THE MARRIAGE COLLAPSES AND ALICE RETURNS TO IDINA SACKVILLE and JOSSLYN HAY IN KENYA

 After the long wait and all the campaigning, in 1931 Alice de Janze finally got Raymond de Trafford to marry her. She may have been addicted to him but he was addicted to gambling.  Rather than go to Kenya, they settled in Monte Carlo at the Hotel de Paris where he continued to loose her money.  Then they went to Cannes where they stayed at the Carlton, and blame the house, he won back half the money.  They were fighting all the time.  Having won him, now Alice saw her error and wanted a separation.  Had she really thought that marriage would change him?  Or - my question - was it that she had no other prospects? Let's face it that she had a reputation for instability because she had committed a crime of passion that made her infamous, even if no one had ever known that she had been suicidal as a teen. She was a rich and pretty woman and not very old and if she had not shot him perhaps suitors would be lined up for her.

She and Rayond did separate.  He went far away to Australia while she used her British passport (and marital status) to return to Kenya alone.

Alice went on safari with the Vanderbilts in 1933 and soon appealed to the governor of Kenya to stay there. No doubt her elite status and wealth were a consideration, just as it had been when the Pope had granted her an annulment, though she was the mother of two children. Adina and Joss had sold their house, Slains, as part of their divorce, and now Adina had a new house, called Clouds, that she had with a new husband. While Alice awaited her house, which had been rented out for the five years she had been outside the country, to be vacated by renters, she rejoined the Happy Valley set.  Idina was married to the American Donald Haldeman, her fourth husband, who expected her to be faithful to him while he was away on safari's, leading hunters into the wilderness to shoot wildlife was a business for him as well as an adventure.  Of course, there was no way that Idina was going to be sexually faithful. (Would we consider her to be a sex addict today?) Eventually Haldeman returned from a safari to catch one of Idina's lovers making an escape and went ballistic. That marriage would also fail.

Joss had married his conquest, Molly, and they had the grand estate she received as part of her divorce settlement, just as he wanted all along. That did not stop him from once again picking back up with Alice. Mary was not in great shape.  She was drinking and using heroin and not up to tolerating her new husband Joss's affairs. 

The British and American pioneers to Kenya had aged and matured and the sun was starting to set on the Happy Valley Set.

Alice's ex-husband Frederick died in 1933, only 37 years old, of meningitis and sepsis, while working on a journalism assignment. As ex-husbands go, he had been good. She had no relationship with her two daughters, who were raised by relatives. Just as Idina had no relationship with her two sons who were also being raised by relatives. In 1939 when War was declared in Europe (World War II) the children were taken to the United States for their safety and in with Aunt Tatty. Alice had lived her life as an ex-patriot.

Who or what was left for Alice? 

Her mood disorder, cyclothymia, worsened as she got older and now in her 40's she was sleeping in till noon.

Adina's health was starting to fail as well.

Jossyln Hay, Lord Erroll had made some enemies.

Perhaps not everyone who had encountered the Happy Valley Set accepted the affairs that went on.

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