Coco Chanel_ An Intimate Life - Lisa Chaney [134]
This same man insisted that Bend’Or was “uniformly loved and admired by all of those who worked for him.”5
The duke’s parents had both conducted extramarital relationships but had stuck to the conventions of their day and remained partners in marriage. Although in many ways a Victorian, their son loathed private dishonesty and public hypocrisy and was less prepared to compromise. In his private life, this combination was unfortunate. Bend’Or’s undoubted qualities of decisiveness, courage and leadership, admirably displayed in war, were not qualities he understood how to demonstrate with much efficacy in peacetime. His other great handicap, which has led to his being described, in effect, as a dumb ox, was Bend’Or’s difficulty in explaining himself with much fluency.
Only on occasion was he moved to put his views forward (vehemently) and then, apparently, his comments were germane. With an aristocratic English lineage, wherein reticence about one’s feelings was a prerequisite of acceptance as a gentleman, Bend’Or’s schooling as well as service in the army had compounded what must have begun as shyness and ended as the tendency to express himself inadequately. Depending upon one’s viewpoint, the Duke of Westminster can be seen either as an inflexible, bombastic prude or a flawed man of honor who was unable to negotiate well with his times, especially when they were peaceful. (In this, he resembled somewhat Winston Churchill.)
By the time Bend’Or met Gabrielle, he had become an edgier, more restless man whose temper could flare up without warning. Although someone whose forte was action, rather than lengthy discourse or theorizing, there was, however, more to him than this. Apart from anything else, the caricature descriptions of Bend’Or the monster are demeaning to Gabrielle. Why would she have associated herself with someone who was utterly obnoxious? As a fiercely independent woman, she had great wealth of her own at her disposal. It was nothing by comparison with Westminster’s, but her aspirations were not of that order. She had no need, really, of Westminster’s incredible riches.
Marie Laurencin told the diarist Abbé Mugnier that “Mlle Chanel and Misia Sert are bored women, the latter out of satiety.” Referring to the emptiness of much of Parisian society, the Abbé wrote that Gabrielle was “a queen in a desert.” Was this in part why she allowed herself to be seduced by the Duke of Westminster, a man whose fabulous riches had made him, like her, a kind of exalted outsider?
Gabrielle now joined Bend’Or whenever she was able. He was a tall bear of a man noted for his inability to do anything on a small scale, and although sixty for a weekend at Eaton Hall was not uncommon, Bend’Or increasingly preferred a smaller number of what he called “real people.” Of an obdurate stubbornness, he was both easily bored and easily pleased. He was, really, a simple man. Gabrielle often met him at one of his various country estates, where she showed considerable prowess at hunting, fishing and entertaining the duke’s friends. His Scottish estate, Reay Forest, “a wild tract of eight hundred square miles” in the Highlands, included one of the most famous salmon rivers and some of the best deer-stalking country in Scotland. It was from here, in October 1927, that Winston Churchill wrote to his wife, Clementine:
Here I am in the North Pole! Last night the fishing was unexpectedly vy good . . . Coco is here in place of Violet [the duchess]. She fishes from morn till night, & in two months has killed 50 salmon. She is vy agreeable—really a gt & strong being fit to rule a man or an Empire. Bennie vy well & I think extremely happy to be mated with an equal—her ability