MRS GORDON – BAILLIE. Her Career in Christchurch.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 250, 28 March 1888, Page 5

MRS GORDON - BAILLIE. Her Career in Christchurch.

It was in January of last 3'ear that Mrs Gordon-Baillie's brilliant ettulsion beamed on our horizon. She at first took up her quarters at the Terminus Hotel, and very quickly attracted some notice in the town. The magnificence of her dress, and three of the sweetest little cherubs of children — perhaps, too, a spark of that legendary jealousy which is fabled to consume the se\ ab times — were sufficient to account for this, as far as ladies were concerned. The equally fabulous attractiveness which a very handsome and intellectually superior woman is said to possess for the sternor half of the human race had possibly something to do with it as far as gentlemen were concerned. With regaid to Mrs Gordon - Baillie's charms there is only one opinion: all the manly susceptibilities of those who met her were stiried by that " personal magnetism " which the American acknowledges in phrase, and the rest of the world in practice. To put it shortly, she was a most fascinating woman. And a curious thing was that her fascination was native: it did not depend on education. She wih by no means awo man of culture. Her letters are bad in grammar and shaky in spelling ; her signature, of which only too many specimens are extant in Christchurch, is that of a strong, dashing, but illiterate character. But to come to detail. Fascination and brilliant conversational powers do not pay bills. The landlord of the Terminus recognised the truth of this, and summoned his interesting but not profitable guedt He gob his money, which is more than plenty of other people did. For very soon after this, by a mixture of assurance and the exhibition of apparently good securities trom Home, Mrs Gordon-Bailie installed herself in a comfortablo house, and began operations for thegood of those poor crofters. Summer lodge, in LichHeld -street, was the place of her abode, and the establishment was carried on with a show of magnificence that lent colour to the lady's stories of her movements in the highest circles of society in the Old Country. There were a governess and companion, an elderly lady, well and favourably known to many of the clergy and gentle-folks of the town, a lady's maid, and everything in keeping. The hours kept were of the most fashionable. Rising about 12, Mrs Gordon-Baillie, after a dainty little champagne lunch, used to transact what business there was in hand. Her story to those who became her confidants was that she had been married to Knight AstonWhite, the tenor singer, who is well-remem-bered here by his two first names ; that she had been divorced from him, and that her then husband's name was Frost. The discrepancy between Frost and GordonBaillie was explained to the trusted. The latter was a title to which her birth had given her a claim, and marriage could not take from her, aud it says something for her dazzling powers that, in some cases at all events, the explanation was quietly accepted. He was represented to be the editor ot the "Mark Lano Express," and his name has since turned up in the telegrams. Frequent visits were made to the newspaper offices, to get editors to advance her \ievvs regarding the necessity for settling the crofters in New Zealand. But editors are in reality often as cautious as they are reputed to be cunning, and in spite of portraits from society papers, paragraphs in the "Times" and "Scotsman," and little descriptive articles in which the name of " that incomparable woman, MrsGordon-Baillic/'figuredlargely, the Christchurch papers did not esp~ouse her cause with all the hoart and soul she evidently expected. The Survey Office, too, were most hard-hearted. In the days when she was Mrs Knight AstonW lute it appeared the crofter's friend had acquired certain property near Springfield. A deposit had been paid on it and the rest, of the money was now forthcoming in order that the Skye coasters might have a snug inland home when they were welcomed to the colony. But the Survey Office were co blind, or so rcd-tapish, or so