Best-Kept Boy in the World Read Online Free Page B

his attentive
student, “you must never use that word—‘kept.’ Think of something
you want to do that takes money to learn. Then ask someone for help
and guidance. You’ll get much more money that way than by coming at
it straight on.” 2
    Denny was a quick study. He was perfecting the art
of opening doors with his looks, and, with his charm and
intelligence, was mingling easily with the city’s upper crust. It
wasn’t long before the handsome, suddenly sophisticated twenty year
old from a middle-class background in Jacksonville was accompanying
a German baron to Europe.
    Denny still had much to learn. In Berlin, he and the
baron fought, Denny packed and started hitchhiking to Venice. On
his way, the chauffeured limousine of an old Greek shipping magnate
pulled over, picked him up, and headed on to Venice where they
boarded the tycoon’s yacht. Again Denny hadn’t yet mastered all the
rules of engagement and fell in love with one of the sailors on the
yacht. After the two of them stole as much money as they could,
several thousand dollars, they jumped ship and took a suite at the
Quisisana Hotel on Capri. The sailor left when the money ran out,
while Denny continued each evening to dress for dinner in his new
formal wear, hoping to be seen. When at last it became apparent
that he could not pay his bills at the Quisisana, the police were
summoned and Denny was escorted through the lobby.
    It was at that very moment that Evan Morgan, the
last Lord Tredegar, walking through the lobby with his wife,
trailed by a retinue of retainers, spotted Denny and commanded the
authorities: “Unhand that handsome youth, he is
mine.” 3
     
     

CHAPTER THREE

    “MY DEAR DENHAM”
     
    Evan Morgan was the only son of the third Lord
Tredegar -Courtenay Morgan—and of the Lady Katherine Agnes Blanche
Carnegie. The old Tredegar family fortune in coal funded a 121,000
acre estate in Monmouthshire in south Wales, as well as property
along entire city streets in London. Their sprawling seventeenth
century country house was one of the most magnificent in Great
Britain, with its paneled rooms, windows framed by heavy velvet
draperies, state rooms lit by hundreds of candles casting light and
shadows on coats of arms, massive gold-framed family portraits, and
elaborate molded ceilings inset with oval paintings. Tredegar House
was run by a staff of forty-five servants who lived and worked in
the mansion, with more in charge of the grounds, the brewery, the
bakery, the gardens. There were housemaids, groomsmen, an indoor
gardener, a hall boy, stickmen to provide wood for the many
fireplaces, housekeepers, coachmen, valets, footmen, a lodge
keeper, bricklayer, stone mason, scullery maid, deer keeper, kennel
keeper—a small army of servants, some of whom were the third and
fourth generations to live and work on the estate.
    Evan’s father passed his time in the usual pursuits
of the landed gentry—hunting, shooting, fishing, and sailing his
steam yacht, Liberty , one of the largest private yachts
afloat. He was proficient at each pastime, but his real goal was in
getting away from Tredegar House as frequently as possible, for
Lady Katherine had severe mental problems and had come to believe
she was a bird and had built for herself a large nest in one of the
mansion’s sitting rooms, and there she sat, wearing a cloth
beak.
    What chance would a boy have growing up in this
home? Evan quite predictably was quite an eccentric. “Evan’s
misfortune,” one friend said, “was to have been born with far too
much money ... and no practical sense at all.” 1
    Evan, who fancied himself a poet, mingled with the
authors and artists of the day, some of whom painted vivid word
portraits of their wealthy acquaintance. Poet and author Nancy
Cunard called Evan “a fantasy who could be most charming and most
bitchy.” 2 Aldous Huxley reported to a friend that “I
like him, I think, quite a lot, tho’ he is the most fearfully
spoilt child.” 3