I’ve never run across the name Peg Wally. It isn’t mentioned in any papers I’ve seen that Lucy’s family has retained. The lady companion who was with her at the end of her life was Ruby Sutton, her former social secretary. Lucy also had a maid named Helen Brewer in 1931-32 who died a few years ago. She was from Ireland and Lucy paid her expenses to go back to visit relatives at a time when Lucy barely had money for herself, the executors of Cosmo’s estate being tight-wads about dispersing funds to her.
The information you have about her negative feelings for Ireland is interesting and surprising, since she always professed to love Ireland (she was part Irish herself). Lucy’s maternal great grandfather was a police magistrate in Dublin at one time. She was also friends with Sir Hugh Lane and one of her most beautiful clients was Lady Lavery, of whom I recently found a great photo in which she’s wearing a Lucile dress. Lucy was in fact accused by some of being anti-British for "decamping" to the USA at the start of WWI. Her daughter and sister wrote her repeatedly to come back and clear up the impression of defection she’d left in some circles. She did make one visit to England in 1916 to get her things from her house in London, which Cosmo had sold after their separation. But she came back to America, and stayed on here until 1919.
I know that the US edition of "Discretions and Indiscretions" was edited for some strong opinions against American capitalism and for some possibly libelous remarks about the manufacturer who eventually took over the reins of "Lucile, Ltd." Perhaps the Irish bits also were cut for being too volatile.
As to journalist Frank Harris, I’m sure he was a friend only. The signed book you refer to, with the provocative 1909 inscription, refers to his viewing a musical fashion show Lucy put on that spring at her salon in Hanover Square, called "The Seven Ages of Woman." All Lucile gowns famously carried over-the-top, love-sick names like "When Passion’s ‘Thrall is O’er," "The Sighing Sound of Lips Unsatisfied," etc. These were the "Sensations Immoral" Harris referred to in his tongue-in-cheek inscription. Harris would probably have wanted people to think he had an affair with Lucy. Although a top literary editor in his day, his integrity abandoned him in old age, when he published his largely fictitious, and pornographic, autobiography, "My Life and Loves."
By the way, Lucy was criticized by some conservative press commentators for inviting so many men ("Piccadilly trotters" one reporter called them) to her fashion shows. It lent, so detractors claimed, an "undignified" air to the event, with men leering at the pretty girl-models and even flirting with the ladies in the audience. Of course the atmosphere was great for sales!
About Dorothy Gibson not handing in her cables at the Marconi room. Oops! I wouldn’t have known that, not being a liner researcher, which is why I sent copies of the Titanic chapters of my book to experts to proof. I made several bloopers in the original draft, which showed my ignorance of ships, and I quickly corrected them, but this oversight about the Marconi office wasn’t brought to my attention. I’m sure I made other mistakes, but I did my best to be as accurate as I could, and the contributors who helped me were marvelous to take the time to read proofs.
I thank you very much for bringing the error to my attention. I’ll want to correct it in a future edition. And my apologies to the ADB. (Geoff Whitfield was one of the experts I enlisted, so really it’s all his fault!)
Randy