 She worked briefly with Frank Benson, who was an actor-manager, and in 1900 married Carl Frederick Leyel (d.1925), a theatrical manager with whom she had two sons.They later divorced.As a young woman in Lincoln's Inn, she developed an interest in food and wine and made influential friends, who rallied to her support in 1922 when she was prosecuted for running the Golden Ballot, a charity which raised money for ex-servicemen and various hospitals.