DANCING DAUGHTERS AND CORONETS

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 March 1928, Page 9

DANCING DAUGHTERS AND CORONETS

Mrs, Kate Merritt, Proprietress of Night Clubs, will be Mother-In-Law to a Baron and an Earl

a HE Cinderella story is not so unusual, even in these prosaic days. The newest change on the theme has to do with the mother of the little maid with her broom. Mrs. Kate Merrick, known as “the queen of the night clubs” in London, has sent both her beautiful daughters riding off in the pump i coach of fairyland, each to a peer of her owm It is not surprising for a beautiful girl to win a husband out of “Burke’s Peerage.” But it is more than surprising for the mother of two lovely girl children to decide, when she is raising an entire family on the sum of £1 a week,' that despite the rise and fall of her own fortunes some day she will win for these small daughters of hers husbands with titles. This was the resolution made back in the days when Mrs. Merrick’s own husband, a physician, died, leaving her with the problem of putting bread and butter into her children’s mouths. Women have turned to odd and .strange occupations in this*same cause. What Mrs. Kate Merrick did was to start fashionable night clubs in Paris and in London -on the crest of war fever for hectic pleasure and excitement. The fortunes of her occupation took her frequently into the London Police Court. That is why all of society was aghast when, six months ago, Miss ’Dolly Merrick was married to a mem'her of the British peerage, Lord de ‘Clifford. And now,., topping in triumphseven 'this most astonishing of matches, 'comes the announcement of the engagement of Miss May Merrick to the Earl of Kinnoull. His earldom was a creation of King James 1., conferred upon an ancestor who was a Gentleman of the Bod Chamber. The story of the Merrick girls and their mother sounds like some oldfashioned novel. Or at least it would 'if modernity itself, had not run its : own changes. In the old-fashioned story, for instance, -the mother who 'worked at some dubious calling would ; not for all the wide world permit her ! daughters to know of this. Instead, i she represented herself as working at some simple genteel occupation. But times change, and nothing is more in- ■ dicative of the modern viewpoint than ithat the daughters of Mrs. Merrick

not only knew their mother ran talked-of night clubs but helped her run them. Thus we must picture Dolly and May Merrick as beautiful, and moving nightly among their mother’s famous guests at Club 43 or perhaps the newer Silver Slipper. Yet the last thing to do is fancy these pretty creatures as typical night-club girls, dressed exotically and going alluringly from table to table to receive attention from the queer mixture of nobility, nouveaux riches and members of the higher underworld that nightly crowd these places. They

were, instead, distinguished-looking, aristocratically spoken and conservatively gowned. Both the girls had attended Girton College, Cambridge. They did nor. make their appearance at the. clubs until after they were graduated, spending their summers on the Continent, instead, with chaperons. A few years ago Dolly Merr.ick and her mother, filled with the success they had had in London, went to Paris to start a cabaret. It was in the Montmartre and called Met ricks Gaiety. Dolly's romance with the young Lord de Clifford began 'het... Young Lord de Clifford, in making this match, had, tor example, his own father, who at 22 took a. bride from the chorus, Eva Carrington, one of the most beautiful stage girls m all England. . Much of a sensation, however, as was caused by the wedding of Lord de Clifford and Dolly Merrick, it does not compare with the interest caused bv the announcement of the engagement of the young Earl of Kinnoull and Miss May Merrick. Although he is only 2a, the kail ot Kinnoul has already been married and •divorced. Five years ago. atter his mother, Viscountess Dupplin, prevented his marriage to a fascinating widow much older than himself by hurrying him off to South Africa, he met an i wooed Miss Enid Fellowes, member of the tobacco magnate’s family, who would some day be a great heiress in her own right. The romance progressed with astonishing speed. They were engaged a month after they met. and married shortly after. Soon the young couple began to be whirling cif in opposite directions. The Earl, because of his extravagances, was declared bankrupt. A divorce followed, and the final decree was handed down onlv the day before the announcement of the engagement to May Merrick. But here is the irony of Fate. Shortly after the divorce proceedings were started, the Countess ot Kinnoull fell heir to £2,000,000-a sum which would have saved the Lail a dozen times over and set to rights the great castle at Perth which had been the scene of his first happiness. Dolly was married in complete secrecy at, Marylebone Parish Church. The couple walked to the church. The bridegroom’s mother, the former Eva Carrington, now married foi tne third time, knew nothing of the ceremony, but some of the bride's relations were present. In all, there we-e only five persons present, at the cerem<Since the wedding of Lord and Lady de Clifford was so secret, London society would be little surprised any day to’ hear that the Earl of Kinnoull and the girl he has plucked from the bright lights of a cabaret have made their trip to some little ivy-covered church.