A COMING SENSATION.
The many people who met the Hon, Wyndharn Stanhope and his attractive wife {nee Camille Dubois) during their visit to the antipodes a few years ago will learn with interest that the lady is likely to become the heroine of one of the moat sensational divorce suits that have enlivened London Society for the past decade. Mrs Stanhope, you may remember, was an opera bonffie prima donna of fair ability, and during her stay in Australasia appeared on the Melbourne stage with considerable success. She was also made a good deal of in colonial society, and visited at Government House, Melbourne. The story of the esclandre is told in “Vanity Pair" of September 9 with rather more frankness than is usual in such cases. The writer says:—“ A tale of trust on the one side and of perfidy on the other has just come to its inevitable termination. Six years ago Mr Wyndham Stanhope, the son of the late Lord Harrington, was attracted by, fell in love with, and married Miss Camille Dubois, an actress. Mr Stanhope’s family were not unnaturally shocked when they learnt his mesalliance, which they did some time after it had taken place; but being good kindly people, they ended by accepting the situation, and by receiving Mrs Wyndham as one of the family. Now mark the result as a warning to those who would go to the stage for a wife. Last winter Mr Wyodhnm Stanhope, whose health was weak, was living at Madeira with his wife. To Madeira came one Lieutenant Walter Adye, of the Rifles, fresh from Zululand. It appears to have occurred to Lieutenant Adye that it would be amusing to debauch the wife of Mr Stanhope, and having made friends with the latter he frequented his house, and was found to be going about with Mrs Stanhope so much as to cause gossip, which finally reached her husband’s ears. Mr Stanhope, however, would not listen to a word against the wife he trusted, and dismissed at once the tales that were brought to him as unworthy to be entertained. Then Lieutenant Adye left Madeira for England, and some time after, Mrs Wyndham Stanhope informed her husband that her father was ill, and she must go to England. Accordingly she went, leaving her husband, who was unable to face the English spring, to follow later on. Later on, accordingly he followed, and was joined by his wife, with whom he went to stay with his mother, Lady Harrington, at Oowes. The prejudice against her had worn away, she seemed much attached to her husband, and everybody at Oowes desired to bo, and was very civil to her. One day, however, Mr Stanhope found among some papers a copy of a telegram from ‘ Mrs Adye to Lieutenant Adye,’ appointing to meet him *in London. This telegram Mrs Stanhope, after some vain denials admitted having sent, and admitted further that she had met Lieut tenant Adye in London, and had lunched with him.. On her protestations, and tears, and promises never to see the man again, Mr Stanhope forgave her, and things resumed their wonted course. But a forlniaht ago she again said she must go to London to see her father, who was again unwell. She went —not to her father, but to meet Mr Adye, with whom she proceeded to an hotel)
where the pair took up their abode in '.he most natural way in the world, while the lady was all the !imn telegraphing to her husband at Cowes to keep him in an unsuspecting slate of miod. The adventure was, however, discovered, and instead of returning, as ihe iniended, to Cowes, the lady has been informed that she and her friend will be brought at once intp the Divorce Court. In these matters I always hold that the chief fault lies on the side of the woman, in whose encouragement the intrigue almost always begins. But in the present instance it seems to me that Mr Adye’sconduct was altogether disgraceful—for he had made a friend of the invalid husband, and then used the privileges of friendship to debauch the wife. His case is one that requires other attention from all rightminded men than even that it will probably obtain in the divorce Court.”
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South Canterbury Times, Issue 3021, 2 December 1882, Page 2
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716A COMING SENSATION. South Canterbury Times, Issue 3021, 2 December 1882, Page 2
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