The Duchess Of Windsor (65 page)
Read The Duchess Of Windsor Online
Authors: Greg King
Wallis’s lingerie was always of the finest quality and design. Her nightgowns and dressing gowns were in crepe de chine, fine silk, and sheer satins; the necklines were occasionally adorned with lace or finely embroidered, intertwined Ws. Inevitably, this evening wear was in peach, pale pink, or pastel blue; at night, entering her bedroom, Wallis would find her lingerie neatly folded and tucked in a quilted case covered with lace and embroidered with her cipher.
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While the Duke and Duchess shared a passion for clothing, their interests did not extend to the other’s wardrobe. Once, when Fleur Cowles tried to include the Duke in a conversation she was having with the Duchess about her clothes, Wallis interrupted. “Oh, the Duke isn’t interested in women’s fashions. He never even notices what I’ve got on!”
“Quite right!” David responded, “but I do often think of my mother. Fashion held no interest for her.
She
never changed how she looked.”
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She
never changed how she looked.”
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Eventually, Wallis channeled some of her interest and energy into creating her own dress-pattern service, which was syndicated in America, along with a series of articles entitled “How to Be Well-Dressed.” “I’ve done two or three hundred patterns so far,” Wallis explained, “and I love doing them. I usually take my ideas from the clothes I wish I
could
wear—so as not to put every other woman in round high necks and the severe lines I insist on for myself.”
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The Duchess’s dress designs were indicative of her own tastes; she seems to have had more than a passing interest in the actual design, fashion always having been something of a hobby since her schooldays. She designed a cocktail dress; an afternoon dress, which she recommended in red; a cardigan suit in tweed; and several day dresses, coats, and an evening dress of simple lines.
could
wear—so as not to put every other woman in round high necks and the severe lines I insist on for myself.”
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The Duchess’s dress designs were indicative of her own tastes; she seems to have had more than a passing interest in the actual design, fashion always having been something of a hobby since her schooldays. She designed a cocktail dress; an afternoon dress, which she recommended in red; a cardigan suit in tweed; and several day dresses, coats, and an evening dress of simple lines.
With her clothes, Wallis wore her magnificent collection of jewelry. While other royal women could boast pieces in greater number and of far more value than the Duchess of Windsor, perhaps no other woman in the twentieth century possessed such a diverse display of antique and modern, of the priceless worn with costume jewelry Her eye was impeccable: Wallis preferred to let her jewels dominate rather than her clothing, and she possessed the enviable talent of being able to wear contrasting pieces at the same time, and in abundance, without appearing vulgar.
She began with little: a few simple rings, a string of pearls inherited from her Warfield grandmother, and some necklaces and bracelets. At the time of her presentation at court in 1931, she had to make do with the simulated aquamarine-and-diamond cross which hung around her neck; within five years, she would possess nearly a half million dollars’ worth of lavish jewels, bestowed upon her by the Prince of Wales.
The love story of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor was also told through her jewels, with inscriptions, trinkets, and charms to remind her of significant dates and events in their romance. Nearly all her important jewels bore romantic engravings written by David. For her birthday in 1936, for example, the then King presented Wallis with a massive diamond-and-ruby tasseled necklace from Van Cleef & Arpels in Paris; on the reverse of the clasp was inscribed: “My Wallis from her David 19.vi.36”
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Many of the jewels in this period reflected the taste for art deco, with sleek platinum settings and pavé diamonds combined with brilliant rubies, sapphires, or emeralds to create stunning pieces. She also experimented with diverse materials. One of her most famous suites of jewels was made of an almost mauve-colored chalcedony, a necklace, bracelets, and earrings created by Suzanne Belperron and adorned with sapphires and diamonds. Wallis loved these jewels and continued to wear them until her final illness in the mid-1970s.
Van Cleef & Arpels created a number of her important pieces in the 1930s, including the sapphire-and-diamond bracelet she wore on the day she and David were married. The reverse bore the inscription “For our Contract 18-V-37.”
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In 1940 the Duke presented her with her first flamingo brooch, composed of rubies, diamonds, and sapphires. To celebrate their return to Paris at the end of the war, he gave her an 18-carat-gold bib necklace set with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, which he had purchased from Cartier, a rather enormous piece which she rarely wore.
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In 1946 he gave her a spectacular jeweled brooch in the form of a bird with a long, sweeping tail composed of 322 brilliants that Cartier had made specially for her. Its centerpiece was a cabochon sapphire of 64.80 carats. The piece had been created by breaking up three diamond rings, eight brooches, and two pairs of earrings.
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In 1946 he gave her a spectacular jeweled brooch in the form of a bird with a long, sweeping tail composed of 322 brilliants that Cartier had made specially for her. Its centerpiece was a cabochon sapphire of 64.80 carats. The piece had been created by breaking up three diamond rings, eight brooches, and two pairs of earrings.
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This piece, and many others, were among those stolen during the October 1946 robbery of the Duchess’s jewels. Precisely what was stolen has never been entirely clear. Lady Dudley, later Laura, Duchess of Marlborough, recalled: “The Duchess’s jewel case was no ordinary affair. It was a trunk in which she had many of HRH’s fantastic collection of Fabergé boxes and a great many uncut emeralds which I believe belonged to Queen Alexandra. The Duchess liked jewels very much, though this is rather an understatement as she was continually having them re-set, mostly in Paris. One of these priceless baubles had only just reached her, a vast sapphire which she had had converted into a bird of paradise by Van Cleef & Arpels.”
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Another missing piece was a platinum-and-diamond tiara, the Duke’s wedding gift to his wife. It was made by Cartier in Paris in 1937, and David had originally intended that Wallis would wear it on their wedding day; like every other royal bride, he expected that the occasion, as a royal wedding, would call for the formality of a tiara. But Buckingham Palace apparently objected to the idea, and the tiara—worn thereafter only for a series of photographs—was never seen again.
One of the great mysteries is the presence and provenance of the Duchess’s emeralds. Throughout the last sixty years, it has frequently been alleged that David presented Wallis with some portion of the British crown jewels or that emeralds which had belonged to his grandmother Queen Alexandra had ended up in the Duchess of Windsor’s collection. When Princess Alexandra of Denmark came to England in 1863 to marry Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, she supposedly brought with her a number of priceless, uncut emeralds. When she died in 1925, she was thought to have left them to her grandson David, expecting that one day they would adorn his wife, whom she assumed would also be Queen of England. David, of course, was popularly thought to have given them to Wallis, and the British Royal Family, understandably, was said to be furious.
In truth, David never gave Wallis any portion of what are considered to be the crown jewels, nor did she receive any pieces which composed the private collection of the British Royal Family. American author Leslie Field, who produced an authorized account of Elizabeth II’s personal collection of jewelry, flatly declares that Wallis at no time possessed any pieces which had belonged to either the Crown or to Queen Alexandra.
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Suzy Menkes, who produced an authoritative study of the jewelry belonging to all members of the British Royal Family, has also pointed out that Queen Alexandra’s famous emeralds, if they existed at all, were more likely to have been private gifts to her from either her sister Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia or from Indian princes and not part of her dowry.
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She also believes that David, having been showered with many gifts of jewelry during his tour of India as Prince of Wales, would have possessed privately any number of uncut gems or pieces which could be broken apart and reset to form new pieces for Wallis.
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She also believes that David, having been showered with many gifts of jewelry during his tour of India as Prince of Wales, would have possessed privately any number of uncut gems or pieces which could be broken apart and reset to form new pieces for Wallis.
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The most likely explanation for the confusion also comes from Menkes, who writes that Queen Alexandra left a number of emerald pieces to her daughter Princess Victoria, who in turn sold them to Garrard’s Jewelers in London. Garrard’s sold the emeralds to Cartier in Paris, where David, by an amazing coincidence, happened upon them and purchased them for Wallis.
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The only emerald known to have been stolen from the Duchess of Windsor in 1946 was a 7.81-carat solitaire set in a small ring.
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The only emerald known to have been stolen from the Duchess of Windsor in 1946 was a 7.81-carat solitaire set in a small ring.
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The theft of the Duchess of Windsor’s jewels made headlines; not surprisingly, there was much speculation among certain members of the court that the Windsors had arranged the entire thing themselves for insurance purposes. This preposterous idea is easily corrected, however, for at the same time as Wallis’s jewels went missing, a very sophisticated ring of thieves was obviously operating around London. On October 25, just a week after the Windsor robbery, thieves broke into the London home of Lady Hartington, the former Kathleen Kennedy, and stole some $40,000 worth of jewels. Another $3,200 worth of gems were stolen from an apartment in St. James’s Palace belonging to Lady Legh, wife of the Duke’s former equerry Sir Piers Legh; a few days later, jewels worth an estimated $20,000 were taken from an aristocratic London household. Scotland Yard detectives had little doubt that all the cases were connected but were never able to find any concrete evidence.
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In 1960 a man named Richard Dunphie finally confessed to the crimes, saying that he and three accomplices had been responsible for the string of thefts.
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In 1960 a man named Richard Dunphie finally confessed to the crimes, saying that he and three accomplices had been responsible for the string of thefts.
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After the theft, the Duke quickly set about replenishing his wife’s collection. In 1947 he purchased an amethyst, gold, and turquoise bib necklace from Cartier. In February 1948, Wallis saw a pair of brilliant canary-yellow diamonds. “I can’t think of anything I would rather have than these two diamonds,” she told jeweler Harry Winston. The two diamonds, weighing 92.48 carats and encased in fine gold wire, were soon among the Duchess’s favorite pieces.
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She called them her ”very ripe pears.”
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She called them her ”very ripe pears.”
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Other favorite pieces were her famous Prince of Wales’s feathers brooch and her flamingo brooch, purchased from Cartier to replace the stolen bird of paradise brooch. In 1948 she received her first panther, a brooch designed by Jeanne Toussaint for Cartier consisting of a cabochon emerald of 116.74 carats, atop which stretched a golden panther. The following year, David presented her with a second panther, this one of diamonds flecked with sapphires and perched on top of a cabochon sapphire of 152.35 carats.
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There was also a panther bracelet with an articulated body of pave-set diamonds flecked with onyx spots.
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There was also a panther bracelet with an articulated body of pave-set diamonds flecked with onyx spots.
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In the 1950s, Wallis began to experiment with more exotic designs. She liked the very modern pieces of Fulco di Verdura, which mixed precious gems with natural shells against extensive gold backgrounds. She also began to wear smaller brooches in the shape of frogs or various other jeweled animals, a taste which eventually led her to costume jewelry in the 1960s.
“I hate to admit it,” Wallis said in 1966, “but I am absolutely fascinated by fake jewelry at the moment. It is so good.”
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One of Wallis’s most fruitful associations came when Diana Vreeland introduced her to Kenneth Jay Lane, a smart young designer in New York City. Lane created several dozen pieces for the Duchess, including serpent bracelets, jeweled belts, earrings, brooches, and necklaces, all with colorful enamels, enormous stones, and expansive gold.
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,
53
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One of Wallis’s most fruitful associations came when Diana Vreeland introduced her to Kenneth Jay Lane, a smart young designer in New York City. Lane created several dozen pieces for the Duchess, including serpent bracelets, jeweled belts, earrings, brooches, and necklaces, all with colorful enamels, enormous stones, and expansive gold.
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Of all the magnificent jewels in Wallis’s collection, there was one piece she favored above all others: her bracelet hung with tiny jeweled crosses. The diamond bracelet, purchased by the then Prince of Wales from Cartier in 1935, was hung with nine crosses of aquamarine, amethyst, emeralds, baguette diamonds, rubies, yellow sapphires, blue sapphires, and platinum. On the back of each cross was an inscription representing a significant date in their relationship, including: “Our Marriage Cross Wallis 3.VI.37 David”; “God Save the King for Wallis, 16.VII.36” after the attempt on his life in London; and, significantly, ”WE Are Too 25-XI-34,” following the Duke of Kent’s wedding. It says much that she chose to wear this bracelet, her most personal piece of jewelry, at her wedding to David.
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Life in Paris
I
N THEIR TWO HOUSES
, Wallis and David lived in a curious kind of limbo. They were considered royalty but were also excluded from much of that privileged world. “You and the Duke have none of the advantages of royalty and all of its disadvantages,” their friend Duff Cooper once told Wallis.
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N THEIR TWO HOUSES
, Wallis and David lived in a curious kind of limbo. They were considered royalty but were also excluded from much of that privileged world. “You and the Duke have none of the advantages of royalty and all of its disadvantages,” their friend Duff Cooper once told Wallis.
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The one advantage they did share was the privileged style of life the Windsors led in their luxurious houses. Perhaps no other couple in the twentieth century have so exemplified style and refined living as did the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The actions of their lives were simple enough, but played out against this background of miniature palaces and country kingdoms Wallis had created, they took on a kind of enchanted quality which seemed alluring in its unique splendor.
Each morning, Wallis regularly rose between eight and nine; she rarely slept later even if she and David had been out the night before. Her first act each morning was to weigh herself on a set of scales she kept in a corner of her bathroom; Wallis was always terribly conscious of her appearance, and if she had gained any weight, she would order her chef to restrict her diet. She took breakfast in her bedroom, brought to her on a wicker tray by one of the maids. She spent most of the morning sitting in bed, reading. She spent at least an hour catching up on the latest news; the Windsors took nine daily newspapers, two American, three French, and four English, which Wallis usually read in bed.
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Inevitably, there were also stacks of magazines:
Life, Time, Newsweek, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar
, and
Elle
from America;
Realités,
Paris Match, and
L’Oeil
from France; and a few English titles such as
Country Life.
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2
Inevitably, there were also stacks of magazines:
Life, Time, Newsweek, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar
, and
Elle
from America;
Realités,
Paris Match, and
L’Oeil
from France; and a few English titles such as
Country Life.
3
Wallis was a great letter writer; her collection of stationery, ranging from formal vellum crested with her intertwined initials to pastels and shocking pinks with “Wallis” engraved in bold, modern print, was stocked at her desk in the boudoir.
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Her personal mail was answered in her sloping longhand, while business letters and inquiries from the public were largely dealt with by the secretary. She often received unsolicited mail from those around the world who wrote to her, sometimes expressing criticism, more often admiration and sorrow that she and the Duke had been cut off by the Royal Family. She was especially careful that these letters received answers. “If someone takes the trouble to write,” she declared, “he deserves an answer.”
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Madame Janine Metz (née Spaner), who worked as the Windsors’ social secretary for nearly ten years, recalls: “She received a lot of fan mail, so that very often I stayed late to sort through, organize, and answer it. Many, many letters requested autographs, and so Their Royal Highnesses had prepared cards, with their crest, and they both signed them before they were sent out. We never used a stamp—they always insisted on signing these themselves.” Nearly all of the mail was positive: “In the ten years I was with Their Royal Highnesses,” Madame Metz says, “there were only a few negative letters; everyone was very, very nice.“
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4
Her personal mail was answered in her sloping longhand, while business letters and inquiries from the public were largely dealt with by the secretary. She often received unsolicited mail from those around the world who wrote to her, sometimes expressing criticism, more often admiration and sorrow that she and the Duke had been cut off by the Royal Family. She was especially careful that these letters received answers. “If someone takes the trouble to write,” she declared, “he deserves an answer.”
5
Madame Janine Metz (née Spaner), who worked as the Windsors’ social secretary for nearly ten years, recalls: “She received a lot of fan mail, so that very often I stayed late to sort through, organize, and answer it. Many, many letters requested autographs, and so Their Royal Highnesses had prepared cards, with their crest, and they both signed them before they were sent out. We never used a stamp—they always insisted on signing these themselves.” Nearly all of the mail was positive: “In the ten years I was with Their Royal Highnesses,” Madame Metz says, “there were only a few negative letters; everyone was very, very nice.“
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The Windsors rarely saw each other in the mornings. Occasionally, they would meet for a light breakfast in the boudoir, but more often than not, he remained in his bedroom, reading the papers, showering and shaving, and eating the inevitable meal of smoked haddock and stewed peaches which was brought up to him every morning.
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The relative silence of the morning was often broken by the barking and snuffling of the Windsors’ dogs. By the middle of the 1950s, pugs had replaced the cairn terriers the Duke and Duchess had formerly favored. The pugs were small enough to be trusted in the magnificent rooms and traveled well; both the Duke and Duchess also valued their intelligence and loyalty and doted on them. The first, Disraeli, was soon joined by Imp, Ginseng, Trooper, Davy Crockett, and later, Black Diamond. The dogs ruled the Windsors’ lives and accompanied them everywhere they went. Linda Mortimer recalls a visit the Windsors and their dogs paid to her and her husband: “The pugs had the run of the house, and were yapping and racing about for hours. The Duke and I went upstairs and found a mess on the floor. He was rather shamefaced about it, but we both looked at each other and laughed, at the same time lunging forward to scoop it off the carpet and almost knocking our heads together.”
“Oh, no, Sir!” Mortimer said. “Let me do that.”
“No, no,” David replied. “I always pick up after our dogs. I’m sorry for this, they don’t normally do this.”
“Of course not,” Mortimer answered, although, as she says, “I suspected that they did it rather regularly.”
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The Duke and Duchess usually went their separate ways before afternoon. “I married the Duke for better and for worse, but not for lunch,” Wallis once joked.
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Occasionally, they might host a luncheon in Paris, dining on the terrace if the weather was nice; but for the most part David was content to work there when the weather permitted, his papers piled atop the glass-topped wrought-iron table which stood beneath the awning. He himself often disappeared to join his friends for the usual afternoon of golf. His favorite courses, at St. Cloud, La Boulie, and St. Germain, were all only a few minutes’ drive from the house in the Bois de Boulogne.
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Occasionally, they might host a luncheon in Paris, dining on the terrace if the weather was nice; but for the most part David was content to work there when the weather permitted, his papers piled atop the glass-topped wrought-iron table which stood beneath the awning. He himself often disappeared to join his friends for the usual afternoon of golf. His favorite courses, at St. Cloud, La Boulie, and St. Germain, were all only a few minutes’ drive from the house in the Bois de Boulogne.
In Paris, Wallis spent her afternoons visiting the rich multitude of Parisian shops. “I adore to shop,” she declared. “All my friends know I’d rather shop than eat.”
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“She was tireless,” recalls a friend. “By three in the afternoon I was ready to give in, but not the Duchess—she would keep on going until someone reminded her that the Duke would be waiting back home for her.”
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She continued to haunt the antique stores along the Left Bank, searching for the occasional piece to add to the house in the Bois de Boulogne or to the Mill. She often met friends for lunch in some quiet restaurant, attended the latest showings of the Paris designers’ collections, or visited them at their houses for long games of bridge. Once a week she would go to the Elizabeth Arden Salon in the Place Vendôme to have her hair and makeup done. Although she did not usually tip, Wallis always dispatched valuable gifts for all the salon girls on holidays. Very often these were much more valuable than any number of accumulated tips: gold-and-diamond pins in the shape of the Prince of Wales’s feathers or gold cuff links, for the men, stamped with her husband’s crest.
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“She was tireless,” recalls a friend. “By three in the afternoon I was ready to give in, but not the Duchess—she would keep on going until someone reminded her that the Duke would be waiting back home for her.”
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She continued to haunt the antique stores along the Left Bank, searching for the occasional piece to add to the house in the Bois de Boulogne or to the Mill. She often met friends for lunch in some quiet restaurant, attended the latest showings of the Paris designers’ collections, or visited them at their houses for long games of bridge. Once a week she would go to the Elizabeth Arden Salon in the Place Vendôme to have her hair and makeup done. Although she did not usually tip, Wallis always dispatched valuable gifts for all the salon girls on holidays. Very often these were much more valuable than any number of accumulated tips: gold-and-diamond pins in the shape of the Prince of Wales’s feathers or gold cuff links, for the men, stamped with her husband’s crest.
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Wallis usually returned home in time for tea with David at five. This was a large meal, in the English manner, with sandwiches, toast, jam, cake, cookies, and petit fours served in the boudoir or on the terrace. Wallis added several of her favorite southern recipes to the meal, including Cajun shrimp, blocks of cheese wrapped in bacon and broiled—“so tiny they dissolved in your mouth instantly,” the Countess of Romanones recalled—and pieces of crisp bacon covered with melted brown sugar.
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Although she joined her husband, Wallis almost never took tea, nor did she serve it, letting David act as host.
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A silver bowl served as the repository for the Duke’s half-consumed cups of tea; he was constantly filling his cup, sipping a bit, then emptying it when it became cool. “Iced tea is all right, but if there’s anything I hate it’s cold hot tea,” he explained.
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Throughout, David smoked his pipe. Each day, he smoked a tin of pipe tobacco, two packs of cigarettes, and every night he had two cigars after dinner. “He smoked relentlessly,” remembered the Countess of Romanones, “the only thing he did which infuriated the Duchess.”
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Although she joined her husband, Wallis almost never took tea, nor did she serve it, letting David act as host.
14
A silver bowl served as the repository for the Duke’s half-consumed cups of tea; he was constantly filling his cup, sipping a bit, then emptying it when it became cool. “Iced tea is all right, but if there’s anything I hate it’s cold hot tea,” he explained.
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Throughout, David smoked his pipe. Each day, he smoked a tin of pipe tobacco, two packs of cigarettes, and every night he had two cigars after dinner. “He smoked relentlessly,” remembered the Countess of Romanones, “the only thing he did which infuriated the Duchess.”
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If there were no guests for dinner and no invitations to spend the evening out, the Duke and Duchess happily adopted their own version of informal dining. David showered and shaved again, changed into a velvet smoking jacket, black tie, and his velvet house slippers, and joined Wallis, attired in a long caftan and adorned with jewels, on the terrace in nice weather or in the boudoir, where they ate on trays before the television.
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“I like quiz programs,” Wallis explained, “but of course everything is in French—Westerns, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra—everything. It’s an absolute scream.”
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On Sunday evenings, when the servants were off, she usually crept down to the basement kitchen and fixed their dinner herself. Her tastes were simple. She wished for American conveniences, like frozen cakes. “I keep remembering the name Sara Lee,” she said with a smile. “They were such good cakes. I wish there was some way to get them to Paris.”
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The couple usually remained together for several hours, often climbing into Wallis’s bed to read and talk; the Countess of Romanones remembers, while a guest of the Windsors, returning at four in the morning to the villa and hearing the Windsors giggling and telling jokes in Wallis’s bedroom.
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“I like quiz programs,” Wallis explained, “but of course everything is in French—Westerns, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra—everything. It’s an absolute scream.”
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On Sunday evenings, when the servants were off, she usually crept down to the basement kitchen and fixed their dinner herself. Her tastes were simple. She wished for American conveniences, like frozen cakes. “I keep remembering the name Sara Lee,” she said with a smile. “They were such good cakes. I wish there was some way to get them to Paris.”
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The couple usually remained together for several hours, often climbing into Wallis’s bed to read and talk; the Countess of Romanones remembers, while a guest of the Windsors, returning at four in the morning to the villa and hearing the Windsors giggling and telling jokes in Wallis’s bedroom.
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To maintain this miniature kingdom and ensure its smooth operation required several dozen servants and staff. In overall charge of the house was Georges Sanegre, who, with his wife, Ophelia, personally saw to most of the details of the Windsors’ lives. Georges occasionally called on the Duke’s valet Sydney Johnson, the faithful and devoted Bahamian servant the Windsors had brought with them from Nassau, to assist him as an underbutler during large parties. Several footmen helped during the Windsors’ parties and ran errands when necessary. Anne, the housekeeper, had charge of a staff of four housemaids. Wallis had two lady’s maids, Victoria Margiers and Maria Costa. In charge of the kitchens during these years were several men: the Frenchman René Legros was replaced by Jean Pierre Auge, who, in turn, was replaced by Lucien Massey. Massey and the Duchess got on very well, and she ensured that he had the staff he required to operate the kitchens, including several kitchen boys, a pastry chef, and several assistant chefs. Wallis also had a private secretary, Denise Hivet, a former TWA stewardess, while from the early 1960s, John Utter, a retired American Foreign Service officer, served as the Duke’s private secretary. In 1961, Janine Spaner assumed the position formerly held by Hivet and began a ten-year term of employment with the Windsors.
Two chauffeurs, Ronald Marchant and David Boyer, had charge of the garage and the Windsors’ four motorcars; later, Gregorio Martin would largely assume these duties. There was a Humber sedan; a Buick sedan; a Buick station wagon with “the Duke of Windsor” in metal letters on both front doors; and a Cadillac limousine, which, on the Duke’s orders, had been slightly modified to provide more privacy between driver and passengers. Boyer and his French wife, Germaine, lived in the gatehouse at the villa, and she also served as the switchboard operator. Four gardeners, who had charge of the lawns and the greenhouses, completed the outside staff at the Bois de Boulogne.
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One of the most pervasive allegations made against the Duke and Duchess is that they mistreated their servants. “In my days of living abroad,” says Letitia Baldrige, “I knew many of her staff, and she did not treat them particularly well.”
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However, aside from a few minor complaints and the occasional misunderstanding, the vast majority of those formerly in the employ of the Windsors seem to have had no humiliating experiences, nor had they been the victims of angry outbursts. Significantly—and as could be expected—the tales of mistreatment emanated from those who parted company with the Duke and Duchess on less than friendly terms. “I never saw her rude to her butler, Georges,” recalls C. Z. Guest, “or to her personal maid, or the chef, or anybody Of course not.”
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And Janine Metz recalls: “I never heard either one of Their Royal Highnesses speak badly to their staff, and I was close with them for ten years. The Duchess was always extremely nice to everyone, and I never heard her say a bad word about anyone in the Household. They created a family-like ambiance, and they were always interested in what was going on with their [servants‘] private lives.”
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However, aside from a few minor complaints and the occasional misunderstanding, the vast majority of those formerly in the employ of the Windsors seem to have had no humiliating experiences, nor had they been the victims of angry outbursts. Significantly—and as could be expected—the tales of mistreatment emanated from those who parted company with the Duke and Duchess on less than friendly terms. “I never saw her rude to her butler, Georges,” recalls C. Z. Guest, “or to her personal maid, or the chef, or anybody Of course not.”
23
And Janine Metz recalls: “I never heard either one of Their Royal Highnesses speak badly to their staff, and I was close with them for ten years. The Duchess was always extremely nice to everyone, and I never heard her say a bad word about anyone in the Household. They created a family-like ambiance, and they were always interested in what was going on with their [servants‘] private lives.”
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However, Wallis was exacting in the cleanliness she demanded. “The Duchess knows everything about cleaning every kind of fabric, exactly what removed every kind of spot,” Ophelia Sanegre told the Countess of Romanones. “She has taught us just what kind of iron to use for pressing every material, and we have marvelous equipment. We rarely send anything out to a dry cleaner.”
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Even her money went through these same intense procedures: Paper money for the Duchess, at the Duke’s insistence, was either ordered new and crisp from a bank or wash cleaned and ironed by the housemaids; coins were always washed.
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Even her money went through these same intense procedures: Paper money for the Duchess, at the Duke’s insistence, was either ordered new and crisp from a bank or wash cleaned and ironed by the housemaids; coins were always washed.
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Each evening, just before dinner was served, two maids could be found carrying bedsheets through the halls by their corners; the bed linens, having just been ironed, were destined for the rooms of the Duke and Duchess. Wallis could not stand wrinkles in her bed and insisted that it be made as near to the evening as possible. Once the bed was made, a plastic sheet was spread atop the satin eiderdown so that the pugs could climb onto the bed with Wallis; there she would feed them the hand-baked dog biscuits prepared fresh each day by her chef.
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Usually the pugs slept on the bed with her, although the Duke’s favorite might disappear through the boudoir to his own spot at the foot of his master’s bed.
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Usually the pugs slept on the bed with her, although the Duke’s favorite might disappear through the boudoir to his own spot at the foot of his master’s bed.
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