about the house! I was working in my study with the despatchbox open one day, when in comes Gean, who starts muddling round, finds the box and says, ' Oh, what's in this ?' ' I don't know,' I said, being busy at the time. "So she opened it, and then I had to answer some questions. 'Who are these for V says she. 'Why didn't you tell me about them before ? What do you keep diamonds like these in your despatch-box for V So I told her the whole story, and I said she could have them; but I had to make one condition, just to save my own face, and that was that she should never wear the two at once. She promised she never would, and now she goes and breaks her promise. Oh, she's a wicked woman!" One met every type of man and woman at Brockett. That was the charm of it—the charm of the unexpected. One day a Canadian friend arrived from the other side of the water. I forget his name, but I know that he had been a companion of Lord Mount Stephen's in his early struggles, and that as such he was received with open arms. His arrival created something of a sensation, because he came in an exceptionally tall top hat and a very long frock coat, and linen so highly starched that he looked as if he were about to suffocate. This costume, especially when one compared it with one's own comfortable country clothes, made conversation a little difficult, and it grew worse as the day went on until evening, when the wearer of it -took me into dinner. He relapsed into a state of absolute silence. At last in desperation I thought of the most obvious question I could ask him,, and then turning to him I said: "What do you think of our English country-house life?" He looked me straight in the eye as though he were delivering a sentence of death, and he said in a gruff voice: "Madame, I think it is most educational." Whether he thawed at all when he was alone with Lord Mount Stephen I do not know, but I do remember that when the time came for him to go, Lord Mount Stephen shook him by the hand and said, "What's the matter with vou, mon ? You have been blithering ever since you came into the house." One day I asked Lord Mount Stephen how he had come to choose his title. He roared with laughter, and said: "I got it from a mountain; but I gave it to the mountain first." 1 asked him what he meant. "Well, you see," he said, "we Scotsmen who helped to build the Canadian Pacific used to lend our names to some of the big ranges on the route. My name was Stephen, so my own particular mountain was called Mount Stephen. A fine name I thought it, too," he added, "but on the very first time I went out in the street with my new name, I saw an old coal cart with the owner's name, 'Mount Stephen, written all over it What d'you think of that V It was Lord Mount Stephen who cured mo of a misunderstanding which, I am quite sure, must be common to many mil lions of people. We always used to sit in the porch at Brockett, and one day, in answer to a long-standing request, I sang Comin Thro' the Rye" for his especial benefit. I can see him to this day, nodding his dear old head in time to the music, with the sunlight streaming on his face, while I stood in front of him and sang. When I had finished and he had thanked me with that wonderful old-world courtesy of his, ho suddenly said, "I suppose you're like all the rest of them ? You think 'Comin' thro' the Rye' means 'Coming i through a field of Rye.' " "Well, doesn't it?" He shook his head solemnly. "It does not. It means comin' thro' a bur-r-n. The Rye is the name of a Scotch burn." He looked up at me with a twinkle in his eye, "And you with a Scotch father!" "1 tremble to think of the number of oleographs of plump young ladies wading through fields of rye which will have to be destroyed when this revelation is published. Writing of Lord Mount Stephen makes me think of another self-made man, no less great, but—oh—how different—Lord Northciiffe. He was only young Mr. Alfred Harmsworth when I first met him, but he was already a celebrity and was well on in the triumphant campaign which was to capture the English press. I remember that as I drove to his house in Berkeley Square I read for the first time a copy of the Evening News, and was amused by the audacity which he had introduced into journalism. It was as though a young giant had suddenly entered Fleet Street, sweeping away all that displeased him—the dull ieaders, the stodgy headlines and uninspired criticism —and had set forth what he had to say with a shout of joy.

I was greeted in the hall of Harmsworth's house by a good-looking young man, clean shaven, with an engaging smile, a broad forehead and eyes that. darted hither and thither like a bird's. He shook me warmly by the hand, and I said, "I don't think I know your father yet." "My father?" he said. "But I thought you'd come to see me. I'm Alfred Harmsworth." We became firm friends, in spite of my blunder. In fact, I think he liked to be thought younger than he really was. One of the first things he said to me was, "I shan't even allow a man over forty to > work in my office. Old men are no use in journalism. It's cruel, but it's true. Old men haven't the courage, and, what's more, they write themselves out. They go on repeating themselves. And so, when a man gets old, I shall give him a pension and set him free." I think that, inevitably, he changed his opinion when he himself reached that age. Alfred Harmsworth was always a true friend. He had a habit of ringing one up, very early in the morning, before most people's breakfast, and asking if he could do anything for one. He was quite hurt if you said "No," and never more happy if he could help. On one occasion he did me a service for which I sm eternally grateful. My son George v. as in Texas when suddenly the news came through that there had been a terrible earthquake. Whole streets had been destroyed and hundreds of people killed. In desperation I rang up Harmsworth and prayed him that, if it was humanly possible, he should find out what had happened to my son. "That's all right," came back his quiet voice over the telephone, "don't you worry, "I'll let you know in 24 hours." | He set his cables working, ordered foreign correspondents to make exhaustive inquiries, and before the 24 hours had elapsed he rang me up to tell me ; that my son was unhurt. "I told you I ! should find out," he said, "and I always I keep my word." He did, and for a long time he kept his | youth, evert to an amusing little love of i practical jokes. Once, when I was in Paris, at the time he was given his title, Lord Northciiffe was announced. "Lord Northciiffe," I said. "I don't know who he is. Tell bim I am not in." A voice came from behind the door, "But I must see you." Very annoyed at being worried by a strange peer, I got up, prepared to tell him what. I thought of him, walked behind the screen and saw the laughing face of Alfred Harmsworth. "It's only me," he said. "I'm Lord Northciiffe, and I wanted to hear bow my new name sounded." Legend has concentrated so exclusively on the business side of Lord Northciiffe's character that he has come to be generally regarded as a man without any artistic nature at all, as a sort of inhuman journalistic machine, gifted with an abnormal capacity for work: Hew false that legend is! The very first time I visited him when he had moved into Jus new house in Carlton House Terrac#he gave me proof of that love of beauty for which most of the world did not credit him. As I stepped into his dining room the first thing I noticed was a collection of marvellous pictures on the walls. I cannot give a detailed account of them, but I know they made an instantaneous impression on me. . "Those pictures," I said, they re wonderful. Where did you get them ?" "I bought them with thehouse. They were part of the furniture." A look of disappointment came over my face and Northciiffe must have seen it, for he laughed and said, "Oh, I'm not quite such a barbarian as you think. X bought the house because of the pictures, not the pictures because of the house." I felt that it was very like him to buy a whole house because of something it contained.

(Saturday: An Unfair Critsasm.)