Other Women by Fiona McDonald

heavy drinker and had a seriously damaged liver.
    Apart from these trifles Gloria’s marriage turned out to be relatively happy and their daughter, Gloria Laura, was born in 1924. She too would inherit from the trust fund when her father died. Alice Vanderbilt bought her son and daughter-in-law a beautiful house in New York in which they could entertain and bring up the children in the way Vanderbilt children were supposed to be, very wealthy.
    Thelma was able to divorce her husband with the help of her two sisters. She then went to live with Harry in Hollywood, where he had not managed to make his fortune. Thelma, always a promising dancer – in fact she had wanted to be a professional dancer from childhood – found work alongside Mary Pickford, though it did not seem to get her any further in her aspirations to be a movie star. She received a divorce settlement of US$100,000 (around $1 million today) when she came of age and used it to set up her own film production company, probably inspired by the one Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks had started. As head of her own production company Thelma could choose her own stars – and she chose herself. Co-stars included the well-known Clara Bow and Lionel Barrymore, amongst others. If she had persevered with the company and taken on new technology, gone into talkies, then maybe Thelma could have made a name in cinema. But she let her mother talk her out of it; she sold up and went to live with her sister in New York. It was there, at one of their many dinner parties, that Thelma met her second husband, Lord Marmaduke Furness, a widower. He was wealthy and an aristocrat, charming but also boring; his favourite hobbies were fox hunting and riding. Thelma detested horses: it should have been a warning to her.

    Lady Thelma Morgan Furness
    By their third date he had proposed and she had accepted. To be fair, though, Thelma did get a taste of what life with Furness would be like, as they began a sexual relationship as fiancées. They were married at a registry office in London in 1926 with only a few guests, two of whom were Consuelo and her husband Bernie.
    Furness was away on business much of the time and he gave his wife a sports car so she could go gadding about the countryside. Then the truth about the fabulous, generous husband began to emerge. He was an alcoholic who got violent; he wouldn’t let Thelma have an allowance of her own, although she was allowed to buy lots of clothes and finery as long as it was charged to his account. And, worst of all, he hated children. He hated his own two from his first marriage in particular. His son tried to have as little to do with his family as possible and was at Eton most of the year. Averill, by the time she was 18 – and not very attractive – was the butt of her father’s cruel taunts. Both Thelma and Averill were in trouble when Averill’s debut into society failed to produce her a suitor. And to add another thing to his list of grievances against Thelma, she had not yet got pregnant.
    Enter the Prince of Wales. He and Thelma met at a ball in 1926. Thelma hadn’t been long married to Furness. Edward found Thelma exotic and glamorous having come from Hollywood. He invited her and her husband to a jazz concert but Furness declined because of business commitments; Thelma later found that a ticket had been sent to her London address – and she went.
    They drank champagne, talked and danced, drank more champagne, confided in each other and then went to bed together in a hotel. The next step was a weekend in the country. From then on Thelma would spend as much time as possible with her royal lover, which meant any time her husband was away.
    In 1928 the Furnesses were set to go on an African safari, it was business for the husband and supposedly pleasure for his wife. The Prince of Wales was able to comfort Thelma with the promise that he would be in Africa at the same time, also on safari. He would send them an