Her mother, Maud, née Burke, was an American; as Lady Cunard, she renamed herself Emerald. While Sir Bache was devoted to the countryside, to his role as a member of the gentry, and to his hobby, ornamental metalworking, Lady Cunard sought fame in London society. She cultivated both political and literary circles, entertaining politicians such as Arthur James Balfour, Herbert Henry Asquith, and F. E. Smith, and writers such as Alfred Austin, Francis Meynell, and W. Somerset Maugham. The novelist George Moore, a lifelong friend of mother and daughter, was said to be Lady Cunard's lover, and Nancy was rumored to be his daughter. Cunard was fond of her unassuming father but antagonistic toward her mother for most of her life.
Whatever the exact nature of her relationship with Moore might have been, it is certain that in 1910 Lady Cunard became the lover of the orchestra conductor Sir Thomas Beecham. She left Nevill Holt to live with him in London, taking Nancy with her. The breach between mother and daughter seems to date from this period, and it resulted as much from Cunard's resentment of her mother's betrayal of Moore as from the treatment of her father.
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