Coco Chanel_ An Intimate Life - Lisa Chaney [135]
Gabrielle also traveled frequently to the Landes, to Bend’Or’s other favored spot, Mimizan, in southwest France, where they hunted wild boar. Both the estate in Scotland and Mimizan were difficult to reach by road, so the duke often used his second huge yacht, the Cutty Sark, built originally as a reserve destroyer, as his mode of travel from Scotland to France. This got him there with great speed. But while Gabrielle’s fearlessness as a sailor was another mark in her favor in Bend’Or’s eyes, in truth, she was bored by the sea. Nonetheless, she was often to be found accompanying him in his restless shuttling from one property to another. Aside from Scotland and the Landes, other houses included a château near Deauville and the town house in London. Gabrielle grew accustomed to the ritual of Westminster train travel, when two Pullman cars and four baggage cars were taken up for the luggage and the dogs.
Winston Churchill enjoyed the boar hunting in the Landes and, earlier in the year, had written to Clementine of his admiration for Gabrielle:
The famous Coco turned up & I took a great fancy to her—a most capable & agreeable woman—much the strongest personality Bennie has yet been up against. She hunted vigorously all day, motored to Paris after dinner & is today engaged in passing and improving dresses on endless streams of mannequins. Altogether 200 models have been settled in almost 3 weeks. Some have been altered ten times. She does it with her own fingers, pinning, cutting, looping, etc. With her—Vera Bate, née Arkwright. Yr Chief of staff? No, one of your lieutenants?7
Churchill’s wife replied, saying that she enjoyed his description of a hair-raising boar hunt, “but more exciting . . . is your account of ‘Coco.’ I must say I should like to know her. She must be a genius.”
This “genius” would say of Bend’Or, whom she described as “a last king,” that “the greatest pleasure he gave me was to watch him live.” Several of his friends felt the same. Beneath Bend’Or’s clumsy exterior he was a skillful hunter. Having said that “a man would have to be skillful to hang on to me,” Gabrielle described their years together as “living very lovingly and very amicably.” To her, Bend’Or was “courtesy itself, kindness personified. He . . . belongs to a generation of well-brought-up men . . . He is simplicity made man; he has the shyness of kings, of people who are isolated through their circumstances and through their wealth.”8
This wealth allowed Bend’Or to indulge his fascination with jewels, which he lavished upon Gabrielle at every opportunity. She had already been given some tremendous gems by Dmitri Pavlovich, but with Bend’Or, her collection became quite fabulous. For Gabrielle, Westminster was “elegance itself, he never has anything new; I was obliged to go and buy him some shoes, and he’s been wearing the same jackets for twenty-five years.” Telling how he was the richest man in England, she said, “Nobody knows this, not even him, especially not him.” She said she mentioned this
because at such a level wealth is no longer vulgar, it is located well beyond envy and it assumes catastrophic proportions; but I mention it above all because it makes Westminster the last offspring of a vanished civilization . . . Showing me over the luxurious surroundings of Eaton Hall . . . Lord Lonsdale said to me, “Once the owner is no more, what we are seeing here will be finished” . . . his intelligence lies in his keen sensitivity. He abounds in delightful absurdities. He does harbor a few grudges, petty, elephant-like grudges.9
In 1927, Gabrielle opened a boutique on Davies Street in London’s Mayfair, lent to her by Bend’Or; his own house was nearby. She was soon dressing the Duchess of York and other stars of the London firmament: Daisy Fellowes, niece to Winnaretta Singer; Juliet Duff, daughter of Lady Ripon; Baba d’Erlanger, who had grown up in Byron’s home; Paula Gellibrand, the Marquise de Casa Maury; Lady Mary Davies; Duff Cooper’s wife, Diana; Lady Northcliffe, wife of the newspaper