An American Princess: The Many Lives of Allene Tew(39)
A leading columnist for the Washington Post wrote a derogatory comment about the remarkable wedding—which she would have found even more remarkable if she’d known that another two marriages took place prior to the three she named:
Greatest example of name-changes leading to stark madness here is probably the case of the Countess Kotzebue, who before that was Princess Henry XXXIII of Reuss, and before that was Mrs. Anson Wood Burchard. Before that, it is probably fair to assume, she was a pranksome child who harassed her governess and teased the cat . . .
A scornful article also appeared in German and Dutch newspapers, titled “The Princess with the Record Number of Marriages.” In that piece, Allene was portrayed as a rather calculating fortune and title hunter, aside from once—“the most captivating debutante in New York” who continued her search for eternal happiness against her better judgement:
It really is never too late. During the last year of her fourth marriage, Allene, who is now in her sixties, got to know Count Kotzebue in Paris, a Baltic-Russian emigré, descendent of a famous comedy player and nephew of the last Tsarist envoy in Washington. And with her ring-adorned hand she has reached for him for—how do we say it again?—for a union for life.
But the world could tease and mock as it liked—this time Allene knew what she was doing. This time no photographs of a smoothed-out, retouched bride were sent to the media to convince outsiders that New York’s saddest widow had finally found happiness. This time Allene didn’t need to launch a desperate charm offensive on her new in-laws. She was accepted by the Kotzebues, without reservation, for who she was: an older lady with a great fortune and a big heart, both of which she liked to share with other people.
No doubt Allene’s seriously reduced—but, compared to the Kotzebues’, still-substantial—wealth played a role in this marriage, too. There must have been a reason that, days after the wedding, Paul was added to the deed as joint owner of the house on Rue Barbet. But unlike his predecessor, the Russian saw no reason to treat his wife with scorn once he’d gained financial independence. “Paul was kindness itself, a gift so rare among men,” a distant cousin characterized him.
Indeed, just as the gentle Russian had once dedicated himself to the care of the czar he was guarding, now he did the same for his twelve-years-older wife, whose life had been just as determined and marked by the history of the West as his had been by the East. Paul and Allene were both fate’s castaways, each in their own way. Both had washed up in Paris, both of them had been through too much to still cherish great illusions or dreams, and both of them were determined to make the best of whatever was left.
Almost at the same time Allene was pledging eternal fidelity for the fifth time in a church in Geneva, on the other side of the world, the last tangible reminder of her first marriage was going up in flames.
Hostetter House on Raccoon Creek, which she and Tod had built and which Greta had bought back later because she had such fine childhood memories of it, had come back into Allene’s possession following Greta’s death. Since then it had stood empty for years in the dark woods west of Pittsburgh like a Victorian haunted house—its shutters closed, the chimney cold, the park around it full of cawing crows.
Allene employed a married couple living in the brick house behind it to take care of the property, ensuring that it wasn’t broken into and that the “log cabin” remained exactly as it had been the last time Greta left it. The only function the building still had was as a beacon for ships maneuvering themselves up the Ohio River.
The caretakers had failed to take their own adopted daughter into account. After a row with her parents, she hid in one of the big house’s bedrooms and built a fire. In no time, Hostetter House transformed into an inferno that could be seen from far and wide. The only parts to survive the sea of fire were the stone chimney and the basement where Tod had his wine cellars and the servants their lodgings.
The chimney was demolished that same year due to danger of collapse. The foundations in the dark woods soon became so overgrown that all that was left of the house was a slight elevation in the landscape. The underground corridors and rooms would be filled with bricks and rubble, necessary to bear the weight of an enormous power plant that was built on top of it. But that was a few years later, when the vindictiveness of men like Henry Reuss had cast the world into a new war that in many regards was even more horrific than its predecessor.
10
The Godmother
Bernhard was his name—Prince Bernhard zur Lippe-Biesterfeld in full, but to many of his friends he was simply “Biesterfeld” and to his adoring mother, Armgard, “Bernilo.” This was also the name Allene called him, and she had done so since the first time she’d met him, in the summer of 1929, when the skies above her fourth marriage still looked relatively cloudless. Photos from the time show a very young Bernhard, wearing knickers and the round glasses that would later become his trademark, side by side with his neighbor Marlisa and the newlywed Reusses, Allene’s curly-haired white dog playing happily around them.
A lot had happened since that carefree summer. The international economy had collapsed, dragging down with it Allene and Henry’s marriage and what remained of German prosperity. Bernhard’s father had died fairly unexpectedly, and his mother had been left practically penniless. His parents’ home was on the verge of collapse; the land had been sold, and there was no money left for the law degree that had given Bernhard a good excuse for unbridled partying in Munich. He had nipped his career in the National Socialists’ aviation department in the bud by crashing an airplane beyond repair almost instantly; his weak physical constitution had made him unsuited to other paramilitary factions.