Foreign News: Marlboroughs Divide

“Your Grace,” said the butler to the Duchess of Marlborough last week, “there are three strange men in the basement.”

The Duchess, born Gladys Marie Deacon in Boston, made no reply. By last week she was used to the peculiar ways of the Duke, fretful Charles Richard John (“Sunny” for Sunderland) Spencer-Churchill, 61, 9th of his line.

The Duke had moved out this spring. He was annoyed by his second duchess’ lack of interest in society, so unlike his first wife Consuelo Vanderbilt, who divorced him in 1920 and next year married Lieut.-Colonel Jacques Balsan (as the Duke carefully points out in his Who’s Who entry). Directly after Consuelo’s divorce, His Grace married cool, beautiful Bostonian Gladys Deacon. While he danced spryly at night clubs, she has stayed at home. When they gave receptions last winter he frequently stood alone at the head of the stairs. During the recent London Season he lived alone at the Ritz Hotel, gave big week-end parties without her at Blenheim Castle.* Socialites assume that a second Marlborough divorce is imminent.

Last week the three strangers who invaded Gladys of Marlborough’s mansion said they were private detectives, implied that their employer was the Duke. They cut off the electricity, gas and telephone. Then they locked themselves in the basement rooms which include the larders and pantries. Friends of the Duchess, made curious by the telephone operator’s explanation that Her Grace’s telephone had been temporarily suspended, called to investigate. They returned with provisions, helped her cook meals on an oil stove. In the basement the three detectives lurked, presumably living off the fat of the Marlborough larder. For four days Gladys of Marlborough camped on.

On the fourth she sent for two vans. Into the first, workmen loaded her collection of paintings. When they began to load heavy furniture into the second van, the three detectives suddenly popped out of the basement, stopped the loading. One detective brought a policeman. Coolly Gladys of Marlborough appeared, told the movers to resume work. The policeman scratched his head. The detectives sent for a lawyer. The Duchess sent for hers. After a long conference between Duchess, lawyers, detectives and policeman, the vans drove off. Gladys of Marlborough walked out of her house, down the street to the Carlton Hotel.

*For Blenheim, Britain’s sift in 1704 to the great first Duke, the Marlboroughs pay annual rent to George V of a banner emblazoned with three “flower-de-luces” (fleur de lis).