He looked at me in a way all women understand.
—DAISY, COUNTESS OF WARWICK
From the start of her married life, Daisy regularly witnessed the courtly dance of romantic affairs played out against the backdrops of grand country houses, and longed to be part of it, regardless of Brookie’s feelings. There seems to have been a certain acceptance on Brookie’s part that Daisy was a force of nature who made her own rules. Brookie’s real passions were hunting, shooting, and fishing,1 although given the opportunity, he possessed a keen eye for the ladies. Daisy loved hunting, too, but she found shooting and fishing desperately dull. However, being married to a sporting man was not without its advantages. Brookie’s love of field sports meant that the couple were invited to numerous shooting parties at remote country houses.
It was in this milieu, as a married woman, that Daisy saw exactly how her contemporaries conducted their affairs. Indeed, it appeared to Daisy that an affair was almost de rigueur, as long as both parties remained discreet. Unfortunately, discretion was one quality of which Daisy was almost entirely devoid.
Determined to have a little fun of her own, and realizing that country house weekends were the ideal opportunities to bag a lover, Daisy began to cast around for a suitable man for the role. But finding the right individual proved to be more difficult than Daisy expected. On one occasion, Daisy experienced the thrill of “a certain Lord X” professing undying love for her,2 and was very much attracted to him in her turn. But one night at a party Daisy overheard Lord X address Lillie Langtry as “my darling” as he draped her cloak around her shoulders, following the gesture with a request for an assignation. Utterly furious, Daisy resolved that she would never look at Lord X again.3 However tedious the country house circuit might be, Daisy had her standards.
The Prince of Wales himself should have met Daisy’s exacting criteria in these early days of Daisy’s marriage. Bertie had already made one visit to Easton Lodge, and Bertie and Daisy met again at Eastwell Manor, Kent, home of Bertie’s brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, at a ball thrown in Bertie’s honor. Daisy wore “a ruby velvet dress, en princesse, which was much admired,”4 she recalled, although in hindsight she admitted that it might have been a little dowdy. “The Prince asked me to dance, and sat out a long time talking with me in a corridor, but he doubtless found me shy or stupid, for he spent most of the evening with Mrs Cornwallis-West, then in the zenith of her beauty.”5 Patsy Cornwallis-West was also in the zenith of her affair with Bertie, which is perhaps why Bertie did not trouble Daisy with his advances.
Having provided Brookie with three children, Daisy succeeded in sticking to her marriage vows, despite her headstrong and impulsive character, until the fateful day when she met Lord Charles Beresford. A close friend of the Prince of Wales, Charlie Beresford was the practical joker who had turned off the oxygen in Louis Battenberg’s cabin while he was belowdecks “inspecting the facilities” with Lillie Langtry.6
Despite his catastrophic impact, Charlie Beresford appears only once in Daisy’s memoirs. Daisy recalled an incident when she was sitting at Easton Lodge in a large tent that Charlie Beresford had brought back from the Sudan. Daisy’s guest was Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, a distinguished linguist and foreign correspondent with The Times, and Daisy had asked if he could translate the writing on the tent walls. Sir Donald shook his head and replied: “You would not sit long in this tent if you knew what is written on these embroideries. I cannot possibly tell it. I might tell it later on to your husband and a few men; I cannot translate it here and now.” Daisy never did get to find out what the embroidery on the tent said. Apparently the text was “too obscene.”7 This brief reference gives no indication of the role played by Charlie Beresford in Daisy’s life.
Lord Charles Beresford (1846–1919) was Bertie’s former naval aide-de-camp, a decorated war hero, and fourth lord of the admiralty. The son of an Anglo-Irish marquis, Beresford was hugely popular with the British public, who referred to him as “Charlie B” and “John Bull” on account of his pet bulldog. By the age of thirty-seven, Charlie Beresford was as outrageous as ever, much to the discomfort of his long-suffering wife, Mina. Older than Charlie, and physically unprepossessing, Mina had resorted to cosmetics to improve her appearance. This included false eyelashes, one of which was ripped off by a small child who mistook it for a butterfly.8 Exposing a nasty streak, Daisy took great pleasure in humiliating Mina. Daisy loved to recount the terrible occasion when she and Mina drove out in an open carriage and a gust of wind blew off Mina’s hat, taking with it her wig.9
Charlie Beresford had been a frequent visitor to Easton Lodge from the early months of Daisy’s marriage. London gossips claimed that Charlie Beresford was “positively ‘bewitched’ by” Daisy within weeks of their meeting,10 while Daisy seemed equally smitten with Charlie. Within three years of Daisy’s marriage, they were lovers, much to poor Mina’s consternation.
Daisy had fallen spectacularly in love, despite the fact that Charlie was fifteen years older. Charlie Beresford was a celebrity, with his irrepressible high spirits, his war record, and the charm that preceded him into the room: it was said you heard the voice before you saw the man. Their affair unfolded with the momentum of an Elinor Glyn story, and with a conclusion more astonishing than anything that the romantic novelist could have imagined.
As we have seen, Daisy was accustomed to getting her own way. So it was that one morning, while the Beresfords were staying at Easton Lodge, Daisy strode into Mina’s bedroom and told her that she was planning to desert Brookie, abandon their three children, and elope with Charlie.11 Mina’s response to this extraordinary disclosure was measured. Mustering all the hauteur of which she was capable, Mina retorted that “the circumstances of the affair” were already well known in society,12 and that she had no intention of relinquishing her husband. More significantly, Mina said that she was not prepared to sacrifice her husband’s career on such an insane scheme and she was taking Charlie home immediately.
If Daisy was devastated by this outcome, it came as something of a relief to Charlie Beresford. Charlie’s infatuation with Daisy was fading fast, and any lingering sentiments he may have had were destroyed by Mina’s allegations that Daisy was “not content with his attentions alone.”13 Charlie seemed anxious to move on and consign his relationship with Daisy to the past.
But not so Daisy. Upon hearing, in 1886, that Mina was pregnant, Daisy flew into a rage. There could be no possibility that the father was anyone but Charlie. Betrayed by her lover, and with his own wife! With insane disregard for her own reputation, Daisy sent Charlie a furious letter, demanding that he leave Mina and join her on the Riviera. In addition, Daisy claimed that Charlie was the father of her oldest daughter, Marjorie, and that he had no right to father a child with his wife.14 This behavior was scarcely calculated to win Charlie back, but as far as Daisy was concerned, Charlie belonged to her, and not to Mina Beresford.
In a twist of fate, it was not Charlie who opened the letter when it arrived. As Charlie Beresford was away at sea, his mail was opened by a trusted member of the household: Mina.15 Once again Mina demonstrated an impressive level of composure. She immediately passed the letter on to George Lewis, the top London solicitor who was so skilled at keeping controversial cases out of court. Lewis was the obvious choice for a woman of Mina’s social standing. Mina Beresford instructed Lewis to write to Daisy, informing her that the letter was now in Lady Beresford’s possession, and warning her to cease and desist from any further contact with his client. Daisy’s response was predictable; she penned a furious reply to Lewis, claiming that the letter was hers and demanding it back. Lewis responded that, legally, the letter belonged to Charlie Beresford, to whom it had been addressed. Lord Beresford had surrendered the letter to his wife, who had now lodged it with her solicitor, George Lewis.16
Infuriated by the machinations of these irritating wives and pettifogging lawyers who stood in her way, and facing the prospect of ruin if the matter became public, Daisy realized that there was only one person she could turn to. Only one man had the power, the contacts, and the chivalry to come to the aid of this damsel in distress: Bertie, the Prince of Wales.17 Daisy was by now on good terms with Bertie, dined regularly with him, and had met him at Ascot and Goodwood. More significantly, Daisy was aware that Bertie was sympathetic and wise concerning affairs of the heart. Confident that Bertie would act on her behalf, Daisy wrote to the prince and asked if he would see her.
Bertie responded immediately, and summoned Daisy to Marlborough House. It was late in the evening, and he received her in his oak-paneled study, a snug, masculine room dominated by an enormous desk littered with books and documents. Daisy, her deep blue eyes brimming with tears, confessed her affair with Charlie Beresford and her impulsive letter to Mina and begged Bertie to come to her aid.
Bertie, all concern, listened patiently as Daisy unburdened her heart. “He was charmingly courteous to me,” Daisy said later, “and at length he told me he hoped his friendship would make up in part, at least, for my sailor-lover’s loss. He was more than kind.”18 Indeed he was. Daisy must have realized that there would be a price to be paid for Bertie’s assistance. As she sat in front of his desk, Daisy found that Bertie was looking at her “in a way all women understand.”19
After Daisy had left, Bertie summoned his carriage and paid a late night visit to George Lewis. As far as Lewis was concerned, the inconvenience of being dragged out of bed in the small hours was more than compensated for by the arrival of the Prince of Wales. The men were on good terms, as Lewis had been Bertie’s guest at an event to celebrate one of Lillie Langtry’s stage successes. In fact, Lewis was so impressed by Bertie’s visit that he even agreed to show him the letter from Daisy. This was highly unprofessional behavior on Lewis’s part, but he no doubt felt outmaneuvered by the Prince of Wales. After reading the letter, Bertie ordered Lewis to destroy it.
Even Lewis was unwilling to go this far. He refused, deferentially explaining to the Prince of Wales that he could not destroy the letter without the consent of his client, Mina Beresford. Bertie’s response was simple. He would ask her himself.20 And with that, Bertie went to call on Mina at her London home. Bertie ordered Mina to do the decent thing and destroy the letter, arguing that it could cause nothing but harm. But, unlike George Lewis, Mina was not overawed by the Prince of Wales and flatly refused to destroy Daisy’s letter. Bertie left the house, furious, only to return later to try again. This time, he begged Mina to be charitable and told her that Daisy had been spoken to and would never cause her trouble again. But Mina still refused to destroy the letter, arguing that it constituted her only defense against Daisy and her machinations. Again, Bertie left in a mood of anger and frustration. And then, through George Lewis, Mina Beresford proposed a different solution. Mina offered to destroy the letter on one condition and on one condition only: that Daisy was banned from London for the entire season.21
When Daisy learned about this draconian request, she was horrified. It was perfectly barbaric. How could Daisy be expected to endure social ostracism? Daisy went to see Bertie and pleaded for help, and Bertie, by now falling for Daisy, agreed to see what he could do. Once more, Bertie visited Mina Beresford, and pleaded with her to change her mind and destroy the letter. But the obstinate Mina stuck to her own terms of engagement, insisting that Daisy be banned from London for the entire season. It was then that Bertie unleashed his broadside. If Mina was not prepared to hand over the letter, said Bertie, she would forfeit her own position in society. In other words, if Mina refused to destroy Daisy’s letter, it would be Mina, and not Daisy, who suffered. As Mina later recalled, the threat was that her “position in Society!! Would become injured!!!”22 But Mina refused to change her mind on the matter.
Inevitably, after Bertie looked at Daisy “the way all women understand,” the pair became lovers. In December 1889, Bertie had been invited to Easton Lodge to attend Daisy’s birthday celebrations, at which point it appears that the affair was consummated. Writing to Daisy a decade later, Bertie observed, “how well I remember spending your birthday with you just 10 years ago at your old home,” and referred to the “very warm feelings” they had shared then.23
We have not yet heard Charlie Beresford’s reaction to these sensational events. As might be expected, Charlie had done his best to persuade Mina to surrender Daisy’s letter. As one of the offending parties, Charlie had kept a low profile, hoping that the problem would just resolve itself. But now, upon hearing rumors that Bertie had stolen Daisy away from him, Charlie cast aside all attempts at diplomacy. Due to set sail on the HMS Undaunted, Charlie demanded to see Bertie immediately, and have the matter out once and for all.
Charlie had already started shouting at Bertie before he stormed into Bertie’s study at Marlborough House. In tones of thunder, Charlie declared that intimidating George Lewis into showing him Daisy’s letter had been the act of a blackguard. Bertie retorted that Charlie was the blackguard, whereupon Charlie replied that there was only one blackguard in this case, and that was Bertie, for daring to interfere in a private quarrel. Bertie waspishly informed Charlie that it was time he controlled both his women: he must silence Mina and renounce Daisy. If he failed to do so, the Beresfords would suffer the same fate as the Churchills before them: they would become social outcasts and their names would be obliterated from every guest list in the land. Furiously, Charlie vowed that he would never give up Daisy.
“You’re not her lover!” shouted Bertie.
“Yes I am,” replied Charlie, “and I’m not going to stop!”24
At this point, Charlie forgot himself and lunged at Bertie; but before Charlie could hit him, Bertie seized the inkstand off his desk and hurled it at Charlie; it whistled past Charlie’s head and crashed into the wall, leaving a huge stain.25 Shaken, and shocked by his own lese majesty, Charlie retreated. The following day he took command of his ship and sailed for the Mediterranean.
Bertie swiftly proved that his threat was not an idle one.26 Within a few days of the quarrel with Charlie, Mina paid the price for refusing to comply with Bertie’s demands. Bertie ensured that Daisy and Brookie were invited to all the same parties as himself, and if he saw Lord and Lady Beresford’s names on a guest list, he crossed them out and substituted those of Lord and Lady Warwick. To her horror, Mina realized that Daisy was being actively promoted. “Wherever [Bertie] went, he desired that she also should be invited, and invited she was, but to the disgust of everyone!”27
In a simple word that conveyed a wealth of meaning, the Beresfords had been “dropped.” There wasn’t a hostess in the land who would risk the disapproval of the Prince of Wales by inviting the Beresfords. While Charlie, probably much to his relief, was posted to the Mediterranean indefinitely, Mina put her London house on the market and went into exile.
One beneficiary of these events was George Lewis, the solicitor who had allowed Bertie to read Daisy’s letter. Soon after the affair of the purloined letter, Lewis was spotted as a guest at Sandringham. Two years later, Lewis received a knighthood, presumably for services to the Crown. Daisy also profited from the potential scandal by becoming Bertie’s mistress. The intensity of their relationship may be gauged by Bertie’s nickname for his new lover: for the rest of his life, Bertie would refer to the Countess of Warwick as “my Darling Daisywife.”
Daisy became one of the brightest stars of the Marlborough House set, that fast crowd of the titled and wealthy who wined and dined and danced and hunted and raced with Bertie. The Marlborough House set did not so much follow Bertie as revolve like satellites around his stately body. Even Daisy, the spoiled and beautiful heiress, was overwhelmed.
“Of course, the Marlborough House set had glamour,” she recalled in old age. “Indeed, glamour was its particular asset. It created the atmosphere which intrigued the public. I can feel something of the same sense of enchantment, in recalling it, that children experienced when they watched the transformation scene at the pantomime. For them, the girls in their spangles were beautiful fairies, and the scene a glimpse of fairyland.”28
The highest social honor of all was to be invited to what were known as the “small evenings” at Marlborough House, a dazzling mixture of luxurious partying and high jinks. Young men tobogganed down the stairs on tea trays, and carpets and rugs were pushed aside for dancing. Bertie was a huge fan of slapstick and practical jokes, such as spiking the wine, sliding squares of soap among the cheeses or topping puddings with “whipped cream” made from shaving soap.29,30 This was a world that Daisy adored, and she played the role of mistress to perfection, accompanying Bertie to balls, receptions, country house parties, and horse racing at Ascot, Goodwood, and Epsom. The correspondent of The World magazine, craning her neck to see Daisy at the opera with Bertie, described “a goddess whose fame had penetrated even to the dim recesses of the placid country, her profile was turned away from an inquisitive world, but I made out a rounded figure, diaphanously draped, and a brilliant, haughty, beautiful countenance.”31 The diaphanous fabric became Daisy’s signature look, a fittingly classical style to show off her superb figure to its uttermost. Toward the close of the century, women’s gowns had become light, fluid, and unstructured, and bustles and puffed sleeves were a thing of the past. This style suited Daisy, who dressed at Worth and Doucet and never spent less than three hundred guineas on a gown, or £30,000 at today’s prices. A particular hit was “the gauzy white gown beneath which meandered delicately shaded ribbons” worn to a dinner party with Bertie.32 On another occasion Daisy appeared in “splendid purple-grape-trimmed robes and a veil of pearls on white,” and a “violet velvet gown with two splendid turquoise-and-diamond brooches on her bodice,”33 which she wore to a hunt ball.
Daisy and Bertie’s affair was conducted against the backdrop of London society, and the stately homes of England, particularly Daisy’s own Easton Lodge. In London, a certain degree of discretion was required. Daisy and Bertie could meet at Daisy’s house in Cavendish Square, or at Marlborough House, or even, and this was a daring choice, at a restaurant. While “respectable” women did not dine in public restaurants, they were permitted to meet a gentleman in a private dining room at Rules, or the Café Royal, or Kettners. These private dining rooms provided a sofa in addition to tables and chairs, and some even featured a double bed.34 Daisy and Bertie also traveled to Paris, where for the sake of propriety they booked into separate hotels, with Bertie registered as “Baron Renfrew,” and visited restaurants and theaters, and race meetings at Longchamps and Auteuil. Life with Bertie was truly, astonishingly glamorous.
The majority of Daisy’s liaisons with Bertie were conducted at Easton Lodge, which Daisy had converted from an uncomfortable English country house to a palace fit for a king. Bertie and members of the Marlborough House set had always been regular visitors to Easton Lodge. Now Bertie’s visits increased in number and Daisy often chartered a private train down from London, building a small station on her estate where the train could stop and unload the guests and their retinue of servants and mountains of luggage. One particular attraction were the gardens, tributes to the elaborate skills of Victorian horticulturalists, where Daisy would walk with Bertie,35 delighted to have Bertie all to herself, while Bertie, who liked his women bright, but not intellectual, enjoyed sharing political gossip and discussing foreign affairs. In later life, Daisy looked back fondly on the “Garden of Friendship” where they strolled. “Many of the trees the Prince of Wales planted at Easton serve to remind me how thankfully he threw aside for a few hours the heavy trappings of his state to revel in his love of nature.”36 The gardens, with red deer in the distance beneath the shade of the ancient trees, were a favorite trysting place for Daisy’s guests. One of these was young Elinor Glyn, last seen as a little girl on Jersey, hiding under the dressing table at Government House in order to spy on Lillie Langtry. Now a beautiful young woman in her own right, with green eyes and “the most beautiful red hair I have ever seen” Elinor had been taken up by Daisy as something of a fellow spirit.37 Elinor had recently married one of Daisy’s neighbors, an Essex landowner and barrister named Clayton Glyn, and settled in a nearby mansion named Sheerings.38 As a young beauty, Elinor was receiving the cold shoulder from the ladies of the country set, who “had lost their complexions on the hunting field [and] stared incredulously at her, as though nobody had a right to be as pretty as that.”39 After meeting Elinor at a dismal hunt ball, Daisy immediately befriended her, and invited her and her husband to stay at Easton.
On the very first evening of Elinor’s visit to Easton, Daisy’s husband, Brookie, invited Elinor to come and inspect “the rosarie,” Daisy’s newly planted rose garden. Elinor accepted the invitation, but the moment that they were alone Brookie seized her in his arms, embraced her passionately, and told her that she was, by far, the loveliest rose in the garden. Elinor screamed in horror and ran inside to report the incident to her husband. When Elinor told Clayton that their host had made a pass at her, Clayton laughed out loud and exclaimed: “Did he, by Jove! Good old Brookie!”40
Elinor later recorded her impressions of Daisy and the astonishing and scandalous world of Easton, a world that would provide inspiration for the sensational romantic novels that were to make Elinor’s fortune.
“No one who stayed at Easton ever forgot their hostess and most of the men fell hopelessly in love with her,” Elinor recalled.41 “In my long life, spent in so many different countries, and during which I have seen most of the beautiful and famous women of the world, from film-stars to Queens, I have never seen one who was so completely fascinating as Daisy Brooke. She would sail in from her own wing, carrying her piping bullfinch, her lovely eyes smiling with the merry innocent expression of a Persian kitten that has just tangled a ball of silk. Hers was that supreme personal charm which I later described as ‘It,’ because it is quite indefinable, and does not depend on beauty or wit, although she possessed both in the highest degree. She was never jealous or spiteful to other women, and if she liked you she was the truest, most understanding friend.”42
Daisy was almost universally popular. At Easton Lodge, the staff and tenants loved her; she was a generous and responsible landlord, known for her good works and a social conscience, which was becoming more pronounced as the years went by. They were tickled pink when the Prince of Wales himself came up on his special train to call on Daisy; “Her tenants and estate workers—who adored her for her kindness to them—watched goggle-eyed as their own ‘Miss Daisy’ drove the Prince of Wales up her long avenue.”43 “Their lady had caught a very big fish and they cheered her for it.”44
Daisy’s generosity was legendary. On one occasion a guest borrowed Daisy’s favorite hunter, “returned blanched at tea-time to say he had broken its neck. ‘How dreadful for you,’ was all that Daisy said. Only later, alone with [her maid] Olive, did she weep.”45
But even Daisy had her enemies. Lady Beresford was unlikely to forgive the events that had seen Charlie and herself banned from London society, and was plotting her revenge. And one other person was beginning to tire a little of Daisy’s antics: Daisy’s own husband, the Earl of Warwick himself, poor dear Brookie.