The Eternal Collection

Many of the people in this novel and the descriptions of their behaviour is authentic. Lady Brooke’s wild infatuation for Lord Charles Beresford was to have very widespread repercussions in London. In 1889 Lady Beresford opened a letter addressed to her husband in Daisy Brooke’s flowing hand. In it Daisy accused Charles of ‘infidelity’ because his wife was pregnant! Furious, Lady Charles placed the letter with her Solicitor and Daisy was notified. Upset and apprehensive, she called at Marlborough House and poured out her woes to the Prince of Wales. Filled with tears, her beautiful blue eyes were more attractive than ever and the Prince fell head-over-heels in love with her. For years he wrote to her as, ‘My darling little Wifie’. The Countess de Grey’s infatuation with Harry Cust caused her to behave in a vindictive fashion that was very harmful to their close friends. She found in his flat love letters from the Marchioness of Londonderry and, because she was jealous, she sent them to the Marquis. After this for thirty years, in fact until he died, the Marquis of Londonderry never spoke to his wife except in public. In 1830 Thomas Milner began producing tinplate and sheet iron boxes in Liverpool. As his business grew, he became a manufacturer of prototypes of the modern safe. In the mid nineteenth century, thousands of merchants in Britain and the U.S.A. were keeping their cash in iron safes. These key-lock safes offered only slight protection against burglary. A combination lock introduced in the U.S.A. in 1862 by Linus Yale Jr., represented a temporary improvement, but skilful burglars soon learned to manipulate the combinations.