PRINCESS TO POVERTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20596, 21 June 1930, Page 26 (Supplement)

PRINCESS TO POVERTY.

BEAUTIFUL GIRL SPY/ REVOLUTION AND ROMANCE. DEATH'S RUTHLESS TOLL. BUS DRIVER AS HUSBAND. Out of tho humble occupation of a linenmaid, a real princess of Old Russia —tho Russia beforo tho Soviet regime—earns her living in a London club to-day. At 29 she-lias seen life inside and out; at . its best and at its worst. Sho ha 9 descended from sheltered aflluenco to , naked poverty, endured bereavements innumerable, courted' death as a spy, worked in hotels, and "walked on" in films to keep body and soul togethor. The princess has twice encountered romance ahd twice lost it. Tho first time •war claimed her fiance; tho second time her .husband went to another woman. ,This husband is a London bus driver, who met tho pretty little Russian when ; ho was a potty-officer of tho Royal Navy rescuing refugees from the Bolsheviks in thor revolution; and tho princess had sought sanctuary in Constantinople. At the Old Bailey tho bus driver was arrainged on a charge of bigamy. Something of the crowded years of the princess was told to Judge and jury, but it only touched the fringe of her amazing story.: ' Bigamous Husband in Dock. Both " wives " —the princess and the young -woman who supplanted her—had , ! seats tn Court at tho Old Bailey when thia bus driver, Frederick Charles Baker, aged 35, was summoned to the dock. Baker pleaded guilty,"' and, the princess, 'Alia Dimitrievna, tho daughter of Prince Dimitri Mescherskaia, of Russia, was not called to give, evidence. Tho Judge held that in tho circumstancs her testimony was unuocessary. A slight handsome, and vivacious young woman not yet 30, vwith frizzy dark hair, she wore a brotarn coat/trimmed with astrachan, on which was pinned a big bunch of violets. Mr. F. E. Sugden, prosecuting counsel, related that Baker was married to the princess at tho Islington Registry Office on March 26, 192 J. He first met her in Southern Russia in 1919, when he was %■ naVal petty-officer on H.M.S. Duke of Grafton, They met casually in the street, , and did n<Jt setf one another again for 18 months. Then tho princess -wrote to Baker from •Parisj and he invited her to London. She stayed with Baker's mother for about fivo 'mohths,' -and the couple wero then married. They lived at Drayton Park, Highbury, in furnished apartments, but k werb,not happy., : , • The princess went to Paris, became htranded there, and had to'get'help from :,th6. Britf&h. Consul to return to England. '• "Sho rejoined hoi- husband, and again they lived together for a time. , Then the princess left him to stay with Russian friends. He could have obtained her address from tho Y.W.G.A., but did not help to support her. Linenmaid at' a Club. Tho princess had, in fact, kept herself from September, 1929, to March, "1930, first as a barmaid at the Royal C a f e > -..-.-and then, as linenmaid in the Union Club, ' Lower Regent Street. She was still employed at the latter place. In March the princess wroto to her husband, and he met her at""fhb Leicester Square Tube Station, where he told her ho married to another woman. In fact, Baker had been married bigamously to Alice May Stevens, at St. Matthew's Church. Newington, on Christmas Day, 1926. lie .v. said he had met her three and a-half years before at the General Omnibus Company's Sports Club, where Miss Stevens was employed. There was a child of the bigamous marriage nine months old. , Alice Stevens gave evidence that before her ".marriage " she took it for granted that Baker was a bachelor. Replying to Mr. St. John Hutchinson, defending counsel, she declared they had been extraordinarily happy, and were devoted to each other and to the child. " What- • - ver happens," she added, " I shall stick • ' to him." /.■i. • Mr. Hutchinson: You don't even now J ";"regret the step you have taken? ,v . Miss Stevens: Not a bit. / An Unfortunate Meeting. A detective stated that Baker was in the Navy from 1912 to 1919, and had an . excellent character. For a part of the time he served in Southern Russia in . rescuing refugees from tho revolution, arid it was there he met his future wife. .When the princess landed at Newhaven, Baker was told he could tako her to his people, and that if he married her within three months she could remain in England. Ho married her, and she became a British subject. Within a few months tho princess returned to Paris, where she lived rather luxuriously for a few days. Baker fetched her back, but a few weeks later sho left him again because they could not " get on together." Tho princess could speak but little English, and Baker did not know Russian. Their landlady said they •wero always quarrelling. Tho princess had now taken out papers for divorce, and she had asked witness to tell the Judge that she did not wish Baker to go ito prison. Thp Common Sergeant, Sir Henry Dickons, K.C., remarked that tho second ■" marriage" had turned out extraordinarily happy, and if he were to send Baker to prison it would break up Hip homo. He passed a nominal sentence of four days' imprisonment, which meant tluit Baker would be discharged immediately. An 111-Starred Family. Something of tho life of the Princess Alia Dimitrievna is told by a correspondent of the News of the World. War broke out when sho was little more than a child, but already discussed as ono of the future beauties of the pre-Sovict Russian Court. Her father, the Prince Dimitri Mescherskaia, was rich, influential, and an important personality in Petrograd. To-day tho princess, with tragedy in the blue eyes set beneath a mass of dark curly hair, works gladly for her bread and butler. Survivor of Bolshevik rule, exile from the Russia she remembers and reveres, •Alia Dimitrievna moves about London in daily dread of agents of tho Reds. Revolution convulsed Russia when tho princess was 17 and staying at her lather's home. He was an officer at- , tachod to the Royal Household then, and the family owned, vast tracts of land in • Central Russia. . I' 'Early in the fighting tho princess' lather was killed, and soon afterwards the yonng aristocrat to whom tho princess -5m to have been married also fell on

the field of arms. " I shall never forgot tlioso days as long as I live," sho stated. "How can I forget the reign of terror that took one by oile, all my dear friends from mo? I thought I, too, should,have died when my fianco wont. Life had no interest then. My moi^ier' died of a broken heart for my father, and then my sister, who had always boon far from strong, followed mother. Wo had been compelled to fly for our lives, and my sister surrendered to the privations." Time after timo the princess herself •was faced with death-or worse,; but, managed to dscapo. Then, finding herself near the Sea of Azov', sho decided to offer herself as a spy to the anti-Bolshevik forces'known as the White Army. At first the officers would not hear of it, but accepted her when sho remarked to them, " 1 have nothing to live for now, and it is better that. 1 should dio working for Russia than in somo other way." So she was given certain work for espionage, and in this activity was responsible for the capture and execution of a student named Dorsky, who, she declared, " moro than all others caused disruption and bloodshed in ; that territory." . In ono short year tho princess had lost parents, sister, friends and lover. Sho was desperate. Dorsky was captured ono night a3 ho left her house, where ho had tried to convert her to his own extreme views. At length the Whito Army was beaten, aiid tho princess had to retreat once more. Tho Rods know of hor activities, and she had many narrow escapes in the flight of security. ■ " Disguising myself . as a young student," sli«« says, " I made my way to Constantinople, where I had an uncle, a rich merchant. I had managed to save soma of our family jewols, and with tho money these realised I was able to livo in

Constantinople for some months, almost in tho stylo I had "been accustomed to. But when my, uncle attempted to marry mo to a Turkish officer of his acquaintance—a big, fat, black-bearded man, almost old enough to be my father—l rebelled." ■ ~

In Constantinople the princess met tho young man who .became her husband, Frederick Charles Baker. She herself tells tho story of their first meeting as follows:- '• — ---

" Ono sunlit morning we were in the market buying fruit when a jolly pettyofficer of. tho British, Navy offered .to carry our parcels. Uncertain of his rank, I was a little autocratic. My friend said to me, ' Mind he is not. a cook,'-: and wo both " laughed. The Englishman, not understanding, laughed, too. I liked him, and wo managed to converse in bad French. " Ono day a sailor hurried up. and handed me ft" letter. It" was'his goodbye and earnest wish that I would write him. I came to England at his request, and a month later wo wero married. Chic of his old commanding officers, tho brother of an English earl, helped him to find a job." In later years in London the princess alleges that she endured days of actual want. "If it had not been for tho assistance .of. friendly policemen," she declares, . " I would never havo had a bud or shelter at all some nights. They took

me to a hostel for penniless people, and explained everything for me. A little later the League of Goodwill helped me, and from thorn 1 really got my firstchance. I had an opportunity to go as a nursery governess, but fell ill and lost my job. " After that I got a ' walk 011 ' part in the films, but when that was over I didn't know what to do. 1 had no good clothes left, and I lost nil my looks, so I went as a chambermaid to a station hotel under tho namo of ' Miss Baker.' There I was quite all right for a while, but somehow or other someone discovered who I really was, and tho manager objected to the interest people took iri mo. Chambermaids wero chambermaids, lie said, and he was sorry, but he didn't want, Russian princesses."

Since that time the princess has earned her living in a varipty of occupations—as nursemaid, as barmaid, and now, as disclosed at tho trial, as linenmaid in a West End Club,-