The King in Love: Edward VII's Mistresses (26 page)

Her withdrawal from court did not, though, mark the end of Daisy Brooke's troubles. Lord Brooke, no less than Princess Alexandra, felt that this time things had gone too far. There were limits, it seems, to even his celebrated tolerance. The Beresford affair led to a major crisis in Daisy's marriage, with divorce being widely rumoured. It was said that Lord Brooke planned to name no less than fourteen corespondents, including the Prince of Wales, Lord Charles Beresford, the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Randolph Churchill.

In the end, though, the action was not brought. The social stigma of a divorce, with the intimate details being published for all to see, was considered much worse than an illicit love affair, no matter how scandalous. The gallant Lord Brooke could not put his wife – nor his family's good name – through that.

The one thing that had not been affected by the sensational,
complicated and long-running Beresford affair was the Prince's love for Daisy. He was as infatuated by her as ever. So powerful, in fact, was her hold on his affections that he – the most forgiving of men – would not hear of a reconciliation with Beresford. Not until five years after the quarrel – in June 1897, when the Prince's horse Persimmon won the Ascot Gold Cup – would the Prince speak to him. And his first thought, after doing so, was to write to Daisy to apologise for what he had done. His letter to her is worth reproducing in full.

'My own lovely little Daisy, I lose no time in writing to tell you of an episode which occurred today after you left – which was unpleasant and unexpected – but I hope, my darling, you will agree that I could not have acted otherwise, as my loyalty to you is, I hope, a thing that you will never think of doubting!

'Shortly before leaving Ascot today, Marcus B. [Lord Marcus Beresford, Lord Charles's brother and manager of the Prince's stud] came to me, and said he had a great favour to ask me, so I answered at once I should be delighted to grant it. He then became much affected, and actually cried, and said might he bring his brother C. up to offer his congratulations on Persimmon's success. I had no alternative but to say yes. He came up with his hat off, and would not put it on till I told him, and shook hands. We talked a little about racing, then I turned and we parted. What struck me more than anything, was his humble attitude and manner! My loved one, I hope you won't be annoyed at what has happened, and exonerate me from blame, as that is all I care about. . .

'Goodnight and God keep you, my own adored little Daisy Wife.'
⁵⁷

8

Independent Women

I
N THE DECADE
since her liaison with the Prince of Wales had ended, Lillie Langtry had become an even greater celebrity. If her relationship with the Prince had helped launch her on her acting career, it was her own colourful behaviour that ensured its continuing success. Lillie Langtry might not have been much of an actress but she certainly knew how to fill a theatre.

Her contract with the Bancrofts had not lasted long. Once she had come to appreciate that it was her notoriety that was attracting such enthusiastic audiences, she decided to form a company of her own. A successful tour of ten British cities encouraged her to accept an offer to take her company to the United States. The boast – by Henry Abbey, the sharp-witted American impresario who had made the offer – that he never haggled about terms, proved to be an idle one as far as Lillie was concerned. She haggled until he agreed to give her the same terms as he had given Sarah Bernhardt the year before. Abbey knew that she would be worth it. The denunciation of Sarah Bernhardt from almost every pulpit in the United States had filled Abbey's pockets most gratifyingly; there was no reason, he reckoned, why the appearance of the Prince of Wales's mistress should not prove equally rewarding.

And so it did. The crowds that flocked, not only to see Lillie's arrival in New York on 23 October 1882, but to theatres throughout the country, came to satisfy their prurient curiosity, not to pay homage to great art. Lillie might parry journalists' questions about her relationship with the Prince of Wales but this never stopped newspaper cartoonists from depicting the two of them in suggestive situations. A particularly telling cartoon showed Lillie downstage, with the footlights throwing her shadow, shaped like the Prince of Wales, on the curtain behind. 'The shadow that draws the American dollars' ran the caption.

But the American public had no need to rely on reminders of her past romance for their thrills. Before many weeks had passed, Lillie was supplying New Yorkers with fresh grounds for gossip. Never one to turn her back on a wealthy admirer, the twenty-nine-year-old Lillie took up with a dark, good-looking, twenty-two-year-old multimillionaire named Freddie Gebhard. For the next few years Gebhard was her constant companion. They were seen everywhere together. 'He became famous in two continents,' Lillie afterwards announced, 'because I loved him.'
¹
The boot, in fact, was on the other foot: it was Freddie Gebhard who was in love with Lillie. There was apparently nothing that the besotted young man would not do for her. He bought her expensive jewellery, he paid for her sumptuous clothes, he set her up in a luxurious house in West Twenty-third Street and, most generously of all, he provided the means of travel with which she was to become most closely associated in the minds of her vast public: the $250,000 railway carriage known as 'Lalee' which carried her across the States on her many tours.

The word 'Lalee', Lillie assures us, means 'flirt' in some unspecified Indian dialect (one would have described Lillie herself as something more than a flirt) and 'Lalee' was certainly the last word in luxurious travel. The carriage was seventy-five feet long, with a white roof, a 'gorgeously' blue exterior decorated with wreaths of golden lilies, polished teak platforms, a salon with walls covered in green and cream brocade, a bedroom whose
eau de nil
walls, ceiling and furniture were padded to resist the shock of a collision, a bathroom with silver fittings and rose-coloured curtains, two guest compartments, a maid's compartment, a pantry and a kitchen. Underneath were ice chests, big enough to accommodate a whole stag. With Lillie travelled her English butler and several maids.

In this palace-on-wheels (the rest of her company were accommodated in much humbler carriages) Lillie travelled the length and breadth of the country, bringing to many far-flung communities if not exactly culture, then certainly excitement. During the six years that she spent touring the United States, Lillie played everything from Shakespeare (one tactful critic described her Lady Macbeth as 'astounding') to contemporary drawing room comedies. Mr Bancroft had long ago told her, Lillie would say airily, to ignore all reviews: 'it is always best to await the criticism which is supplied by the box-office receipts.'
²

Whatever her limitations, Lillie always gave value for money. If the town had no theatre, she would act on some rigged-up stage. She
played to audiences of gold miners and cowboys just as happily as she did to overdressed socialites in New York, Chicago or San Francisco. In her elegant clothes and with her increasingly regal manner, she processed through the country like a princess. Babies were named after her, fans begged for autographs, her Worth hats and dresses were assiduously copied, strangers proposed marriage, the self-styled 'Judge' Roy Bean even changed the name of his Texan town from 'Vinagaroon' to 'Langtry'. Her subsequent visit to Langtry was conducted with all the formality and split-second timing of a royal occasion. When Freddie Gebhard bought her a 7500 acre ranch in California, she toyed with the idea of calling it Sandringham.

With the rest of her company, Lillie's manner was forbiddingly imperious. Although she paid them as little as she could get away with, she expected unquestioned loyalty and dedication. Deception appalled her. 'She would be hurt,' said one manager of her company, 'for she had far more heart than she was given credit for, but she could not and would not endure stupidity or incompetence.'
³
In short, Lillie Langtry had developed into a thorough-going professional: hard-headed, businesslike and with a strong sense of showmanship.

In between these mammoth tours of the United States, Lillie would return home. Backed by the faithful young Gebhard, she would lease a London theatre for a season. And whatever the play, she could always be sure that if the Prince of Wales were in town, he would be in the royal box on opening night. If he were away, he would send her a message. 'I am glad to hear that you are in harness again and most sincerely wish you all possible success in your tour though I fear you have hard work before you,' he once wrote from Stockholm where he was the guest of King Oscar II of Sweden. As the Swedish King had also been one of Lillie's many admirers, the Prince was able to add that 'he particularly begged to be remembered to you and wish you success in your profession.'

A few months later, on 19 January 1886, when Lillie was rehearsing
Enemies
at the Prince's Theatre, Bertie wrote asking her to reserve a box for him for the opening night. He would have liked to have seen a dress rehearsal as he might have been able to give her a few hints, he wrote. Would the rehearsal be on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday? He was anxious to know because of his evening engagements; or would it be in the daytime?

Having seen the play (and having, in the meantime, arranged a time and date for their next meeting) the Prince writes 'just two lines to tell you again what a success I thought your piece was. You
have certainly acted better tonight than I have ever seen you.'
⁴

These visits home also allowed Lillie to see her daughter, Jeanne-Marie, who was still living, in the care of Lillie's mother, in the Red House, Bournemouth. But after one of her visits, Lillie took little Jeanne-Marie back to the States with her. For the following few years the child, attended by a governess and a maid, lived in a bewildering variety of places: aboard the luxurious 'Lalee' as it went rocketing across the States, in Lillie's even more luxurious New York home, in the state rooms of ocean liners, in flower-filled hotel rooms. To her, Lillie was still
ma tante
. The girl's father, so Lillie would sigh, had been her brother Maurice, so tragically mauled to death by a tiger in India. Who then, Jeanne-Marie must surely have wondered, was Freddie – the young man with the curling black moustache who paid all the bills?

The one person whom Jeanne-Marie knew nothing about was Edward Langtry. For years Lillie had been trying her best to divorce him, but Edward would not hear of it. Perhaps he was still hoping for a reconciliation with his now rich and famous wife. Not even the persuasive skills of the celebrated solicitor, George Lewis, could get Edward Langtry to change his mind. In the end, Lillie took matters into her own hands. In 1887 she applied for and was granted American citizenship ('without losing my love for the Union Jack, I coupled with it a great affection for the Stars and Stripes,'
⁵
she explains) and this eventually enabled her to have her marriage dissolved.

Yet there must have been many who guessed Lillie's secret; who knew that Jeanne-Marie was her child by Prince Louis of Battenberg. Was Oscar Wilde one of them? She and Wilde had remained in touch through all her vicissitudes; indeed, he had been in the States, on a lecture tour, when Lillie first arrived in New York. Armed with a great bunch of lilies, he had greeted her on the quayside. When a reporter asked him if it were true that he had 'discovered' Mrs Langtry, Wilde's reply was gratifyingly in character. 'I would rather have discovered Mrs Langtry,' he drawled, 'than have discovered America.'
⁶

And Lillie was not above using the occasional Wildism herself. Handing back the proofs to an American photographer who had obtained exclusive rights to take pictures of her, she said, 'You have made me pretty – I am beautiful.'

'As for the love-smitten Oscar Wilde,' wrote one wide-eyed Chicago reporter, 'he is head over heels in love with the much-discussed grass widow, Mrs Langtry.'
⁷

A story which Lillie tells about one of her encounters with Oscar Wilde seems to confirm that he knew the truth about Jeanne-Marie being her daughter, not her niece. One afternoon, after she had returned permanently to Britain from the States, he called to see her. Flinging a manuscript onto the table, he announced, 'There is a play which I have written for you.'

'What is my part?' asked Lillie.

'A woman,' he replied, 'with a grown-up illegitimate daughter.'

'My dear Oscar,' she exclaimed, 'am I old enough to have a grown-up daughter of any description?' She refused to open the manuscript or to have him read it to her. 'Put it away for twenty years,' she advised.

Why, she protested many years later, 'he ever supposed that it would have been, at the time, a suitable play for me, I cannot imagine. '
⁸

The play was
Lady Windermere's Fan
.

By the end of 1888, there were indications that Lillie's long affair with Gebhard was turning sour. Perhaps he was beginning to regret the fortune that he had squandered on her; perhaps she was tired of him. Whatever the reason, they broke up: Gebhard to marry, first an heiress and then a chorus girl, Lillie to return to London.

She sailed from New York on 13 July 1889, having shipped thirty trunks, her horses, carriages and everything movable from the West Thirty-third Street house and having managed to save, from her theatrical and other earnings, a sizeable sum of money.

The Prince of Wales, never one to shirk a cliché, had once written – as she was about to set off on yet another American tour – that she was 'probably right to "make hay while the sun shines" '.
⁹
She
had
been right. Not only had she made a great deal of hay but the sun would be shining on her for many years yet.

As the Prince of Wales liked his women either stylishly dressed or naked, it is hardly surprising that he had very little sympathy with the movement for the emancipation of women. Later, as King, he dismissed the suffragettes as 'dreadful women' and was once extremely annoyed to be told that the names of two women had been put forward to serve on the Royal Commission for Divorce. He even hesitated to award the Order of Merit to the aged Florence Nightingale, on the grounds that it was not right 'to give it to a woman'.
¹⁰