That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (26 page)

Read That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor Online

Authors: Anne Sebba

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Royalty, #Rich & Famous

BOOK: That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor
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She was certainly a jealous and frightened woman, convinced that she was more than ever a target for royalist fanatics. In her memoirs she admits that even in her most depressed moments she had never anticipated the enormity of the hatred she would arouse ‘and the distorted image of me that seemed to be forming in minds everywhere … there can be few expletives applicable to my sex that were missing from my morning tray’, she explained. There had been ‘a spot of bother’ with Lord Brownlow and the two police officers assigned to her in Cannes even before the abdication, and in a memorandum of 10 December 1936 it was stated that the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Philip Game, had instructed the unhappy officers to stand by pending further orders. ‘The senior officer then said, what was understood from guarded language to be, that Mrs Simpson intended to “flit” to Germany. [This is underlined in pencil and marked with three vertical lines and a cross.]’ According to the memorandum, the Prime Minister informed Sir Horace Wilson of this at once and confirmed with the Commissioner ‘That there is no question of the officers moving without further orders’. The two detectives were therefore asked to stay on, more now as informers than to offer protection, ‘though it’s a most unusual measure to be kept as quiet as possible there or questions would be asked in Parliament. The new King suggested today that he should pay.’
But although Wallis’s phone calls were bugged there is no other evidence that Germany was her intended destination. She simply wanted to escape her predicament and, no doubt recognizing that she would be something of a prize in Germany, was also playing with ideas of where else she might go if the English courts set aside the decree nisi and so obliged her to seek a valid divorce in another jurisdiction. In fact, as the letters to Sibyl Colefax indicate, China – ‘the only other distant country that I knew … seemed the best choice’. She still had friends there who she believed would ‘take her in’. However, as Stephen Cretney points out, she was probably unaware that ‘at that time a married woman’s domicile was dependent on her husband and so long as Mr Simpson remained domiciled in England a divorce obtained by her elsewhere would have been ineffective in English law’. When it was too late to escape anywhere for good, all she could contemplate were shopping trips to Paris couturiers for her wedding gown and trousseau, and for her hair, face and nails. Intense anxiety always led to dieting for Wallis, and Aunt Bessie, who had been to stay, thought she was ‘too thin and should put on six pounds’. Thinner than ever, she at least enjoyed buying eighteen pieces from Elsa Schiaparelli’s summer collection that year and several from Molyneaux, who showed in Cannes. Nonetheless she was writing to the Duke about how much weight she had gained and how heavy she now was. But in early 1937 having a wedding of any kind was still not a certainty for them.
In February she wrote to Ernest, a letter expressing some of her deepest fears and regrets and for once acknowledging how much flak he too was facing as the authorities examined whether or not he had been paid to keep quiet, a ckeeeight shn accusation he decided to fight vigorously asas contrary to all notions of gentlemanly behaviour. His solicitors argued that such allegations had damaged his standing in the City. He could not avoid being aware of ‘current luncheon table gossip … and widespread rumours that I was paid handsomely (some reports put the figure as high as £200,000!) to allow myself to be divorced. Needless toto say none of my friends believe it and I have scores of people batting for me,’ he reassured his elderly mother in New York. But when he discovered that Mrs Arthur Sutherland, a woman he did not know, had made an offensive comment – ‘she’s the only one I have been able to catch red handed since she made the remark at a luncheon in front of Maud, not knowing that M. was my sister. It is villainous, malicious slander and must be stopped’ – he decided he had to sue her.
‘Ernest dear,’ Wallis wrote, sending ‘my dearest love to you’:
I am really so sorry about all the unjust criticism you have had. I feel your suit will change things. I am sorry you have Patrick H. [Sir Patrick Hastings KC] against you – he’s so clever & v lucky besides – however I have perfect faith in your abilities as a witness.
I’m in a fog about the US bank account … Life here is one colossal bore. I don’t go places as I think it more dignified to be quiet. One hopes to keep the name from the papers but even doing nothing is no protection against their intentions.
 
In a remarkably frank account of her own emotions Wallis admitted to Ernest, ‘It never should have been like it is now.’ She went on:
… I am so illogical and so groomed by my pride that – when that is touched nothing will stop what I’m capable of doing and this situation shows the truth of that remark because if I had told you I would go to such lengths you wouldn’t have believed it humanly possible, and of course you had every right to have a flirtation. So really you see what a queer girl I am.
I think Peter Pan should have written you too, but then you see he doesn’t understand …
Write me sometime please & above all make your life again
with care
. You are so good and sweet. The IOU’s are in a tin box at Windsor but you can consider them torn up.
 
And she was desperate to leave Cannes, as she confided to Ernest: ‘I am going to move from here – nobody knows it – so please don’t tell … I’m going to a house belonging to some friends of the Rogers near Tours, a change from their climate is also needed. You can imagine how much I want to kill Katherine by now … !’
Although most courtiers agreed that for the King’s Proctor now to disallow the divorce would be unnecessarily cruel, no one could say with certainty, least of all Wallis, that he would not be obliged to do so as the angry letters continued to pour in. Mary and Ernest were worried too. Mary wrote to her sister that ‘E was such an angel – if only that damn King’s Proctor doesn’t upset the divorce. We are staying very quiet on purpose … I have been mentioned many times as having been the corespondent [sic] in the Simpson divorce case which is unpleasant … and no one would have wanted to take a chance on being nice to me if they [the Windsors] hadn’t left the country, which is a great brea c a asant k for me … but I love my life and E and I am happy.’ She told her sister that she dreaded the idea that she might ever again meet Wallis in case she should have to curtsey to her. ‘But as bitterly as I feel towards her for what she did to me, I do not envy her her life with that nervous difficult little man. They say he doesn’t realize at all that he is no longer King.’ And she believed the rampant rumours that Wallis had somehow made off with Queen Alexandra’s emeralds, jewels apparently bequeathed to the Duke by his grandmother but in fact spread among various female members of the royal family. The gossip about Wallis’s jewellery was a hot issue. The former Constance Coolidge, Comtesse de Jumilhac, who stayed with Wallis immediately before her wedding, wrote to a mutual friend:
About those emeralds … Queen Alexandra never left any emeralds. The only emeralds in the royal family all belong to Queen Mary, who bought them or acquired them from the Tzarina. She still has them. The Duke never had any jewels at all. He even had to buy his own silver when he went to Belvedere. The jewels that Wallis has are all new jewels he has bought for her here in Paris – some at Cartier’s and mostly at Van Cleef and Arpels. She has lovely jewels but no great stones except her emerald engagement ring which I find a little dark. I like her sapphire one better and also the diamond. The ruby is small. She has several sets of jewels but they are all modern. After all she would have told me if they had come from the royal family. I asked her and she said no – none of them, that the Duke had not been left any jewels at all.
 
In her determination to quash rumours, Wallis exaggerated. Of course the Duke had some family pieces but whatever Wallis wore was newly set or new stones entirely.
Some courtiers felt a nagging doubt that Wallis might not actually go through with a wedding. On 5 March Lascelles spotted an announcement in the evening newspaper about the activities of the King’s Proctor and the Simpson divorce which disturbed him. ‘But I tracked Walter Monckton down in the Savoy and he reassured me as to its being only formal routine,’ he told his wife. ‘Just when I finished talking to him HM sent for me to know what it was all about and I was able to reassure him in turn.’
So, when Sir Thomas Barnes eventually announced the results of his enquiries on 18 March and ruled that in spite of gossip and hearsay he had not been presented with any actual evidence to indicate why the decree absolute should not go ahead, there was huge relief. He was criticized for not having interviewed the one servant who could possibly give more information – Wallis’s maid, Mary Burke. But as he explained in his instructions to counsel: ‘By reason of the fact that she is still in the employ of petitioner it is impossible to interview her … it is not the practice of the King’s Proctor to endeavour to get information from such servants.’
But had Barnes chosen deliberately not to pursue information which would have shown the ex-King to be involved in a collusive divorce? There were those who offered him evidence of the King’s adultery but only if he paid for it. For example, when Wallis and the then Prince had stayed in Budapest in 1935, returning from their skiing holiday, hotel staff as well as detectives on duty observed their behaviour and (according to an unsigned three-page memorandum in the King’s Proctor files at the National Archives) ‘there appears to be no doubt that the evidence which is being sought exists … even a cursory enquiry showed that evidence going to the root of matters does in fact exist. cn fional’
‘Whilst there is a possibility of obtaining confidential and oral information from them – none of them would take the risk of making a statement in writing or of giving evidence before a commissioner of court’ for fear of losing their jobs, unless they were offered compensation. Barnes decided not to proceed with seeking their story on the grounds that ‘it would not be proper to pay witnesses to give evidence.’ Not only that, unless they had actually been in the room, what evidence could they give beyond stating that Wallis and the Prince had shared a room?
In early March Wallis had left for the Château de Candé in the Loire Valley with loyal Mary Burke and twenty-seven pieces of luggage. Thanks to an introduction from Katherine Rogers, with whom she was now fed up, she went to stay with Charles Bedaux, the French-born American industrial millionaire, and his second wife Fern, who had offered their castle as a wedding venue, thrilled by the publicity that such an illustrious guest would bring them. Charles Bedaux was a mysterious self-made entrepr
eneur who, after a spell in the Foreign Legion, had made his money by inventing a labour management efficiency system for industry. Not surprisingly this earned him the hostility of organized labour, but it held great appeal for the Nazi German leadership and he was under surveillance from the British and French security services, both of which were aware of his German contacts. The only condition insisted upon by M. and Mme Bedaux was that they be given full publicity as hosts for the royal couple. ‘For I am a hard working businessman and in these critical times if the erroneous thought were to penetrate the public that we rented Candé for the purpose intended, it would be sure to have a disastrous effect on my business career.’ Charles and Fern Bedaux, who had bought the castle and surrounding estate ten years previously and had lavishly modernized it, were to prove dubious hosts for the Windsor wedding. When allegations of collaboration were made against Charles in 1941, it was Fern’s old friend Katherine who supplied the Americans with evidence. Facing a trial for treason, he committed suicide.
16
But for the moment Wallis was enamoured with Fern’s hostessing skills and her attention to detail as well as with the up-to-date American plumbing and central-heating system. A bathtub that could be filled and emptied in less than a minute and a telephone, which at the time was almost unheard of in a French residence (it was directly connected to the exchange in Tours, and therefore required an operator to be present inin the castle), were luxuries that mattered more than Charles Bedaux’s politics. Fern even had her own gymnasium with all the latest exercise equipment at the castle.
There was another month to wait before the news that a decree absolute would be granted, but the day that the announcement was made – 3 May – the Duke immediately left Austria, where he felt he had been imprisoned, to be with Wallis, similarly fractious even in her luxurious confinement at the château. It was no coincidence that the announcement was made a week before the Coronation, the date of which – 12 May – had been chosen months previously when it was assumed that it was Edward VIII who would be crowned (with Wallis by his side, Edward himself had once hoped). The new King and Queen agreed to do what King Edward had refused – to attend a great Empire Service in St Paul’s after the Coronation.
Ernest and Mary watched the Coronation from a first-floor balcony at 49 Pall Mall, ‘one of the best places in London to see the show’, which had been quietly arranged for them by well-connected friends. Mary was e cs. w Kinthralled by the pageantry and sent her family detailed accounts of the uniforms, carriages and costumes:
But finally came the gold coach drawn by the eight white horses called the Windsor Greys … and the King and Queen looking so young and pale and grave, unsmiling and not bowing … looking as if they were taking on their responsibilities with the greatest seriousness.
Ernest said to me, once we were listening to the service in the Abbey, when the Queen was crowned: ‘I couldn’t have taken it if it had been Wallis’ [a rare insight into the man’s otherwise stoic performance]. But that is of course not for publication. We all had a terribly good time. Marvellous food sent up from Fortnums.

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