CUPID’S DICE BOX

Otago Witness, Issue 3861, 13 March 1928, Page 76

CUPID’S DICE BOX

I.—A DERBY REVENGE.

VISCOUNT CHAPLIN’S LOST LOVE. ROMANCE AND RUIN.

By

J. Bare-Linnoy.

(Copyright. —Fob the Otago Witness.) When Cupid casts his dices, He aims at twenty-ono; He's twenty—comeg a crisis. When Cupid cast s his dices; A queen or peasant's son, •• His “ one ” he then entices; When Cupid casts his dices He aims at twenty-one. . Henry Chaplin, the young squire of Blankney. rich and handsome, and one of the best dressed men about town in the ’sixties, was, nevertheless, destined to suffer bitterly in the courts of Cupid. Two women were to play a part in his life—two Florences —and one man, a Harry like himself, and ever in the background of his life was the Marquis of Hastings. , x x Tall and slim, with bright chestnut hair, and a sportsman to the finger tips, Mr Henry (and in the end viscount) Chaplin was just the sort of a man that many women would fall in love with—— and many did. His rival was just as handsome and just as rich, but love was now to take part in the game. Young Chaplin soon discovered that there was one woman and one woman only who should reign in his heart —Lady Florence Paget. Lady Florence was one of the reigning beauties of that particular season. From her tiny figure she was known as the “pocket” Venus. Never a man loved a woman more than the young good-look-ing squire of Blankney loved Lady Florence Paget. The engagement was a brief one, aiid the marriage of the young people was to be one of the chief events of the close of a brilliant season. Congratulations poured in, and the Prince of Wales (the late King Edward), “as an old Oxford friend,” to use his own expression, was one of the first to send his good wishes to the prospective bridegroom. ELOPEMENT WITH A MARQUIS. Alas I best laid schemes of mice and men “ gang aft agley.” It was only a few days before the date fixed for the ceremony that the blow on the young squire fell with dramatic suddenness. Felicitations and presents had been received, the invitations to the wedding had been issued, and every detail arranged. The bridegroom, proud, happy, and unsuspecting, was busy in the intervals of the social claims of the London season in preparing Blankney, his rich, ancestral home, in order to receive his bride. On a certain Thursday in July, 1864, Lady Florence paid a visit for the day to her future home, and went round the stables with Chaplin to inspect the recent improvements. No one suspected anything, least of all the happy bridegroom. She, on her part, betrayed nothing.

The following evening they were together at the opera, and on Saturday morning she showed herself to her father in her wedding dress, which had just been sent home. Not even her father suspected the next act in the drama. There have been many false stories concocted and written about this affair. The popular legend has it that she. afterwards went out driving with Harry Chaplin and disappeared at the door of Marshall and Snelgrove’s—to appear ultimately as the wife of Lord Hastings. But the truth "is that on this fateful morning Lady Florence, on the plea of making some final purchases, drove alone —unattended by a servant—in her father’s brougham to the Vere street' entrance to a fashionable : fedi.es’ shop in the West End of London;

She walked straight through the shop to the door iirjiQifdrd street, where she was met by' Lbi-jl-Hastings, radiant*- and with a smile.ppf triumph about his cynical mouth, ;and the two were presently seen by a common friend driving in a cab in the direction of Euston.

Lady Florence had kept her secret well. But Cupid had been busy with his Dice Box. The beautiful “Pocket Venus” had dared all fopthe sake of that other man whom she "felt was her true choice. She little dreamej of the tragedy that was to . come - into,’both'their lives. THE FATAL LEITER.

The letter which reached the unsuspecting Horry Chaplin in his rooms in Park lane was an overwhelming surprise. She began it:

Harrv, —To you whom I have injured more deeply than anyone, I hardly know how to address myself. . Would to -.God I had had moral courage to open my heart to you sooner, but I could not br>ig myself to do

Nothing in the world can ever excuse my conduct. I have treated you too infamously, but I sincerely trust the knowledge of my unworthiness ‘will help you to bear the bitter blow I am about to inflict on you. . . .

Aou must have seen, ever since the beginning of our engagement, how very little I really returned all your devotion to me. ...

And now we are eternally separated, for by the time you receive this, I shall be the wife of Lord Hastings. May. God bless vou, - and may you soon find someone far more worthy of becoming your wife than T should ever have been..—Yours, Florence.

The last hope uttered in the letter was, in the course of time, to be fulfilled with another and very different Florence —one who was destined to bring true love and consolation to the heart of the bereaved lover.

It added to Mr Chaplin’s mortification to know that the woman he was in love with had thrown in her lot with a man who was quite unfitted to make her happy. Lord Hastings is said to have been the model of a sensational hero of the fiction of that period. At the time of his runaway marriage he was already in bad health and threatened with financial catastrophe; but nothing was allowed to inteifere with his determination to win Lady Florence, and there was, as has often been remarked, a further attraction in winning her from so popular a young hero as Hany Chaplin. For a hero Chaplin was in the; eyes of the whole social and sporting world; George R. Sims afterwards took him for the pivot of one of his dramas.

The Marquis' of -Hastings was a goodlooking young man—rather a dandy with his gold cane and his silk hat cocked on one side. At the time of his elopement with Lady Florence, Henry Weysford Charles Plantagenet was 22, and about the age of nine he succeeded to the splendour of many titles, and to the broad acres of fine estates in England and Scotland.

A WILD GAMBLER. He was utterly spoilt from the outset by the flattery and homage of sycophants. He betted in sums often exceeding the rent roll of a country squire or the salary of a Cabinet minister; and success or failure generally depended on the health of a two-year-old or the fall of a card. And it was his wild gambling nature which, at the hands of Harry Chaplin, was to prove his undoing. As for Squire Chaplin, sorely wounded in his affections ..and still more in his pride, he set off almost immediately to Scotland to see that peace and serenity of mind which never failed him in his mother’s country. And as time passed his feeling of outrage naturally became less acute.

On her pait Lady Hastings (as she then became) soon realised her mistake. She had found herself married to an irresponsible_rake, who was ready to risk anything to gratify the desire of the moment. Her thoughts turned every now and then to the man she had unscrupulously deserted, and soon pathetic little notes began to find their way to Mr Chaplin’s rooms. She saw her error —the folly—the tragedy of it all. “You don’t know how awfully happy you have made me by speaking to me to day,” she wrote in the first of these pathetic notes. “.It was so good and kind of you, and it is the first bit of sunshine I have had in my life for months. ...

“ I so often think of your words that if ever I wanted a friend I should find one in you. God knows I want one at the present moment. ’ ’

A MEMORABLE DERBY. But there, was to be a still more dramatic sequel to this affair. The sensational triumph of Hermit, Mr Chaplin’s horse in the Derby of the following year, which played a part in causing Lord Hastings’s ultimate ruin, brought the young squire and his former lover in closer contact.

The consideration which Harry Chaplin showed on this* dramatic occasion to his former rival was largely dictated by the compassion for the woman whom he had once loved.

Six months after that memorable Derby —which was not run as many people suppose in a snowstorm,‘though there had beeh heavy showers of snow, sleet, and hail —when Lord Hastings’s financial position was desperate and his debt to Mr Chaplin not yet paid in full, we find Ladv Hastings writing to her former lover asking him to allow a debt of £l5OO to stand over.

In the June of the following year some difference, the cause of which remains obscure, arose between Mr Chaplin and Lord Hastings, although they had met and been reconciled.

Lord Hastings never ceased to oppose the chances of the handsome squire’s Derby candidate, Hermit, and, to make matters worse, Hermit after a trial had coughed, and blood had poured from his nostrils.

Things looked so bad that .Chaplin, who had just met with an accident" thought of scratching the horse; but he did not, and when Derby day came on May 22, 1867, Hermit was one of a field of thirty ; but little attention was paid to him—even the race card showed no jockey's name -against the horse. Everybody said what a brute he looked, and certainly 66 to 1 represented his chance. At Tattenham corner more than half the field were dene with, and Vauban looked the best as they - swept, round theturn, raising the hopes of Lord.' Hastings. Suddenly a rose-coloured iacket appeared, and Hermit was observed to deliver a spirited challenge to Mr Merry’s horse. The despised, vicious horse was running home. For a moment it was a desperate, race between the pair. In the last few strides Hermit, staying well, got the better of Marksman, who was then leading, and won by a neck. A auban, owned by the Duke of Beaufort, was.' third. DRAMATIC VICTORY. Harry Chaplin had won the Derby, and he was in the heyday of his. youth. The history of’.the turf knows no more dramatic, triumph, than this.. Lord Hastings a fterwards 'wrote to Mr Chaplin that-..he had lost £120.000 :-on the Derby;'Chaplin allowed him time’ to’ pay his debt. -But there is no- mention-

in Lord Hastings’s letters of the great injury he had done the other in the old days. Pursued by debt, Hastings became a broken man. He went yachting in search of health, which he never found, and then came home to die at the age of 26. Hermit afterwards met with other successes—notably at Ascot. But it was not until 1876 that at the age of 35, Harry Chaplin found the supreme though short-lived happiness in his life in . his marriage with Lady Florence Leveson-Gower, the elder daughter of the thiid Duke of Sutherland. - He afterwards became Viscount Chaplin, and died full of honours at a ripe old age.