My Novel, a Covid 19 Project

Molly, Isabel Anderson, aged 18, with her personal maid, accompanied her father, Frank Anderson, a solicitor from York, England to New York in November 1910. He was commissioned by Lord Decies the Fifth to negotiate a marriage settlement. ?She wrote a detailed diary entitled “My American Experiences”.??????

So much has been written about wealthy American women marrying English Aristocrats. “Decies’ Deal”, the novel paints a unique perspective.?

Lord Decies, Captain John Graham Hope de la Poer Horsley Beresford, was a distinguished international equestrian and recently retired army officer. Shortly after inheriting his title in June, 1910, he became involved with the socially ambitious Gould family in New York and became engaged to 17-year-old Vivien, daughter of George Jay Gould. Gould, a railroad magnate and one of America's wealthiest citizens at the time. A marriage settlement for the union was necessary.

“Decies’ Deal”, the saga, begins with Gould and his wife Edith celebrating his polo team’s gold medal win at the 1900, Paris Olympiad. Un-be-known to him and his socially ambitious wife? was that one of his players, and guest, Captain John Beresford?was destined to become a son-in-law.

The Anderson’s lived in York, England where Frank’s legal firm specialized in the legal affairs of aristocratic families and the wealthy. Their social life very much centred around polo, the sport of kings. The second chapter paints this picture, and includes detail of their cousin, Lewis who was shipped out to America for his recalcitrant behaviour with the daughter of a vicar.

Edith Gould, (nee Kingdon) had been sent as a child to an exclusive school for girls in England. There she developed her lifelong passion to live like the aristocracy with wealth. Returning to Brooklyn in her teens she began a career as an actress, and as destiny would have it, she became engaged to the wealthiest young bachelor in America, George Jay Gould.

Captain John Beresford spent 25 years of his adult life as a cavalry officer in the Seventh Hussars regiment. In the service of his country in the Boar War, and skirmishes in the Sudan and Somalia he was highly decorated. An accomplished international sportsman, his passion was polo, and it was through this sport that he developed his close friendship with the Goulds.

George Jay Gould had ambitions for developing more wealth and financial status than had his late father, Jay Gould, a “robber baron”. Edith bore seven children for him, while at the same time scheming to gain membership to the exclusive society in New York known as the 400. Their lifestyle was opulent, and at time decadent with residences on Park Avenue New York, at Lakewood, New Jersey, and in the Catskills. Unwelcome in Rhode Island social circles, their summers were often spent cruising in their private yacht, or attempting to fraternise with royalty during Cowes Week on the Isle of White, England.

At 45 years of age, john Beresford survived a near death riding accident near his ancestral home in Ireland. Forced to resign his army commission, he decided to head for America to seek a new life, just as his younger brother and uncle had done. And like them, seek an American wife, settle down, and have a family.

Once in America Beresford sought out the Goulds, his only close connections there. George Jay Gould encouraged him to assist with the management of his polo playing interests, after all he had three polo fields, and an entertainment complex where he wanted to develop a training academy for budding young players. It was adjacent to Georgean Court, his Lakewood mansion in New Jersey that was build specifically to cater for Edith’s social and theatrical passions.

Mysteriously, Gould was rarely in residence, preferring at the time to tend to other personal interests elsewhere, and in New York where he secretly kept a mistress and their children.

While staying at Georgean Court and tending to his master’s equestrian interests, John Beresford received news that his elder brother William? had died. William was the holder of the family title, Lord Decies, and this was now Beresford’s. Edith Gould was secretly envious. If she divorced her husband and married the new Lord Decies, this could have been her titled entre into English society. She knew however that he was not flush with funds, and therefore would be unable to furnish the lifestyle that she gleaned from Gould.

And so it was, that while resident at Lakewood, Lord Decies developed a relationship with the 17-year-old Vivien, a child who he first encountered, though only briefly ten years previous at the Olympic celebrations in Paris.

Eventually the Goulds were invited into the 400 by the doyen of New York society, Mrs Astor. And the need for Vivien to be wed to Lord Decies created an opportunity for Edith Gould to shine amongst her new peers.

It was during this time that 18-year-old Molly Anderson accompanied her Father, solicitor Frank Anderson, to New York for the marriage settlement negotiations. Perhaps he was cognisant that young Vivien might like some company from an educated young lady from England.

The Goulds, and supported by their close associates kept Vivien away from the prying eyes of the public and the ever-present inquisitive press. Perhaps they had good reason for this. And though kept secret, rumours of her engagement to Lord Decies were growing with occasional reports in the daily newspapers.? Once the negotiations were complete, the Anderson party and accompanied by Lord Decies returned? to England on the Mauritania. The inquisitive Molly noted in her diary that Lord Decies constantly avoided any discussion about his destiny. And when she secured a comment from him, he abruptly said,

“Oh well”.? Molly noted that it was a pity to marry for money and titles.

A friendship between Vivien and Molly must have evolved as Molly was invited to the wedding. Because this was to be only two months after the trip to New York, Molly felt that she could not trouble her father for the expenses required, and so declined. The wedding invitation was the final entry in the original diary.

It was on a wintery Tuesday afternoon in early February, 1911, that New Yorkers witnessed a society event, stage managed by Edith Gould. On this day, her daughter had become a titled American at the alter in St Bartholomew’s Episcopalian church, and witnessed by over a thousand invited guests. Forever the businessman, George Jay Gould ensured that he signed the marriage register as a witness.? Interest in the event was so intense that a crowd of over ten thousand curious onlookers had to be managed by a struggling team of mounted police.

The novel ends with George Gould? discussing? the deal with his siblings,? and an exhausted Edith who’d retired to bed considering whether the wedding of her child was the right path to gaining access into the aristocracy.

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"My American Experiences". Molly Anderson’s diary.

Molly Anderson’s diary was discovered by the author, her grandson after her death in 1965. Titled, “My American Experiences” by Molly Isabel Anderson, it was bound in an embroidered cover. Accompanying the 20,000 words were ??numerous photographs that she took with her Box Brownie camera, newspaper clippings about the likely engagement between Vivien Gould and Lord Decies, dinner menus from her first class return voyage on the Mauritania, and post cards collected during her four week experience.

The author was fortunate to have shown the diary to an historian, who, noting its historic merit had it transcribed.

Sadly, in 1983 the original tome was lost in a wild bush fire in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia.

It was the contents of this diary that inspired the writing of “Decies’ Deal”, with the late Molly Isabel Pym (nee Anderson) acknowledged as the co-author with grandson, Dr Paul Adam Pym Szuster, (aka Adam Pym)