The story of Alice de Janze, born Alice Silverhorne, certainly has its dramatic twists and turns. After shooting Raymond de Trafford, a man who had left a string of broken hearts before they met and who took the blame for her shooting him, Alice was even forgiven by the President of France.
She was not free to return to Kenya to stay if she was single or divorced. Perhaps it was basically an acknowledgement on the part of the government of Kenya that no woman should be alone and unprotected, especially not in a time and place where farms and houses were far apart and where going on safaris to kill wild animals was the rage. On page 110 of the book The Temptress by Paul Spicer, it says that when a woman came to Africa already engaged, the first thing she did upon arrival was go straight to Mombasa Cathedral to be married. As a result of this policy of the Kenyan government about women, I began to think that Idina Sackville and other women in the Happy Valley Set had a motivation for marriage and remarriage beyond personal desires for a man.
While again visiting Idina Sackville, Alice picked up where she had left it with Joss Hay, who was on his way out of his marriage to Idina and on his way to marrying the richer Molly. "A pattern of frequent separations and intermittent sexual reunions" occurred between Alice and Jossyln Hay, who finally was now Lord Erroll.
My comment is that such patterns are more addictive. Have you ever been there?
However, Alice had not given up on being united with Raymond de Trafford. It's suggested that he was a whole lot like her own father, a womanizer, a gambler, and not to be relied upon, unfit to be any woman's husband. Alice had shown interest in Bad Boys as a young woman back in Chicago when she hung out in clubs and met mobsters.
But she wanted him.
In 1927, a few months after the shooting, the divorce from Frederick de Janze came through and Alice was free to remarry. In 1928 an annulment came through as well signed off on by Pope Pius XI. Living in London, though Raymond had told her that he could not marry her because he did not want to be a Kept man, Raymond allowed Alice to cover his gambling debts.
As the years went by, Alice's old friends were moving into new marriages. Her ex-husband Frederick de Janze married in 1930 to an American widow living in Paris. Idina Sackville that same year married her fourth husband, Donald Haldeman, an American who lived in Kenya. Jossyn Hay, Lord Erroll married Mary 'Molly' Ramsey.
Alice was still campaigning to marry Raymond de Trafford. in 1931 he agreed! Did he love her or her money? It had been six years since the two met! They had a simple, civil ceremony, bypassing religion. Now a British subject, Alice was free to return to Kenya.
This story cannot have a happy ending.
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