Lillie and Bertie were reunited in the autumn when Bertie invited Lillie to a number of country house parties with Ned Langtry invited along, too, for appearances’ sake. And so that they could spend time alone together, Bertie built Lillie a home by the sea at East Cliff in the fashionable resort of Bournemouth, away from prying eyes and away from Ned Langtry. In the past, Bertie had showered his mistresses with jewelry. But those mistresses had houses of their own, and complaisant husbands who were only too happy to be cuckolded by the Prince of Wales. Lillie had nowhere to receive him apart from her rented house in Eaton Place, and so Bertie, for the first time, decided to build his mistress a home of her own. “The Red House,” built on land acquired from Lord Derby’s estate, overlooked the sea; on a clear day, one could see the outline of Jersey. The Red House was very much Lillie’s from the beginning: we can see her taste and style in it. Dispensing with any claims to aesthetics, it is an overgrown suburban villa, all leaded lights and inglenooks, with stained-glass windows and a minstrels’ gallery in which the smoke from Bertie’s cigars might disperse. The prince had a room of his own with a massive bed, discreetly connected with Lillie’s apartments by means of a passageway. Lillie made it her own from the first, with a foundation stone reading “1877 E L L” and her initials scratched on a windowpane with a diamond. As for Ned Langtry, he never visited and it is unlikely he even knew that the Red House existed.27
At Christmas 1878 the Langtrys made a triumphant return to Jersey, sailing in on Bertie’s yacht, Hildegarde. Lillie reveled in the attention, and in seeing her photograph for sale on dozens of postcards in the local shops, alongside the other Professional Beauties. Lillie was no longer just the dean’s daughter. She renewed her acquaintance with a childhood friend, Arthur Jones, who would later play a major role in her life, and, as an acknowledgment of her status, Lillie was invited to dinner at Government House. Even in her new role Lillie must have realized what a tremendous honor this was. When she paused to check her reflection in the ladies’ room before making her entrance, Lillie was surprised to hear a childish giggle. Pulling aside the skirts of the dressing table, she found two little girls who were eager to see the beautiful Lillie for themselves. One of these little girls, with her red hair, green eyes, and pale skin, was Elinor Glyn, the future romantic novelist.28
Back in London, the Langtrys and Dominique, Lillie’s faithful maid, moved into a new house in February 1879. According to Lillie, 17 Norfolk Street, off Park Lane and Oxford Street, was not particularly extravagant, “a modest, blushing, red-brick abode”29 but with ten rooms it could scarcely be described as modest. Lillie decorated Norfolk Place with the help of the American artist James McNeill Whistler, who arrived one morning with a pot of gold paint and some palm leaves. They used the palm leaves as stencils, painted two birds on the ceiling, and emerged later spattered with gold and with gold paint glittering on their eyelashes.30 Lillie, who became easy prey of so-called antique dealers,31 furnished the house with distressed furniture and worm-eaten oak, a set of prints from Lord Malmsbury, and a stuffed peacock, a gift from the Earl of Warwick. Peacocks were the signature bird of the aesthetic movement. They were also, as Lillie would learn, considered to be unlucky.
Funereal, pretentious, and a constant drain on the Langtrys’ resources, 17 Norfolk Street was said to be haunted by the victims of the notorious Tyburn gallows,32 which had stood nearby. Mysterious incidents included doors bursting open at embarrassing moments and an unaccountably eerie atmosphere. The butler complained of being woken by the ghosts of Tyburn victims rolling over him with their heads in their hands or swaying from gibbets at the bottom of his bed. Lillie, who attributed these terrifying experiences and his haggard features to whiskey, remained sternly indifferent to the butler’s plight and he resigned. Months later, when a reliable housemaid complained that the ghost of a cavalier had barred her way downstairs one morning in broad daylight, Lillie conceded that the house might be haunted after all.33
In the spring of 1879 it was agreed that Lillie should be presented at court. This ceremony ensured that Lillie could take her rightful place in society and enjoy the coming season as an insider. It was unusual for a married woman to be presented at court, and the fact that Lillie was presented at all was down to the intervention of Bertie. As Lillie’s own mother, Mrs. Le Breton, had not been a debutante, protocol required that Lillie have a “presenter.” Lillie found one in the form of Lady Jane Churchill, née Conyngham, who had an official position in the queen’s household.34
Lillie’s mother and aunt arrived from Jersey and reveled in helping Lillie prepare for her big day. The excitement of their own Lillie taking her place at the heart of society more than compensated for that dreadful false start when Lillie first came to London, and made up for the dismal wedding to Ned. Now, on an occasion where “no mere maid was to be trusted,” Lillie was eased into an ivory brocade gown with a long “court train” made of the same material pinned to her shoulders. Both gown and veil were garlanded with Maréchal Niel roses, golden yellow with a strong tea rose scent, and the train was lined in the same golden yellow as the flowers. On the orders of the lord chamberlain, debutantes were expected to wear large feathers, as the queen had complained that the feathers used in the ceremony were getting too small. To be on the safe side, Lillie had obtained three of the longest white ostrich plumes she could find, and had great difficulty in keeping them balanced on her head, as she still wore her hair low, coiled on her neck.35
“Courts” were held at three in the afternoon, with debutantes driven along the Mall toward Buckingham Palace and then lined up in St. James’s Park, seated in their state coaches with their bewigged footman in livery standing at the back. It was a magnificent sight: dozens of the daughters of England’s most eminent families, in superb gowns and glittering with jewelry, waiting their turn, while the band of the Household Cavalry roared away and the Beefeaters stood guard in their magnificent red costumes.36 Then the girls were sent to wait in the crush-room, penned in like so many sheep, with their heavy trains over their arms.37 Among these young daughters of the nobility sat Lillie, with low neckline and bare arms, in full sunlight on a hot May afternoon, starving as she had been too nervous to eat, and clutching a huge bunch of Maréchal Niel roses sent by Bertie.38
As if Lillie wasn’t nervous enough, there was another shock to come before she was beckoned into the chamber. Lillie had been told that Princess Alexandra would be “receiving” the debutantes, which she was pleased about, as she was understandably scared of Queen Victoria, the monarch herself who had stood on a chair to remove Lillie’s portrait from Prince Leopold’s bedroom wall. To Lillie’s horror, she heard the lord chamberlain declare: “Mrs Langtry comes next, Your Majesty!”39
Lillie was ushered into the royal presence in a state of turmoil. There sat Queen Victoria herself, a petite woman but the very embodiment of majesty, dressed in black, with a small diamond crown and tulle veil with black feathers, ropes of pearls glimmering around her neck and the blue ribbon of the Garter across her ample bodice. Lillie smiled and curtseyed nervously, while the queen stared straight through her and extended her hand in a perfunctory manner. “There was not even the flicker of a smile on her face,” Lillie recalled, “and she looked grave and tired.”40
The most difficult aspect of being presented at court that every debutante had to learn was the trick of catching her train over her left arm as it was thrown to her by the pages after her presentation. This called for some physical dexterity, as one was simultaneously catching the train and backing out of the royal presence. And it all had to be done without looking back over one’s shoulder, a sure sign of being a gauche country girl. There were awful tales of debutantes failing to accomplish this feat and dropping their trains or, worse, falling over. Mercifully, Lillie managed to achieve this sleight of hand and retreat gracefully from the throne room.41
That evening, at a ball at Marlborough House, Lillie told Bertie that she had been surprised to see Queen V
ictoria receiving the debutantes. Bertie explained that his mother had been overcome with curiosity and had deliberately taken the opportunity to see Lillie for herself. The queen had been annoyed, Bertie said, because Lillie was one of the last to appear. Lillie replied that she hoped that her ostrich feathers had lived up to the queen’s strict specifications.42
Chapter Ten
ROYAL MISTRESS
A highly sensational divorce case, in which a well-known beauty will play a prominent part!
—TOWN TALK
Once Lillie was “out” as a fully fledged member of society, she threw herself into “the orgy of convivial gatherings, balls, dinners, receptions, concerts, opera, which at first seemed to me a dream, a delight, a wild excitement, and I concentrated on the pursuit of amusement with the wholeheartedness that is characteristic of me, flying from one diversion to another from dawn to dawn.”1 Now that she had been presented, Lillie was automatically invited to a succession of grand events at court. While uniform or court dress was de rigueur among the men, the women wore their most resplendent clothes and family jewels, creating a brilliant carnival of color.2 Scarlet-coated footmen scurried around the supper table, which blazed with gold plate, tazzas (shallow ornamental wine cups), and fruit and flowers from the royal gardens at Frogmore. “These balls at Buckingham Palace completely realised my girlish dreams of fairyland,” she recalled.3
Lillie had reached the social pinnacle and mingled with “bejewelled and beautifully clad women who changed their gowns as a kaleidoscope changes its patterns.”4 In her capacity as mistress of the Prince of Wales, Lillie was required to do likewise. “For the first time in my life I became intoxicated with the idea of arraying myself as gorgeously as the Queen of Sheba, and, being accorded unlimited credit by the dressmakers, who enjoyed designing original ‘creations’ for me, I began to pile up bills at all their establishments.”5 Just as Lillie’s previous role had hinted at that of tragic young widow, she now adopted a new persona. She had come a long way from the days when just day dresses and an evening gown were sufficient, and began, as she admitted, to engage in a life of “colossal extravagance.”6
“The days of mourning for my brother being past, the simple black or white that had made dressing economically and becomingly an easy matter was henceforward thrust aside, and I indulged unrestrainedly in a riot of coloured garments.…”7 Lillie required a new outfit for every occasion and became increasingly reckless, allowing “insidious saleswomen to line negligees with ermine or border gowns with silver fox without inquiring the cost.”8
One of Lillie’s most memorable dresses was a yellow tulle gown, draped with golden net under which preserved butterflies of every size and hue were held in glittering captivity.9 Lillie wore this eccentric costume to a ball at Marlborough House and afterward Bertie told her that he spent the following morning picking dead butterflies up off the ballroom floor.10
These astonishing costumes were somewhat at variance with the portrait of Lillie displayed in June 1878 at the Royal Academy. Millais’s portrait of Lillie, entitled A Jersey Lily, caused such a sensation it had to be roped off for its own protection, although Lillie herself had been somewhat disappointed at its content.
“I was surprised, and certainly disappointed, to find that it was [Millais’s] intention to paint me in my plain black gown.… I had hoped to be draped in classic robes or sumptuous mediaeval garments, in which I should be beautiful and quite transformed.”11 Instead, Lillie was depicted in the sober black dress that had attracted so much attention on her first night out in London, and a demure white lace collar, to which was pinned a white gardenia. The black and white acted as a perfect foil for Lillie’s creamy white skin, dark red hair, and “Grecian” features as she stared out into mid-distance, suggesting, if not exactly tragedy, then a nuance of regret: homesickness, perhaps, nostalgia. In one hand, Lillie clutched the Jersey lily that Millais, in a spirit of inquiry, had sent for. Millais was a little disappointed to find the flower was little more than an amaryllis, Nerine sarniensis. But it was this picture that communicated, to the outside world, just how significant Lillie’s role had become. Depicting the woman whom everybody knew to be the mistress of the Prince of Wales, Millais’s portrait immortalized her as “A Jersey Lillie.”12
If Lillie had thought that being presented at court and “received” into royal circles would protect her from press intrusion, she could not have been more wrong. By June 1878, the press had begun to speculate about not only Lillie’s relationship with Bertie, but the future of the Langtrys as a couple.
When Lillie was newly arrived in London, the gossip magazine Vanity Fair had written tantalizingly about “the Beautiful Lady who has come to us from the Channel Islands.”13 Now Vanity Fair had subtly changed its tone: remarking that Lillie had appeared at a Buckingham Palace ball “dressed gorgeously” in white and gold and with no jewelry at all, it reproached her for her choice of gown. “I have seen a woman who when dressed plainly and simply shone among her fellows as a bright particular star … now competing with all London, not in beauty only but in dress … she did not reflect that her chief charm lay precisely in that modest simplicity which she was so anxious to abandon for rich trappings.”14
Later in the season, Vanity Fair again remarked on the change that had come over Lillie since the days when she was “observed to be extremely modest in dress, very quiet and unassuming in her manner, and discreet in all her actions.”15 Now Lillie had “a house in Norfolk Street and she rides in the Park on a highly trained walking chestnut, on which indeed she looks admirable.…”16 The implication was that Lillie could not afford these luxuries herself, and that she was being bankrolled by a rich and influential protector. The reader was left to make the connection between the suddenly wealthy Lillie and her friendship with the Prince of Wales, insinuating that Lillie was a kept woman. In defense of Bertie, other men were contributing to Lillie’s upkeep: Lord Wharncliffe, the sympathetic older man; Morton Frewen, who had bequeathed the chestnut Redskin before departing for America; and now Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria (1858–1889), described by Lillie herself as “a callow youth who burst upon the horizon of London one spring … tall, fair but not handsome, with deep-set grey eyes and the prominent Hapsburg lip.”17 Accompanied by his tutor, Prince Rudolph was determined to make the most of being freed from the rigid etiquette of the Viennese court.
Baron “Ferdy” de Rothschild decided to throw a dance in Prince Rudolph’s honor at his Louis XVI–decorated house in Piccadilly, at which Bertie would be present. Since the distinctive white ballroom at the baron’s house was “a searching background for doubtfully clean gowns,”18 Ferdy invited his female guests to lunch a week before and offered them all new dresses from Jacques Doucet, a leading French designer noted for his flimsy, translucent, pastel-colored gowns. Lillie’s own dress was a pale pink creation of clinging crepe de chine, heavily fringed.19 At the ball Prince Rudolph insisted on dancing with Lillie after supper until he was hot and sweaty, and the imprint of his hands showed up on Lillie’s dress. When Lillie asked the prince to put on his gloves so that he did not damage her gown, he replied rudely: “C’est vous qui suez, madame!” (“It is you who are perspiring!”)20 Lillie’s response is not recorded, but it did not appear to put him off. Prince Rudolph laid siege to Lillie in a series of regular visits to Norfolk Street, on one occasion arriving at eight o’clock in the morning after overturning his carriage. Lillie continued to resist the prince’s advances, even after he offered her a magnificent emerald ring. Lillie threw the ring into the fireplace in disgust, but swiftly retrieved it as soon as Prince Rudolph had left.21
As if the allegations that Lillie was nothing more than a courtesan were not enough, the man Vanity Fair referred to as “a husband to make her happy” was anything but. According to the same publication, in December 1878, “A lady well-known in society is said to have been seen with two black eyes, not the result of self-embellishment. The question asked is, who, or rather which, ga
ve them?”22 Meanwhile, the scurrilous Town Talk voiced its suspicion that Ned was surplus to requirements. “I wonder how the husbands of the ‘beauties of Society’ like their wives to be shown about in a ‘visitors-are-requested-not-to-touch’ sort of way. I don’t believe they are husbands at all—only dummies. Some of the beauties, I’m afraid, have too many husbands.”23
Town Talk was a cheeky weekly, produced in an alley off Fleet Street. Its editor was twenty-seven-year-old Adolphus Rosenberg from Brixton, who was essentially continuing the tradition of slanderous gossip dating back to the eighteenth century. Such journals had flourished forty years earlier but had been suppressed. Now they were reemerging with titles such as Peter Pry, Puck, and Tomahawk, providing lurid gossip for scandal-hungry readers and mercilessly pillorying the eminent men who were their targets.24
Editing such titles was not a career for the fainthearted. When Town Talk’s competitor, The Queen’s Messenger, ran a series of articles criticizing Lord Carrington for his affair with Nellie Clifden, Carrington lay in wait for the editor, Greville Murray, and challenged him to a duel. When Murray simply smiled at him, Carrington horsewhipped Murray, and then successfully sued him for libel.25
Teasingly, Town Talk asked its readers if they had heard rumors of “a highly sensational divorce case, in which a well-known beauty will play a prominent part? And is it also true that someone occupying a very high position in society will be called upon as a witness?”26
Legally, Rosenberg was on a slippery slope by insinuating that Mr. Langtry was about to cite as correspondent the highest in the land: none other but the Prince of Wales himself. A more prudent editor might have thought twice before including such an item. But not this one. The titillating whiff of a scandal ensured a spike in circulation. Two months later, Rosenberg told his readers that: “About the warmest divorce case which ever came before a judge may shortly be expected to come off. The respondent was a reigning beauty not many centuries ago, and the co-respondents—and they are numerous—are big ‘pots.’ The poor husband is almost frantic. ‘Darn this country,’ he says, ‘nothing belongs to a fellow here. Even his wife is everybody’s property.’ Oh that woman! I myself loved her. I bought her portrait … in thirty-five different positions, and wept over it in the silent hours of the night. And I am not even a co-respondent.”27 It is easy for the modern reader, accustomed to more blatant terminology, to miss the obscene subtext in this paragraph; “weeping” was Victorian slang for ejaculation.
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