The Viceroy's Daughters (36 page)

Irene was under no illusions. With a father who had misappropriated her own income she was quick to recognize the same motive in another. Tom, she knew perfectly well, wanted her to subsidize his children so that even at this desperate time he could continue to pour funds into fascism, and was using her love for them and fear that they would be taken away from her as emotional blackmail. She had a miserable, sleepless night, but her view was confirmed next morning by both Lady Mosley and Baba.

A couple of days later, Tom capitulated. Realizing that he would get nothing more out of Irene and that if he were intransigent would lose Denham into the bargain, he called on her solicitor to say that he was happy to continue with the Denham arrangement as before.

“It is as I predicted,” wrote Irene triumphantly. “He would come crawling back when he saw his interests being damaged.” She added a note of thankfulness that her sister Cim was no longer alive to see Tom behaving like this; and, when she saw Nick at Eton, briefly outlined the dispute and his father's propositions for Denham so that seventeen-year-old Nick, as eldest son, could make up his own mind on the future of their home.

On September 28—the day before the duke of Windsor left for Paris and his new job—Irene gave a luncheon party for him to meet Nevile Henderson: tea and apples for the Windsors (the duke seldom ate more than an apple for lunch and the figure-conscious duchess often followed suit) and sandwiches and drinks for herself and Nevile. The conversation was disjointed, ending with abuse of the Ministry of Information by the duke. The duchess said little. “I came to the conclusion what a common little man he really is,” wrote Irene. “Nevile stuck to the point he thought this [the Nazi] regime would hold the floor unless the Reichstag rebelled, and cracked.”

Fruity returned to France with the duke on September 29. After leaving the duchess at the Windsors' house in Versailles they went straight to the Military Mission at Vincennes, commanded by Major-General Sir Richard Howard-Vyse. “Arrival very full of good cheer,” wrote Fruity to Baba on the thirtieth. “All the boys in red from the highest quarters down to welcome us. I knew one or two of 'em from the last war. We got off at 9:30 today and got to Suchet at 1:30—they go by themselves to Versailles till Monday. I'm
so
glad. It's a great relief for me. I'm delighted to get a day or so
without
the Windsors. Mrs. Corrigan claimed me almost as a prisoner of war on my arrival here. I shall escape believe me.”

Once in Paris, the duchess reengaged Gertrude Bedford, her efficient secretary (who lived there), began to work for the French Red Cross, and concentrated on decorating the Windsors' new house at 24 Boulevard Suchet. Almost at once the alert Fruity spotted a source of potential trouble.

At present and probably for a little time it is quite all right for Nibs to stay at Suchet with Mrs. Nibs [he wrote to Baba on October 3, 1939]. I say at present because he
is
seeing and talking to important civil and political people. BUT it must not last for too long otherwise he is finished. The French press are very quick to spot things and it will have a very harmful effect if Nibs is known to sleep with Mrs. Nibs etc while the boys are going through it. One other reason: he must get off on his own away from that influence, away from household worries. Now I want this “offensive” to start in a matter of a week. I suggest Walter starts the game. You could do a little to Mrs. N but be very careful—use all your famous tact.

 

Fruity's comment about “household worries”—an unlikely phrase to use about a couple as well serviced as the Windsors—was justified. Anything pertaining to the duchess, however trivial, immediately received the duke's absolute, undivided attention, no matter what more pressing concerns were in the offing. As Fruity wrote exasperatedly: “His Nibs is utterly impossible to deal with. If one has something really important to tell him and he is at Suchet, we'll say, he will suddenly get up to notice a door has jammed and does not properly open or shut, or that the water does not run hot, or that Mrs. Bedford has to pay a bill for 71⁄2 yards of linoleum for the back stairs etc.”

It was quite different, save in one particular, when they visited a section of the French front, where the duke inspected fortifications and antitank defenses and met the generals of various divisions, with whom he was greatly impressed. “Everyone was delighted to see HRH and the visit could not have gone off better,” wrote Fruity. “This was very important to His Nibs as you can well imagine. Then we proceeded to another French section and saw their front etc. Again we were impressed. HRH was all through absolutely delightful company. No one could have been a more interesting or amusing companion—how we laughed at many incidents. All through he was in splendid form.

“The only few minutes I hated and when he was ‘all wrong' was when I had to get the hotel bills and get them paid, and then he was
frightful
.”

The duke's preoccupation with money had increased to an extent that embarrassed all those around him: in contrast with the lavish lifestyle and the duchess's extravagance, every account was minutely scrutinized and, if possible, chiseled down, and friends were expected to pick up the bill for any entertainment.

I found W. looking like an old apple, a very old wizened one and a terribly sour one. I said Good Morning Wallis, had a look at her and went out [he wrote to Baba on October 9]. “You ask in your letter is my position secure or ‘groggy'—when I see W. I wouldn't know anything! She is like a kaleidoscope—different every time you look. All I know is, I feel sure I am doing him absolutely the best and that no one could do him better, or nearly as well.

I know
nothing
of Gray Phillips coming out to join HRH's staff. It is complete news to me. He has not said a word about it and of course neither has she. I've hardly seen them since we arrived in Paris because they went off at once to stay in the hotel at Versailles. I
believe
they are coming up tomorrow to Suchet for good. They have got Marcel and Robert and are now arranging to get the Chef sent to them. The Chef had been mobilised and sent to some unit in the S. of France but they've been upsetting the whole ruddy army to get him and today when I saw HRH he looked a bit sour and said there had been some stupid misunderstanding with the French about the Chef and that he must go out to the Mission to put it straight. He said it was not a Major General's job but if people under that rank couldn't do certain things
he
, as a Major General, would have to personally deal with it!! They say that the Germans are bombing the Maginot Line and that the French are replying and losses are taking place on both sides but the battle of HRH's chef is making more noise than all the shelling.

The fact is that when he is off without “Mrs.” he is excellent. With her or near her he's not worth 21⁄2d and then you can't trust him a yard.

 

As a letter from the War Office made clear, Fruity could not look to the government for remuneration for his work for the duke of Windsor. “I am directed to inform you,” it ran, “that your appointment as ADC carries no emoluments from public funds.”

The next blow was to learn that Gray Phillips would be joining the duke's ménage.

HRH tells me (now!) that he will be in uniform. I wonder what uniform and what rank? He is to live at Suchet. I gather he is to act more or less as Comptroller etc and at times HRH will take him on tour. I suggest he brings a few suits of
civilian
clothes. HRH wishes me to get out some. I wouldn't mind my new grey striped flannel suit or my new blue flannel, a few decent shirts to go with them, collars attached and long sleeves, also one or two ties, my Regimental one and two or three new ones that I recently bought, also some medium weight grey or blue socks. I have the necessary shoes. My new little soft grey hat might also be necessary. These damn civilian clothes—I personally would never bother about this but he has several times mentioned it.

I shall remain at Ritz when in Paris. The Mission is utterly impossible, it is 45 minutes from Paris and Suchet. I must be near HRH as long as he insists on living in Paris. Be very careful when you or Walter write or speak to either of them at Suchet re HRH staying there. If he thinks there is any pressure or advice being given
nothing
will move him. Re Wallis: of course I don't let her see what I feel. I am exactly the same as always.

 

Irene and Baba had immersed themselves in war work. Baba was now fully qualified and nursing, mostly the old, at the Princess Beatrice Hospital in Earl's Court, where, at first, her unmistakably upper-class voice and elegantly fitting uniform caused the “career” sisters to suspect her of dilettantism. But her hard work and uncomplaining stance soon won them over.

Irene spent much of her time at the Kennington day nursery and concerning herself with the future of children generally. When she first saw the evacuees sent to Wootton she was horrified by their stunted growth, general ill health and dirty, ragged clothes. “What is really shameful is that our system has allowed such creatures to grow up,” she wrote to
The Times
. “There is a serious deficiency somewhere in training and outlook. Our educational methods seem to have failed miserably, and such children, through evacuation, have been brought mercifully to the light of day.” She went on to beg for legislation to stop the parents from taking them back to the damp, verminous and despairing conditions from which they came, feeling that life in the freedom and tranquillity of the country would give them a far better chance.

An imaginative gesture was to offer sanctuary to the ten men of a Regent's Park barrage-balloon unit. She had seen them out of her bedroom window in Cornwall Terrace and wondered where they went when off duty. On hearing that no one else invited them in at night, she put her former music room at their disposal, with its circle of easy chairs, tables, radio and well-dimmed lights, telling them to ask their wives and girlfriends along if they wished. She also gave them the use of a bathroom so that they could have a hot bath after work. Around half a dozen turned up most nights between 6 and 10
p.m
. Typically, Irene was not satisfied with this single act of kindness but urged her friends to do the same for their local defense units.

In those first months of the war the hectic social pace of the upper classes scarcely faltered. Many still had servants, though half the number they had had earlier in the year as the young and fit were called up or left to do more fitting war work. London restaurants like Quaglino's and Claridge's were packed every evening as those home on leave or with new jobs in the Admiralty or War Office or who were staying in town overnight—trains were packed with troops moving about the country—went out to dinner as usual. Irene, working at the day nursery, going to concerts when she could, would give lunch to her friends the Eshers or the Masseys at Claridge's, go to Sibyl Colefax's parties, or be entertained by Miles Graham or Nevile Henderson.

Miles Graham, now a general, drove her down to one of the Cliveden weekends that still continued and at the end of November she took Vivien to Eton in driving rain to watch the famous Wall Game in a sea of mud. “It really is miraculous that in War this fantastic drollery goes on,” she wrote. “Elliot [the headmaster] and all the masters and boys out in top hats and tailcoats and rolled umbrellas, including the Provost. Photographers nipping about everywhere and waterlogged boys struggling in the mire.”

She was temporarily on excellent terms with Baba. They discussed another of Irene's admirers, Leslie Hore-Belisha (“Baba told me that he asked someone lately whether if he married a baroness he would become a baron!”). When Belisha told Irene about an evening spent with the king and queen and that he had suggested Fruity as aide-de-camp to the duke of Windsor, she wondered if he was telling the truth or was simply trying to please her.

That autumn Baba bought Little Compton, in Oxfordshire, an exquisite Tudor manor house on the eastern flank of the Cotswolds which had once belonged to Archbishop Juxon, the cleric who had accompanied Charles I to the scaffold to pray with him in his final moments. She furnished its paneled ground-floor rooms with the rosewood-and-gilt side cabinets and walnut wing chair that had come from Kedleston, oak tables, piles of books, pretty table lamps and rugs over the polished wood floor. Upstairs, in her white-painted bedroom with its high, barrel-vaulted ceiling, was the painted and lacquered furniture which later became the hallmark of her taste.

Soon after Baba moved in she received a letter from Wallis, its tone of mild complaint ranging over everything from the uniform she had to wear for her work with the Red Cross to her servants.

You are lucky to have your friends around you and be in your own country. I have a great longing for America—war makes one like a homesick child perhaps. I have signed up with the Section Secretaire Automobile of the French Red Cross and been given an ambulance. I tried in every way to do things for the English but I was far from welcome. The uniform is like all feminine ones—hideous but pratique. The Duke is well but as disheartened and discouraged about everything as I am.

I hope the house is getting on—I can imagine the endless difficulties. I am still struggling with the butler question—we have an ape at present. Fruity will be home for Christmas. We haven't decided what we will do as I don't know if the Duke will get enough leave to make opening La Cröe worth while. Why not come over some time—it would be fun to see you once again.

 

In Paris, Fruity was finding life with the Windsors more and more difficult. He no longer felt that, as formerly, the duke's affection for him was rocklike. This, he could not help thinking, was due to the duchess's influence. When he and the duke set off for a tour of Strasbourg and then the front, he told Baba that the atmosphere at first was chilly.