JOSSYLN HAY IS FOUND MURDERED and THE SUICIDE OF ALICE DE JANZE

Well, my readers, if you've come this far into my retelling the story of American heiress and expatriate Alice de Janze, you may realize that the murder of Jossyln Hay is the dramatic conclusion of the story and the book The Temptress. In fact, there have been several books written about the Happy Valley Set that include or are focused on this murder because it remains an unsolved mystery. Author Paul Spicer believes Alice e Janze did murder Jossyln Hay, quite deliberately, and believes that with her suicide she left a letter that admitted it, which was confiscated by the police and never seen or spoken of.  As well, Spicer visited a woman who was the daughter of the doctor who attended Alice when her servants heard the shot she inflicted upon herself, and rallied to save her life. He says this daughter was only eleven years old at the time, but her mother did tell her about Alice's confessional letter.

What if Alice Silverhorne, who married Frederick de Janze, and then Raymond de Trafford, had been born today?  Certainly, there would have been much more psychological and psychiatric help for her. If you recognize yourself in Alice, perhaps you have a mood disorder or you fight depression, or maybe the one you love is an unhealthy obsession.  Know that this is true. Reach out for help!

Josslyn Hay, had created enemies, even if he was a likeable character who, despite his reputation ,had been welcomed into the homes of many of the Happy Valley settlers.  He was likely a sex addict and he had gotten himself involved with many women.  Any number of jilted lovers or husbands could have been to blame. 

In 1941, when he was about 40, he was found in a fetal position on the floor of his car which was slightly off road. The author comes up with a credible scenario on how this murder could have happened, as he was shot at close range.  He proposes that Alice is the one who knew when he would be on the road mid-morning and where and drove to that point. Then, seeing that he knew her, Josslyn might have stopped to talk to her.

But who in Kenya was accused?  Despite the notion that the people who came to Kenya and indulged in sex parties, swinging, changing partners, Open marriages, and so on, did so to escape the restrictions in their lives and experience the freedom to do as they like, many of them suffered from too much drama and chaos that was unlivable without the use of alcohol and other drugs. Many of them, when it comes right down to it, sought the perfect partner.

Someone had decided to repress the evidence and let a likely innocent man go to trial.

A man named Jock Delves Broughton was blamed and went on trial. Jock had reason to believe his wife, Diana, was cheating on him. After the murder Alice visited this man as he awaited his fate in prison, assuring him she knew he was innocent, but  thought she was a suspect, she was never suspected enough to be arrested or brought to trial herself. Jock was an older man and becoming a social outcast  because of this accusation was more than he could deal with. Though he was not convicted, he took a fatal dose of morphine in 1942. Then Diana went on to marry one of the wealthiest men in Kenya, Gilbert Coville, in 1943, a month after her husband's suicide. (Diana went on to marry again in 1955. Despite this, Gilbert still left her his entire estate when he died!)

On Page 195 of Paul Spicer's The Temptress we find an accounting of Alice's very intentional suicide:

Alice killed her dog with sleeping pills, she visited Josslyn's grave, and amended her will,

On September 27, 1941, Alice told her African staff not to disturb her, which wasn't unusual since she normally slept in until 11:00. Then she collected flowers from her garden and decorated her bedroom with the blooms. She put notes on her furniture, friend's names, to alert the staff as to who was to get what.  She wrote letters to her children, to her then boyfriend, Dickie, who was in Egypt, to the police, and then a suicide note.  It was clear she had planned her actions.  She locked her bedroom door, wrapped her chest with a large bandage, which must have been in order to keep the bloody mess she would make to a minimum.  Then she took a huge dose of a sleep medication and before it hit took a revolver and aimed at her heart. The attempt to kill herself didn't work automatically.  Servants forced the door open and found her near death.  A doctor was called and raced to the house but it was still a long trip and by then she had died. 

Her grave was left unmarked so it wouldn't be dug up by fortune hunters.

Dickie Pembroke, the new boyfriend, was devastated as he might have married Aice after the war. (World War II)

Raymond de Trafford survived being a prisoner and the war but because of his notoriety was turned down to rejoin the Coldstream Guards. Eventually he was accepted with the Pioneer Corps posted in Morocco, was discharged at the rank of Captain in 1945 and awarded two medals.  True to form, he went back to gambling, womanizing, and hunting.

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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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ALICE SILVERHORNE - DE JANZE FALLS FOR THE BAD BOY RAYMOND DE TRAFFORD

The people who came to Kenya's Happy Valley in the early 20th century, were people who wanted an escape from the restrictions of their lives, who were searching for something else or more.  

Invited by the pregnant Idina Sackville and her then-husband Josslyn Hay, to visit them at their house called Slains, the de Janzes were introduced to the Happy Valley life.

Idina thought of Alice as her best friend. Now the mother of two small daughters, Alice was not especially enjoying her husband as a lover. During this time Alice and Joss became lovers, just as Idina had planned. I wonder if the two women friends had talked about it and came to an agreement or if it happened naturally.

Perhaps it was the bright African sun, for Kenya was right on the equator, but Alice did feel cured of her depression. However, Alice still must have felt something like "is that all there is?"  She was not besotted with her husband and the affair with Joss made her realize it more so. She did not have designs on Joss as her next husband, but Alice dreaded going home to Europe or America.  So, she and Frederick bought a 600-acre farm and started to build a house on it. (Implied is that it was her money.) After Idina gave birth, her third child and a daughter, in 1926, Alice and Frederick went back to France, to visit their children, which were being raised by his mother. Then they returned to Africa. 

When Alice was introduced to Raymond de Trafford there was an instant attraction. He was 26 and raised Catholic but he had left a trail of broken hearts.  A British aristocrat who was part of Cold Stream Guards, Raymond had escaped having to serve in World War I.  He had recently been to South America where he played polo and went to cattle runs.  Importantly, Raymond was not an heir unlike so many of the Happy Valley Set and had to find a way to make his own money. Not penniless, he bought a small farm which would have to turn a profit. Then he decided that he would trap live African animals and sell them to zoos to earn income.

Now Alice had three men in various stages of relationship with her. Her husband, Frederick, didn't like Raymond but they didn't fight over her either. She also managed to conduct an affair with Raymond without her husband or Joss finding out. The situation didn't please Adina.  Alice knew that her affair with Joss was not the way out her marriage. Joss was on his way out of his marriage with Idina. 

Something I felt aware of as I read the book, The Temptress, was that when it came to money, there were just as many men seeking to marry women with money as there were women seeing to marry men with money.  Idina had married one of the richest men in Great Britain, her first husband David Euan Wallace, but all the money in the world would not have kept her in that marriage. By leaving him, however, she had taken a daring risk - for a woman of those Edwardian times - that was difficult to recover from.

Joss was moving on from Idina, as he had met Mary "Molly" Ramsey-Hill, who was married to Cyril. They lived lavishly.  She had wealth of mysterious origin but perhaps it came from a first husband that she'd married at 16. From that point on, Joss befriended her husband so he could be invited to their impressive home and see Mary. Confident of himself as a seducer, the man certainly seems to have been premeditated in his pursuit, for he would succeed with her.

Frederick came back from a safari with malaria and almost died.  Alice was there for him as he fought the disease. the dutiful wife. In order to overcome the disease, he had to go back to France - alone.  He was medically advised that he should never come back to Africa because another bout of Malaria would kill him.  Alice insisted that their children be in his custody. The heartbroken man left the country and did not argue.  They were Catholic - no divorce.

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ALICE DE JANZE - THE AMERICAN HEIRESS WHO LOVED AFRICA MORE THAN ANY MAN OR HER CHILDREN

As part of our inquiry to the Happy Valley Set of Kenya, Africa, a group of people who had Open Relationships, who had affairs, and who often divorced and remarried in the 1920's through 1940's, this month we look at the life of an American heiress and ex-pat named Alice De Janze. Born Alice Silverhorne, also a debutant, Alice and her first husband went to Africa and stayed with Lady Idina Sackville at a time when Sackville was called The Life of the Party.  A few years later, when Idina was pregnant while still married to her then-husband Josslyn Hay, she was concerned that he might not stay with her.  So she invited her best friend Alice De Janze and her husband to come and keep Jossyln entertained, choosing who he might have an affair with, in an attempt to control him. Alice did have an affair with Joss.  She probably had a place in her heart for him for many years. Alice, an American heiress, is thought to have been mentally ill, most likely with some form of mood disorder. She had been suicidal at times since her youth. Her life was wracked with violence - including her own. When he was murdered, she was a suspect.

ALICE SILVERHORNE

The author's mother was friend of Alices and in writing this book 

he wanted to set the story straight.

1899 - 1941

Overall, in my reading, the lives of these British aristocrats and other wealthy and important people who chose lives in Kenya over America or Europe, do not seem essentially happy. Some of them worked, even worked hard physically, many did not have to work at all, and it seems they did some hard partying.  The reason the Wanjohi Valley was called Happy was that the high altitudes were said to enhance the effects of alcohol. They almost all drank and some also used morphine or heroin and possibly other drugs. (The only thing missing was the Rock and Roll!) Alice was not a Kept Woman, rather her independent means meant that men were interested in her money. Did she mind?

I'll focus a bit on the scandal in her life a little later in this blog. Right now let's learn

about Alice's childhood and her wealth.  She was born in Buffalo, New York, then the nations 8th largest city, which had its own millionaire's row! Her mother was a society beauty from Chicago and her father was a self-made man, very successful in business and it would seem, rarely home. Her mother's family may have been one of the riches in America at the time. Alice was, like many aristocratic children, home schooled - tutored. She was destined to be a debutant and to have a life of opportunity and advantage. 

But as we know since we've featured a number of debutants here at Mistress Manifesto, the reason for a presentation to society is marriage, early marriage, and the propagation of family through having children as a duty. The Chicago debutant scene bored Alice. She went to jazz clubs. She associated with mobsters and might have had an affair with one. Her mother's family prevailed in moving her towards marriage.

Alice's mother had died at the young age of 35, when Alice was a young girl. Her father rapidly married a cousin of her mothers, who he might have been having an affair with before his wife died. Her father had spent lavishly on her and spoiled her but there was something amiss with their relationship. In 1913 her mother's side of the family had taken action to take her away from her father and his new wife.  Alice reportedly never saw him again. Reading between the lines it might have been that he was inappropriate with her. Her childless Aunt Tattie became her new legal guardian when she was 13 years old. Alice was sent to Mt. Vernon Seminary, a private not religious school in Washington D.C. Alice was devastated at this change in her life. At 16 she was miserable enough to have first tried to take her life. 

Alice came into her inheritance at 18 and her Aunt set her up in an apartment in Paris. It was the jazz age there too but Aunt Tattie was satisfied that she had gotten Alice away from bad influences in America. Alice got a job at a small fashion house. A job was unexpected for a young woman of her wealth an status. She worked long hours but still went out into the Parisian night to clubs where she met celebrities and artists - but no more Chicago mobsters.

Alice did marry. She was 21 and her groom, Count Frederic de Janze was 25.  He came from a family of the French nobility but his mother was an American of Early American lineage. He was Cambridge educated and had already served in World War I so no worry that she might become one of the many thousands of women who lost their young husband to the war. His mother liked her. He had called off an engagement with another American girl and quite possibly his family saw in Alice a way to replenish their wealth. Their engagement made it into the Chicago Daily Tribune. Before she married him, Alice converted to Catholicism, so the relationship was meant to be enduring since in Catholicism there is no divorce. Alice had doubts before the marriage but she went through with it and (echoes of the wedding of Jackie Bouvier to Jack Kennedy) her father was not invited and did not walk her down the isle. Perhaps Alice expected her marriage would provide an escape from her family.

Alice became pregnant on her honeymoon. The couple traveled and then bought an apartment in Paris but she could not get used to the formality of the French nobility. Her first child was born in June of 1922, a daughter.  Alice was perhaps too young to be a mother. overly protected and controlled, unable to experience being independent first.  She continued to socialize in Paris, to go out on the town. Then, the couple went to live at his family stead in Normandy, where his brother and her sister-in-law were also living. Her sister-in-law, from an elite British family, was superior to Alice in education and beauty and dominated the situation there.  Alice had thick curly hair and there was a suspicion that lingered that she had African blood. People started calling her "La Negrese."  Her sister-in-law used that. Alice had a second daughter in June 1924.  She felt depressed, not  much into motherhood. She felt trapped.

Fredrick de Janze and Alice Silverhorne de Janze might not have had a great romance but they became 'excellent friends.'  The man did care about her, the mother of his children. He thought a trip to Africa might be just the thing to improve her spitits, so, in 1925, the could did just that. They went to Kenya (then British East Africa) where they had an invitation from Lady Idina Sackville and her then husband, Josslyn Hay.  It was a month-long journey and no doubt the couple felt far away from all the things in life that controlled them.

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THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO SAY IT : LADY IDINA SACKVILLE'S LAST YEARS WERE TRAGIC

She had been Mrs. Euan Wallace... and Mrs. Josslyn Hay (He'd since become the 22nd Earl of Erroll) ... She had married and married and married.

Idina Sackville had given birth to three children, two sons, and a daughter. True, people of her class were used to sending their children away to boarding school and having relationships with the children then was dependent on letter writing, if that. Idina had been kept from being involved in the raising of her sons though. She'd made an effort to get to know them as they neared adulthood that went not so well. World events affected her personal life as it did so many others.

World War I had affected her life when her first husband Euan Wallace, had joined up and came back uninterested in her or their marriage. He and his next wife, Barbie, had raised those sons as well as three sons of their own.  

Now World War II would further destroy lives.

In a series of tragic events, Euan Wallace and Barbie's three sons would also not live long enough to produce offspring.  

Lady Idna Sackville's daughter by Josslyn Hay would live to adulthood, did marry, have children, and continued on her matriarchal line.  When she married, the Queen and the Princesses Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister attended the wedding. And so, despite all of Idina's scandal, her daughter did not suffer for her mother's reputation. Perhaps that is because relatives had raised the girl.

Idina's sons were killed during service in World War II. As had been the case in World War I, young men of the peerage did not normally avoid military service for their country. This left Euan, who had been so possessive of them without any male heirs.

Then her first two husbands, the fathers of her children died. Josslyn Hay was murdered and her once best friend, Alice De Janze was a suspect.

These deaths put Idina Sackville into a notable depression in which she did not eat or sleep properly and also developed a nerve disease called neuritis, which was said to be made worse because she lived at her house, Clouds, at high altitudes up the mountain. These high altitudes were also said to enhance the effects of alcohol. Idina Sackville was forced to go down the mountain to live in lesser circumstances.

Of great hope to Idina was that her daughter would come to visit her in Africa.  It was not to be. She died before that could happen!

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Excerpts are from The Bolter, a book by Frances Osborne, the main reference for this month's po

My readers, we are not yet done with the Happy Valley Set. Next month we will turn our attention to another book and another woman of that set and learn again how Idina Sackville's life and hers entwined.

HER WELL EARNED REPUTATION AS A SEDUCTRESS : AN OPEN MARRIAGE WITH A MUCH YOUNGER HUSBAND

It seems that Lady Idina Sackville well earned her reputation as a seductress and that she may've even sought out scandal.  If there was inner torment, she hid it well. But while her reputation was trashed, she looked immaculate, having clothing made for her by Molyneux, wearing a bosom-flattening androgynous style that was fashion in that moment, which we are familiar with as that of the Flapper, the liberated woman of the 1920's.  She even had furs she had been given as wedding presents redesigned.

Thirty years old, her wild life well known, Idina did find love again. This time one of Britain's most eligible bachelors was penniless but much younger, only twenty-one to her thirty. Josslyn Hay would one day inherit a Scottish earldom and climb socially by inheritance but until then he was out for fun. Idina called Joss "My Darling Lion." Charles Gordon, her second husband, wanted to marry someone else and easily gave a divorce so that Idina and Joss could marry. The new couple made it on the cover of the society tell-all magazine Tatler.

A small civil marriage again, no one from Joss's family attended. In fact, they were unaware of it for several months and were angry when they found out but Idina won them over. That done, Idina took her third husband to Africa, to Kenya, to that dream of a life there free of all expectations.

Here again she came under criticism. Society forgave affairs, not repeated marriage. She was committing treason to her class. Suspicion was that she was mothering her husband instead of mothering her own sons. Expecting an Open Marriage this time around, Joss began having affairs immediately. Idina claimed she did not mind. He had an affair with an American heiress, Alice de Janze, and the two women shared him. Eventually they became friends both awaiting his return from some other woman's bed.

Idina may have married Joss in an attempt to keep him or control him.  She was soon to learn that he was always on a hunt for sexual adventures with other women.

Not to be outdone by a husband, Idina set the stage for a home to host wild parties. In Nairobi she managed to fill a house she had built with beautiful antiques and carpets brought from England and defied the African heat and soil by planting a green lawn and English flower beds. British settlers attempted to ranch but imported cattle and sheep that did not do well in the sun. These settlers remained as British as they could considering. They protected themselves from the sun with hats. Some of them thought Idina, who shockingly got sunburned and pragmatically wore pants, had "gone native." (Native Kenyans often had several wives.)

But where to find sex party participants?  The Muthaiga Club was where the newly landed gentry went for time off.  Many of these African adventurers were the second sons who had no birthright inheritance. All regarded extramarital sex as normal. The settlers lived miles apart, trying to establish their own working farms and ranches. Their opportunities to meet and socialize with one another and beat the isolation and boredom were limited to livestock auctions and horse races and the club. During Race Week in Nairobi, evening balls gave women the opportunity to look their best, dress in the latest fashions, and show off their expensive jewelry. They had not entirely left their Britishness or their class attitudes behind. While not every party was thrown with the intention to swing, Idina's invitations were sought after. Invitees were willing to drive hours to spend a "weekend" at her home. There they were attended to by servants, took hot baths, put on silk pajamas, and started drinking and entertaining themselves with talk about farming and books, pulling 'stunts' and revving up for Idina's swinger games.

But then Idina got pregnant. Concerned that she'd loose Joss over her pregnancy, she asked  Alice de Janze to move in.  Married for four years and the mother of two, Alice and her husband arrived in December 1925. Alice immediately started an affair with Joss. Asked if she minded, Idina replied that Alice was her best friend.

She gave birth to a daughter who was clearly Joss's.  This was her second chance to be a mother. He had no need for a male heir. 

Her efforts to keep Joss ultimately failed. 

Joss qualified as a man who preferred to be Kept by a woman - at least until he inherited. While out and about he met the second wife of Cyril Ramsey-Hill, Molly, born Mary Maude in London in 1893.  Like Idina, she had also given up a child in another marriage to marry Cyril. Molly was less than a year younger than Idina, so still an older woman for Joss. However, Molly had a private income that outshone Idina's. 

Joss knew Idina and he were drained financially and sexually. As a man after a fortune, he deliberately befriended Molly's husband so that he could be invited to spend time with Molly at their much more impressive house. Then, while Cyril was out of the country taking care of business, Joss moved in on Molly, and despite almost dying of malaria, abandoned Idina.  

Joss' parents became the new Earl and Countess of Errol and Joss and Idina became Lord and Lady Kilmarnock, he got a small but decent amount of money, which gave him independence rather than the opportunity to pay back some of the bills he and Idina had, and all their hard work was for naught.  The bank foreclosed on their property. 

Idina Sackville's third marriage was over and soon she would deposit her daughter with relatives in England. It was the spring of 1928, and she was thirty-five years old. Back in London her designer friend Molyneux let her earn some income by being a showroom model.  Her willingness to work was portrayed as her displaying her body to earn a living by The Express and she sued - and won.  This time around Idina also was the one to ask for and win a divorce.  She got it on the grounds that Joss had cheated on her with Mrs. Ramsey-Hill.

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Excerpts are from The Bolter, a book by Frances Osborne