Read The Duchess Of Windsor Online
Authors: Greg King
The Duchess Of Windsor (7 page)
After Rasin’s death, the monthly checks from his trust fund stopped, and Alice was once again left to the mercy of her wealthier relatives. Much to Wallis’s humiliation, she found that her mother was forced to move out of 212 Biddle Street and take an apartment at 16 Earl’s Court, at the corner of St. Paul and Preston Streets, not far from the Warfield household. These difficult circumstances changed Alice greatly; on school holidays, Wallis found that she had aged, and was less certain of herself and often depressed.
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Oldfields had no graduation ceremony; at the end of her senior year, Wallis joined her fellow graduates in attending a great May Day festival at which the girls sported white dresses, wore flowers in their hair, and danced around Renée du Pont, who had been selected queen. This was followed by an award dinner and farewell dance. As they left the festivities, the girls signed their comments in a large visitors’ book. Most remarks were commonplace, about school or friendships, but Wallis was different: in a bold hand, she recorded: “All is Love.”
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Wallis was just shy of her eighteenth birthday when she left Oldfields. Despite her proven academic prowess in those subjects which she enjoyed, she gave no thought to pursuing her education. None of her friends went off to a university, and Oldfields had been designed not so much to provide academic qualifications as to mold its pupils into genteel young ladies, proficient in social arts, conversation, charm, and deportment. Nor was any emphasis given to the idea of pursuing a career; young ladies of suitable birth from well-to-do families were simply expected to marry and raise a family of their own.
That summer of 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his morganatic wife were shot and killed by a Serbian nationalist during a visit to Sarajevo. As Austria began shelling Belgrade, Germany invaded Belgium, and the Great War erupted in Europe, the heads of the young girls in Baltimore were filled with one thought: their debuts. Alice, having been denied the social benefits she felt belonged to her by dint of her privileged background, was determined that her daughter not suffer the same fate. She had made certain that Wallis attended the best schools, and mixed with the most important girls from Baltimore’s most prestigious families, and she had carefully groomed her daughter to sparkle and charm in public. A successful debut, leading to an important marriage—and the accompanying social prestige and economic well-being-was, Alice declared, no more than Wallis’s birthright, her chance to restore the faded Montagues to their proper glory.
Before Wallis could even contemplate a debut, she had to undergo what must have been a rather unpleasant, though necessary, task: a special visit to her uncle Solomon to explain her financial needs. By this time, Solomon was the president of the Continental Trust Company, a prosperous bank housed in a new fifteen-story brick building at the corner of Baltimore and Calvert Streets. At the appointed day and hour, Wallis, seated in the rear of her grandmother’s new Pierce-Arrow, was chauffeured through Baltimore to her uncle’s office. Solomon listened as she explained that she could not possibly make her debut unless she had new gowns to wear, along with day dresses for luncheons and tea gowns for afternoon dances. Eventually, much to her great surprise and delight, he presented her with two ten-dollar bills.
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With her financial freedom guaranteed—at least for several months—Wallis launched herself into a frenzy of engagements. She attended the Princeton Prom, dressed in a lacy blue gown of her own design. November was a particularly busy month. On November 5 she attended a football dance at the Cantonsville Country Club; the following day, Wallis was invited to a luncheon at the Stafford Hotel, given in honor of her fellow debutante Augusta Eareckson. A week later, on November 13, she joined friends at an oyster roast given by Albert Graham Ober for his debutante-niece, Rebecca Ober, at his country estate in Green Spring Valley; that same evening, Wallis assisted receiving guests at a party at Lehmann Hall given for her friend Priscilla Beacham. On November 17, she attended a luncheon at the Baltimore Country Club for friend Carolyn McCoy; on November 19, she was back at the country club, this time for Mary Kirk’s debutante luncheon. On November 25, there was a luncheon for Rena Alverda Sawyer. Three days later, Wallis and Priscilla Beacham took a weekend trip to Philadelphia for a football game followed by a dance. Wallis returned to the Baltimore Country Club on December 2 for a luncheon given in honor of her friend Eleanor Nosley; and on the following day she attended a luncheon for fellow debutante Jessie Van Rensselaer Bond.
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Each of these occasions required new dresses, outfits, and gowns. Wallis, in common with her fellow debutantes, would not have dared appear in public during her season wearing the same outfit twice. However, whereas most debutantes had the money to invest in an ample wardrobe, Wallis did not. Rather than spend the entire twenty dollars she had received from her uncle Sol, she instead bought only two or three different outfits; with the help of her skilled mother, she worked feverishly between engagements to alter style, design, dress length, trim, collars, necklines, and sleeves. By adding overlays of lace and tulle, they successfully managed to disguise their economies.
The highlight of the debutante year in Baltimore, and the biggest social hurdle, was the Bachelors’ Cotillon. (The misspelling was a deliberate affectation.) The Bachelors’ Club, formed in the nineteenth century as a bastion of the city’s privileged males, was one of Baltimore’s most prestigious institutions. Each autumn, their board of governors met and together reviewed a list of the year’s debutantes. Unlike other events during the debutante season, the Bachelors’ Cotillon remained inaccessible: only a lucky forty-seven debutantes, of the hundreds whose names were submitted, received invitations, and this selectively marked out the event—and its eventual invitees—as the most socially prestigious in Baltimore.
Along with other hopeful debutantes, Wallis eagerly awaited news of the invitation list. She later recalled that she spent many restless nights worrying whether she would receive the all-important piece of paper. Finally, she was rewarded: Wallis’s name appeared on the list. In truth, she had little reason to worry. Her father had been a member of the Bachelor’s Cotillon; her uncle was one of the city’s most important businessmen; the Warfields were greatly respected; and she herself had gone to the best schools.
Wallis could not afford to purchase one of the new, fashionable frocks which filled the store windows of Baltimore’s smart shops. Instead, she impatiently sat through numerous fittings with a local seamstress, who designed a gown according to the young debutante’s specifications. Wallis had admired a dress worn by fashionable dancer Irene Castle during an appearance on Broadway, and it was this dress that was so faithfully copied. She was less pleased at the result of the new white gown against her already pale features, however, and it took some considerable effort on her mother’s part, along with the new and calming influences of face powder and rouge, to appease Wallis’s fears.
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Each debutante was allowed to invite several male escorts, along with family members, to accompany her to the cotillion. It was common practice for the girls to choose older relatives rather than current boyfriends. Wallis was to have two dates: her mother’s cousin Lelia Gordon’s husband, George Barnett, was a major general in the U.S. Marine Corps and promised to present a gallant figure in his sleek uniform; and her cousin Henry Warfield, who, at twenty-seven years of age, was guaranteed to turn heads with his dashing good looks.
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The Bachelors’ Cotillon took place on December 7, 1914. Wallis spent the afternoon carefully preparing for the event, dressing in her new gown and letting her mother fuss over her hair and daub her cheeks with rouge. Her gown, of white satin with chiffon, fell loosely to her knees in a series of folds. The low-cut shoulders were covered with a light chiffon wrap, and the front panels of the gown had been finely embroidered and sewn with seed pearls.
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Once ready, Wallis waited expectantly in the parlor. Finally, the doorbell rang and her cousin Henry Warfield confidently strode into the room, attired in white tie and tails. He bowed low before Wallis, presented her with a massive bouquet of American Beauty roses, and declared, “Kiddo, I can assure you that you will be the most enchanting, most ravishing, most exquisite creature at the Cotillon.” Satisfied, Wallis allowed him to escort her to the waiting Warfield Pierce-Arrow, which Henry had borrowed for the evening from Uncle Sol, and together with Alice and General and Mrs. Barnett, they set off through the streets of Baltimore to the Lyric Theatre, where the cotillion would be held.
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The Warfield Pierce-Arrow pulled up along the curb outside, and Wallis and her party made their way across the crimson carpet that had been stretched over the sidewalk and toward the glowing lights of the theater. As they entered, the strains of a distant orchestra could be heard floating above the excited voices and nervous laughter of the girls and their families.
The theater’s interior had been completely transformed. Shimmering golden curtains draped the crimson-and-gilt boxes, columns, arches, and candelabra, which had been twisted with garlands of out-of-season flowers. A polished wooden dance floor stretched from the rear of the stalls to the edge of the stage, where an ivy-covered trellis enclosed a dozen white-and-gold-draped tables for the midnight supper. Each debutante had been given one of the boxes circling the dance floor to decorate before the cotillion. Wallis arranged for her box to be festooned with dozens of American Beauty roses to match her bouquet, along with trailing vines of ivy laced with pale ribbons.
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For her first dance, Wallis took to the floor with General Barnett. Dances with her cousin Henry and then with several other eligible young escorts followed. At eleven, the excited crowd fell silent as the board of governors of the Bachelors’ Club appeared. The forty-seven debutantes all stood silently in a long, straight line, their escorts at their sides, and slowly marched around the perimeter of the room as their names were called out.
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At half-past one in the morning, following hours of dancing and a rushed supper, Wallis, accompanied by Henry and an immense group of fellow debutantes, left the cotillion. While the parents, relatives, and older escorts cooperatively retired for the evening, the young revelers set off in their racing motorcars for the Baltimore Country Club, where the party included Wallis’s friend Mary Kirk. The young couples tangoed, dined, and partied until sunrise called an end to their festivities. Wallis returned home exhausted but exuberantly triumphant.
Her debut marked Wallis’s recognized entry into womanhood. It was also intended to launch her into polite society and prepare her for marriage. The round of dinners and receptions increased with a frenzied pace as young women and men mixed and mingled under the watchful eyes of suitable chaperones. Wallis never failed to make a favorable impression. One fellow debutante recalled that she “was superlatively smart, without being beautiful, and she had poise and a knack for finding her way around that made most of us feel like clumsy children.”
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Wallis encouraged the flirtatious boys who competed for her attentions and had a number of handsome, though not altogether serious, boyfriends. These dates, in Baltimore, at Princeton, or at the nearby Naval Academy in Annapolis, were, in keeping with the southern tradition, regarded as “engagements.”
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Wallis encouraged the flirtatious boys who competed for her attentions and had a number of handsome, though not altogether serious, boyfriends. These dates, in Baltimore, at Princeton, or at the nearby Naval Academy in Annapolis, were, in keeping with the southern tradition, regarded as “engagements.”
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Wallis “had more beaux than any other girl in town,” a friend would later recall.
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But of these only one—Carter Osborne—was rather serious. A friend remembered how the young man “was always waiting to take Wallis home, to tea, or wherever she might want to go. He would jump and obey her every wish. He was wildly in love with her and, although no one really knew, the general inference was that Wallis rather liked Carter. To our girlish minds, it seemed it would be a ’go.’ ”
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But of these only one—Carter Osborne—was rather serious. A friend remembered how the young man “was always waiting to take Wallis home, to tea, or wherever she might want to go. He would jump and obey her every wish. He was wildly in love with her and, although no one really knew, the general inference was that Wallis rather liked Carter. To our girlish minds, it seemed it would be a ’go.’ ”
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Osborne himself recalled Wallis fondly: “For her time, she was very sophisticated. You know, there are stories about how she used to insist the young men in Baltimore take her out to places that were so expensive they could hardly afford to pay the bill afterwards. All I can say is I don’t recall anything like that happening during the three years I went around with her.”
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The relationship burned with the intensity of a first love. “I think for a while we were in love with each other,” he remembered.
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The pair were careful, however, to keep their feelings private. Still, there was much passionate talk: “Between ourselves, we said we were engaged,” he said. “We thought we were serious and planned to marry.”
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The pair were careful, however, to keep their feelings private. Still, there was much passionate talk: “Between ourselves, we said we were engaged,” he said. “We thought we were serious and planned to marry.”
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The one thing Wallis desperately wanted—her own debutante ball—eluded her, for she and Alice were far too poor to undertake the enormous expense involved. Although it was common practice for each young lady to host her own ball, if only to reciprocate the hospitality she had been shown by her fellow debutantes, Wallis was unable to convince her uncle Solomon to foot the bill. Instead, he had a special notice published in the society column of Baltimore’s paper, using the outbreak of the Great War as a convenient excuse: “The report that I will give a large ball for my debutante niece, Miss Wallis Warfield, is without foundation in that I do not consider the present a proper time for such festivities, when thousands of men are being slaughtered and their families left destitute in the appalling catastrophe now devastating Europe.”
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