In the second volume of Daisy’s memoirs, Afterthoughts, she recalled Lillie Langtry in later life, during World War I:
Lady de Bathe was certainly one of the loveliest creatures I have ever seen. I have often remembered a conversation that we had as we strolled through the gardens at Easton one summer evening during the War.
“Whatever happens, I do not intend to grow old!” exclaimed Lily [sic] Langtry suddenly, and with these words I saw a flash of her beautiful eyes. “Why shouldn’t beauty vanquish time?”
I forget what I answered, for I was busy analyzing what she had said. I stole a glance at her, and certainly Time’s ravages, although perceptible to the discerning eye of one who had known her at the zenith of her beauty, were disguised with consummate artistry, while her figure was still lovely.
But it came to me then that there was tragedy in the life of this woman, whose beauty had once been world-famous, for she had found no time in the intervals of pursuing pleasure to secure contentment for the evening of her day. Now that she saw the evening approach, Lily [sic] Langtry could only protest that it was not evening at all, but just the prolongation of a day that was, in truth, already dead.… The Jersey Lily clung to her beauty even when it was passing … the world of easy triumphs was slipping from her grasp.1
Daisy went on to conclude that she felt Lillie was living in the past, while she, Daisy, preferred to live in the future. “I have found that life becomes increasingly interesting the more I identify myself with worth-while causes, and the less I think about personal matters and my own age.”2
Daisy’s worthwhile causes included standing for the parliamentary seat of Warwick and Leamington Spa as the Labour party candidate in 1929, against the charming and debonair young Anthony Eden, rescuing circus ponies, and adopting a pet monkey, which set fire to Easton Lodge, burning a substantial part of the mansion to the ground. Faced with bankruptcy, Daisy even attempted to blackmail King George V with a cache of letters from Bertie. When this failed, Daisy brought out two volumes of memoirs instead, Life’s Ebb and Flow and Afterthoughts. Touted as deeply shocking, these books instead provide a wealth of insight into the privileged life of the Marlborough House set and the British upper classes before World War I. Eccentric and life-affirming to the end, Daisy had a huge circle of friends, including H. G. Wells and Charlie Chaplin. Daisy died in 1936, aged seventy-eight.
In Afterthoughts, Daisy wrote: “As I strolled along the garden paths with the Jersey Lily I was deeply sorry for her, realising as I did that she had no resources within herself and was living on memories—for memories do not carry one forward, and inevitably one reaches a period when one has exhausted them.”3
In fairness to Lillie, she had a lot to remember. Lillie achieved great fame as a celebrity, rather than an actress, became a successful racehorse owner, and in 1907 attained the respectability she craved when her young husband, Hugo de Bathe, succeeded to the title of baronet, but their marriage was a troubled one and the couple lived apart, Lillie in Monaco and Hugo in Venice.
There exists an extraordinary photograph of Lillie in her final years, taking a stroll after lunch in Monte Carlo; elegant Mediterranean palms are visible in the background. Imperious in a cloche hat and fur coat, Lillie is flanked by Sir Walter de Frece and his wife, “Lady de Frece.” In a previous incarnation, Lady de Frece was music hall star Vesta Tilley. In this early example of a “pap” shot, Sir Walter, in tweeds and homberg, is staring warily down the camera and grasping his walking stick as though about to lash out at the photographer. It is a snapshot of Britain’s vanished stage aristocracy: Lillie, the mistress of the Prince of Wales, now married into the peerage; Vesta, the male impersonator who once twirled a top hat and cane in white tie and tails while claiming to be “Burlington Bertie,”4 the epitome of the idle aristocrat, now immaculate in a fur-trimmed coat, eyes demurely downcast. None of these people want to be in the photograph. A curious state of affairs for two women who once courted fame.
Daisy was right about the tragedy. Before Lillie married Hugo in 1899, she had a violent and unhappy relationship with George Alexander Baird, an amateur jockey and boxer known as “the Squire.”5 A violent alcoholic, the Squire would beat Lillie up one day and shower her with diamonds the next. The Squire would doubtless have killed Lillie, but in 1893 he was found dead in his New Orleans hotel room following a massive binge. Lillie became estranged from her daughter, Jeanne-Marie, over the vexed issues of Jeanne-Marie’s paternity, although Lillie had the comfort of seeing Jeanne-Marie marry into the peerage.
Lillie retired to Monte Carlo, a sad and bitter woman who lived alone apart from her devoted maid, Mathilde Peat. “I have lost my daughter, the only thing that is dear to me, my life is sad indeed,”6 Lillie told one old friend; an employee from Lillie’s Monte Carlo villa recalled that Lillie cried herself to sleep every night. Lillie died of complications following bronchitis in 1929.
As for Ned Langtry, his story was never going to end happily. While Lillie’s star ascended and she became a household name, Ned succumbed to alcoholism. He was occasionally to be found outside theaters where Lillie was playing, desperate to see her. One night, Ned was picked up in Liverpool, after stumbling deliriously off the Belfast ferry. Drunk and confused, possibly after a head injury, he was taken to Chester Asylum, where he died. Nobody believed his claims to be the husband of Lillie Langtry.7
After the death of Bertie, Alice Keppel exploited her fame as the late king’s mistress, although the family of King George V regarded her as an embarrassment. In later years, Alice became something of a parody of herself, and inspired a memorable portrait in Virginia Woolf’s diary for March 10, 1932: “I had lunched with Raymond [Mortimer, the critic] to meet Mrs Keppel; a swarthy thick set raddled direct—‘My dear’, she calls one—old grasper: whose fists had been in the moneybags these 50 years: And she has a flat in the Ritz.”8 Alice also had a Rolls-Royce waiting. But under the magnificent furs and great pearls, Alice’s dress was shabby. On one level, Woolf rather admired Alice’s directness and humor, but she was dismayed to learn that Alice was off to Berlin to hear Hitler speak.
Alice Keppel’s older daughter, Violet, who grew up to be self-centered and attention-seeking, claimed that she was Bertie’s daughter until the day she died. There was no evidence for this. Violet Keppel was born in 1894, four years before Alice was introduced to Bertie, and there was no suggestion they had met before that time. It is possible, however, that Sonia was the daughter of Alice and Bertie. Born in 1900, Sonia did have a likeness to Bertie, and later wrote Edwardian Daughter, in which she did nothing to dispel this rumor, as both sisters lived on in the shadow of their increasingly eccentric and difficult mother. Sonia married Henry Cubitt and their granddaughter, Camilla, was for many years the mistress of Charles, the current Prince of Wales. Charles and Camilla were married in 2005.
The image of Daisy and Lillie, all rivalry behind them, walking arm in arm in the gardens of Easton Lodge is a compelling one. Those gardens are a ruin now, despite the best efforts of volunteers, but on a warm, quiet day in the summer, it is possible to roam alone through what remains of Easton Lodge and catch a glimpse of times past: the Edwardian long golden afternoon, an echo of laughter, a splash of sunlight through flickering leaves, the scent of Eau de Portugal cologne, the faint whiff of cigar smoke, a stifled giggle. If one is to catch something of Bertie’s spirit, it is here, in the ruins of Daisy’s beautiful gardens.