Unreliable Geographies by Aeneas McHaar
No. 13: Pilrig, Johannesburg, South Africa
26º 12’ S, 28º 2’ E
Archibald Edward Balfour – ‘Duggy’ to his friends and now Spurtle readers – was born in St Petersburg in 1870, the son of a wealthy British merchant with manufacturing interests in Tsarist Russia. He was later educated at Westminster School in London, then went on to read Law at Cambridge. He was called to the Bar in 1892, and threw himself into work (Lincoln’s Inn Fields) and Society with equal relish. As late as 1901 he resided at his parents’ London house in Pont Street, Chelsea.
He was remembered by a former university acquaintance in 1898 as a gregarious character. W.G. Elliot wrote of him: ‘Mr. A. E. Balfour ... never appeared on the A.D.C. [Amateur Dramatic Club] boards. Judging by this gentleman’s later successes in impromptu romantic opera and in representations of early biblical heroes, there is no doubt that with the aid of the usual rehearsals he would have developed into a histrion of striking force.. Elliot’s words were to prove prescient when, in 1901, Duggy was swept off his feet by a beauty.
[img_assist|nid=1228|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=161|height=200]The object of his admiration was Vivian May Sartoris (right), a 22-year-old debutante and the granddaughter of US President Ulysses S. Grant. The New York Times described her thus: ‘Although educated almost entirely in England, she is intensely American in feeling and sentiment, and by her own choice made her début at her grandmother’s home in this city [Washington, D.C.] three years ago. She is a handsome blond of the English type, possessed of vigorous health, and fond of all outdoor sports.’ (Blond ‘of the English type’ would appear to signify ‘out of a bottle’ if the photograph in the Sunday Chat [published in Paducah, Kentucky on 5 May 1901] is to be believed.)
Still exhibiting a certain patriotic anxiety, the newspaper continued: ‘Her present visit to England only dates from the early Spring, when she went abroad to join her young sister ... who has been with their English relatives for the past year.’
[img_assist|nid=1230|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=192|height=200]In this the NYT was a tad disingenuous, since – despite having other family homes in Washington D.C., Wisconsin, and Ontario – Vivian had spent most of the previous decade at 66 Cadogan Place in London. The move to London’s West End had followed the death of her father in 1893. He – Algernon Charles Frederick Sartoris – had been rich, handsome, a British diplomat and thoroughly bad egg. From the start President Grant (right) had disapproved of him, had even wept during the White House wedding ceremony, and the old general’s worst fears were amply realised when his son-in-law soon proved to be a hard-gambling, womanising drunk. As Algernon struggled with demons and pneumonia in Capri, a hostile Sheboygan City News (with less geographical accuracy than bile) announced: ‘Algernon Sartoris, is very near his end somewhere in France, from delirium tremens, vulgarly know as shakes, also jim-jams. He owns much land in this state [Wisconsin] especially about Green Bay [...]. Why the Genl. then President Grant, ever permitted it [the marriage] is a mystery. Not long before the wedding, Sartoris stopped at the Beekman House here for some weeks. The writers sat as his left at table. Taking him all in all, he was the blackest sheep we ever met.’
Vivian and Archibald first met in December 1898 at a party given by his aunt. Vivian was chaperoned by a cousin of her late father, Mrs. Henry Gordon. They met again at another party, after which Duggy was invited to Seven Oaks, where Miss Vivian and her sister Rosie had a pleasant little cottage close to the country house of Mrs. Gordon. Their engagement was announced on 21 June 1901.
[img_assist|nid=1229|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=149|height=200]Vivian had perhaps learned more than she realised from her parents’ unhappy marriage. She was wilful and flirtatious, lived in a fashionable whirl, and had allegedly been engaged already four times before encountering Duggy. Clearly he was not deterred.
News of the engagement was greeted with breathless excitement in the US, partly because Vivien’s parents’ marriage suggested nice American girls should stay well clear of English toffs; and partly because the engagement had a dynastic whiff to it. Vivien was the granddaughter of President Grant; among many high-born relations, Archibald was 12th cousin once removed to Arthur James Balfour (right), the Unionist leader of the Opposition and soon-to-be Prime Minister.
‘Mrs. Nellie Grant Sartoris has announced to her friends that the wedding of her daughter, Miss Vivian Sartoris, to Archibald Balfour will take place in London, July 11, at the house of Mrs. Gordon, a sister of the late Mr. Sartoris,’ reported the Minneapolis Journal in May. ‘It will be one of the smartest nuptial events of the London season. Miss Sartoris will be attended by her sister, Miss Rosemary, as maid of honor, and there will be a bevy of pretty and titled bridesmaids. The ushers will also be selected from the exclusive set to which Mr. Balfour belongs. The Honeymoon will be spent in Scotland. In September Mr. Balfour will bring his bride to this country, where he will meet for the first time his distinguished grandmother and mother.’
Vivien’s brother was already halfway across the Atlantic to give her away at the wedding when on 22 June there came a shock announcement. Apparently ‘familiarity [had] increased only their mutual regard and failed to fan the flame of love’. In other words, the engagement was off.
[img_assist|nid=1233|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=157|height=200]The Minneapolis Journal reported at length, relishing every detail: ‘Vivian Sartoris and Archibald Balfour found their courtship and engagement so squally that they decided not to venture upon the stormy sea of matrimony. This is the explanation of the broken engagement that their relatives give. The granddaughter of Ulysses S. Grant and the distant cousin of Arthur Balfour, leader in the House of Commons, are persons who know their own minds, and the end of their idyl, though prosy, is called by their friends a triumph of common sense. Each held decided opinions, and points of divergence were more plentiful than points of contact. They could agree on few things of importance. Tiffs were frequent, and more than once the engagement was broken but the quarrels as frequently patched up through the good offices of Mrs. Gordon.’
[img_assist|nid=1231|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=200|height=142]Now for the juicy bit. ‘About a fortnight ago they had a hot quarrel over furnishings and other topics connected with their marriage, and by mutual consent they decided that nothing but misery could follow if they were to take the step that would bind them to each other forever. At a meeting of representatives of both families it was decided that the interests of the two most concerned demanded that no attempt should be made to heal the latest breach, and so the engagement was broken off. Miss Sartoris and Mr. Balfour parted as friends.’ As this author can testify from personal experience, hell hath no fury like a woman whose taste in soft furnishings has been spurned.
For those readers who many paragraphs ago began tearing their hair at the seemingly pointless and ungeographical meanderings of this article, the McHaar counsels patience. An end is in sight. We will reach Pilrig together in Parts 2 or 3 or 4 starting next month.