Originally published in Social and Personal magazine
Despite accusations of gold digging, drug taking and murder, Enid Lindeman was certain of one thing: she was never going to be a wallflower. Born into the Lindeman wine family, in Australia in 1892, she had an upbringing befitting a young lady but she longed to escape colonial life. At the age of twenty-one, she married Roderick Cameron, a forty-five-year-old shipping magnate from New York. The marriage lasted a year, before Cameron’s death from cancer, leaving her with a baby son and a million-dollar fortune. She then began an affair with Bernard Baruch, an American financier and presidential adviser, but marriage was out of the question, for Enid thought ‘he was not much good in bed and he was very mean’.
The First World War gave Enid the excitement she craved and she moved to Paris to drive an ambulance for the war effort. Standing almost six-feet-tall with red hair and emerald green eyes, she caused havoc amongst the officers and one threatened to commit suicide. This was not a new occurrence for Enid, and during her many affairs five of her lovers killed themselves – one jumped into shark infested waters, another blew himself up. In 1917 she married Frederick ‘Caviar’ Cavendish, her reason for marriage was simple: she needed someone to manage her money. She followed Caviar to Cairo, where he was given command of the 9th Lancers, and as a dare she slept with his entire regiment. By day she schooled Caviar’s polo ponies, and by night she dressed as a man and played the piano or her Swanee whistle in the band of the officers’ mess. She also met and began an affair with Lord Carnarvon, custodian of Highclere Castle and dedicated Egyptologist, and she was among the first to be shown Tutankhamun’s tomb after its discovery in 1922. But she soon found herself in the familiar state of widowhood, after Caviar’s death from a cerebral haemorrhage.
Enid’s next marriage in 1933 was a bold move, even by her standards. Her new husband was Viscount Furness, the sixth richest man in the world. His first wife, Daisy, had died aboard their yacht during a cruise and he buried her at sea. Some say he murdered her, and others believed he would hang if the evidence was ever revealed. His second wife, Thelma Morgan Converse, from whom he was divorced, had been the mistress of the Prince of Wales and was the best friend of Wallis Simpson. He first saw Enid at a casino in Le Touquet, and after their first meeting he pursued her relentlessly: flowers and jewellery would arrive daily, and planes, yachts and Rolls-Royce cars were put at her disposal. Enid herself claimed she received the aforementioned without making any effort whatsoever. But her lifestyle came at a cost and Furness, a jealous man prone to uncontrollable rages, directed his anger towards Enid and her three children. This, she thought was a sign of his love for her. ‘There was nothing in the world he was not prepared to give me. Of all the men that loved me, he was the one who was prepared to lay the world at my feet.’ As the ‘thirties drew to a close the rows between Enid and Furness escalated. No longer did she discreetly see other men and outsmart the detectives he set upon her, she flaunted her affairs openly. One paramour, the Duke of Westminster, known as Bendor, was a threat to Furness as he was only man who rivalled his wealth. Furness departed overseas, a rare move for he rarely left Enid’s side, afraid that if he did she would cast her eyes elsewhere. What would follow would be something of a charade: she sent Furness a letter, claiming she was going to commit suicide by shooting herself. In great distress, he returned home and sent a search party to find her. She was discovered at the London Clinic with a wound on her head, but it was from a face-lifting operation.
In the early days of the Second World War Enid and Furness were staying at La Fiorentina, his villa in Cap Ferrat. He was bed-bounded with cirrhosis of the liver and surrounded by medical staff who cared for him until his death. Trapped in the south of France and short of money, Enid pawned her jewellery and bought a few goats so she could turn their milk into butter and cheese. There was a detention camp close to the villa, and she would often see the prisoners. It was not long before she began to help them escape, dressed in the gardener’s clothes or any civilian attire she could find. The police soon grew suspicious of her activities, and Enid began to plot how she and her daughter could leave France. Owing to her connections within the British government, she secured passage on an airship departing from Lisbon.
At the height of the Blitz, Enid moved into Claridge’s while she awaited her inheritance from Furness to be settled. As fate would have it, Enid discovered an old boyfriend, the Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Valentine Browne, once the most famous gossip columnist in London, had taken a suite at the hotel. He had been married to Doris Delevingne, a notorious courtesan, which ended in divorce. Over the years he and Enid had contemplated marriage to one another, but as Enid put it: ‘My husband or his wife got in the way.’ Despite his fame and Earldom of Kenmare, he was always short of money. Enid, however, must have suspected his title came with a fortune, and Valentine himself assumed she was a millionairess. Their love of money and false impression of one another inflamed their love affair, and they were married in January 1941. Now the Countess of Kenmare, she followed her husband to Ireland, where she established herself at his family seat, Killarney, in Co. Kerry. Eight months later, she was, once again, a widow after Valentine suffered a fatal heart attack. As he died without an heir, Enid, who was fifty-one at the time, fabricated a story that she was pregnant. Remaining at Killarney she kept up the ruse for a year, during which time a baby failed to materialise.
Having been gossiped about and associated with the rumour that she had killed four husbands, Enid would become embroiled in a real scandal. In 1954 she and Donald Bloomingdale, of the department store family, crossed paths at the Sherry-Netherland hotel. Over the course of her stay, Bloomingdale asked for heroin and she gave it to him. It was said that the heroin was delivered in a lace handkerchief embroidered with a coronet and her initials. Another claimed it had been smuggled in a silver frame behind a photograph of Enid. Either way, the dose proved fatal and Enid fled New York. ‘You know how the American police are,’ she said at the time. In light of the Bloomingdale scandal, Enid’s own drug-taking past was scrutinised. She was said to be a former heroin addict herself, and was on the drug register. This was partly true: in the 1930s she had fallen from her horse and was prescribed morphine to ease a back injury. Having become addicted, she entered a clinic to cure herself. If she was absent from a party or late to arrive, Daisy Fellowes, with whom Enid shared a difficult relationship, would say: ‘Probably busy with her needle.’
After the incident, she never discussed Bloomingdale and for a long time she stayed away from New York. Her society friends had their theories, but they never asked her about it. Daisy Fellowes was far more blatant: she was going to host a dinner party and invite twelve people. ‘All murderers, very convenient,’ she said. ‘There are six men and six women. And Enid will have the place of honour, because she killed the most people of anyone coming.’ She was never kind to Enid, describing her as ‘an Australian with a vague pedigree’. Once, when they were conversing, Enid began with, ‘People of our class . . . ‘ Daisy raised her hand and stopped her, ‘Just a moment, Enid, your class or mine?’ And at a dinner party on Long Island her host asked why she was known as ‘Lady Killmore’ – a nickname given to her by Somerset Maugham. Enid rose from the table and said she had endured enough, she was leaving. Predicting her reaction, earlier in the evening the host had sent her car back to Manhattan, but Enid walked to the highway and hitch-hiked home.
In her old age Enid lived at Broadlands, a farm in South Africa, from where she bred race horses. Her old friend, Beryl Markham, trained them but their partnership was tested by various factors, notably Enid’s refusal to give her control of the stables. This frustrated Beryl, and she said: ‘Enid was getting very old and difficult. She couldn’t understand what I needed, and so I left.’ She felt the loss of Beryl greatly, and the running of the farm became increasingly difficult. For the remaining years of her life, until her death at eighty-one, she was in great pain but refused to take medication, fearing her old morphine addiction would return. She was determined to overcome weakness, but strong enough to recognise it. Her motto for life springs to mind: ‘Never be ill, never be afraid, and never be jealous’.
The above is an edited extract from These Great Ladies: Peeresses and Pariahs by Lyndsy Spence
The Mitford Society 